Running the red box 4th edition D&D – post-game analysis
So, we played our first game of D&D last night with myself DMing, and seven other players. We used the red box adventure as a starting point and in this post i'll cover the positives and negatives that I took away from the game. (WARNING: This will contain spoilers for the red box adventure. If you're playing it soon then you probably don't want to read this)
The red box adventure is a very "crunchy" adventure with a few chances for roleplaying sprinkled in with it. What I mean by crunchy is that there's a lot of combat, a lot of rules and a lot of dice-rolling. In this case, I think that worked pretty well because none of us had played before, a few had never roleplayed before and I was the only one who'd read the rules to any degree so I was explaining as we went along. Despite that, everyone picked it up pretty swiftly and, although we weren't using all the actions that we could, it was still a good game.
It was interesting as a DM to see what the players focused on and what they thought important. I changed a few bits and pieces on the fly because only three of the players had been through the solo adventure at the start, so I left out things like the horse in encounter 1 and changed up a few bits and pieces so that it flowed a bit better.
The main changes I made were to make encounter 2 with the dragon much more of a RP event. As it's written, unless the players are very RP-focused they're going to end up in combat and I wanted to avoid that. I had the dragon come out of his lair once the party had finished off some of the kobolds and shout at them for waking him up which I think nearly worked. I couldn't get across quite how scary it was supposed to be so the players weren't particularly intimidated (and I kinda wish i'd just chucked them into combat with it there and then, especially considering how bunched up they were in the corridor!) but they eventually agreed to hunt down the wizard and bring the dragon proof that they'd dealt with him.
The other major change I made was to completely remove the chess room. I disliked that encounter from the moment I set eyes on it as it just felt artificial in this dungeon full of monsters. I'm glad I did, but I kinda wish i'd replaced it with something else, like a trap or some other sort of puzzle room.
So, what went right and what went wrong? Firstly, I think everyone had a really good time of it and enjoyed themselves regardless of any perceived problems so this is going to be more of a "what I need to change for the next game"
What went right
As I said, everyone had fun and the game flowed smoothly. I think everyone got a fairly good grasp of what was going on and, considering there were seven players, nobody got too bored waiting for their turn to come round in combat. Everyone got a chance to at least do something during the combat and I don't think anyone felt particularly left out. There was even a small amount of roleplaying that we managed to inject
Nobody died horrible, painful deaths (which probably means I wasn't doing my job right) but they did come close at one point (and, had the bad guy survived one more round the defender would've been unconscious)
It was definitely a light-hearted game (what with kitten juggling and fireproof silliness going on) with much slaughtering of goblins and kobolds.
What went wrong
I think there were definitely rules we got wrong (and I have the rulebooks by me here so i'm going to check into everything that felt iffy after i've posted this) for example i'm still not convinced that creatures don't block LoS or LoE (many magic missiles and arrows went winging over peoples heads into their targets with ease, which just feels wrong) and that players can move through each other's squares as if they weren't there.
I definitely wasn't making enough of the cover rules than I should, and i'm pretty sure that ranged firing into combat is more than just a -2 (which was what I ruled it as cos I couldn't find the rule at the table)
I also tended to let the players get away with some stuff that I really shouldn't have, but it was their first game so I just let it slide. They managed to completely bypass one encounter (the one with the town guards) by intimidating them into running away and leaving the dungeon. I kinda wish i'd either beefed up that encounter so the guards had a reason not to run, or come up with some reason why the guards wouldn't run because the players missed out on an interesting RP opportunity had they gone into combat.
Conclusion
Overall I think the game went really well considering it was our first go at 4th D&D and my first ever attempt at DMing anything. Definitely room for improvement, but I think there always should be or it's no fun.
I'm definitely going to majorly crank up the difficulty on further encounters (assuming all the players want to carry on), but for now, they're done with the red box adventure bar some minor clean up so I think when they get back to Fallcrest and hand over the box (believe it or not, they didn't look in it!) i'm going to give them enough XP to level and we'll go through the level up procedure, properly recreate some of the characters that came out of the red box solo adventure and carry on with the next adventure out of the DM kit box. I might even try my hand at creating my own encounter to play on the way.
Kings of War first playtest and thoughts
Two friends and myself played a few games of Kings of War last night. We were playing with the stock armies out of the starter set (Mhorgoth's Revenge). This consists of a regiment of Ironclad, a troop of Ironwatch with crossbows, a troop of Ironwatch with rifles and a cannon/organ gun for the Dwarfs. The Undead get a regiment of Skeletons, a regiment of Revenants, a troop of Ghouls, a half-regiment of Zombies and a balefire skullthrower. All in all, this amounts to about 400 points per side, with a good amount of figures on each side.
I'm happy to report that both sides managed to lose spectacularly which indicates that they're pretty balanced considering one side is quite shooty and the other is very melee-oriented. The rules themselves are incredibly simple, with most "interesting" things being covered in the special rules for each unit. The games were incredibly fast considering none of us had played the game before, and i'd never really even played WFB. The first game took around 45 minutes to play out and the second game took around half an hour. This is a good indication that the game is fast, easy to understand and get the hang of but still provides some good tactical decisions. Expansions and new units in the future can introduce new special rules, or different combinations of special rules on units.
So, what did I like about the game? It's fast, easy to play and a lot of fun. The opportunity to throw down huge numbers of figures on the table is there as well (our 400-points-a-side game had just north of 100 figures on the table, so larger games are going to have several hundred per side, which will look incredible fully painted)
What about the downsides? Well, i'm concerned that the special rules are going to get out of hand, harking back to the old days of Mk I Warmachine. I'm also concerned that after a few plays, that there isn't going to be that much depth to the game beyond maneuvering units as WFB-style magic seems to be completely absent from the game but time will tell on both of those.
Overall, i'm extremely pleased with the game, and I can foresee many more plays in my future (and maybe even some painting if I can find a can of spray the right colour!)
Painting-wise the figures are fantastic and will paint up very nicely. I have bought the Undead Army box set and was pleasantly surprised to see that they have stickers for the shields and banners in the box, which the Mhorgoth's Revenge box didn't. Also, the "not removing figures from the units" means that there are a lot of modelling opportunities for making each unit a complete diorama so I look forward to modelling up the units.
Mantic Games Ghouls
Just got my ghouls through from the Wayland Games special offer and I thought i'd share them with you. They're from Mantic Games, who do a range of undead and elves along with a few other bits and bobs. I've seen their elves before and, for my tastes, they were far too delicate looking and didn't appeal in the slightest.
Well, they've really turned things up a notch with these ghouls. Gone are the days of the lumbering undead moaning "braaaains" these things are most reminiscent of the zombies from Left 4 Dead, fast and dangerous-looking. I think they'll probably see a lot of use in my undead warband for Mordheim and I will be getting some more to fill out the ranks as time goes on.
So, without further ado, here's the photo. I probably should have taken one from before I cut and glued them, but in my haste to see them together I completely failed! Anyway, on with the show.
The build was nice and easy, with legs, torso and head separate items. There are a few detailing bits but not a huge amount. It's not really needed though as the sculpts are very finely detailed and beautifully crisp.
The detailing on them is exquisite and, despite the fact that both bodies had both hands moulded on, there were separate hands carrying cleavers, shivs or the wicked-looking claw i've attached to mine above. I love the small details like arrows and knives sticking out or through them too because they really help to bring the models to life and will be a lot of fun to paint up.
Now to the bad stuff. There isn't a lot to be honest, but one thing to look out for is that the hands are delicate. Mine arrived in a jiffy bag and the hand on one of the bodies was showing obvious signs of having been stressed with very white markings. If you don't know what i'm talking about, grab the nearest gray plastic sprue near you, bend it slightly and you'll see the plastic around the bend whiten as you stress it. This was one of the reasons why I swapped the hand for the claw. The other was that it just looked so damn cool.
All told, I think these models are absolutely fantastic and I can't wait to put brush to plastic and get them looking every bit as fearsome as the sculpting deserves.
More work on eButcher, Cryx colour scheme and a bit of gaming burnout
My epic Butcher paintjob is coming along nicely. I spent part of last night doing the spikes on his shoulder guards and, after making a bit of a mess over the already-completed red I decided to put the paintbrush to one side and leave it til later. I did some tidying up on the reds and cleaned up the mess a bit but it'll never look as good as it did, which is a shame. Luckily the spikes look great though 
I also started on a Bane Thrall to test the Cryx scheme. The purple works quite well, and i'll be shading the "skirts" later to get a feel of how that'll work. I think the purple is going to be the brightest it's going to go with nice, deep shadows to make it stand out. I'm not entirely convinced on using it for the shoulder pads though as I think they just look a bit silly, so i'll probably go over those with a dark silver and weather them. I don't want these models to be too bright or garish so all the metal effects are going to be muted and weathered heavily. The only bright bits are going to be the head and eyes, which are going to be the traditional luminescent green with lighting effects on the eye sockets.
The league is still taking it's toll on me and i'm not feeling the gaming vibe at the moment, so i'm taking some time off from playing to concentrate on upping my painting game. I'll still be attending the club on a regular basis (you're not getting rid of me that easily!) but i'll be doing hobby stuff rather than gaming most of the time and hopefully the need to see my enemies driven before me and hear the lamentation of their women will return given time.
100 points of Warmachine madness
Last night was the huge Warmachine battle between my Khador and a friend's Menoth. I'm hoping to get some photos of the event up here soon because the league organiser was taking a few pics of the battle. Anyway, on with the report.
We'd both done test deployments previous to the game so, after rolling for setup, we decided that we may as well just do a staggered deployment with myself, who won the roll, putting a few units down before my opponent started putting his down. That way he could still react to where I was deploying but setup didn't take all night to complete. Luckily neither did the game.
We rolled for scenario and ended up with one where there is a rectangle in the middle of the table 8" by 16" and you have to end your turn in control of it. It is worded slightly badly because, as it stands, all I had to do was run an advance deployer in there on the first turn and I win. We decided to amend it to read "beginning the third round, a player wins if he's in control etc.." that way we'd actually get a battle out of it, and boy did we.
The first turn I ran practically everything forward, only really pulling my cavalry short of their full 16" run so they wouldn't get immediately charged on my opponents turn. Eiryss moved up and took a pot shot at a unit attachment (you'll have to forgive me, I don't know the names of the Menoth units) but didn't do enough damage on the roll for a clean kill, which was a shame.
My opponent did pretty much the same thing, starting off with activating the unit Eiryss shot at and doing some special action that allowed them to shoot and then charge in. This combined with the combined ranged attack ability and combined melee attack spelled the doom of all but one of my doom reavers. A few AOE shots off the bow took down a few of the Iron Fang Pikemen but that's what they were there for, to soak shots so I wasn't too bothered.
The second round was where battle was joined with the full fury of 100 points of Menoth and Khador meeting in the middle of the table. I made a few mistakes judging distances at this point and managed to get a completely failed charge with the IFP, which later led to them getting massacred by firebombs. I also charged the Avatar with my Iron Fang Uhlans ending up with two of them outside of melee range, which also spelled disaster for them. Still, they put 5 points of damage on the Avatar so not a total loss One of the manhunters wandered up and lopped the head off of Eiryss once and for all proving that Menoth had managed to hire a fake one. Unfortunately the real Eiryss didn't do a lot, trying to get disruptor shots off on one of my opponents warcasters and failing miserably each time and finally dying to a free strike from a light 'jack. The remaining Doom Reaver and Fenris combined managed to almost completely massacre the shooty unit that decimated them the turn before.
On his turn, my opponent realised that he was going to lose if he didn't get a model into the area in the middle of the table, so he moved up a really annoying unit that could only be hit by magical attacks and weapons. Those being few and far between on the table, things weren't looking too good for the boys in red. After watching his mates get clobbered, the last remaining shooty guy decided to leg it and died to a glowing green sword in the back. Unfortunately the final Doom Reaver and Fenris then looked up and saw a heavy warjack and several light 'jacks heading their way rapidly. The Doom Reaver was rapidly turned into a fine red mist and Fenris' horse was knocked from under him and subsequently squished by another 'jack mooching into combat. The Ulhans and Pikemen were both massacred shortly afterwards and then my opponent realised they'd left me with a perfect charge lane straight from Yuri to one of his casters. Gotta love the damage output of a weapon master on the charge
So began the start of my third turn and, sadly for my opponent, the shortest one of the game. I got Eiryss killed by trying to leave combat (she's next to useless in combat, especially against a 'jack) to take another shot at the caster. One lucky roll later and she was a small red pile of entrails on the floor. I charged in a put a few damage boxes on one of his 'jacks with the Great Bears. What's better than weapon masters on the charge? Weapon masters on the charge with two attacks, that's what! The Man-O-War Shocktroopers then thundered into combat, combined their attack against a light 'jack and stuck something like 14 points of damage on it. Not great for a unit worth the same amount of points but it was the only thing in their range.
I then decided that I may as well see if the game ended that turn. My opponent only had 1 solo inside the control area and I had plenty within charge range. The problem was that he could only be hit by spells. Unfortunately for my opponent, he'd managed to park him mere inches away from my Greylord Ternions and Koldun Lord. Practically the only magical attacks I had left on the table short of my casters. Oh dear, oh dear... So, spray attacks all round then. The first attack hits! 3 damage. Not enough for the kill, but I still have 3 more so i'm not worried. The second attack misses completely! The sweats started and with a shaking hand, I roll to hit with the third ternion. The third attack hits home! But only 2 damage. My opponent then informed me that that was enough to kill him. The Paladin toppled over and I ended my turn in complete control of the area and the game.
Looking back on it, things were not going well for me. I'd lost several units and solos already, the IFP, Uhlans, Doom reavers, Fenris and one of the Great Bears were already down and all i'd popped were an annoying shooty unit and one of the multitude of light 'jacks. The only upside was that I had Beast '09, Drago and 2 Juggies all souped up and ready to kick ass at a moment's notice. Had we been playing to caster deaths, I think it would have been interesting to see how the game progressed. My opponent was hampered by playing such a huge game with a lot of units that he wasn't familiar with and space for movement was very limited.
100 points of Khador is a lot of models
I decided to knock up the list that i'll use for the last week of the league seeing as we're playing a 100 point game. Boy, it's a lot of models.
The list consists of two warcasters each controlling two 'jacks (i'd have more, but I never invested heavily in 'jacks in MkI) and several units of practically my entire painted collection. (i'm only playing the painted ones cos we get an extra point for a fully painted force)
After that I decided it was about time that my Winter Guard Infantry got a lick of paint. I think it was probably the first unit I ever bought after the battle box and all i've ever done is undercoat them. I think I may have played one or two games with them but that's about it so I started on them last night and they're coming along nicely.
The league so far…
Well, after my last post regarding the league, it seems rude not to put an update on here. Well, the good news is that I won the game. After all that worry, thought and preparation, it paid off! The men of the match were, without a doubt, the Iron Fang Pikemen. These boys basically won me the game along with Eiryss. They held up his entire force of six jacks for at least two turns and I still had 3 of them left at the end of the game. Eiryss provided enough of a distraction that he threw Behemoth and one of the beserkers at her in an attempt to take her down. She only managed to disrupt Karchev once, but that was more than enough for my opponent and he threw a stupid amount of stuff at her trying to take her down.
I was pretty lucky with the scenario, getting the one where there are 3 control points spaced across the middle line of the board. First you have to take point 1, then point 2 and finally point 3, first person to get 2 wins. My opponent headed straight for the middle of points 1 and 2 hoping to deny both of them to me, but he failed to reckon with the IFP. They charged in and held most of his force there whilst Eiryss and the Widowmakers harried the far edge of the table and caused him enough problems to peel off two jacks to try and take them out. This caused him to have to shift his force subtly towards point 1 and away from 2 and 3. I then gave him point 1 (actually he used Karchev's spray attack to try and take out the IFP, which mostly worked) and took point 2 at the end of my turn (his Kodiak was 4 inches away, which was quite lucky as it took Fenris, the Great Bears and 4 IFP to the face and was still standing).
After that, it was a race to point 3. I had nothing close to it so it was going to be a close race in the end. He chucked his own beserker towards it in an attempt to get there first. I replied by charging it in the back with the Great Bears and stripping it to it's component parts in 4 attacks. Gotta love weapon masters on the charge 
The next attempt was to chuck the second beserker which, unfortunately for him (and fantastic for me) didn't go far enough and I ran Juggy in to position for the win.
All in all a very close game that could have gone either way right to the end. The funny thing is I took 3 jacks and two bombards just in case I had to try and beat him out. Not one of the jacks made it into combat and the bombards landed precisely one hit that did about 5 damage...
If I didn't have fourteen of the little buggers, i'd strip the IFP and give them extra special paintjobs just for that battle
In other news, next week is the last week of the league so we've decided to go out with a bang and play 100-point games, which should be absolutely insane.
Gaming and competitiveness
My local club is running a Warmachine league and i'm having a hard time with it. Not because i'm losing, but entirely the opposite in fact. They ran another Warmachine league last year that I came about 4th from bottom in, never got past 7th place and I was ok with that. The dice hated me, my opponents were better than me and I just didn't have time to play as much as I wanted.
The new league however is only being run on Tuesday evenings, which is when i'm able to turn up and i'm currently in first place by a slim margin with only two weeks left to play. I have a game tomorrow which is essentially going to decide the league for one of us and it's driving me insane.
My opponent is the one person in the club who is practically undefeated. He runs a nasty list with Karchev and a ludicrous number of jacks and basically applies axe to face til you're dead. I've decided that pretty much the only way i'm going to win is if I get a scenario where I can outrun him and win by scenario because there's simply no way i'm going to win by caster death. Not when I have to smash my way through at least six heavy 'jacks to even get to his caster and then Karchev himself is essentially another 'jack.
The problem is that i've spent the last week thinking about little else other than the game. It's impacted my work (luckily last week was a quiet one, but I could really do without the distraction this week) and my home life because i've been so distracted and depressed about the game. It's been gnawing away inside me all week. Normally if it was just a friendly then I wouldn't really care. I'd try my best, but I could laugh off a loss quite easily but because this particular game has so much riding on it, it's actually making me queasy. I know for a fact i'm going to spend the entire game shaking because of all the adrenaline pumping round my system.
How on earth do you cope with this? I've pondered everything from just not turning up to giving up and handing him the win right at the start. I don't want to give in, but I am really not liking the way this makes me feel. I've never been particularly competitive (or at least I don't think I am) but, being at the top of something like this for the first time in my life is making me feel like crap and I don't like it one bit.
I'm honestly wondering whether competitions and leagues are something I can take part in now or if i'm just going to have to stick with playing friendlies. Imagine what i'd be like in an actual tournament...
All I know is that tomorrow evening is not something i'm going to enjoy and I just want to go back to being able to play the game and have fun.
New (and old) games that interest me
There are several new gaming systems (well, new to me anyway) that interest me, but i'm not sure i'm ready to take the plunge into yet another gaming system. The first of these, and the one that interests me the most because of it's use of technology.
This would, of couse, be Ex Illis. On the surface it looks like any other miniatures game with heroes, units and lots and lots of nice-looking models. What is interesting is that you don't need a tape measure, dice or even a rule book. How is this accomplished I hear you ask? Well, that's because all the battles are done using a computer program that can be installed on any windows or mac machine and even works on an iPod Touch or iPhone.
The tape measure is not required because the game is played on a grid of squares and each unit can move from one square to another. Battles happen when units are moved into a square occupied by an enemy unit and all these take place on the computer program. The designers say that this allows the rules to be incredibly complex and involved and therefore more of a simulation than a dice and rules game ever could be due to the sheer number of calculations made at each fight.
This, ufortunately, is kind of what puts me off the game as well. I will admit that I haven't played it, or even seen it being played so i'm willing to be completely wrong about this, but I just get the feeling that the whole game could just as easily be played on the computer and the minis are just an excuse to sell expensive plastic. Also, I wonder how understandable the game is going to be, i.e. when i'm playing my IG army, I understand that the big blob of bodies is going to be hitting with their lasguns about half the time on average and maybe wounding every 33% of those hits etc.. However a game where I just move a unit into battle and then ask the computer what happened strikes me as even more random than throwing dice. I really hope i'm wrong and I do intend to pick up a starter set when it hits our shores so i'll cover the game in more detail then.
Other games that have surfaced on my radar are Alkemy and Warcanto. Alkemy is a game by Kraken Editions and I have no idea how the game plays, but the miniatures look very, very nice indeed. To be honest i'd be happy if the game turned out to be no good and I just had the minis for painting. Warcanto is a new(ish) skirmish game from Dwarf Tales that has some fantastic looking minis and, even better, the rules are a free download! Can't go wrong with that really.
Mordheim has been doing the rounds at the club recently and my Witch Hunter warband is doing pretty well so far. One thing i've noticed is that there is a distinct lack of games that have an experience or continuing storyline built into them. Mordheim pulls this off pretty well and still gives you a feeling of getting involved with your characters and makes you actually care about what happens to them. I guess if I want more action like that, roleplaying is the way to go
Malifaux and Firestorm Armada
Myself and a few others at the club have recently picked up a few figures for the Malifaux skirmish game. This is a relatively new game from Wyrd Games who, until recently have mainly been producing some great-looking miniatures. They have taken their line of miniatures and made a game out of them, but unlike so many other companies that have tried this, they seem to have actually succeeded. The setting actually fits quite well, given the disparate nature of the models they produced, which cover everything from wild west gunslingers through insane morticians and beyond into fantastical creatures.
The game itself is a fairly standard skirmish-type game with the new addition of a deck of cards instead of dice. Although this sounds like a lot of fun at first, it still doesn't completely replace the randomness of dice, but it does allow you to mitigate your bad luck somewhat by 'cheating fate' and playing a better card directly from your hand. You can also spend tokens (soulstones) to redraw a bad card.
Time will tell as to whether this game will stand or fall, but with a fantastic range of miniatures and a dedicated group of people on the forums, it's sure to continue for some time to come.
Firestorm Armada is a new game from Spartan Games in the UK who have previously produced the very nice Uncharted Seas. Although we haven't had a chance to play Firestorm Armada properly yet, from what i've seen of the rulebook the rules look pretty similar to Uncharted Seas so players familiar with one should have no problems picking up the other.
On the model front, I have to say the photos on the boxes and their website really don't do the models justice. When you see the pictures on the box, all four of the current factions look very similar in the sense that they are all quite boxy with the standout exception of the one faction with curved ships. However, what you can't take into consideration until you actually see the miniatures is that they are huge. When they say that the minis are up to 17cm long, they aren't kidding. The largest ships really are enormous miniatures and will look very imposing on the field (or in this case, airless void) of battle especially when surrounded by the smaller fighters.