roe_games

[relieved] Whew... I thought it was just me and that Santa found out about all those rotten things that I had done. [/relieved] You will realize, however, that I didn't specify a Christmas 2005 release. Curses, foiled again. In that case I wish to change my answer. The Crusader large boxed set AND book will be out before a Christmas! The Swami has spoken.

[wink] I can safely answer this one now. Ummm.... NO. Drawing upon my vast experience as a retailer and coupled with my ability to read a calendar I firmly predict that the Crusader large boxed set and the faction book will miss a Christmas release date. Tune back in Jan. 2nd for my prediction on a "before the end of the year" release. /wink]

A healer model may use an Invoke action to remove a point of damage from a model that it is in Base to Base contact with. Wow, that's heartless, nasty, dangerous and I love it. Hmmm, I see visions of Ironraven flanked by knights to keep the enemy from ganging up, with Halbarad in back to heal and 2 of these guys on his rear base side. Expensive unit but dang!

What made the difference here at our little store was the BL program and demonstrating the game. Once people saw the miniatures painted up, people playing the game and got to demo with both the system and the miniatures it pretty much exploded. Our little shop went from having the two books we opened with last November (1st printing) and about 10 of the minis that people had ordered for D&D Characters to... Every miniature in the line with 2 blisters of all adepts and 3 of each grunt model. We also have about 12 people signed up on the reaper board and reporting games played here at the store and at home. So, if you're interested in getting Warlord going in your area I recommend signing up for the Black Lightning demo team, getting 2 small factions painted up and get your FLGS to give up a little room and support (flyers or whatever). If you can get that done then people will see the game and miniatures and you'll win over new converts/opponents. Just my $.02 Steve

Has there been any official word from the reaper-peeps about what the SA Healer on the Hospitlers does? I have been scanning the board but haven't seen anything yet.

Here is one of the boards. It's a snowy mountain entrance. We'll say it's for the dwarves. The terrain is impassable rocks and light woods. If it has trees the entire terrain piece is light woods. If there are no trees the base doesn't matter and the rocks are the only terrain. As I get a chance I'll post pictures of some of the other tourney boards but we store them in a rack and I can't move them by myself. Closer picture of the rock face and doors. That's a 4' X 8' table. The lakes are poured apoxy resin and tough as nails. They're also slippery so mini's have to watch their footing. We have 6 other tables done up like those and as I can get them down from the rack and set up I'll take pictures of those. OK, edit 1 - Those pictures are huge. Sorry about that. My computer savvy (or lack thereof) shines through again. EDIT 2 - Woot, I made the pics smaller. I guess I am trainable!!! What do y'all think of that table? I will likely be starting a thread later today and posting pics of our tables and terrain later. Then other folks can put up their stuff and we can steal ideas... I mean share ideas with each other. Steve

I have had a couple of people PM me to ask about Swiss Pairing. So here goes. When I do tournaments I like it and so do the players when they all get to play in all of the rounds. So rather than single or double elimination we run our tournaments using swiss pairing. The way we do this is as follows: First round of the tournament is random pairing. second round of the tournament the 2 highest ranked people play one another, then the next 2 etc. Rounds 3+ The highest 2 are paired off UNLESS they have already played one another. Because of this you need a minimum of eight people to run a 4 round swiss and assure that no two players have to play one another twice. It is possible though unlikely that in round 3 the top two will have already played but if that happens havinf played one another takes precedence so pait 1 with 3 and 2 with 4. Debugging like that becomes more likely in later rounds or with less participants. How to determine points per round: a win is worth 15 points a tie is worth 7 points to each player (this is to make it mathematically disadvantageous for "buddies" to play to an intentional tie) a loss is worth 5 points In addition to the points for win/loss/draw each scenario will have bonus point assessments. Example: If you killed the enemies Warlord/most expensive leader +1 BP If your most powerful spell caster (CP and spell levels) died -1 BP If you have no units (soloes don't count) with more than half of their members alive -1 BP If you have the only unit above half strength within 8" (even one member within 8") of the farmhouse +1 BP Using the example above, two people in the tourney play to the following results: Fred won the game 15 points Fred's Senior Caster died -1 BP Fred got spanked and all of his units were below 1/2 -1 BP Fred's total - 13 points Agnes lost the game 5 points Agnes killed Fred's Warlord +1 BP Agnes "controlled" the farmhouse +1 BP Agnes' total - 7 points Other games John - 16 points Ted - 4 points Ed - 15 points Jenn - 6 points Jamie - 17 points Sean - 6 points So in round 2 we'd be looking at Jamie(17) against John(16) Ed(15) against Fred(13) Agnes(7) against Jenn or Sean both at 6 so we dice it. It comes up Sean Jenn(6) against Ted(4) In the next round we add new points to existing totals and pair the top 2, next 2 etc. Making sure no one is paired with someone twice. By the end of 4 rounds there should be a clear winner and in case of a tie it's broken by sportsmanship. At the end of each round the players will fill out a battle report. They'll rank their opponent on sportsmanship and their opponent's army on painting and composition. For sportsmanship I recommend that you let them rank their opponent from 1-10 and be very clear up front what a 10 is. When I run these events I have a quote on the battle report indicating 10, 8, 5, 3 and 1. Example for 10: Best opponent that I have EVER played. He/she went out of their way to make the game fun for us both and knew the rules well. I'd let him/her date my brother/sister. I'd drive an hour to play this person. 8: Knows the rules well. Worked to keep the game fun and moving quickly. Great opponent to play against. 5: We struggled with rules OR this opponent was OK to play against. 3: That could have gone better. It was pretty clear that this opponent wasn't too interested in making this fun. 1: If I draw this opponent in a tournament again I'll just forfeit. I'd rather stick my face in a blender than play him/her again. Rules lawyer, "No, that's 1/16th of an inch shy from the middle of the base. See, I have a laser range finder right here!" OK, that said... in tournaments, especially those with prizes people have been know to unjustly torpedo sportsmanship and painting scores of their opponents. Judges here walk the floor and keep an eye out and we have been known to raise the Bravo Sierra flag on folks like this. Usually taking them aside and asking for specifics will get them to change their vote if it's unjust. At the end of the tourney we'll award the prizes for Overall Champion(most points from wins and bonus points) Sportsmanship (as voted on by opponents) Painting (As voted on by judges with player input counting as 1 judge) Army Composition (as voted on by players and totally subjective - Basically just a cool idea for an army based on theme etc) As an afterthought, we usually assign scenario to the table and people rotate between tables. Another option is to play scenario A in the first round and everyone plays the same scenario. Then re-pair them up and bust out scenario B. It's a matter of personal preference. If anyone else has any questions fire them up in this thread and I'll keep up with it. Steve

Kansas City? On purpose? Folks here at the store said to tell you "If you're skeeeeeeeeerd, just say you're scared!" They were being funny since I was the first person in the store to read to book and played the first game here with my wife on 23 Sep. So we're all pretty new to the game. So... come on out to NC y'all and whoop up on the new guys and take their prizes!!! Thanks for the input Bill Steve

Hello fellow Warlord junkies. On December 10th Rules of Engagement Games will be running our first Warlord tournament. We want to make this a big deal for our gamers and will be running it similar to a Rogue Trader tournament for that other game. The plan is for a four round tourney. Random pairing for the first round and then winners against winners (swiss pairing). We'll be judging armies on painting, army composition and players on sportsmanship. We're providing SUBSTANTIAL prize support for this one. In the last two months we have gone from zero Warlord players to a pool of about 12 that play on a regular basis. We have seven extremely cool tables with themed terrain. That takes care of what we have so this is where y'all come in. Is there a resource anywhere where I can download fun, different and cool (but not unbalanced) scenarios? Any help would be appreciated in that arena. Also, any suggestions to make this a fun and memorable tournament would rock. Prizes are going to be reaper product (a lot of it) and plaques. Categories will be as follows, in order of precedence: 1-Overall Winner (compilation of wins, sportsmanship, painting and composition) 2-Sportsmanship voted on by other players 3-Best Painted Army voted on by staff with input from other players (staff each get a vote and players are rolled together into a 4th vote). 4-Army Composition (kind of subjective but "fluff" helps) So, if anyone has participated in a tournament and had a great experience please pass it on and help ROE Games make this a tournament to remember. To the rest of the folks in the Tagarthos province (or within driving distance to ROE Games, consider the gaultlet thrown down.

<---- slapping his forearm to get the veins to stand up Need...... new...... fix...... With the new Crusader models, data cards and such out, all of us goody-two-shoes crusader players would love to know what the new SA's discussed are. Last post on the Asylum Testing was on 7 October with the caveat that there wouldn't REALLY be one the next week either. That was about 3 weeks ago though. Have you fiinally worked GoldenEagle to a coma? Has he finally taken the theoretically out of his Deathseeker? Your eager fans miss the personal attention. Gamers are so NEEDY. Especially those of us that have our own game stores and are expected to know EVERYTHING about a week before it happens. <grin>

No the HoJ didn't defensive strike in response to defensive strikes. I went back and reread the original post and it was crystal clear to me when I wrote it but I see how it could be read like that. Thanks for all the replies folks.

Thanks Arbiter. We had a bunch of Marines and civilian customers come in to game and paint. As a former Marine, stationed out of Camp Swampy, thanks for doing that. Any time. Well, it was Thanksgiving so any time once a year.

5668 points in Crusaders and only 4-5 special characters left to paint. Wife has 2K in elves, all painted and my eight-year old son has 1500 painted Reven. He's also one of the few people in our gaming group who's read the entire rule book AND his faction book. Makes a daddy-gamer proud (the little geek)!

Thanks Arbiter. We had a bunch of Marines and civilian customers come in to game and paint.

Grr, here I go typing this a second time. The PC ate my homework. OK, here are some things that came up in a game yesterday. I was playing Crusaders, my wife was using her Elves. I moved the Hound of Judgement (HoJ) into rear side BtB contact with her treeman. Attacked, hit once and got no retribution since the HoJ is an assassin and was in rear BtB. On her next activation she turned the treeman and promptly whiffed three times missing the HoJ. HoJ also missed with all defensive strikes. My next activation moved Marcus Gideon, also an assassin, into rear BtB with her treeman, attacked and hit all three times. The treeman can't defensive strike against Marcus but since he turned he hammered the HoJ flat. HoJ returned the favor dropping the tree to his last DT. Did we do this right? Just curious because you don't get a free turn to face an assassin but she had already turned to face the HoJ. Did Marcus' attack trigger Defensive Strikes ? Another thing that came up, in an attempt to keep her tree, and several other models, from getting mercied she applied this lovely tactic. Tree is on last DT with a DIS of two. She tries to disengage from BtB contact, knowing she'll likely fail. She fails, gets a shaken token. Tries to disengage again, fails, retreats and voila! No mercy attempts on my next activation because she has removed the target by retreating.