Analog Games

       Earlier this year a different game I dabble with was having a debate.  There was an option that gave a unit a second armor save on a 5+.  The common response was this meant it had 33% more health.  A better response was 50%.  These are both incorrect.  To hit that conclusion took a bit of math, and I was also curious how to apply these calculations to Legion.   [Math Section Begins]      Effective health is essentially the health of the model taking into account its armor save.  Armor saves are a quasi-infinite chain.  As long as you keep making them, you don't lose health.  You can model this as a series of events: This is a geometric series.  It can be expressed more succinctly as: Thankfully, as the odds of an armor save are always lower than 1 it also converges!  This means that it nicely collapses down to this: Finally,  I was curious about Dodges here too: The real wrinkle with do...

Did poorly I did Pretty much as the title says!  0.  Turn Zero:  Important      I need to do a better job with turn zero, specifically the scenario card.  While the other cards could be annoying the scenario card itself easily was the most important of the three.  Questions to ask:  is their list better at range?[vaps]  Is their list more mobile?[bombing run/breakthrough] Can they force payload?  1. Naked Troopers: Bad      10 activations is important but getting there by including more than 1-2 naked troop units while playing with all your toys isn't great.  It results in too large a part of your army that isn't doing any lifting.  Better to cut back the toys to make sure the foundation is strong.  Most armies can't make up for that deficit(Padme Yoda Saber can die in a fire)   2.  Dice Fixing: Good     Much like playing with and without Aggressive tactics for CIS, it was reall...

So my extended second "holiday" is now over, posting to this blog has been disrupted thanks to work, and I've been enjoying reading retrospects in other blogs.  So how has 2015 been in gaming personally? Miniature Games: Warmachine/Hordes: * This deserves a far larger post, but this was a really awful year for WM/H.  All the factions I care about either didn't get anything or had a boat load of horrible releases.  As an example, who thinks for one release cycle what Khador really needs is all jacks and half of them should be MAT 5?   Even then it was actually giving eZaal a fair shake was the straw that broke the camel's back.  I shouldn't get annoyed playing a game I'm supposed to enjoy and WM has sadly reached that point.  Currently I'm taking a break to see if that helps. Malifaux:  *** I played a little Mk2 back in DFW but it never really caught on then as too many of the models weren't released.  In SC I've now gotten about ...

It was a nice surprise to actually find a Shadowfist group in SV soon after I moved here.  For all its faults and age Shadowfist has actually been a lot of fun to play multiplayer.  Much like EDH, this would have never worked with my gaming groups in DFW and EDH was something I was interested in trying for some time. So what do I enjoy about Shadowfist?  Sure nostalgia plays a big part but I also enjoy the setting and at this point the depth of the card pool.  My three favorites: Architects When it comes to its settings Shadowfist is a bit of a mess that only 90s gaming could produce.  For example:  The Architects.  Rulers of the far future juncture who use said junctures to travel back in time, capture ancient demons and genetically engineer them into super soldiers.  These go down the line and hit all my archetypical favs when it comes to factions.  Sadly they aren't supported in Modern :/(another typical occurrence for factions ...

So recent events have me dabbling in Malifaux again.  The difficulty here has been settling on a faction.  There are three primary problems:  1. There isn't a single faction with both strong and broad appeal, 2. My traditional method for deciding upon a faction/MMO character class/etc. haven't really worked out, 3. Faction ADD is real.  While I already own much of what is below Malifaux is detailed enough that focusing on a faction and a few masters to really grok seems important.  Current thoughts: Neverborn   Across every Master in Malifaux, the above two masters are personal favorites.   Darby and Not-Char are both cool thematically and I enjoy their playstyle too.  The real issue is the rest of the Neverborn.  I can't really say I like the look of any of their other masters and many of the other options in the faction leave me cold(teddy bears = no, horrors = yes). What the Neverborn have going for them is they are a tradit...

Warmachine/Hordes( - - ) I could go into a list of details but eZaal was really the straw that broke the camel's back.  I shouldn't get annoyed at a game I spend my time, money and energy on and he sadly pushed it to that point.  After playing him for a bit I just couldn't work up the energy to finish painting anything Warmachine either which isn't a good sign.  Even the 6 year late Errata didn't rekindle my interest. It's more of a trial separation at this point.  I'm off into the miniature gaming wilderness away from the current Holy Trilogy to discover what I find out there.  It's been 2-3 weeks.  Part of me wishes I could say I miss WM. Doomtown ( + + ) Outside of some shake ups with when DT is played and dealing with the fall out from that, I'm still really loving DT.  The new factions are great and I'm happy enough puttering about with side decks after Gencon(Turns out DR Hucksters is still good because when push comes to shove you...

A review of the just released Nightmare at Noon. Stolen completely from stim hack, the follow metric will be used: 5 – Great One of the strongest cards in the game: it’s powerful and always useful. It’s surprising to see a deck that doesn’t play this card in-faction. 4 – Good A good card that sees plenty of play. It’s not necessarily the best choice for every deck, but you can put it in your deck and know that it will do something for you. 3 – Playable You can’t just throw this card in any deck and expect it to do something for you, but it can be good in the right context. 2 – Weak This card isn’t good enough to be worth playing. The decks it fits tightly into are not well suited for competitive play. The stars might align such that it fits into a competitive deck, but even then it’s generally worse than a more straightforwardly good card. 1 – Bad This card sucks. doomtown db  should eventually have the full spoilers up. Junior DG - 3 If only his abili...

Thanks to graduate school I haven't been able to attend Gencon recently.  First, a gallery of all the pictures from the con that can be found here: http://imgur.com/a/CochH Overall it was a great time.  I managed to see and do a ton.  According to Fitbit it was a mere 50 miles walked over the last week.  Some more detailed impressions: Doomtown(+): I had a great time playing Doomtown and managed to come in 3rd on Sunday in the finals.  While it was a ton of Doomtown for the con, the tournaments ran well and I paid the iron price for a bunch of swag.  Thanks to restocks, Nightmare at Noon and Immovable Object, Unstoppable Force were also welcome purchases(really didn't expect that new pine box early). I'm going to try to post my deck and some thoughts on DTDB sometime this week. FFG(-): Their booth was a mess of a neverending line.  I would have liked to pick up GoT 2nd but it would require far too much effort.  The next wave of Impe...

The line 30 mins before it opened Game Kastle held another swap meet.  As I learned from my first one of these, this is a fairly big deal.  Sadly, while I have plenty of things I would love to sell I didn't really have time to organize properly for this one.  This is especially true as I try to get ready for Gencon. It was still something I wanted to go to.  There were plenty of incredible deals at the last one and I can at least look for some of the rare games or rarer miniatures I wouldn't mind picking up. While there was plenty of 40k and WHFB at the last one, there was even more WHFB this time around.  It's almost like something drastic happened there.  Beyond that it was a smattering of board games, popular miniature games and random junk(Why you think anyone wants your hand painted map of an underground cultist layer is beyond me). The line from the half way point right before it opened Still, I can't complain about what I found.  Th...

In a similar vein to the DT prep, I'm looking for feedback on what Armada list to fly.  My current core is this:  Imperial list.   From there, I have some variants with the remaining points: 1.  Two Squads of TIEs and a Gunnery Team for the VSD. 2.  Two Squads of TIEs and Expanded Hanger Bays for the VSD.  This allows the VSD to activate all 3 Bombers and an escort at the same time. 3.  Lose a single Advanced.  From there add the Gunnery Team, maybe the Expanded Hanger Bays and 3 TIEs. 4. Two more Interceptors.  Giving the list more anti-fighter answers. I don't think there is anything particularly unique about this build or the above variants.  Gunnery Teams should help soften up multiple ship lists significantly as the VSD is effectively a carrier.  Allowing the VSD to fire the main batteries and anti-squadron out the front is nice too. It is also refreshing to play Fighters Squads on the Imperial side that weren't a...

So Gencon is less than two weeks away.  It's past time to settle on a deck and get final testing done.  Currently, Desolation Row is still the deck to beat but there are options in other factions that are also good.  The Desolation Row deck is a good template for shooter decks from other factions too. Starting with the aforementioned Desolation Row:   this is the deck  that I took to my local recent Sheriff's event.  I used that starting posse for most games.  Against Deedslide or Clowns Fred Aims went in with his infinite influence(note both of those decks should run The Evidence) and against decks that wanted to fight I switched out Allie or Makaio for Angelica.  In retrospect I should probably start Angelica, Sanford, Travis, Jake and Makaio.  Starting with two studs has been very very important.  Modern shooter decks have incredibly odds to have the ability to debuff one of them so it's an important to have a backup before starti...

A review of the just released No Turning Back. Stolen completely from stim hack, the follow metric will be used: 5 – Great One of the strongest cards in the game: it’s powerful and always useful. It’s surprising to see a deck that doesn’t play this card in-faction. 4 – Good A good card that sees plenty of play. It’s not necessarily the best choice for every deck, but you can put it in your deck and know that it will do something for you. 3 – Playable You can’t just throw this card in any deck and expect it to do something for you, but it can be good in the right context. 2 – Weak This card isn’t good enough to be worth playing. The decks it fits tightly into are not well suited for competitive play. The stars might align such that it fits into a competitive deck, but even then it’s generally worse than a more straightforwardly good card. 1 – Bad This card sucks. doomtown db should eventually have the full spoilers up. Avie Cline DG - 5: If anything L5R taught me that Harpoons are ...