rustybolt

I was showing some friends last night how to play warlord. I took 1k of necro stuff and 1k of razig guys as my demo force. To keep it really simple i used no magic or equipment on either force. It was razig and 9 bone marines in one troupe and lebone and skeletal crewman in the other troupe. For the necro army i used judas and 9 crimson knights and azarphan and some skelly warriors in the other troupe. As the game started nothing really happened for a bit while the knights moved up and the pirates single moved for a turn or two. Once the necro guys got into range though the pirates opened up on them and took out a few skellies and dinged 3 of the knights down 2 tracks. The next round the knights double moved and didn't do much else. The crewman openedup again on the skellies and tore down a few more of em and the knights took more damage and lost a mini. The next round of combat ended up with the knights almost in b2b and taking point blank picket line shots. The skellies got almost completely finished off at this point with only azarphan and one skelly still up. So at this point it looks real rough for the necro army. About 4 of the knights are damaged one had to make a tough check and made it. One of the knights is gone and the pirates are undamaged. Up until the next round that is. My friends found out just how rough warmaster is. In the next few rounds one of the players kept making tough checks on the knights and just decimating the marines in close combat. During the same rounds the skellies and azarphan went poof and the crewman came over to help sandwich the knights. So i'm thinking that the necro guys get squished and the game is all over right? Nope. To my surprise the knights and judas clean up all but 2 of the marines, a few crewman, stun lebone and take razig out comepletely. At the end of a few rounds of defensive warmaster hits the game is called and the necro army takes a win. My question is since the pirates are my wifes army and they obviously seemed outmanned with the troops i took once close combat started, should i have taken some of the zombie guys and left the crewman at home? I was thinking that if the crew and marines set up an angle of fire it would have helped cut down the knights with shots as they engaged the marines in close combat. I was just running it though so i didn't want to give them too much strategy advice. Questions or comments would be most helpful here.

Well i'm still pretty new to warlord but spent a mint on the game already. I have at a pretty loose guess around 2500 to 3k necropolis. And for the wife she has probably 2k to 2500 razigs. My big list though is for cav. I can put on the table the last i figured around 21k and change. I'm working on painting up my warlord stuff now got all the necro guys primed and put together just taking my time with painting em up. Moslty one coat of this color or that color but nothing that i would say is done. The wife has yet have me prime her pirate guys for her.

So these 3d printers you guys have mentioned. How exactly does that translate to a plastic or metal mini? I'm a machinist by trade so i can understand getting an autocad program to make a mold of something that makes a program for said mold etc etc. And from there you go with some kind of injection with plastics or aluminum molds that you use with soft metal injection or lost metal foundry work with harder metals. But what kind of techno goodies are we talking about process wise of how you go from i'm assuming a laser 3d scan of something to actual figure on the table? I'm a geek at heart but i've never heard of those production processes to render a resin based plastic figure from scan of a master to actual figure in one step. Would be cool if somebody had an idea of what i could geek out on with a google search. Later

Well the milnet guys did post some beta rules for some much needed changes last friday to ccv involving infantry. Some of the rules are clunky atm but better then the pdf rules by a bunch. Look on the main page and look up the articles page and click the link to see em. Whenever somebody says vehicle vs cav in close combat i laugh. We used to take bets with newer btech players and made a killing money wise on this one. Imagine 100 tons of savanah masters vs any 100 ton mech and who would you bet wins? With the charge rule you would sacrifice a few savanah masters to deleg the mech then charge it till it died. You never had to fire a weapon. In cav i'd like to see a charge rule down the road. Just think of kamikazi stripped gunships flying around the board as weaponless bombs. Makes you smile don't it? But on the other hand cav is not btech and its simplified for a reason. It might not all be logical to the real world but the simple rules makes game play quick and fun instead of drawn out for hours at a time trying to get the max straight line charge damage. I don't play btech anymore because of the length of the game and the tediousness of the data keeping. In cav yeah there are some bumps with some of the rules...and the overall worthlessness of the majority of the minis in the game( see my post on the milnet forum under minis you would never use to get my view point) but the simple gameplay does have a kind of charm. Just keep the games on a 4 x 8 foot table with moderate cover and 5k points and most of those things work themselves out ok.

Anybody have any info on what if any faction doctrines you get for the pirates? My wife has a bunch of it otw thru the mail for her to play but i can't find any info on what they get. As is my necro guys won't scare more undead stuff very easy so it should be kinda fun.

Well stealing from my btech days here let me try to explain the exp stat. By no means is this factual just my pure guess. But i would say that if i'm getting better as a pilot i would want either to not be in the fray...therefore living longer...or i would want the biggest most armored...therefore most likely to get me home kinda ride i can find. If you look at the data cards the bigger assault cavs all have 8ish exp in the first track. Most middle of the road cavs and recon units have 5 to 6 ish in the first track. The biggest disparity i noticed looking thru the data cards quickly is that the terrans and ritters get more higher exp boosts then the rest of the factions. That might have to be looked at at some point to get some balance there. Well by reading the rules they got up they say after the cc phase is done then damage is applied. Yeah the breakout rule is a bit chunky but hey its beta rules so they want the community to use em for a bit and try em out to see what/if they need to be polished up. As it is now as long as you get to activate first you get the chance to get away from cc. Before it was certain death.

Man you warm weather freaks kill me. In ohio after a long winter 45 degrees outside is a no jacket smoke break at work weather. You can golf up to 50 degrees with no jacket on. Hell i dont even break out my shorts till its 65 outside. Of course living on the erie shore makes for some hardy folks hehe.

Well going thru the list of spells it seems that clerics have it pretty good. Good cheap heal spells. I don't fully understand the problem? If the problem is that it doen't hit then i guess they should be more devote eh? I play a necro army and for me to heal anything i have to be fighting the right kind of army and be lucky with where i have my vamps and or mage. That is even if i'm playing vamps or choose the life sucker type spells...which are more expensive then heal 1's btw. I just got my wife the razig faction and from what i can see her choices are even smaller as far as healing goes. Like i said i just don't fully understand the nature of the problem here.

Well i just a little playtest with the 8 mini army vs a pretty big skelly grunt army with the grave horror and vandrian as a solo. Had lots of archers who did nothing...the skelly warriors are just sad vs an adept crimson knight...and given that i outran my army with vandrian he doesn't do too well vs those knights and judas. Ran it thru 6 turns before my scotch starting kickin in but i can tell you that up to that point...oh my god do i like that little army setup. Now of course this is vs just more necro trash mobs some middle of the road leader types and 2 solo minis. I'm sure vs a different faction that it would be a very different story. But even 6 to 8 of at a time with a captain or sgt and a totem of battle helping out it just is wrong how easy you blow thru the grunt mobs. Now i gotta get my buddy up to speed so i can try it out on him. He's on vacation now but he's ordering some stuff when he gets back in town. Bound to be fun.

Well i'm trying to save playtesting time by bouncing ideas off the board. I just got all my necro stuff today in the mail and went thru a marathon glue trim and basing session. I got my warriors most of judas, malek the archers and athak and azarphan all based and put together. Sir vandian was a pain and the crimson knights are still in the box. I'll finish glueing everybody together tomorrow when the glue buzz wears off. I would prefer to use the calvalry approach and then fill out with cheap grunts but i have yet to buy any of em and the wife is thinking of getting into warlord as well. So my next mini purchase spree will be for whatever faction she fancies. I did a real rough count and all told i could probably field somewhere in the area of 1600 to 1800 points with no upgrades or spells. That should get me by ok i think for a bit. At least till the wife starts to fill out whatever it is that she wants to play. Then of course i'll have to get something else to beat her Thanks for the advice here. I know in cav the quickest way to lose is by paying thru the nose for upgrades ..was just curious to see if the same held true in this game as well.

Well here is another list that i was kicking around. Different concept but still 1k army. Judas bloodspire upgraded with the avenger, greater magical armor 346 pts crimson knights x 6 each upgraded with magical weapon 504 pts Malek upgraded with gruesome familiar and magical protection with spells ice blast x1 bolt x3 rigor mortis x 2 141 pts Basically i'm trying to get the biggest beafiest adepts and warlord i can get with some decent magic support. Would the fewer amount of troops hurt me or since they all have decent damage tracks could i do ok?

Quick thing i forgot. The est bubble is established regardless of a target lock...or even if you dont use the target point location from the recon unit. And any other unit can target a seperate spot for their target/target point roll as long as you consider type of fire and weapons etc.

No the action or the attempt on the target lock gets you the target point location. That is one action. The EST fires off as a result of the target lock action. If you want to chain in any other units that is considered a seperate action even though it factors into the range of the increments of the target point roll. Or 24 inch range band. But if you want to just use the recon minis higher tc value as a result of est then you go off of the longest weapon on the data card to establish range bands. On the panther if i remember right its what a 28 inch range? The bad thing is then each of your fire support get to make their own target point roll....just with the plus 3 stacked on top. In the case of a recon unit wanting to add to the rav roll of some direct fire units you would need los to the enemy model from any of the units that wanted a DF action and then fire if you like or not from the recon mini (given it had los also for the DF action). That is why so many people hide the recon mini behind other cavs or terrain to block los from the enemy and still use the techy stuff. The rest of the section....as long as they are within the aoe of the est bubble get the tc value of the recon unit added to their roll. It may seem like i'm running around a bush here but that is the general consensus that the mil-net guys and reaper decided how that all worked. Recon units will win or lose you the game as the bonuses that they give your army is huge.

Forgot one point here. If i'm moving my fire support units they can't do a target lock action and fire in the same activation so they lose the tc twice bonus. So if you do the same routine as above minus the cfp attempt and the panther moves he gets tc of 3 as a bonus to his target point roll...which gives the rest of the sectoin...as long as they in the in the aoe a plus 3 to their target point roll. The rest of the conquerors try for their shot at tc of 2 plus the est bonus of 3 and gives them a plus 5 total to the target point roll.

Ok i'll run thru the list and you can grab what you need from it. Repeatable actions are like move repair. Non-repeatable are fire reform section specialty action, (like fist or the engineer sa). The list is longer then that but its in the pdf and i'm sure you can reference it quicker then i could type it all out. Your repeatable and non-repeatable actions directly relate to what you can get away with from a recon unit and how they relate to the rest of the section during one phase of activation. Say i take a panther who has a tc of 3. I want to target lock and then chain fire in some other fire support units in. The only way i can do both is if that recon unit doesn't move. Since target lock and cfp is two actions from the panther. For the mechanic of it to target lock simply add up my models tc twice...a function of the target lock action. So that panther gets a bonus of plus 6 to his target point roll. As a function of trying for a target lock the est on the model goes off also. That bonus my panther doesn't get mind you just his tc twice. So if i get my target point roll that i want i can chain in the other units of my section that want to IF that spot if i want...remember that the cfp has a range band of 24 inches.....and the penalties are applied to the drift if i fail the target point roll. Even if i fail with the target point that i want from the panther i can still try with my fire support units to get a favorable target point roll. They would all declare the spot they wanted then add up their tc twice..plus the tc value of the panther...an effect of est going off. The rav of IF shots is never reduced just the location of the target point roll. So if you really want the math broken down here goes. I try for a target lock inside of 24 inch range band of my cfp. In the same section i have 3 conquerors. They are all inside of 3 inches of the panther. So panther gets his tc twice so plus 6 to the target point roll. He fails and rolls a 3. A total of 9 means he drifts. So now i'm drifting and don't like the spot. As a function of the target lock attempt the conquerors get a plus 3 to whatever they shoot be it IF or direct fire till the start of my next activation as long as they stay within the aoe of the sa EST. They all declare the same initial spot that the panther wanted. First one attempts his target lock. He adds his tc twice and gets 4..then adds in the friendly est bonus of 3. So i get a plus 7 to my roll and make it with say a 4 on the dice. Now i have a choice. I can either cfp the other two conquerors in and not fire with the first locking mini or let them get their own spot ...since conquerors also have the cfp sa on the data card. Another point is now that i failed with the panther and never tried to cfp the other minis in i have one action left..be it move ecm..whatever. When it starts to get complicated is when you factor in range bands of the IF shots or long range from the recon units for range bands on the target lock action/target point roll. Also enemy ecm bubbles affect and add to the difficulty of the target point roll. Last point is no you dont need LoS for an attempted target lock/target point roll. Any other questions please dont be shy...hope i helped you out some.