Painting Update: Circle Orboros and Samurai

Finally finished some personal figures, and a commission for a friend - the first of many samurai for Ronin.

Perry Miniatures samurai in civilian clothes

Circle Orboros figures for hordes - that's two units of Shifting Stones, a Gorax, Warpwolf Stalker, Druid Wilder, and Stone Keeper.

Cog Collective Open & Field of Battle: Italy, 1859

Yesterday saw the Cog Collective Invitational and the accompanying Cog Collective Open at Guardian Games, a pair of Warmachine tournaments. The Invitational was the culmination of a year's worth of tournaments, with the best players in the Portland and Salem metas competing for bragging rights and a Cephalyx army. Congrats to Adam for taking first.

I, on the other hand, played in the Open and came in dead last. But I did have fun. I brought Circle Orboros, pairing Krueger 2 and Kaya 2.

Round 1: Krueger 2 vs. Siege Brisbane. Lost on assassination after a failed assassination run.
Round 2: Krueger 2 vs. Haley 2. Lost on assassination after a failed assassination run.
Round 3: Kaya 2 vs. Kromac 2. Lost on assassination after a failed assassination run.

You may notice a trend... Ah, well. To be fair, my dice did kind of fail me on round 2, but I didn't play terribly well, either. At this point, I think I'll just finish painting my Circle force in time for the Ticket Takedown in December, and then flip back to Skorne for 2016. I'm looking forward to messing around with the new Skorne Active Duty Roster - Hexeris 2, Morghoul 1, Makeda 3, and Zaal 2. (I'm also probably going to swap out Kaya 2 for Morvahna 2 so I can have some sweet, sweet dice-fixing in Circle.)

After the Open, I sat in on Victor's Piquet Field of Battle game, taking on the left flank of the Imperial Army in the 1859 Italian War of Independence.

Austrian center, as seen from the left, at deployment

Italian cavalry threatening the Austrian center

Austrian and Italian centers move into rifle range

It's a fun system, and Victor's 10mm Pendraken figures are almost enough to sell me on the scale. Unfortunately, I didn't get to do much due to the vagaries of Piquet and and the need for an early departure. I think Piquet - Field of Battle specifically - is better suited for one-on-one games instead of team games, just due to speed of play and the likelihood that one flank (i.e., mine) may end up rolling rather badly for activation and thus not do anything for two hours. C'est la guerre.

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.

Marshal Ney's death at Quatre Bras - Black Powder AAR

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of playing in a refight of Quatre Bras using the Black Powder rules, plus the Contemptible Little Wargame Club house rules. Alyssa organized and hosted the game at Guardian Games, and provided quite a few figures...

Quatre Bras, occupied by troops under the Prince of Orange.

I took up command of the 2nd Netherlands Division, 1st Brigade (more or less - logistics dictated that not all battalions present at the battle actually appeared on the table), and occupied Quatre Bras itself. To my right, the bulk of the Allied force faced off against the oncoming French west of Quatre Bras.

Allied Forces holding the intersection, Prince of Orange nearby.

The French outnumbered the Allies badly, so our mission was simply to hold until our reinforcements could arrive. The first to arrive were the Brunswickers, who, well, had some command and control issues and came on rather slowly (failed command rolls two turns in a row).

French forces approaching Quatre Bras from the southeast.

The French attacked with considerable boldness from the southeast, pushing cavalry charges ahead to assault the defenders of the town. Unfortunately for l'Empreur, Ney attached to the first of these, and perished in a devastating countercharge from the Brunswick cavalry.

First wave of British reinforcements march into Quatre Bras.

French Cavalry charging in; Dutch line infantry form square, while the Brunswick cavalry are caught in column.

Successive French charges into Quatre Bras were repulsed, and the situation became static.

Gunnery duel in the fields of Quatre Bras. Dutch troops hold the wall while the Highlanders attempt to storm the French guns. French troops hold the hill opposite.

Final position. The French have effectively lost the firefight and their eastern flank is deeply imperiled.

As we drew to a close after a good seven hours of play, the Allies held Quatre Bras and - despite the French finally routing the western flank - would probably be able to hold it indefinitely.

On the whole, it was a lot of fun. Alyssa had things nicely organized, and I continue to like the Black Powder rules as a playable system.

Gaming Styles: Open v. Closed

Some quick thoughts on how tabletop miniatures games are designed and marketed.

Tabletop miniatures games can be divided into two different models, which for the sake of this post I'll call Closed and Open.

A Closed game is one where the maker produces both the rules and the figures, and often associated other paraphernalia, and the rules can only technically be used with the figures produced by the manufacturer. These games tend to be more successful, commercially speaking, than Open games, and examples include Warmachine/Hordes, Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Fantasy Battle Age of Sigmar, Malifaux, X-Wing, and so on. Pretty much any game where you can walk into your local game store and they have a big shelf of models and associated rulebooks is a Closed game.

Closed games have several advantages from a manufacturing, retail, and player perspective:

• They're usually quite successful, so you can often count on finding other players without having to cultivate them from friends and other interested folks. In my opinion, this is the biggest point in their favor.
• The manufacturer can use the rules to sell the models, with varying degrees of success and/or skill.
• The retailer gets a complete package to sell; they don't have to cobble together rules and appropriate miniatures from various manufacturers.
• Likewise, the player has a one-stop-shop; also, a single package on the shelf will usually correspond to a single unit on the table. No odds and ends left over on the painting table after assembling a platoon...
• As the manufacturer wants to keep selling figures, new stuff comes out on a regular basis for the game, keeping things fresh and exciting.

Of course, there are also disadvantages, especially for players:

• You're tied to a single miniatures line. This can get expensive, especially if...
• A poorly designed (from the player's POV) game can be "pay to win". If you want to be a competitive player, you need to either make a huge initial investment to get enough models for the base game, or you need to keep buying models to keep up with new releases - either to get those releases or to counter them. Worst case scenario, you need to do both.
• The manufacturer's desire to keep selling models can lead to poor game design decisions. GW has a reputation for this, deserved or not. Age of Sigmar seems to be a textbook example of this.
• Since new things keep coming out for the game, there's always something new to buy. You'll never have a complete collection unless the game line ends.
• If you decide to drop a game, you're stuck with a bunch of models that are purpose-built for that game. (Mitigated somewhat because you can easily sell these models at knock-down prices if the meta remains healthy in your area.)

(Yes, of course you're free to use whatever figures you like with any rules set, but in a Closed game that's not part of the design.)

An Open game is one where they can be used with any appropriate miniatures, regardless of who made them. All historicals fall into this basket, since you can't copyright or trademark history; a Panther tank is a Panther tank regardless of who made the model. Mind, many makers of Open games also produce miniatures lines that match their games; frequently this happens in the other direction, as a miniatures manufacturer will later produce a rules set that goes with the figures they sell.

In terms of numbers, Open games outnumber closed games by a wide margin, simply because it's a lot cheaper and easier to produce a rules set without an associated miniatures line. And this might be why it's harder to find players; if everyone can find a rules set that fits their requirements to a T, you get a pretty fragmented marketplace. Instead of forty-odd players buying into Warhammer 40,000, you get little clusters of four or five apiece splitting up among Napoleon at War, Bolt Action, Five Parsecs From Home, Flames of War, Song of Blades and Heroes, De Bellis Antiquitatis, and so on. Fairly often there will be one enthusiastic proponent of a particular game and no other players...

Advantages, then:

• Not tied to any miniatures line - or, indeed, particular scale, as you can find appropriate miniatures in scales from 54mm to 2mm, depending on the period/genre.
• Can be easier on the wallet
• Easier to find just the rules you like, since you're not tied to a miniatures line.
• Can feel less constricted on the rules front.
• You can build your own game experience just exactly how you want it, and fie on anyone who says differently.

Disadvantages, though:

• It's harder to find players, since any one Open game is unlikely to be as popular as the big Closed games.
• Support for your favorite period/genre may be quite thin on the ground. World War II is easy; finding figures and rules for more obscure conflicts might be quite a bit more difficult. (e.g., most conflicts outside of Europe and the Mediterranean before the 20th century. This tends to be a pretty Eurocentric hobby on the historical side.)
• It can be quite difficult for a retailer - at least a brick and mortar one - to support an Open game. Without a large player base, and with such a potentially fragmented market, it's quite easy to get stuck with a bunch of stagnant inventory.
• While with Closed games you usually just build one force, with Open games it's better to build two or more, so you can provide both sides of a conflict. This can offset savings quite a bit...

In the final analysis, Open vs. Closed systems boils down to, mostly, convenience vs. freedom of action. There are some nuances there, of course. If you buy into Warhammer 40k, your freedom of choice in fellow players is rather higher than if you go all in on, say, 15mm Napoleonics - unless your local gaming scene is much different from mine, in which case I'm rather jealous.

DBA Republican Romans

I just finished my first proper army for De Bellis Antiquitas: Polybian Romans from Essex Miniatures, suitable for fighting Carthage or Syria. I'm pretty happy to have finished an entire table - ready army in a week. Next up I need to finish the Japanese and Galatian armies to oppose them...

July Historical Day

Saturday was the monthly historical miniatures wargame day at Guardian Games, and for the first time in quite a while we had more than just me and Gabe, thanks to a crowd that came up from Salem. I played Saga with Oliver, and my Crusaders sadly lost to his Saracens on scenario.*

Saga - Vikings versus Pagan Rus

We played a couple other Saga games - Finns vs. Jomsvikings and Vikings vs. Pagan Rus - as well as trying out a game of Lion Rampant.

Lion Rampant

* So my main game is Warmachine, and one of the reasons it does well competitively is because of the updated-yearly Steamroller packet, which contains the official tournament format(s) and scenarios. I'm going to try adapting a few features of that to Saga. The easy sell is the scenarios; the hard sell is using a chess clock or timed turns, as I've found most non-Warmachine players are extremely reluctant to use them...