Starting Warmachine

Turns out that I am very easily sucked in to new things by another person's excitment.

My wargamming buddy Phil, picked up the new Warmachine Starter box last week and in the intervening days we've been having a large email conversation about the game and warmachine in general.

My previous experience with Warmachine is very very low. I bought Prime MkI a couple of years back and never even finished reading the rules let alone having a game! I bought the orginal metal Khador battlegroup mainly for the miniatures and not in any great expectation of playing any games.

First Warmachine Purchase (can't believe I have this photo after 3 or 4 years!)

I have only ever painted one mini from that battlegroup

My first and only painted Warmachine mini

I'd say this guy was painted maybe 3 years ago? I remember being quite happy with the battle-damage and the glowing eyes. Looking at them now they could definitely be improved on. I am still quite proud of the rust effect I achieved with the metal though.

So for the last 2 to 3 years I've been happily beavering away on the great GW side of the hobby, having a look at any new Privateer Press releases that I came across online but never buying one apart from Durgan Madhammer when I picked up the MkI book.

I bought this guy because I thought he looked cool!

So Phil (and I'm sure hobbyists everywhere can recognise this) has gotten me really excited to give this game a try. So based solely on the fact that I already have one Merc Warcaster, and I love the look of the Merc Jacks (especially the marine ones) I've decided to start a Merc faction in Warmachine.

So last night I popped into my FLGS (Gamersworld in Dublin, which seemed to be running a huge MTG event) and purchased two items.

The current Warmachine Rulebook

The Mariner Warjack

So over the course of the long weekend in Ireland I'm going to sit down the the MkII rules and see what they are about, next week I hope to put together the Mariner, and on the 5th have my first ever game of Warmachine with Phil.

I am left with a couple of questions though. Having never played Warmachine before what will I get for the faction next? I was thinking the Merc Faction book, and the other Marine theme'd Warjacks as they really appeal to me. Maybe some Croe's Cutthroats and Steelhead Riflemen all units and mini's that I really like. Also where do I get the current up-to-date card for the Mariner? I think the one that came with him is for MkI.

More steam-powered adventures as and when they happen.

Dreadfleet

Hi gang,

the first thing to say is that this post is not supposed to be a review. Just a couple of pictures and idea's about what happened during my first game of GW's new product.

So Phil picked up a copy of this game. He pre-ordered it from the GW website but it turns out he would have received it more quickly if he had just wandered into our FLGS on the day of release. Speaking of this, I wandered past same said store on Friday evening and they had 60 copies in the window. I really wonder will they sell them all.

I rolled around to his house yesterday and Phil already had the seascape laid out on his kitchen table. Unfortunately his kitchen table is slightly smaller than the seascape so we had about two inches of either of the long side hanging over the edge. The first thing that drew my eye was the little details within the water; ghosts, sea creatures. sunken cities. Very emotive.

We decided to play the first scenario but with three ships per side rather than the one ship outlined in the initial rules. So Phil  had read through the rules a little and he filled me in briefly with the run of play. We then rolled off for the sides, I got the Dreadfleet, Phil the Grand Alliance.

After a couple of turns, the Shadewraith was engaged in a boarding action with Grimnir's Thunder. Both Captains had given each other significant damage and the dwarf ship was listing badly and on fire. The Heldenhammer then raked me with a broadside and had enough dice to role enough sixes to take me out.

The Sinking of the Good Ship Shadewraith

This was just after the Heldenhammer had hammered Skabrus to the bottom of the sea. Grimnir's Thunder eventually succumbed to a munitions explosion after it was totally immobilised having no power in it's engines.

On the other side of the board, the Swordfish had rammed the Bloody Reaver.

Sail to Port!

After the initial ramming the Bloody Reaver's shear resilience eventually wore down the Swordfish, despite Phil having a ridiculous amount of damage and special damage cards associated with it.

Damage Cards aplenty!

So it ended up in a straight head to head between the Bloody Reaver and the Heldenhammer and the writing was truly on the wall when the Heldenhammer got into a position to use it's steam hammer on the vampire's flagship. But the coup-de-grace was finally applied by the auxiliary from the Grimnir's Thunder.

My first impression of the game was that the components were very good, especially the ships and the seascape mat. If I had the money to spare I would nearly get the game alone just for the models.

I  have been reading some of the critical reviews about the game and in fairness a lot of them make very good points. The game with only 3 ships a side took 4 hours, (granted we were both learning on the go) which may be over long.

The level of randomness is huge, with the Swordfish at one stage being only one card away from being destroyed on it's crew and hull damage cards. Even the Bloody Reaver at the end of the game limped on for three extra turns because I did not draw the hull damage card that was required to sink it. You can cause huge amounts of damage but if your opponent is lucky drawing the cards they can get away it it.

I have read people critisise the fate cards also. From my first play through they seem like a fun way to mix things up. Then again we didn't draw a fate card in the first turn of the game that crippled one or several ship, like I've read in other blogs. Also the deck is small and could become quite repetitive with repeat use.

Overall I have to say though, I enjoyed my first game. Myself and Phil had a couple of good laughs and enjoyed ourselves. That is not to say the game is perfect or people don't have valid concerns or criticisms. I suppose how valid they are will be determined in time.

Wheither I would reccommend it our not is a dificult question. Leaving Phil's house yesterday evening I was tempted to buy a copy. But reading some of the reviews today really did point out some flaws which may not have occured to me, not having a huge amount of experience with board games.

Movement Trays and Magnets

Hi gang,

so last week I have been focused on getting work done on the ghouls in my Vampire Counts army. I have nine of the 20 man unit done and I should be able to finish the unit off by the end of this week if all goes to plan. Also involved in getting this unit done was to make them a movement tray. So I purchased some plasticard and Pollyfilla (Spackle in the USA?) and set to work using the cut off from a sprue to make the edging.

Ghoul movement tray marked off for a tweny man unit.

So I wanted to magnitise this tray, mainly to stop the models beening knocked over and after much searching in hardware and picture stores I finally came across what I was looking for in my local €2 shop.

€2 for 2 sheets of A4 Magnetic Paper

 So by sticking this to the movement tray and to the bottom of the bases of the ghouls I now have a front rank that defy gravity!

Finished front rank just hanging out

The magnetic grip is relatively strong but I doubt it would do for heavy metal miniatures but for light plastic miniatures like this it's just the ticket.

An interesting thing I took a while to figure out was that if the magnetic paper I stuck on the base of the miniature does not align with the magnetic paper on the movement try it will not stick! I had problems with the ghast mini not sticking to movement try when facing forward in the front rank. But if I turned the mini 90 degrees to the left or right it would stick no problem. Obviously I had cut the magnetic square for the base out of the A4 sheet, but turned it sideways when sticking onto the base, therefore the magnetic fields couldn't 'click'. I can only imagine this is something to do with the creation of the magnetic sheet.  

Until next time!