Aside from gaming and historic swordplay, another long-time hobby of mine had been shooting. While visiting the in-laws in AZ a couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law and I went shooting for an afternoon, reminding me of how much I miss it. So when I got home, having left my sweet wife there to spend time with her new nephew and other, lesser noteworthy members of the family than a new 5 month-old nephew, I decided to visit the range.
There was a time when I looked more at home on a shooting range that at a gaming table or historical recreation event. Now, not so much. Jeans and boots have given way to cargo shorts and hiking shoes. The local sports team or NRA baseball cap had given way to the breathable, modern materials hat from REI. Rather than a modern black nylon shooting bag with Remington or Smith & Wesson printed on the side or the plastic case a pistol comes in, my range bag is a green Craftsman tool bag.
Yesterday, as I approached the shooting line, the range officer approached me and began giving me the newcomer speech.
"First time here?"
"No, just first time in a few years."
He seemed to not believe me. "Need me to show you how the target carrier works?"
"No, thanks. If I remember right, it seemed pretty straightforward."
He still didn't believe me, but was polite enough to not say so. He just kept an eye on me not so subtle-like.
Once I'd set my bag down, hung my target, and send it down range, I'd just gotten it to where I wanted it, which was half-again farther down than the people around me, (not being macho or cocky, just practical, which will be revealed later) he nicely came over and started to tell me how to bring it back in closer.
"If you wanna bring that back in a little, you just lower the riser and that'll roll back in."
"Thanks." I left it where it was."That's good there."
He stepped back as if to say. "Suit yourself," and walked a bit away as I turned and unpacked my shooting bag. When I uncased my pistol, which is a Ruger Competition Target Mark 2, He made a grunt as if to say, "Nevermind," and walked back to his usual position.
He was satisfied at that point that I seemed to know what I was doing, but I think I hurt some penises on either side of me. My first couple of shots were a little wilder than I wanted, but even then, I could have folded a dollar bill in half and covered the grouping after the first twenty. This is less a testament to my skill than to the quality of my firearm. It's a very accurate target pistol with a heavy barrel and almost no recoil.
The guys on either side of me were shooting much louder and larger things, making MUCH larger groupings than mine. The guy on my right's reaction seemed to be taking more time to aim between shots. The guy on the left's reaction was to move his target past mine and all but quit hitting the paper. He even it mine once. Or at least someone who wasn't me did, as 22's don't make holes that big, at least not with one shot.
I missed shooting. I plan on going back again soon. When my sweet wife comes back, I'll take her with me, because she used to enjoy it too.
Monday, June 12, 2017
Sunday, April 30, 2017
A Much Better Experience
I went into Lone Wolf with trepidation. I had an abysmal experience last time I went, intent upon never returning. I now have further evidence that much of my bad experience was my fault (not all of it, but more than enough to matter).
Day One started off with a very fun game against a Forces of Nature army designed to limit others ability to do damage and heal what little damage there was. It worked well. By the time I figured it out, my army was too badly out of position and damage to do anything about it.
It was a 20-0 victory for the Forces of Nature.
The second round came against the Empire of Dust. This one hurt, not because of losing 13-7, but because I STILL regret selling my tomb kings. It was a close, fun game, but I ended up losing it in the end. Too many of my high priced units died and not enough of is died.
Game three was against the Ratkin. the final score was 17-3 rats, and it wasn't even really that close. Once again I allowed my units to be singled out and killed one by one. I held my objective, but that was about it. he got all the other points.
In the last game of day one I played the prettiest army I saw across the table all weekend. It was a gorilla themed Herd list. My opponent won 12-8, for my closest game so far. Again, I allowed my units to be killed off piecemeal, but part of that was confusing Stampede hordes for the humans that were actually on the bases. Thinking they were cheap human regiments, I let them get into position to charge my toughest units, where they slaughtered whatever they hit. Fun yet confusing game.
Day two worked out better, starting with a 20-0 win over an Ogre force that looked to be brutal, but was unable to survive counter-charges. In the middle of my turn at the bottom of turn four, my opponent yielded, giving me a 20-0 win. We could have played it out, but I was down a troll horde and a cavalry regiment. He had a warlock and standard bearer left. The warlock had been charged by the other cavalry unit, though we had not resolved that charge yet. I held all three objectives and had all of the bonus points available.
Game six was against another Empire of Dust army, for the only repeat army race for the tournament. Bad deployment cost me dearly in the first few turns, aided by some on fire artillery on my opponent's part. I managed to pull out a 10-10 draw anyway, and I am convinced my chances to win would have been good if we'd gone to turn seven,
I need to plan my army better, for sure, and play more as well.
As to the soft scores, I got the flat rate of 64 sportsmanship, which means I had no positive or negative feedback in regard to sportsmanship. Paint is what surprised me, I scored 59 out of 80, which is by far the best score I've ever gotten. I blame the rubric the TO created to let us point out to him where we had done blending, modeling, and converting.
All in all, it was a good day.
Day One started off with a very fun game against a Forces of Nature army designed to limit others ability to do damage and heal what little damage there was. It worked well. By the time I figured it out, my army was too badly out of position and damage to do anything about it.
It was a 20-0 victory for the Forces of Nature.
The second round came against the Empire of Dust. This one hurt, not because of losing 13-7, but because I STILL regret selling my tomb kings. It was a close, fun game, but I ended up losing it in the end. Too many of my high priced units died and not enough of is died.
Game three was against the Ratkin. the final score was 17-3 rats, and it wasn't even really that close. Once again I allowed my units to be singled out and killed one by one. I held my objective, but that was about it. he got all the other points.
In the last game of day one I played the prettiest army I saw across the table all weekend. It was a gorilla themed Herd list. My opponent won 12-8, for my closest game so far. Again, I allowed my units to be killed off piecemeal, but part of that was confusing Stampede hordes for the humans that were actually on the bases. Thinking they were cheap human regiments, I let them get into position to charge my toughest units, where they slaughtered whatever they hit. Fun yet confusing game.
Day two worked out better, starting with a 20-0 win over an Ogre force that looked to be brutal, but was unable to survive counter-charges. In the middle of my turn at the bottom of turn four, my opponent yielded, giving me a 20-0 win. We could have played it out, but I was down a troll horde and a cavalry regiment. He had a warlock and standard bearer left. The warlock had been charged by the other cavalry unit, though we had not resolved that charge yet. I held all three objectives and had all of the bonus points available.
Game six was against another Empire of Dust army, for the only repeat army race for the tournament. Bad deployment cost me dearly in the first few turns, aided by some on fire artillery on my opponent's part. I managed to pull out a 10-10 draw anyway, and I am convinced my chances to win would have been good if we'd gone to turn seven,
I need to plan my army better, for sure, and play more as well.
As to the soft scores, I got the flat rate of 64 sportsmanship, which means I had no positive or negative feedback in regard to sportsmanship. Paint is what surprised me, I scored 59 out of 80, which is by far the best score I've ever gotten. I blame the rubric the TO created to let us point out to him where we had done blending, modeling, and converting.
All in all, it was a good day.
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
What to Do...
Lone Wolf GT is four days away, and I have no models to paint. All I'm doing is repairing models that came off of their multi-base and throwing together a display board. I'm at a loss. I'll post a photo or two once I've got the display board together, but the army is as follows:
Krudger on a Winged Slasher
Flagger w/ Diadem of Dragon-kind
2 Godspeakers
2 Morax Regiments
Greatax Horde w/ Brew of Haste
2 Troll Hordes
War Drum
Not a very complicated list. The idea is to go forward and smash.
Krudger on a Winged Slasher
Flagger w/ Diadem of Dragon-kind
2 Godspeakers
2 Morax Regiments
Greatax Horde w/ Brew of Haste
2 Troll Hordes
War Drum
Not a very complicated list. The idea is to go forward and smash.
Monday, March 6, 2017
Second Attempt at Deadzone
On Saturday, I played in my second Deadzone tournament. I debated playing Enforcers instead, but they were not painted, so Forge Fathers it was. My list hadn't changed at all, mainly because I hadn't done any painting since the last time. The only thing that changed was I started naming the minis since the rank and file look very similar. I decided to go with Norse names since the fluff gives the Forge Fathers a little bit of a Norse feel. So, taking the field for the Star Realm were Jarli, a Steel Huscarl, three Steel Warriors, Lodinn, Hrodi, and Balli, and two Stormrage Veterans, Bjorn and Valbrandr. The only one of these named after someone specific was Valbrander, named after a certain viking in the SCA who really would like to have a flamethrower.
Rather than post a blow by blow, I'l just give the high (low) lights and/or lessons learned. We had three players show up, playing Forge Fathers (me), Enforcers, and Plague, As I'd asked about Marauders before the Plague player showed up, the organizer threw together a Marauders unit so we'd have an even number. 1) Snipers suck. FF don't have them, but Marauders and Enforcers do. Two of them really suck. 2) Protect your leader. Losing tactical dice sucks. 3) Don't forget your special rules. My first two games (both close losses) change dramatically if I remember that my rank and file get armor piercing 1. 3) Zombies suck. At six points and no VPs, you can have a lot of them. my opponent in game two had 12 or 13. The only reason he didn't have more was he didn't own enough figures to do it. If the Plague player can make the zombies threatening enough, you HAVE to deal with them while he scores points. That was a vicious beating. 4) While flamers are not especially effective against many things, flaming a square full of zombies pretty much empties that square. Good for clearing off an objective, but that's about it. 4) None of the FF had surnames, but Valbrandr earned the name Minetripper by tripping the booby trap in three of four games. The only one he didn't trip was the one against the Plague when it was tripped by a zombie.
I ended up in third place (because the organizer refused to claim first as he was running the tournament) with a record of 1-3. My only win was in the last game where I played the Marauders again, who'd beaten me in a close one in round 1. Shawn, who organize the thing and was undefeated at the time, was a little to generous and magnanimous in the first turn, trying to promote fun and make sure I had a good time, which resulted in me killing one of his big nasties, a sniper, and his leader in the first turn. That and me remembering my armor piercing dominoed into a very lopsided win for me and the only loss for him.
All in all it was a fun day. I only felt helpless in one game because six space dwarves, even in armor, have a hard time answering anything that can put 18 models on the board. There's gotta be a way to do it, though. The enforcer player, also with only six models wiped him off the board the next round.
Rather than post a blow by blow, I'l just give the high (low) lights and/or lessons learned. We had three players show up, playing Forge Fathers (me), Enforcers, and Plague, As I'd asked about Marauders before the Plague player showed up, the organizer threw together a Marauders unit so we'd have an even number. 1) Snipers suck. FF don't have them, but Marauders and Enforcers do. Two of them really suck. 2) Protect your leader. Losing tactical dice sucks. 3) Don't forget your special rules. My first two games (both close losses) change dramatically if I remember that my rank and file get armor piercing 1. 3) Zombies suck. At six points and no VPs, you can have a lot of them. my opponent in game two had 12 or 13. The only reason he didn't have more was he didn't own enough figures to do it. If the Plague player can make the zombies threatening enough, you HAVE to deal with them while he scores points. That was a vicious beating. 4) While flamers are not especially effective against many things, flaming a square full of zombies pretty much empties that square. Good for clearing off an objective, but that's about it. 4) None of the FF had surnames, but Valbrandr earned the name Minetripper by tripping the booby trap in three of four games. The only one he didn't trip was the one against the Plague when it was tripped by a zombie.
I ended up in third place (because the organizer refused to claim first as he was running the tournament) with a record of 1-3. My only win was in the last game where I played the Marauders again, who'd beaten me in a close one in round 1. Shawn, who organize the thing and was undefeated at the time, was a little to generous and magnanimous in the first turn, trying to promote fun and make sure I had a good time, which resulted in me killing one of his big nasties, a sniper, and his leader in the first turn. That and me remembering my armor piercing dominoed into a very lopsided win for me and the only loss for him.
All in all it was a fun day. I only felt helpless in one game because six space dwarves, even in armor, have a hard time answering anything that can put 18 models on the board. There's gotta be a way to do it, though. The enforcer player, also with only six models wiped him off the board the next round.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Decisions, Decisions...
So I've decided to jump back into another attempt at Lonewolf GT in April. I had a particularly bad time at the last one I went to and was pretty sure I'd never go back. I realized later that the majority of my bad time was my own doing. So, I'm trying it again.
The key question is what army. Do I play orcs? Goblins? Orcs with Goblins? Goblins with Orcs? Or do I play the Elves again? I've heard that the new Clash of Kings pack will be giving orcs a boost, but I haven't played the elves in since the KoW switch and I like that army too.
Need to make up my mind quickly and get back to painting.
The key question is what army. Do I play orcs? Goblins? Orcs with Goblins? Goblins with Orcs? Or do I play the Elves again? I've heard that the new Clash of Kings pack will be giving orcs a boost, but I haven't played the elves in since the KoW switch and I like that army too.
Need to make up my mind quickly and get back to painting.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Frostgrave - AKA Fighting and Fun among Frozen Ruins
Despite buying the book way too long ago, I finally got a chance to play a game of Frostgrave, and it seems like quite a good game. Is it the replacement for Mordheim I've been looking for? No, but it is still a pretty good game.
It's rather simple in its mechanics. Roll a d20 compare your result, adding your fight or shoot stat to it, to your target's roll with his or her fight stat added. Higher equals success, lower equals failure (or getting hit back in the case of HTH combat. Damage is simple as well. Take the modified hit roll, add the damage bonus, subtract the target's armor, and that is the damage. High hit rolls equal lots of damage.
The book suggests lots of terrain, and it is a good idea. My crossbowman had a clear LOS to his wizard on turn one, rolled a natural 20 to hit, ad 2 for hit shoot stat and 2 for his crossbow damage, and that's 24 damage. The wizard only has 10 armor, and 14 health, so he's out in turn one. The fact that he'd failed a cast and already taken two points of damage didn't help either. That shouldn't happen. We were playing with the optional critical hit rules, so the 14 damage was doubled to 28, not that it mattered. After the game, we decided that maybe the crit rule was over the top.
Crossbows and bows seemed the way to go with the less than crowded terrain, but that may change if the terrain is more dense and shooting lanes are harder to find.
The game ended in a draw, with each of us snagging three treasure tokens, successfully casting three spells each, and neither wizard killing anything.
The most time consuming part of the game was looking up rules and spells, which as any gamer knows, decreases the more you play the game. We started at about 8:00 PM and were done before 10:00, including figuring out experience and treasure. If we knew the rules as well as we did 8th ed. WFB or KoW, we could have played two games in that time, though adding terrain will likely lengthen that as it will take more than 1 turn to begin shooting and casting like we did.
It's rather simple in its mechanics. Roll a d20 compare your result, adding your fight or shoot stat to it, to your target's roll with his or her fight stat added. Higher equals success, lower equals failure (or getting hit back in the case of HTH combat. Damage is simple as well. Take the modified hit roll, add the damage bonus, subtract the target's armor, and that is the damage. High hit rolls equal lots of damage.
The book suggests lots of terrain, and it is a good idea. My crossbowman had a clear LOS to his wizard on turn one, rolled a natural 20 to hit, ad 2 for hit shoot stat and 2 for his crossbow damage, and that's 24 damage. The wizard only has 10 armor, and 14 health, so he's out in turn one. The fact that he'd failed a cast and already taken two points of damage didn't help either. That shouldn't happen. We were playing with the optional critical hit rules, so the 14 damage was doubled to 28, not that it mattered. After the game, we decided that maybe the crit rule was over the top.
Crossbows and bows seemed the way to go with the less than crowded terrain, but that may change if the terrain is more dense and shooting lanes are harder to find.
The game ended in a draw, with each of us snagging three treasure tokens, successfully casting three spells each, and neither wizard killing anything.
The most time consuming part of the game was looking up rules and spells, which as any gamer knows, decreases the more you play the game. We started at about 8:00 PM and were done before 10:00, including figuring out experience and treasure. If we knew the rules as well as we did 8th ed. WFB or KoW, we could have played two games in that time, though adding terrain will likely lengthen that as it will take more than 1 turn to begin shooting and casting like we did.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)