House of Painkakes....

A Blogroll for those with fewer Restrictions.

I'm a competitive player, not a fluff bunny.

I love the fluff, but I also like to win. How do I reconcile this discrepency? I build competitive lists and enjoy reading the fluff. Simple really. not sure how people get caught up in a huge arguement about how this CAN NOT BE DONE!!!! asldfja argh!

anyhow. You can do it too now.

www.houseofpaincakes.blogspot.com

Hordes - I think I'm ready....

Ok, so I've read through the RB, Read all my cards, explored the forums, listened to podcasts. and bent my experience of 40k to wraping my head around all the nuances that I can find. Some observations:

This game is not an army game. it's not a game that scales up properly. To me, anything above say...75 points that the game would become too long and unweildy.

So.... I'm sticking to the 50point mark and below. I can see the appeal of playing a 4 player game of 150 points with 3 warlocks/warcasters each over the course of a weekend, but in the end, I don't have the time or space to dedicate that much effort to this.

50 points however has a good time length, a lot of options, and a clear general to your warband.

So, as it's been recommended to me several times not to start with circle, and the fact that I've loved orks forever, I went with trollbloods to start. Bought a lot of models, did a bit of converting because that is what I do and have the following lists almost ready to play, and almost ready to paint.

Calandra, (soon to have) Gunbjorn

Dire Troll Bomber
Troll Impaler x2
Troll Axer
Swamp Troll

Fennblades (Full)
Pyg Burrowers (Full)
Fell Caller
Trollkin Champion Hero
Stone Scribe Chronicler
Trollkin Runebearer

Swamp Gobbers & Bellows Crew

Which will allow me to play in SR2010 with the following lists:
Calandra or Gunbjorn:

15 Points
Troll Impaler -5
Swamp Troll -4
Pyg Burrowers (L&9) -6
Fell Caller Hero -3
Trollblood Runebearer -2

25 Points
Troll Impaler -5
Dire Troll Bomber -10
Pyg Burrowers (L&9) -6
Fell Caller Hero -3
Trollblood Runebearer -2
Stone Scribe Chronicler -2
Troll Whelps -2

35 Points
Troll Impaler -5
Dire Troll Bomber -10
Fell Caller Hero -3
Trollblood Runebearer -2
Pyg Burrowers (L&9) -6
Trollblood Fennblades (L&9) -8
Trollkin Champion Hero -3
Stone Scribe Chronicler -2
Swamp Gobbers -1

50 Points
I'm still working on this list, but will get there eventually.

Metagaming..... Why playing the Meta is a bad Idea.

So, Having had an interesting yet frustrating conversation with somebody (yes you) about what a Meta Game is this weekend, I decided to do up a blog post about metagaming, power gaming and why neither will let you win a tournament.

First Off, what is a Metagame?

Well, a Metagame is a game within a game. How does this apply to us as gamers? well, the whole Idea of Metagaming is something along the lines of the following, no matter what game you play.

Player A, whom we'll call Jimmy, In your gaming group, is widely accepted to be the "Player to beat" each group has one, or maybe even 2 that are up there. Does not matter who they are, just that they exist. Now say in our given game Jimmy routinely plays Army/Faction/Deck X, and wins tournaments with it. So the meta is "Beat Jimmy because he's the best" so what do we build our Army/Faction/Deck to do? Well, we build to kill Jimmy of course! because if we can be the best in our area, we are the new best right? WRONG. To be the best, you need to not only be able to beat Jimmy but also you need to reliably beat Paul, the guy from 75 miles away that really only shows up for tournaments and does well with a different army every time.  Metagaming is good for a single aspect of all of our hobbies. These are Leagues. Leagues are defined by their Metagame. Simply put.

If however you are not in a League, bring a Balanced List that to the best of your ability you can play to defeat ANY ARMY TYPE that arrives and does not depend on any "Gimmick" or "One Trick Pony" because in a tournament, Murphy's Law states that you will not play against Jimmy, but you will play Paul. Even Odds.


Now.... everyones favorite. Power Gamers.

What is a Power Gamer?
A Power Gamer is "That Guy" the guy that finds the broken build of any given gaming system and abuses it to beat any and all opponents and take excessive ammounts of glee in the fact that he pissed everyone at the tournament off. He is also known for using the Rulebook as a hammer to pound the heads in of New players to a ragged pulp and also likes to complain and misdirect opponents when they find that one piece of rule that breaks their trick pony into tiny shards of what it once was. How does this translate into not winning? First and foremost, you're not the best player in the world. nobody is. Your One Trick will beat the face of almost everything.... but not everything. there is always that counter. and there are always people like me who bring counters. you may not play them (see "Jimmy's Law" above) but eventually you will. Don't take that path. Bring the balanced approach and get better and win because you are a winner, not because you can exploit some archaic form of old english to intentionally Mis-Interpret the rules to your advantage. Play the rules. Play a balanced army and you should do ok. As you progress in tactical skill, you'll get better at the game.

Oh, and People will still want to play you another game. Always an important thing.

The Fluff of Immoren

So, as with Warhammer 40k (Not warhammer because the fluff for that game is so damn regurgitated that I could replace all the world specific stuff with any world wether it be D&D, or what have you and it would fit that world) I'm really starting to like the Fluff of Privateer Press.

The Fact that I hate steampunk is really doing little to deter me from getting more and more into the fluff of the world. When I started, the world of the Iron Kingdoms seemed like a contrived stereotypical mess, half baked and worthless.

But the more I read the fluff in the Hordes! book, the more I'm loving it. The Trolls and the Circle are still my prefered armies, but the fluff of the Legion of Everblight is great. Probably the fact that I love their take on dragons and the ability to blight entire races. Maybe this is just a random ramble, but It's my view.

The one problem that I have found is the fact that while every other race is fleshed out rather realistically, the Trollbloods come off a bit thin. Maybe a bit cartoony in the fluff.

Hopefully PP is working on that.

Anyhow, anyone know if PP has put out any novels about the Iron Kingdoms?

Helena Gaming Group

Hello, and I Met one of you.....

Yesterday I had to work in Helena at the Independant Republic. The Sister newspaper of The Montana Standard, where I work.

I met a young lady there by the name of Cecily, and through a strange twist of conversation, found out that she has a group of gamers there that have no store to call home. I heartilly recommend to them they they try out both Rooks and Rocky Mountain Hobbiez in Bozeman. I've found both stores to be both friendly and well stocked. Both are great fun to play at.

I also would like to extend an Invitation to their group to the Montana 40Kon on september.

Hope to meet you guys soon!

-Stephen

SpoCon - An After Action Report

So, While my camera sits on my desk at home, I thought I'd recap my experience at SpoCon. A GT Qualifier in Spokane Washington.

1) Observations:

First off, the Tournament was held on Gonzaga University Campus. Personally while a lot of people were complaining about the venue, I thought it was great.

The People were to the best of my knowledge, amazing.

The tournament itself was extremely well run, a little delayed by "Gamer Time" but that is to be expected.

2) The Scenarios:

While I enjoyed the scenarios, there were a few things that bothered me. I enjoyed the scoring as it was close to my own style, however I did not like the fact that there were negative modifiers to your score. That is just me.

I also enjoyed the fact that while there were 4 games per player, only one was an annhilation mission. seems that others are aware of the fact that Kill Points are an unbalancing factor in the game. VPs are much better IMO.

3) My Games:
So, while playing 4 games is not my preferance, (I prefer 3,5 or 6) I understand exactly why it was 4 and agree that it was the best setup possible for this event.

Game #1: I played against a Blood Angels list, 1 Land Raider w/ TS terminators and a Reclusiarch, Seth, Assault squads and 2 Baal Predators.

While I won't go into details, Suffice it to say that I won, with a large margin. It was a capture and control mission, I held both objectives at the end, and by turn 5 had lost 1 combat squad, 1 Dreadnought, and 1 land speeder. He had 1 Baal Predator left with no TL Ass Can Turret.

Game #2: This had to be the funnest game I played all weekend. I was playing against My Personal Nemesis. Space Wolves. Wolf lord on Thunder Wolf with a lot of FenWolves in tow, 1 Vindicator, 3 Gray Hunter Squads and some other stuff. I lost, but it took the whole game to get that far.

Game #3 (Game 4 of the day for me) Both my opponent and I were both physically and mentally exhausted by this time. It was fun as hell, but to give you an idea, we played 7 turns in 45 minutes. yeah, it was one of those.

Game #4 Last game of the tournament and held on a fresh new day. Kill Points versus orks. I brought a 20 Kill point army, he brought 10. End of turn 5 I have 9 Kill Points he has 5. Win for me.

In the end I was happy with my armies performance. I went 2-2 with an army that misses usually 3/4 of it's shots even with the massive ammount of twin linking I have. I came in 11th place out of 40, and I came in 2nd place in sportsmanship.

I had a great time.

-Stephen

My Barter Bucket

Have not done this in quite a while, But away we go:

First off what I am looking for: 

Wants:

Trollbloods:
Hoarluk Doomshaper – Shaman of the Gnarls
Dire Troll Bomber x2
Dire Troll Blitzer
Swamp Troll
Fell Caller Hero
Trollkin Runebearer
Trollkin Fennblades (Full Unit)

 

Circle of Orboros:
Kromac the Ravenous
Warpwolf Stalker x2
Warpwolf Extreme Sculpt
Tharn Wolfriders (Full Unit)
Wold Wyrd


Now on to my haves:
General Warhammer 40kPlanetary Empires (NIB, Everything Still On Sprue) $38

Chaos Space Marines
Khorne Berzerkers x25 - $35 (Primed Black and need some work, lots of bits and sprues included)

Tyranids:60 OOP Genestealers – Primed Black - $15 Per 10 or $75 for ALL
1 OOP Biovore (2nd Edition Style, Painted black w/white & Red highlights) $8
20 Hormagaunts Assembled (Current Style) - $25

Space Marines:

 1 Limited Ed Black Templar Emperor's Champion - $15 (Bare Metal)
1 old style Land Raider Crusader with Forgeworld doors - $40 (Primed Gray)
1 New Style Land Raider Crusader with Converted Auto/Assault Cannon (Pre/Heresy Era, Black Templar Doors Painted, Magnetized Sponsons, Redeemer Sponsons Included.) - $45
7 Thunder Hammer/ Storm Shield Terminators – Converted to be Pre-Heresy. 5 have Forgeworld BT Shields 2 Have Sergent Storm Shields - $45 (Painted but not sealed)
1 Lysander’s Storm Shield and Thunder Hammer - $4
1 SM Commander (Metal) - $5
2 Sergent Storm Shields - $3
1 Metal SM Chaplain - $5
1 Metal SM Sergent with Power Fist - $3
1 Metal Banner Bearer - $5
2 Terminators - $5 for both (need some love)
1 Metal Terminator Chaplain (OOP, Painted, Not Sealed)- $5
25 Ultramarines Drop Pod/Vehicle Icons - $7
1 Land Speeder Assault Cannon $2
3 Drop Pods worth of harnesses (from interior) $10
1 Center Column from drop pod without top dome. $2
6 Deathwind Missile Launchers - $2 Each
Forgeworld Black Templars Dreadnought – Painted – No Banner - $40

Orks
9 OOP Bikers (Rough Shape, Missing 2 riders, conversions for 4 bikers) - $25
1 Current Bike(No Rider) - $5
1 OOP Shokk Attakk Gun - $8
1 OOP Bad Moon Nob - $2
1 OOP Grimfang - $5
2 OOP Grot Wagons from Gorkamorka (missing a few pieces) - $25 for both
 

ORK ARMY
4 Squads of 30x Slugga/Choppa Boyz, Each with a PK Nob all Painted and on Custom Resin Bases.
-$50 Per Squad
3 Deffkoptaz with TL Missiles (Black Reach) all painted with magnetized Buzzsaws - $8 Each
1 Squad of Kommandos, Painted, with Snikrot & 2 Burnas - $30 for the Squad
1 Squad of 5 Nob Bikerz – Converted Heavily! Includes Painboy Painted Well. All on custom resin Hill bases with wound/dice slot. - $40 for squad.
1 Warboss with Power Klaw – Black Reach, On custom base, Painted - $10
1 Big Mek w/ Custom Force Field – Converted Heavily! – Custom Base, Painted -$12
1 Warboss on Bike, No Base – Painted – Converted -$15
1 BattleWagon – Converted Heavily from Trukk Kit (new kit) W/ Deffrolla- $25
1 Nob squad of 10, Primed White – Parts from Black Reach & Kits – Painboy, Waaagh Banner, 2 Klaws, 3 Big Choppas, 2 Kombi-Skorchas, 1 Bosspole - $25
10 Converted Lootaz, Boyz with a Lot of converted parts. - $15

Night Goblins
SELLING AS A PACKAGE - $160 - lots of SP stuff.
5 Spider Riders
Big Boss on Giant Squig
50 Night Goblin Archer
50 Night Goblin Spearmen
4 Squig Herders
3 Cave Squigs
OOP Skarsnik & Gobbla
15 NG Banner Bearers
15 NG Musicians
5 NG Shamans
9 NG Champions
3 NG Big Boss
13 NG Fanatics ( Metal & Plastic)
2 OOP Doom Divers
30 Random Goblins
2 Stone Trolls
10 Bases of Snotlings
5 Goblin Huts from Black Reach
 

Vampire Counts
Selling as a package $25
2 Banshees
2 Spirit Host Bases
1 OOP Mummy
1 OOP Blood Knight on Nightmare
1 OOP Vampire

Various Stuffs:
Bag of OOP Horses & Riders & Infantry (From Battle Masters) - $10



PRIVATEER PRESS:

Trollblood Axer – Stripped $15
Trollblood Impaler – Stripped $15
eHoarluk Doomshaper, The Rage of Duhina – Stripped $10
Madrak Ironhide – Stripped $10

 

As always leave a comment or hit me with an email at:

stephenberenyi (AT) hotmail.com