Wargaming Update - October 2015

Crusaders and Vikings in battle

As it's been over a month since my last post, I'm blowing off the cobwebs of October with a quick All Saint's Day recap. In fact, I haven't been doing an awful lot of gaming lately. Life keeps getting in the way, especially family stuff.

In terms of play, I've been getting back into my groove on Warmachine/Hordes, after very nearly dropping the game a couple months ago due to a terrible win/loss record and some personality conflicts. After some careful introspection and a change in attitude, I'm enjoying it again. Two reasons for this: I switched from Skorne to Circle Orboros as a palate cleanser for the remainder of the year, and I've pretty much given up on competitive play. I simply don't have the time or energy to compete with the dedicated competitive players in my meta. I did play in a tiny 8-player tournament a couple weeks ago, where I went 0-3 with my Kaya 2/Krueger 2 pairing, losing to assassination all three games - but I did have quite a bit of fun, so that's what matters. I'm planning on bringing the same lists to a tournament this upcoming Saturday, and I hope I'll do a wee bit better.

Outside of Warmachine, the only play I've gotten has been in Saga, with the tournament near the beginning of October. I'm quite happy with my play there, as I won each of my three games using my Crusader warband. Even so, I didn't win the tournament due to the unusual format (well, unusual to me anyway). Instead of the Swiss format I'm used to in Warmachine, the TO had something of a partial round-robin, with the ultimate ranking determined by scoring. The scoring system heavily favored killing as many enemy models as possible, rather than winning games - though, of course, killing a bunch of enemy models usually results in a victory, so... Not the way I'd run it, but that's the TO's prerogative. The event was quite a bit of fun, and I'm looking forward to more Saga stuff.

Outside of actually tossing dice and moving figures, I've been getting in a decent amount of painting. I finished up a Hungarian company for Flames of War on behalf of CGR Painters, been making progress on some (quite nice) Perry samurai in street clothes for a friend, and plugging away at Circle Orboros models.

The newest thing to grab my attention is Kings of War. I collected a Vampire Counts army back when Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition was released, and then promptly found I disliked the system and so it never went anywhere. With the Age of Sigmar release this year and the subsequent exodus of Warhammer players, Kings of War is slowly growing in popularity, so I've dusted off the zombies and ghouls. I should be getting my first game with them today, in fact, and I'm looking forward to playing games that feel bigger than Warmachine or Saga.