HMGS' HistriCon 2021 "PEL is out."

 

  

PEL

Terrain Boards, Cons and the Future Part IX

        I had or was thinking about more flat sections. Then I went to ebay. These boards are 5 or 6 hundred dollars now. I used to get them bare and new for 280 or painted like shit for 170. Holy shit maybe I should give up and sell the bastards. I have 4 complete plus extra sections.

            The river has been poured. As it dried, I got white water. Then after 48hrs it was mostly all white. No idea why or how it happened? The Woodland Scenics Realistic Water dried this way? I have used it before. Same bottle, Many times, and this never happened.

               The train guys say I poured it too thick. Directions are for dumb asses. Either way it may turn clear after fully curing. 2 weeks or 6 months. But they say don't mess with it. Worse case I will have to paint it.

            The next section is up. I smoothed out the rise to the river banks. Or made it more gradual. Next I need to seal the foam and add the tile grout to stiffen it up.

Warmaster Lizards Vs Dogs of War 2000 points

 

            Last Friday I played Kal at 6 Feet Under. They have refinished their tables and added two more. Other than that the store is the same old same.

            I had dropped a Terradon and most of all the magic items from the last list for another Kroxigor. These dudes are straight beasts. Kal's list changed as more pikemen were added.

            Lizards took another win. They are hard to get started. Once in they just eat and eat units. You just have to brave the storm the first 2 or 3 turns. 

The key;

            The board being 122cm with each hopefully on the 20cm line. That is 80cm lizards need to cross. The end of Turn 1 would see you 40cm apart if each moves only once. Not counting Cavalry.

            Turn two the second player to move would be at the advantage. 40cm apart at the end of one. Play one closes to within 20 or 30. Player two would have charge range!

            If the non Lizard player gets off two orders, they are throwing you a bone. The Lizard player has to try for two orders each turn or risk taking a storm of shot

            If I played against Lizards and there were no objectives to get, I would sit and shoot at max range all game.

            Wings of the Jungle never went off.  When it goes it changes the state of the game. When it doesn't, Terradons lose their role.

        Moving Lizards around is difficult. There is the block that smashed its way straight through the center. They ate up all the skirmishers and plowed into the line infantry. The Kroxigors up on the left ate that flank whole.

            Lucky the giant was on the flank and isolated. It was not until the last turn he got into the action. Kal was fighting with half his army!

        This was the question of the game. The Skeleton Cavalry are representing Cold Ones. 

                    The Cold Ones and knights tied combat, a push results, in my turn. Kal charges them again on initiative. The Pikemen charge on command into the Cold Ones. The Cold Ones that charged the rear of the Pikemen came from another combat fought that turn prior to what you see above. They wiped out Kal's unit and advanced into the rear of the Pikemen

                    Kal loses the combat. One stand of Pikemen are pulled. Kal has to retreat. The knights move off without issue. The Pikemen we decide can't get away and are destroyed. We put this question up to the Warmaster community; answer

By Fire and Sword "2nd Edition"

 

            I can not begin to say how impressive BFaS' rule set is. One can see that the authors grew up with the same systems I had. I love that it has a Warmaster heritage. That Epic and Kill team mechanics are within it. Shako and Lasalle have parts within. 

2nd edition announcement 

            Now the news of a 2nd Edition and a Kickstarter. The changes coming agitate the hell out of me. I know the system has been around forever. It is so good I never thought it needed an update. (I have never played it in a tourney setting) A Kickstarter ohhhhh hell yeah. Look out November! I have been kicking myself for not getting in on the original kickstarter. I knew about it. Maybe even backed it and then dumped out. If I am deep in it now, I will be drowned by next June.

        And now for the pain. I do not have years of playing BFaS. Being a sailor. We hate nothing more than change. WTF, man?

 Changes;

    1.) Dumbing down of the game for the up and coming gamers. Its a business. They need to sell shit. It sucks I have to suffer these new age fuckers at work. Now the fucktards are shitting in my gaming.

    2.) I hate that the time taken to play a game determines how the rules are developed or changed. For a skirmish level, no larger than a platoon, 2.5hrs great. For a tourney system 2.5 hrs great. For a historic game 4 hrs is pretty short. 

Both 1, 2 and 8 are the same or they ride the same train. In effect the grand scale of the game is being trashed for right up in your face scrum. I know what they are doing. Instead of limits on force points and cutting down of the number of units on the table to control game length. They are increasing the number of units on the table, creating an element control and shrinking ground scale to speed up play.

    3.) The mini core rule book is out. So the giant bible sized book should not be a reason to fuck with shit that works.

    4.) CM for Inches. Man what the total shit. All for the American market. Multiple rules sets in high rotation play in metric.

        This is the biggest fundamental change. It messes with Ground Scale. The game was played in an area that would fit most home tables. Large brigade and army games on a historical table (6x7 feet or 9x5). The game will still fit on these home tables, but the change in ground scale bring the meat much closer to the metal. So close maneuver warfare will be gone.

    5.) Making movement all one distance. A standard set length that everything is based off. Great idea for speed of play. I think weapon range would be grossly out of wack to the distance things move. But all that could be fixed with changing the time a turn/activation represents.

    6.) Unit cards. Outstanding idea. They are a great teaching/demo tool. Also for larger battles fantastic as you would have sheets of paper everywhere with the different units on it.

    7.) Alternating Activation. This is huge and a double edge sword. I absolutely love this in NetEpic Armageddon. It within itself creates a tactical decision making challenge and increase the tactical depth of the game. How will the activation advantage be handled is the big question here. The well known down side is out activated and dead activations. We all know what happens to you once your activations are done and your opponent has 3 or 5 more to go. When someone can activate, do nothing, and your now forced into exposing units.

    8.) Movement trays. Could a player just not do this all on there own. I use movement trays in Warmaster. There are no rules for them. Yet there they are. I would guess now this will follow a Hail Caesar approach with small, normal, and large size units. You would now push around command elements Vs companies or individual regiments.

Highlight; "not that we are lazy bastards sitting around drinking beer."

HMGS HistoriCon 2021 Save the date

 

Remember Fall In is now HistoriCon for this year. This year only. 

November 10-14, 2021

Valley Forge, Pa

         

 Save the date. Registration opens 9/22/2021