Capt's Log , Stardate No I haven;t given up :)
Greetings. Sorry its been so long since I last posted. I haven't had a chance to play much and life has been busy. Gig season winding down so hopefully can get back to it. Picked up the Scimitar the other day and want to get that on the table see how it helps the Romulans if it does help :)
Will try to get a basic review of the ship up soon and a couple of the current blind boosters as well. Lots to talk about just have to find the time to talk about it :)
till next time
keep after me to keep posting :)
shadoe42
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Friday, October 3, 2014
Resitance is Futile - even in Mordor
Capt's Log - Now for something mostly different
We are just a bit out from the start of the new OP at our local shop. And there is still not a lot of info out there on what it will be. Hopefully the bricks have shipped but the info just hasn't gotten out yet.
No idea what I will do with my fleet this time around. May end up waiting till night off when I can see the scenario to do any building. There are rumors that the point total will change or will be altered as to how you should put it together. One rumor was that the blind booster ship would be allowed up to 70 pts. That would be nice as it may indicate some larger ships in the blind boosters this time as opposed to all small ships. Gives me hope for a Romulan heavy hitter. Not a lot of hope mind you :) Just some hope.
My play time right now is severly curtailed. I am currently staying with friends that live an hour from the shop, so play nights put me in bed very late. Not good when you have to be at work at 7 am :) Because of this I missed the Dominion War 3 OP two weeks ago at the shop.
I am also still in the midst of my fall gig run at the KC Renassaince Festival. Two more weekends to go with that then start working on the 3rd CD.
And also looking for a house and working out the logistics of relocating permanently from Tulsa.
As a side note I have put a tiny bit of time into Shadows of Mordor and if you enjoy the Open World style of the Assassin's Creed games you will probably like this. The game doesn't bring a lot new to the table(but it does bring one thing) but the systems they have used from other games work so well other companies have accused Monolith of stealing thier code. Basically take the free running of Assassin's Creed, the combat of the Batman Arkham games, some various other things and mix them all into a bowl and pour them out in a Middle Earth Setting pulled from Peter Jackson's movies. And lastly add what Monolith calls The Nemesis System.
To sum up the plot, the protagonist watches his family murdered at the hands of Mordor orcs, gets trapped between life and death by the returning spirit of a long dead elf who also went thru a similar incident...meld their abilities together and go off to seek revenge.
Revenge in this case means attempting to single handedly wipe out the orcs of Sauron's army. Which brings us to the Nemesis System. Sauron's army has a bunch of Capts and Warchief's... any time you get killed the orc who did the killing go up in skill and gets a promotion. Then behind the scenes these orcs will also challenge each other for position so you will see them change, some get stronger, some get weaker. You can do side quests to actually influence this as well.
But the really neat thing is when you defeat an orc capt there is a chance that he won't actually die. For example at one point I was slain by an orc archer. When this happens the orc makes a comment about "gotta be a promotion for me in that", and sure enough you are treated to the cut scene of the orc becoming named, getting a promotion, and made a capt. Being the player I am I immediatly set this orc as my target and went to get my personal revenge. When I tracked down the newly minted Kuga The Archer said orc actually comments "So you survived," and I could see he was sporting new scars as a relic of our previous battle.
This is a small example, I also have one orc who has managed to pop me a few times and now taunts me everytime he shows up with such things as "when will you learn to stay down"
The orcs actually figure out that you never seem to actually die and this can make them nervous.
The system is pretty deep, each Capt/Warchief has strengths and weaknesses that you can discover and exploit, etc.
The Nemesis System as a whole brings almost a whole game within a game as you can choose to influence the orc power structure if you wish.
Makes for an interesting game for sure.
Until next time: Never trust anyone named Gollum
shadoe42
We are just a bit out from the start of the new OP at our local shop. And there is still not a lot of info out there on what it will be. Hopefully the bricks have shipped but the info just hasn't gotten out yet.
No idea what I will do with my fleet this time around. May end up waiting till night off when I can see the scenario to do any building. There are rumors that the point total will change or will be altered as to how you should put it together. One rumor was that the blind booster ship would be allowed up to 70 pts. That would be nice as it may indicate some larger ships in the blind boosters this time as opposed to all small ships. Gives me hope for a Romulan heavy hitter. Not a lot of hope mind you :) Just some hope.
My play time right now is severly curtailed. I am currently staying with friends that live an hour from the shop, so play nights put me in bed very late. Not good when you have to be at work at 7 am :) Because of this I missed the Dominion War 3 OP two weeks ago at the shop.
I am also still in the midst of my fall gig run at the KC Renassaince Festival. Two more weekends to go with that then start working on the 3rd CD.
And also looking for a house and working out the logistics of relocating permanently from Tulsa.
As a side note I have put a tiny bit of time into Shadows of Mordor and if you enjoy the Open World style of the Assassin's Creed games you will probably like this. The game doesn't bring a lot new to the table(but it does bring one thing) but the systems they have used from other games work so well other companies have accused Monolith of stealing thier code. Basically take the free running of Assassin's Creed, the combat of the Batman Arkham games, some various other things and mix them all into a bowl and pour them out in a Middle Earth Setting pulled from Peter Jackson's movies. And lastly add what Monolith calls The Nemesis System.
To sum up the plot, the protagonist watches his family murdered at the hands of Mordor orcs, gets trapped between life and death by the returning spirit of a long dead elf who also went thru a similar incident...meld their abilities together and go off to seek revenge.
Revenge in this case means attempting to single handedly wipe out the orcs of Sauron's army. Which brings us to the Nemesis System. Sauron's army has a bunch of Capts and Warchief's... any time you get killed the orc who did the killing go up in skill and gets a promotion. Then behind the scenes these orcs will also challenge each other for position so you will see them change, some get stronger, some get weaker. You can do side quests to actually influence this as well.
But the really neat thing is when you defeat an orc capt there is a chance that he won't actually die. For example at one point I was slain by an orc archer. When this happens the orc makes a comment about "gotta be a promotion for me in that", and sure enough you are treated to the cut scene of the orc becoming named, getting a promotion, and made a capt. Being the player I am I immediatly set this orc as my target and went to get my personal revenge. When I tracked down the newly minted Kuga The Archer said orc actually comments "So you survived," and I could see he was sporting new scars as a relic of our previous battle.
This is a small example, I also have one orc who has managed to pop me a few times and now taunts me everytime he shows up with such things as "when will you learn to stay down"
The orcs actually figure out that you never seem to actually die and this can make them nervous.
The system is pretty deep, each Capt/Warchief has strengths and weaknesses that you can discover and exploit, etc.
The Nemesis System as a whole brings almost a whole game within a game as you can choose to influence the orc power structure if you wish.
Makes for an interesting game for sure.
Until next time: Never trust anyone named Gollum
shadoe42
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Missed one
Capt's Log Stardate Currently living to far away..
Last night I had to miss my first OP event in quite some time. Currently I am living with friend in KC and have been for some time. Different friends as the time goes by. Anyway currently the house I am staying at is an hour away from the shop during good traffic. And I had forgotten to grab my ship bag when leaving the house. So I missed Dominion War 3 that was being run. haha will give the other Romulan player a chance to be on the leader board for awhile :) :) :)
Hopefully soon enough things will settle down as I Resistance Is Futile is coming up. Whole new set of blind boosters and participation prizes. YAY! Oddly I am conflicted about the way WK does these OPs.
I don't mind the blind boosters as much as the prize ships. More than one of these ships has had cards that turn out to be very powerful. I would prefer the prize ships be something more common as far as the cards go but something different as far as the ship itself goes. Perhaps even better painted? :)
The resources you get for the Participation prizes fall into this as well, if you don't do the OPs you miss out on Flagship, elite attack/defend die, etc. Things that you see in virtually every competitive build.
I realize that WK does this to drive up participation in the OPs but it doesn't really seem to work. We always have about the same crowd every time.
And the blind boosters are not immune. the Yeager with Shelby is a much wanted ship and currently only obtainable in the Collective OP blind booster bricks. But most of the blind boosters are nice additions but not something needed.
Anyway WK is not going to change it. I just wonder how long I can keep up with the OPs. Hoping in this next set of boosters there is some decent Romulan love. something bigger than the last ones. I relaize that it is limiting by the fact that the blind booster ship has to build to 30 points. With something like a D'Deridex that is basically just the ship and a 1 skill free Capt.
But the Romulans need some love badly in the current game. Hopefully in Nov the release of the scimitar will help re-level the field for them.
Until next time I have been your very rambly host!
shadoe42
Last night I had to miss my first OP event in quite some time. Currently I am living with friend in KC and have been for some time. Different friends as the time goes by. Anyway currently the house I am staying at is an hour away from the shop during good traffic. And I had forgotten to grab my ship bag when leaving the house. So I missed Dominion War 3 that was being run. haha will give the other Romulan player a chance to be on the leader board for awhile :) :) :)
Hopefully soon enough things will settle down as I Resistance Is Futile is coming up. Whole new set of blind boosters and participation prizes. YAY! Oddly I am conflicted about the way WK does these OPs.
I don't mind the blind boosters as much as the prize ships. More than one of these ships has had cards that turn out to be very powerful. I would prefer the prize ships be something more common as far as the cards go but something different as far as the ship itself goes. Perhaps even better painted? :)
The resources you get for the Participation prizes fall into this as well, if you don't do the OPs you miss out on Flagship, elite attack/defend die, etc. Things that you see in virtually every competitive build.
I realize that WK does this to drive up participation in the OPs but it doesn't really seem to work. We always have about the same crowd every time.
And the blind boosters are not immune. the Yeager with Shelby is a much wanted ship and currently only obtainable in the Collective OP blind booster bricks. But most of the blind boosters are nice additions but not something needed.
Anyway WK is not going to change it. I just wonder how long I can keep up with the OPs. Hoping in this next set of boosters there is some decent Romulan love. something bigger than the last ones. I relaize that it is limiting by the fact that the blind booster ship has to build to 30 points. With something like a D'Deridex that is basically just the ship and a 1 skill free Capt.
But the Romulans need some love badly in the current game. Hopefully in Nov the release of the scimitar will help re-level the field for them.
Until next time I have been your very rambly host!
shadoe42
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
The End of the Collective
Capt log Stardate Thank God that's over
With Collective OP3 this event comes to a close. This time at the shop there were not many people there. For one we found out during OP 2 you had to qualify. So that left out a few, and then life got in the way of a few others.
So there were only 4 people at this OP. That turned out to be good because everyone took home the Officers Participation Prize and a prize ship of some sort. I now have a Stargazer which is the one I wanted. More on that ship in a future post.
This scenario was voted he least fun by everyone present at the OP. It involved a fight with both Borg cube and then an escaping Sphere. The cube could take up to 20 points of damage and it actually gained Defense Dice as it did. Up to 8 die total making it harder to damage as the game went on. And only the person who got the kill shots on the cube and/sphere got the battle points for them.
The strategy then was to be the last person to shoot the cube. Control of the cube went back and forth between the players. The cube each turn would move and then could make one attack at 12 die, 2 attacks a 7, or 3 attacks at 5. In my games I lost a ship to a one shot 12 die attack each time. Thankfully that was all I lost.
In reading the forums others seem to think this was a fun scenario. We shall see if that holds up as people start playing it competitively instead of just testing.
Once you killed the cube a sphere appeared and made a beeline for the farthest table edge. To get the points for it you had to kill it before it got off the table. It was thankfully easier to down than the cube.
Overall I like the concept of a co-op scenario. It feels very Trek. But this one more than the others didn't really seem well thought out. Whiz Kids as always could stand a bit more planning and testing.
The next Op Series is Resistance is Futile.. most likely centered around events on Voyager.
Meanwhile i need to get in some actual friendly games for a change and get back to talking about cards and ships :)
Until next time..resistance is a word that begins with R
shadoe42
With Collective OP3 this event comes to a close. This time at the shop there were not many people there. For one we found out during OP 2 you had to qualify. So that left out a few, and then life got in the way of a few others.
So there were only 4 people at this OP. That turned out to be good because everyone took home the Officers Participation Prize and a prize ship of some sort. I now have a Stargazer which is the one I wanted. More on that ship in a future post.
This scenario was voted he least fun by everyone present at the OP. It involved a fight with both Borg cube and then an escaping Sphere. The cube could take up to 20 points of damage and it actually gained Defense Dice as it did. Up to 8 die total making it harder to damage as the game went on. And only the person who got the kill shots on the cube and/sphere got the battle points for them.
The strategy then was to be the last person to shoot the cube. Control of the cube went back and forth between the players. The cube each turn would move and then could make one attack at 12 die, 2 attacks a 7, or 3 attacks at 5. In my games I lost a ship to a one shot 12 die attack each time. Thankfully that was all I lost.
In reading the forums others seem to think this was a fun scenario. We shall see if that holds up as people start playing it competitively instead of just testing.
Once you killed the cube a sphere appeared and made a beeline for the farthest table edge. To get the points for it you had to kill it before it got off the table. It was thankfully easier to down than the cube.
Overall I like the concept of a co-op scenario. It feels very Trek. But this one more than the others didn't really seem well thought out. Whiz Kids as always could stand a bit more planning and testing.
The next Op Series is Resistance is Futile.. most likely centered around events on Voyager.
Meanwhile i need to get in some actual friendly games for a change and get back to talking about cards and ships :)
Until next time..resistance is a word that begins with R
shadoe42
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Busy Busy Busy
Capt's Log Star date where does the time go?
Greetings. My apologies for being absent the last couple weeks. Things are finally starting to move at the new job a bit and my fall music gig season has kicked off. Oblagoatory link :) My Irish/Nautical music page Basically I am what is termed a Celtic Pirate. I do Ren Faires, pubs, fests, etc that cater to the Irish/Celtic music crowd with a heavy dose of Nautically/Piratically oriented tunes as well. Currently performing at the Kansas City Renassaince Festival. Will be here until mid Oct with the exception of Setp 27/28 where I will be in Wichita for the Great Plans Ren Faire that weekend.
Anyway back to the topic at hand.. STAW! Tonight is Collective OP 3 at the shop. And I honestly find I am going only because I want to see what is in the new boosters. I have no real chance of winning and also find I am not really prepared mentally to deal with the power builds in a friend fashion. The downside to competitive play. And I still have no idea what I will fly fleet wise. Maybe will actually add in a flagship or some such this time.
I have read the scenario and its another co-op type where you cannot shoot your opponent but you can use abilities on them. This one unlike the last one may turn out different in that people may actually work to shut you down. You then have to fight a Borg cube followed by the escape sphere. Could be interesting.
The latest Wave of ships was released recently as well. The Enterprise NX-01, the Borg Scout Cube, and the Vulcan Ni'Vaar. The Ni'Vaar is a retail version of the Ti'Mur prize ship. It will however give a third Vulcan ship to fly. I may end up with one of all three of these as the Scout Cube stats are more in line with the rest of STAW than the big cube and sphere.
I wish there was more of a casual play group around here but doesn't seem to be one. Need to find a few people willing to start one.
Will be back with a report as I am sure in the end I will go play in the OP. Again if nothing else to see what is in the blind boosters :)
Until Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!(Thank you Kasey!)
shadoe42
Greetings. My apologies for being absent the last couple weeks. Things are finally starting to move at the new job a bit and my fall music gig season has kicked off. Oblagoatory link :) My Irish/Nautical music page Basically I am what is termed a Celtic Pirate. I do Ren Faires, pubs, fests, etc that cater to the Irish/Celtic music crowd with a heavy dose of Nautically/Piratically oriented tunes as well. Currently performing at the Kansas City Renassaince Festival. Will be here until mid Oct with the exception of Setp 27/28 where I will be in Wichita for the Great Plans Ren Faire that weekend.
Anyway back to the topic at hand.. STAW! Tonight is Collective OP 3 at the shop. And I honestly find I am going only because I want to see what is in the new boosters. I have no real chance of winning and also find I am not really prepared mentally to deal with the power builds in a friend fashion. The downside to competitive play. And I still have no idea what I will fly fleet wise. Maybe will actually add in a flagship or some such this time.
I have read the scenario and its another co-op type where you cannot shoot your opponent but you can use abilities on them. This one unlike the last one may turn out different in that people may actually work to shut you down. You then have to fight a Borg cube followed by the escape sphere. Could be interesting.
The latest Wave of ships was released recently as well. The Enterprise NX-01, the Borg Scout Cube, and the Vulcan Ni'Vaar. The Ni'Vaar is a retail version of the Ti'Mur prize ship. It will however give a third Vulcan ship to fly. I may end up with one of all three of these as the Scout Cube stats are more in line with the rest of STAW than the big cube and sphere.
I wish there was more of a casual play group around here but doesn't seem to be one. Need to find a few people willing to start one.
Will be back with a report as I am sure in the end I will go play in the OP. Again if nothing else to see what is in the blind boosters :)
Until Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!(Thank you Kasey!)
shadoe42
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
..aboard this tiny ship
Capt's log Stardate ...the science vessel? Really?
Well first post via ipad. We shall see how it goes.
Played Dominion War 2 tonight. Won 1 Lost 2 but had good showings in my losses.
The set up for this one is a planet in the middle of the table with an orbital weapons platform at the cardinal map points. These platforms shoot at the closest ship out to range 2 with a 4 die attack.
I was running a slightly different build. The Valdore with toerth as capt. Romulan tactical officer as crew, counter attack, plasma torpedoes.
Then i had the Yeager with Picard and Tom Paris, proton torps, and cheat death.
Then with the 13 pts i had left i had a wild hair and took the generic romulan science vessel with the 1 skill generic capt. For a 99 pt build.
The valdore could reroll a target lock use twice thanks to the tac officr. Toreth allowed a hit to convert to a crit and if i used a green manuever i added an attack die.
Picard meanwhile gained an extra defense die via Paris and cheat death would keep the ship alive a bit longer. Although it only came into play once.
I could have used my extra points to add a flagship or a fleet capt but i am still trying to stick to my 'non power' build strategy. Crazy i know :)
The first game i faced a pretty well stacked federation build. Lots of rerolls and dice control. However defensively the dice gods were with me all evening. I was consistantly rolling four ,five, even six evades. On the flip side i was only able to inflict a portion of my possible damage.
The first game i managed to destroy one of my opponents ships before he got all three of mine.
The little rom sci ship was the last to go. It flew around and just kept pinging away with its one attack die. The little guy is quite nimble however and i was able to keep him out of the firing line more often than not.
Second game was an all klingon build..cloaking vs partial cloacking. This time the dice gods were with me fully. I was still rolling hot on my defense but my attack dice finally showed up and my opponent was running very very cold on defense. Watched him whiff several times with no evades and mostly blanks on 6 dice. It hurt me a bit to watch it. And again the little science ship that could proved his worth actually getting the killing blow on one of the opposing ships...go go 1 die attacks!!
The third game was a mixes fed and klingon build. I was still rolling fairly well on defense but my attack dice started to cool and his defense was heating up...and in the end his dice control proved my undoing. But i still manage to get two of of his ships. In this game however the little sci vessel got overconfident and to far ahead of his mates and paid the ultimate price.
Overall that little guy more than proved his worth.
The main telling feature in these games was dice control. Being able to convert misses to hits. All three games came to a quick head right in the middle of the right side of the table mostly away from the weapon platforms. However trying to stay away from them did not leave you much room to move and there was more ship bumping tonight then i have seen yet.
It was an enjoyable event. I got to play opponents i had not faced before which was also a plus. In the end i kept my place as top romulan commander....course there are only two of us :)
In two weeks comes Collective 3 .... Oy haha
Before then more posts of course. Tonights games gave me a couple ideas for the next posts. Moving strategies..build possibilities out of the norm etc
Until then never ignore the tiny ship!!
Shadoe42
Make sure you check out all of the posts for the Blaugust Initiative
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Well first post via ipad. We shall see how it goes.
Played Dominion War 2 tonight. Won 1 Lost 2 but had good showings in my losses.
The set up for this one is a planet in the middle of the table with an orbital weapons platform at the cardinal map points. These platforms shoot at the closest ship out to range 2 with a 4 die attack.
I was running a slightly different build. The Valdore with toerth as capt. Romulan tactical officer as crew, counter attack, plasma torpedoes.
Then i had the Yeager with Picard and Tom Paris, proton torps, and cheat death.
Then with the 13 pts i had left i had a wild hair and took the generic romulan science vessel with the 1 skill generic capt. For a 99 pt build.
The valdore could reroll a target lock use twice thanks to the tac officr. Toreth allowed a hit to convert to a crit and if i used a green manuever i added an attack die.
Picard meanwhile gained an extra defense die via Paris and cheat death would keep the ship alive a bit longer. Although it only came into play once.
I could have used my extra points to add a flagship or a fleet capt but i am still trying to stick to my 'non power' build strategy. Crazy i know :)
The first game i faced a pretty well stacked federation build. Lots of rerolls and dice control. However defensively the dice gods were with me all evening. I was consistantly rolling four ,five, even six evades. On the flip side i was only able to inflict a portion of my possible damage.
The first game i managed to destroy one of my opponents ships before he got all three of mine.
The little rom sci ship was the last to go. It flew around and just kept pinging away with its one attack die. The little guy is quite nimble however and i was able to keep him out of the firing line more often than not.
Second game was an all klingon build..cloaking vs partial cloacking. This time the dice gods were with me fully. I was still rolling hot on my defense but my attack dice finally showed up and my opponent was running very very cold on defense. Watched him whiff several times with no evades and mostly blanks on 6 dice. It hurt me a bit to watch it. And again the little science ship that could proved his worth actually getting the killing blow on one of the opposing ships...go go 1 die attacks!!
The third game was a mixes fed and klingon build. I was still rolling fairly well on defense but my attack dice started to cool and his defense was heating up...and in the end his dice control proved my undoing. But i still manage to get two of of his ships. In this game however the little sci vessel got overconfident and to far ahead of his mates and paid the ultimate price.
Overall that little guy more than proved his worth.
The main telling feature in these games was dice control. Being able to convert misses to hits. All three games came to a quick head right in the middle of the right side of the table mostly away from the weapon platforms. However trying to stay away from them did not leave you much room to move and there was more ship bumping tonight then i have seen yet.
It was an enjoyable event. I got to play opponents i had not faced before which was also a plus. In the end i kept my place as top romulan commander....course there are only two of us :)
In two weeks comes Collective 3 .... Oy haha
Before then more posts of course. Tonights games gave me a couple ideas for the next posts. Moving strategies..build possibilities out of the norm etc
Until then never ignore the tiny ship!!
Shadoe42
Make sure you check out all of the posts for the Blaugust Initiative
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Monday, August 18, 2014
New gaming mat
Capts Log Stardate - Getting my creative on!
For a while now I have wanted a new star field gaming mat. Two weeks ago I obtained the felt but had not had time to sit down and paint the star field. So when I got home from lunch I decided..today is the day.
First I sat down and looked at some images. Orion has long been my favored constellation so i wanted to incorporate that. I found the following image on the web.
Then spent probably just under and hour to produce the mat below. for a first try I like it a lot. I may end up doing a second to try to get a brighter image but all in all this will work well.
I have also considered using the splatter method to add some depth of star field but I am afraid I may end up cluttering the mat.
Until next time - I shall by a beret and call myself picaso!
shadoe42
Make sure you check out all of the posts for the Blaugust Initiative
For a while now I have wanted a new star field gaming mat. Two weeks ago I obtained the felt but had not had time to sit down and paint the star field. So when I got home from lunch I decided..today is the day.
First I sat down and looked at some images. Orion has long been my favored constellation so i wanted to incorporate that. I found the following image on the web.
Then spent probably just under and hour to produce the mat below. for a first try I like it a lot. I may end up doing a second to try to get a brighter image but all in all this will work well.
I have also considered using the splatter method to add some depth of star field but I am afraid I may end up cluttering the mat.
Until next time - I shall by a beret and call myself picaso!
shadoe42
Make sure you check out all of the posts for the Blaugust Initiative
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