Today's episode is about Crackpots, the Activision game that was the first 2600 game by Dan Kitchen, who went on to make many more (and is still making them!). I hope that you enjoy the episode.
Next on the podcast is Malagai, by Answer Software. If you have this game, I would love to see a photo of it on Facebook or Twitter, see the links below for those. If you have any thoughts on the game, please send them to me at 2600gamebygame@gmail.com by end of day 17 February. Just tell me what you think of it, I will take care of the nuts and bolts of the game. As always, I thank you for listening.
Crackpots on Random Terrain
Crackpots on Atari Protos
Dan Kitchen's web site
Dan Kitchen's Games site
Dan Kitchen interview by Classic Gamer 74
Atari Age thread on Keystone Kapers 2 discovery
Crackpots patch on Digital Press
...and accompanying letter
Crackpots commercial
Jim's Ferg Quest sprite hack
Ryan's Atari Age High Score Showdown post for Crackpots
Wilson Oyama's Crackpots playthrough video
No Swear Gamer 521 - Crackpots
Sean's Autobiography of a Schnook Podcast Chapter 5
sábado, 28 de marzo de 2020
Well, Hello There.....
Those of you that have been around from the pre-Kickstarter days remember a time where I was very open in my communications, where my interactions were FAR more timely and personal.
Involving other companies in that flow complicated things on my end quite a bit. I had a few very heated conversations over various issues concerning what could or should be said. For right or wrong, this changed my way of interfacing with all of you, and IMO, not for the better. But such is the reality of having partners… You need to keep that relationship working and healthy, and there are times you will not agree, and times where you cannot discuss what you would like to with your customers. No this is not turning into a 'tell all story' I am simply saying that I miss the days where I felt as if I were part of the community and that I could just let information flow and get feedback from all of you on a kit or a direction or a specific item.
I think it fair to say that WGF and I are not doing much business together, the agreement we had ended when I took distribution over, this changed the responsibility's and payment scheme. We worked out a verbal understanding of how much I would send them for each sale after expenses and we have had very little contact since the transfer, it did not end badly, just faded into me sending commission payments and not much ell's. I will simply leave it at this; I am and will forever be grateful for the opportunity Wai Kee and WGF provided me, having the opportunity to have 30 plastic kits produced was an amazing, frightening and monumental experience.
Having changed the nature of that relationship allowed me a little more latitude, but still being in the supply chain, I know that, and public statements may have repercussions for my retail and distribution partners… I cannot tease a kit or ask for feedback if I am not planning of following closely with a release. It would not be irresponsible of me to set them up for questions or expectations when they did not have the answers.
I removed myself from distribution at the end of last year and spend the last couple of months mulling over the next steps. (I will go into that more in the next posts)
All the concerns listed above have pushed me further away than I would have liked and help establish a very poor habit of being tight lipped. Hopefully with this message I can start to break the habit I have developed and get closer to the more open flow of ideas and feedback that I and I am sure, you miss.
I will simply say, all excuses or reasoning aside, I am sorry for not being as transparent as I would like or as communicative as you deserve.
To close this message, I will simply say again, that I apologize for not being here, talking with all of you and hope that if you are still interested, that you comment or follow along as I attempt to return to some facsimile of what I was when I started this creative journey.
The Pokémon Sanctuary Project
Alola! Welcome to my new writing project!
I've been a Pokémon fan since I picked up Pokémon Red in 1998 just before my 18th birthday. Over the years, I have toyed with the idea of building a comprehensive Pokémon zoo of sorts. It's a huge undertaking that grows with every passing generation of Pokémon game that adds more Pokémon to collect. I've started and failed a few times over the years to create a comprehensive collection of Pokémon to carry forward into future generations.
The closest I came was in a Pokémon Emerald run I did in 2008 (roughly). I'm not sure if those creatures are still on a copy of Emerald, or stored in the Ruby/Sapphire Box on some Gamecube memory stick somewhere. I may try to hunt them down in the future, but for the purposes of this project I'm starting from scratch, and I'm starting where it all began. I'll be playing through the Virtual Console version of Pokémon Red.
I'm going to be documenting this journey in the form of a serial narrative. I hope to upload a short story every week as I progress through Pokémon Red with my created character, Fox, who aspires to be a world renown Pokémon collector and zoologist. In order to make his story more interesting to read, I will also be doing the initial playthrough as a Nuzlocke Challenge that I will detail below. As I handle the writing, my brother will be doing some original art for the series to spice up the adventure. I hope this will make the experience fun and interesting for personal friends and Pokémon fans alike.
The Nuzlocke Challenge
I've been a Pokémon fan since I picked up Pokémon Red in 1998 just before my 18th birthday. Over the years, I have toyed with the idea of building a comprehensive Pokémon zoo of sorts. It's a huge undertaking that grows with every passing generation of Pokémon game that adds more Pokémon to collect. I've started and failed a few times over the years to create a comprehensive collection of Pokémon to carry forward into future generations.
The closest I came was in a Pokémon Emerald run I did in 2008 (roughly). I'm not sure if those creatures are still on a copy of Emerald, or stored in the Ruby/Sapphire Box on some Gamecube memory stick somewhere. I may try to hunt them down in the future, but for the purposes of this project I'm starting from scratch, and I'm starting where it all began. I'll be playing through the Virtual Console version of Pokémon Red.
I'm going to be documenting this journey in the form of a serial narrative. I hope to upload a short story every week as I progress through Pokémon Red with my created character, Fox, who aspires to be a world renown Pokémon collector and zoologist. In order to make his story more interesting to read, I will also be doing the initial playthrough as a Nuzlocke Challenge that I will detail below. As I handle the writing, my brother will be doing some original art for the series to spice up the adventure. I hope this will make the experience fun and interesting for personal friends and Pokémon fans alike.
The Nuzlocke Challenge
- Any Pokémon that faints must be released.
- Only the first Pokémon encountered in each area can be caught. No second chances.
- All Pokémon will have personalized nicknames to make them more endearing.
These are the basic rules of the challenge and speaking retrospectively they really make the early game quite challenging and intense. I've never had more tense encounters in an RPG in my life. In addition to these rules, I have also decided that (for the sake of the narrative) I will not be using a starter Pokémon. The challenge starts for me when Fox catches his first Pokémon on Route 1 and then trades away the Charmander he used to catch it. I've run from all battles before that point and just rushed to a point where you can catch your Pokémon. So Rattata or Pidgey (no spoilers! don't look at the episode title!) will be the first and only Pokémon on my team leaving Route 1.
Addendum: I will not be catching an HM Slave. All HMs will be taught to actual members of the team unless I hit a roadblock. If the path forward requires an HM that I absolutely cannot teach without catching a new Pokémon, then an HM Slave may be caught. If that occurs, that Pokémon will only exclusively be used for the HMs and never for battle, but I will be trying to avoid this at all cost. Having one of four battle moves taken up by an HM adds to the challenge, but I won't accept it as a loss if I get to an impasse due to HM nonsense and am forced to catch an extra Pokémon.
Addendum: I will not be catching an HM Slave. All HMs will be taught to actual members of the team unless I hit a roadblock. If the path forward requires an HM that I absolutely cannot teach without catching a new Pokémon, then an HM Slave may be caught. If that occurs, that Pokémon will only exclusively be used for the HMs and never for battle, but I will be trying to avoid this at all cost. Having one of four battle moves taken up by an HM adds to the challenge, but I won't accept it as a loss if I get to an impasse due to HM nonsense and am forced to catch an extra Pokémon.
- Episode 1 - Tabula Rattata
- Episode 2 - Nibbles & Kiwi
- Episode 3 - The Lone Wolf
- Episode 4 - A Trainer's Resolve
- Episode 5 - Monumental Heartbreak
- Episode 6 - Battle for Boulder Badge
- Episode 7 - The Dread Rocket Raticate
- Episode 8 - The Nugget Bridge Rematch
- Episode 9 - Something Oddish in Cerulean
- Episode 10 - Kanto Underground
- Episode 11 - All Aboard the S.S. Anne!
- Episode 12 - A Tremendous Chop to the Team
- Episode 13 - The Team Surges Forward
- Episode 14 - A Wild Side Quest Appears
- Episode 15 - Putting a Pin in Lavender Town
- Episode 16 - Quiet Gardens of Celadon
lunes, 23 de marzo de 2020
WW1 Naval Campaign - War Is Declared !
It's that time of year again, Easter always heralds the start of our annual Naval Campaign and this year we are focusing on early WW1, which is a great excuse to get Project Jutland out of the boxes again and of course add some new ships to the collection.
Thankfully this time rather than doing a load of prep myself prior to the Campaign I am using the book below to guide us through our journey.
The book was a download from Wargames Vault and is highly recommended, it has two levels, the tactical tabletop based element (report below) and a higher level Campaign Event element. I have decided to introduce the world to T'Yarkshire Ferret Newspaper, this esteemed publication will bring you the gossip and tittle tattle of the Campaign Events whilst the more traditional blog format below will bring you the blow by blow game reports. Make sure you have a good look at Ferret for the latest stories.
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| The Könign Luise (or as close as I have in my collection) |
With the game reports I will be reporting what happened in our games, if you purchase the Campaign book you will find that each game has numerous potential paths that are determined by dice rolls or Campaign Events so each time you play the scenarios they have the potential of being different.
Game 1 - Chasing Königin Luise - 5th August 1914
In early August 14 with war imminent Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet put to sea, encouraged by the King with the following message, (they were of course further moved by the message from The King in the North Geoffrey Boycott see the latest edition of T'Ferret)
"At this grave moment in our national history I send to you, and through you to the officers and men of the Fleet of which you have assumed command, the assurance of my confidence that under your direction they will revive and renew the old glories of the Royal Navy, and prove once again the sure shield of Britain and her Empire in the hour of trial"
The Könign Luise was a liner that had been hastily converted to a minelayer and she had been out at sea around 30 miles off Harwich laying mines when she was sighted by two RN destroyers who were on patrol HMS Landrail and Laurel and the chase was on. I gave the Könign a couple of deck guns to liven things up.
The game starts at 11.00 am, the two destroyers are heading East 10,000 yards behind the Könign Luise. With a top speed of 30 knots to 16 in the Destroyers favour the boilers were stoked and the game begins. Visibility is 12,000 yards but there are a number of squalls in the area where visibility is as low as 2,000.
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| HMS Fearless to the rescue |
11.23 First shell hit of the war as the front gun from HMS Landrail lands a hit on the deck of Könign.
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| Strike One to Landrail |
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| German reinforcements arrive |
12.00 visibility increases to 7,000 yards bringing the German Torpedo Boats into visible range of the British Destroyers.
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| First blood to the Germans |
12.15 Visibility increases to 9,000 yards.
12.23 further German ships arrive in the shape of the light cruisers Breslau, Regensberg and Rostock 10,000 yards South of the Könign.
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| British Light Cruisers |
12.30 Meanwhile it's all getting a bit messy in the middle of the table as the close range destroyer action continues around the burning wreck of the Laurel. It's not all going the Germans way as a hit on V1 from HMS Fearless starts a fire on board the German Torpedo Boat.
12.37 in the general Melee in the centre there is a narrow miss as the leading German TB narrowly misses HMS Fearless only for the next in line to strike her.
12.45 The fighting in the middle is getting nasty as the photo below shows, V3 has a none exploding magazine hit whilst V6 stumbles ahead blindly with her Bridge destroyed whilst the Germans pour fire on the slow moving Fearless who is getting underway post collision.
12.52 Torpedoes are in the water and heading towards the slowly accelerating Fearless, she is a small ship combing the tracks so all the odds are in her favour.
13.00 in what turned out to be the final turn as Visiblity drastically reduced again due to a Squal and the Germans took their first loss, the V3 was unable to extinguish an on board fire which raged out of control.
But at the same time even with all the odds in her favour Fearless was struck in the rudder by a torpedo causing massive damage and flooding she too quickly sank.
But it wasn't all good news for the Germans as they lost a further two Torpedo Boats in the post action phase, one failed to deal with damage sustained in the fight, the other had sustained so much damage that she was unable to make it back to port and had to be scuttled by her crew.
So in a quite bloody first encounter the British have lost a Light Cruiser and a Destroyer whilst the Germans have lost three Torpedo Boats, next time will see us cruising round the sights of Heligoland Blight.
viernes, 20 de marzo de 2020
ASOIAF: Tywin Lannister 40Pt Army
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| My point exactly. |
In my previous article, I gave you guys the rundown for how I go about building army lists. I always start with the Commander first and then try to take units that best take advantage of their tactics cards. Well, I decided to get the party started with my favorite character from GoT: Tywin Lannister. Lannisters, in general, have a ton of control elements and I think Tywin just adds to the flavor in a big way. He is a battlefield commander so that means you put him with your frontline troops in any one of the units that he can be taken in. Since he's considered an infantry character, you have to put him in one of your infantry units. I decided to put Tywin inside a unit of Mountain Men because they have a pretty respectable save of 4+. Besides, having two chances to apply Panic-based damage is great. More on this later.
For now, let's take a look at Tywin himself and his Tactics cards to see what he offers us:
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| Just look at this badass. |
From the get-go, you can see that Tywin is all about making your opponents' units Weakened and then exploiting those tokens and effects to your advantage. Immediately, you can see that Tywin's Commander card has built-in Lannister Supremacy and Fear of the Lion. Fear of the Lion combos really nicely with Tywin's tactics cards because it allows him to place a free Weaken token on any enemy unit within Long Range of his unit when he activates. I put him with Mountain Men because MMs already have built-in Vicious so on the offense, they can make opponents take Panic Tests with a -2 modifier. When they attack back, Tywin's Lannister Supremacy makes it so if I roll a 7+ on my Panic test, my opponent has to take another test at -2 again. This is some pretty silly free damage if my opponent rolls poorly and can also be a form of damage negation because the more models they lose to Panic checks, the less damage they will do because of the ranks lost. Throw Weaken on top of this from Tywin and it becomes a force multiplier.
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| The Lion doesn't mess around. |
The Tactics cards themselves are very nasty. Exploit Weakness is a perfect example of a card that kicks your opponent when they're down. If you spend the Weaken token, you can force your opponent re-roll all of their successful hits and any 1s to pop up will deal automatic wounds to their unit on top of whiffing on their attacks. This is extremely effective at taking down heavy cavalry because it essentially turns that units attack into wounds that bypass saves. The Lion's Wrath is a great card because it affects ALL enemy units on the board that has Weaken on them and it lasts until the end of the round. You will hear me say this a lot, but anything that lasts an entire round is super good. Players take alternating turns activating their units, but rounds last after all player turns are finished. This means that for the duration of the round, anything Weakened on the battlefield will be moving -1 movement AND suffering Disorderly Charge on a roll of 1-2. First, this card auto-applies a Weaken effect anywhere on the board, but Disorderly Charge is super frustrating when it happens. Another example of Lannisters kicking you while you're down, but Disorderly Charge robs you from your ability to re-roll hits on a Charge AND essentially silences you for the rest of that unit's turn. Players cannot play Tactics cards for the remainder of that unit's action, and if you miss the actual charge itself, that unit has to take a Panic test. Lastly, we have Lannister Intimidation. This is pretty much a hard silence on the enemy unit and all of its attachments until the end of the round. Again, end of the round here folks, Tywin doesn't F around. Almost everything he does is centered around making your opponents' units weaker while giving slightly leveraging your battlefield position.
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| Pycelle is an auto-include with Tywin. |
As for unit selection, there are quite a few things you can do and I think Tywin is one of the more flexible commanders for how you want to build the list. To make things a little easier, let me first start off by saying that you should probably take Pycelle as your first NCU. Pycelle is incredible with Tywin because he puts Weaken tokens on your opponents when he claims a zone. This is exactly what Tywin needs when playing his Tactics cards and Pycelle on the Tactics zone after The Lion's Wrath will see 3 enemy units Weakend on a single turn. Now, Varys is pretty much one of the best NCUs in the game IMO. His ability is incredibly good even if you only have a limited amount of Order tokens. The ability to stop a crucial game-altering tactics board play or NCU ability from triggering when claiming a zone can be huge. Since Lannisters is a control-heavy faction in general, you will see me playing Varys a lot in my lists.
Alright, enough talk, here's the list:
Faction: House Lannister
Commander: Tywin Lannister – Lord of Casterly Rock
Points: 40 (4 Neutral)
Combat Units:
• Lannister Guardsmen (5)
with Assault Veteran (1)
• House Clegane Mountain Men (6)
with Tywin Lannister – Lord of Casterly Rock (0)
• House Clegane Mountain Men (6)
with Assault Veteran (1)
• Lannister Crossbowmen (6)
• Knights of Casterly Rock (8)
Non-Combat Units:
• Pycelle – Grand Maester (3)
• Lord Varys – The Spider (4)
Made with ASOIAFBuilder.com
As you can see, I have quite a bit of diversity in there with 7 total activations (5 combat and 2 NCUs). Combat activations matter for deployment, but total activations matter for how much control you have over the board state. That will be its own article at another time, but this isn't the first time I've played a minis game where activation and unit activation order matters a lot. Anyways, let's take a look at the rest of the list I have here: You will see Guardsman with Assault Vet, Tywin in MM and another unit of MM because they're a rock-solid unit. Assault Veterans because I love the aggression and they are great with Tywin because Weaken basically ensures that there will be a second round of combat and your guys will attrition quite well. For the Guardsman, you can also choose to bring along a Guard Captain to auto-pass Panic and therefore guarantees Lannister Supremacy every time.
When it comes to rounding out the rest of the army, Crossbowmen are there so they can pick off enemy units from range. From here, you can generally branch into any direction you want to bring for the meta. You can take another unit of Lannister Guards, another unit of MM, but for diversity and the ability to harass objectives, I decided to go with Xbows. If you think about it, if you're running a pretty aggressive infantry army, having 7 shots of Sundering from Long Range that hits on 3s is no joke. On top of that, I've decided to go wih a unit of Knights of Casterly Rock because they're a pretty decent unit to have for the points. Some people don't like them because you need to play them well and they're not push and win like the Flayed Men, but if you get them on the flank of a combat you need to win, you will like them a lot. They're designed to win on the charge so if you're not destroying units on the charge, think about saving them until you do or else you'll have to waste turns (or Manuever on the Tactics Board) to set them up again.
Stay tuned for my next article where I cover one of my favorite Stark lists to play right now!
jueves, 19 de marzo de 2020
HOTT 52 - It's All About The Lines And Remembering The Rules Correctly!
I took a quick moment to knock out another game of HOTT over Friday night/Saturday morning. It was a quick game, as I'm starting to remember how things flow and the combat factors/modifiers. I did have one unique situation come up that I'm going to ask the "experts" on.
I have a whole gaggle of elements for orcs, goblins and humans. From these many stands, I can generate quite a few armies, so I have tables that I roll against. The biggest determining factor is if the army is mostly militia, mostly regular/professional (trained) or a mix of the two. 1d6 tells me who fights who! I also found that the "random" generation of terrain once again was lumping it into one side of the board, but I went with it. I am working on flatter replacements for HOTT.
So... how did this battle go?
Once again, a Human army was defending their stronghold against a force of Orcs and Goblins. The human commander sent their knights dashing to the left around the woods, in hopes to threaten the Bestial's right flank and peel off some of the elements from their long line.
The Orc Warchief had a similar idea and sent his goblin wolf riders dashing past the humans and the rough terrain that was ill suited for the woods-friendly goblins. They had an excellent view of the human stronghold and the human commander themselves!
The Orc Warchief details two elements of blades to confront the flanking knights. They are evenly matched and the Warchief prays to Moloch that his "Bloody Fangs" will rend human flesh! Meanwhile, the orc line starts to shift and expand, to hopefully overlap the humans!
The Warchief's prayers to Moloch fall on deaf ears, or the foul God was unimpressed, as the orc Blades fall to the human knights! Meanwhile, the orc line marches towards the humans and falls under their missile fire. Several units recoil from the casualties and the advance is blunted a bit.
Desiring to retake the initiative, the Warchief orders his troops to close to attack! The human commander decides to detail a warband to confront the flanking wolf-riders.
The battle goes badly for the attacking bestials! Orcs fall to the spears and blades of the defending humans and the warband destroys an element of the goblin riders! The goblin warband manages to turn to flank the human line, but the brave archers from a nearby village manage to hold them off! Desperate to regain some initiative, the Orc Warchief closes to give battle to the Knights, only to see his personal bodyguard driven back!
The casualties mount for the Bestials and the Warchief reluctantly orders the withdrawal of his forces from the field of battle. The humans cheer in victory - their losses were light and they'd given the Orcs a Bloody Nose instead of facing Bloody Fangs!
The dice told the story of this battle as well. The Orcs/Goblins lost 12 AP and the humans only lost 2 - a resounding victory! I expected the long line of the orcs would come into play, but the knights flanking and some timely shooting that resulted in the orc line splintering really set the tone of the final outcome.
That is something I like about HOTT, getting to the meat of the meal quickly!
My only question was regarding this one situation.
The humans attacked the Orc Blades (outlined in red) in a front/close the door flank attack. The orcs scored VERY well and forced the frontal human spear to recoil.
Now, at this point, I had forgotten about a rule in HOTT which I **JUST** remembered and confirmed right now...
So both the frontal and flanker should have recoiled, but I didn't recoil the flanker!
Instead, I became concerned as to whether the blades should turn to confront the flankers, or proceed forward towards the frontal spears. I made a dice roll and they turned to face the flankers. Who ended up destroying them anyway. So I guess I just answered my own question of which was the right choice in my own blog post.. NEITHER were the right choice. Duh. (smacks my forehead).
This is one of the reasons I'm not throwing in a lot of extra elements like magic, gods and the like for now... I just need to get the basic rules down!
I did get my 15mm Saxons for my human warband elements, to fill those empty Wb stands; they are jumping to the front of the painting line. I do need to buy a 15mm human mage, priest, and make some orc/goblin/human hero elements. THEN move on to more land elf, sea elf, chaos humans, kobold, halfling elements...
It never ends, does it. The madness. The obsession... *happy sigh*
I have a whole gaggle of elements for orcs, goblins and humans. From these many stands, I can generate quite a few armies, so I have tables that I roll against. The biggest determining factor is if the army is mostly militia, mostly regular/professional (trained) or a mix of the two. 1d6 tells me who fights who! I also found that the "random" generation of terrain once again was lumping it into one side of the board, but I went with it. I am working on flatter replacements for HOTT.
So... how did this battle go?
Once again, a Human army was defending their stronghold against a force of Orcs and Goblins. The human commander sent their knights dashing to the left around the woods, in hopes to threaten the Bestial's right flank and peel off some of the elements from their long line.
The Orc Warchief had a similar idea and sent his goblin wolf riders dashing past the humans and the rough terrain that was ill suited for the woods-friendly goblins. They had an excellent view of the human stronghold and the human commander themselves!
The Orc Warchief details two elements of blades to confront the flanking knights. They are evenly matched and the Warchief prays to Moloch that his "Bloody Fangs" will rend human flesh! Meanwhile, the orc line starts to shift and expand, to hopefully overlap the humans!
The Warchief's prayers to Moloch fall on deaf ears, or the foul God was unimpressed, as the orc Blades fall to the human knights! Meanwhile, the orc line marches towards the humans and falls under their missile fire. Several units recoil from the casualties and the advance is blunted a bit.
Desiring to retake the initiative, the Warchief orders his troops to close to attack! The human commander decides to detail a warband to confront the flanking wolf-riders.
The battle goes badly for the attacking bestials! Orcs fall to the spears and blades of the defending humans and the warband destroys an element of the goblin riders! The goblin warband manages to turn to flank the human line, but the brave archers from a nearby village manage to hold them off! Desperate to regain some initiative, the Orc Warchief closes to give battle to the Knights, only to see his personal bodyguard driven back!
The casualties mount for the Bestials and the Warchief reluctantly orders the withdrawal of his forces from the field of battle. The humans cheer in victory - their losses were light and they'd given the Orcs a Bloody Nose instead of facing Bloody Fangs!
The dice told the story of this battle as well. The Orcs/Goblins lost 12 AP and the humans only lost 2 - a resounding victory! I expected the long line of the orcs would come into play, but the knights flanking and some timely shooting that resulted in the orc line splintering really set the tone of the final outcome.
That is something I like about HOTT, getting to the meat of the meal quickly!
My only question was regarding this one situation.
The humans attacked the Orc Blades (outlined in red) in a front/close the door flank attack. The orcs scored VERY well and forced the frontal human spear to recoil.
Now, at this point, I had forgotten about a rule in HOTT which I **JUST** remembered and confirmed right now...
So both the frontal and flanker should have recoiled, but I didn't recoil the flanker!
Instead, I became concerned as to whether the blades should turn to confront the flankers, or proceed forward towards the frontal spears. I made a dice roll and they turned to face the flankers. Who ended up destroying them anyway. So I guess I just answered my own question of which was the right choice in my own blog post.. NEITHER were the right choice. Duh. (smacks my forehead).
This is one of the reasons I'm not throwing in a lot of extra elements like magic, gods and the like for now... I just need to get the basic rules down!
I did get my 15mm Saxons for my human warband elements, to fill those empty Wb stands; they are jumping to the front of the painting line. I do need to buy a 15mm human mage, priest, and make some orc/goblin/human hero elements. THEN move on to more land elf, sea elf, chaos humans, kobold, halfling elements...
It never ends, does it. The madness. The obsession... *happy sigh*
Brainstorming With Reversal
In the previous two posts I described how I sometimes approach a problem by trying to arrange it into a matrix. Sometimes that doesn't work and I instead try to look at the problem backwards. As an example, consider procedural map generation. I often start with a noise function, adding octaves, adjusting parameters, and adding layers. I'm doing this because I'm looking for maps with certain properties.
It's fine to start by playing with parameters, but the parameter space is rather large, and it's unclear whether I'll actually find the parameters that best match what I want. Instead, after playing around a bit, I stop and think in the opposite order: if I can describe what I want, it might help be find the parameters.
This is actually the motivation I was taught for algebra. Given an equation like 5x² + 8x - 21 = 0, what is x? When I didn't know algebra, I would've solved this by trying a bunch of values for x, jumping randomly at first, then adjusting it once I felt I was getting close. Algebra gives us the tool to go in the other direction. Instead of guessing at answers, it gives me tools (factoring, or the quadratic equations, or Newton's iterative root finding) that I can use to more intelligently find the values of x (-3 or 7/5).
I feel like I often am in that same situation with programming. For procedural map generation, after tweaking parameters for a while, I stopped to list some things I wanted for the game worlds in one project:
- Players should start far apart on the beach.
- Players should move uphill as they level up.
- Players shouldn't reach the edge of the map.
- Players should join into groups as they increase in level.
- Beaches should have easy monsters without much variation.
- Midlands should have a wide variety of monsters of medium difficulty.
- Highlands should have hard "boss" monsters.
- There should be some landmark to help players stay at the same difficulty level, and another landmark to help players go up or down in difficulty level.
That list led to some constraints:
- The game worlds should be islands with a lot of coastline and a small peak in the center.
- Elevation should match monster difficulty.
- Low and high elevation should have less biome variation than middle elevations.
- Roads should stay at a fixed difficulty level.
- Rivers should flow from high to low elevation, and give players a way to navigate up/down.
The constraints then led me to design the map generator. This led to a much better set of maps than the ones I got by tweaking parameters like I usually do. And the resulting article has gotten lots of people interested in Voronoi-based maps.
Another example is unit tests. I'm supposed to come up with a list of examples to test. For example, for hexagonal grids I might think of testing that add(Hex(1, 2), Hex(3, 4)) == Hex(4, 6) . Then I might remember to test zeros: add(Hex(0, 1), Hex(7, 9)) == Hex(7, 10). Then I might remember to test negative numbers too: add(Hex(-3, 4) + Hex(7, -8)) == Hex(4, -4). Ok, great, I have a few unit tests.
If I think more about this, what I really am testing is add(Hex(A, B), Hex(C, D)) == Hex(A+C, B+D). I came up with the three examples based on this general rule. I'm working backwards from this rule to come up with the unit tests. If I can directly encode this rule into the test system, I can have the system itself work backwards to come with the instances to test. This is called "property based testing". (Also see: metamorphic testing)
Another example is constraint solvers. In these systems you describe what you want in the output, and the system comes up with a way to satisfy the constraints. From the Procedural Content Generation Book, chapter 8:
In the constructive methods of Chapter 3 and the fractal and noise methods of Chapter 4, we can produce different kinds of output by tweaking the algorithms until we're satisfied with their output. But if we know what properties we'd like generated content to have, it can be more convenient to directly specify what we want, and then have a general algorithm find content meeting our criteria.
In Answer Set Programming, explored in that book, you describe the structure of what you're working with (tiles are floors or walls, and the tiles are adjacent to each other), the structure of solutions you're looking for (a dungeon is a bunch of connected tiles with a start and an end), and the properties of the solutions (side passages should be at most 5 rooms, there are 1 or 2 loops, there are three henchmen to defeat before you reach the boss). The system then comes up with possible solutions and lets you decide what to do with them.
A recent constraint solver got a lot of attention because of its cool name and demos: Wave Function Collapse. You give it example images to tell it what the constraints on adjacent tiles are, and then it comes up with more examples that match your given patterns. There's a paper, WaveFunctionCollapse is Constraint Solving in the Wild, that describes how it works:
Operationally, WFC implements a non-backtracking, greedy search method. This paper examines WFC as an instance of constraint solving methods.
I done much with constraint solvers yet. As with Algebra, there's a lot for me to learn before I can them effectively.
Another example is when I made a spaceship where you could drag the thrusters to wherever you wanted, and the system would figure out which thrusters to fire when you pressed W, A, S, D, Q, E. For example, in this spaceship:
If you want to go forwards, you'd fire the two rear thrusters. If you want to rotate left, you'd fire the rear right thruster and the front left thruster. I tried to solve this by having the system try lots of parameters:
It worked, but it wasn't great. I realized later that this too is another instance of where working backwards would have helped. It turns out the movement of the spaceships could be described by a linear constraint system. Had I realized it, I could've used an existing library that solves the constraints exactly, instead of my trial-and-error approach coming up with an approximation.
Yet another example is the G9.js project, which lets you drag the outputs of some function around on the screen, and it will figure out how to change the inputs to match your desired output. The demos of G9.js are great! Be sure to uncomment the "uncomment the following line" on the Rings demo.
Sometimes it's useful to think about a problem in reverse. I often find that it gives me better solutions than if I only consider the forward direction.
Need For Speed Games Part 2: Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit, Need For Speed: Road Challenge (Aka High Stakes)
I hope you like screenshots of cars and roads, because that's all I've got for you today. They're pretty good cars though. There's a Chevrolet Corvette, a Ferrari F355, a Lamborghini Diablo, another Corvette... all kinds of cars.
(If I don't mention what system a screenshot came from, then it's from the PC version. Unless the game doesn't have a PC version.)
Read on »
lunes, 16 de marzo de 2020
Suzy Is Going To PAX East 2019!
#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity #PAXEast #IMBPAXEast19 @NoodlecakeGames @IndieMEGABOOTH
I know it's been quite a while, but I'm back with big news! Suzy Cube has been accepted into the Indie MEGABOOTH at PAX East 2019! Suzy will be showcased as part of the MINIBOOTH on Thursday and Friday.
Read more »
domingo, 15 de marzo de 2020
Of Bytes And Borders
There is more to the screen than those pixels or tiles which a graphics programmer had the ability to manipulate into graphical images. In many vintage consoles and home computers, their display hardware could sometimes display color outside the active display area. In this blog post we will review some of these devices, try to identify the size of the borders and any special purposes to which they may have been put.
Read more » 
Read more »
jueves, 5 de marzo de 2020
The Wheels Are Still Turning
I was stoked for the first game but with each stand being a unit, there were too many units on the table for the mechanisms to flow well and keep up interest and excitement in the game so something had to change.
After rejecting various options as too "gamey" and abstract or too tedious, I remembered that I had at one point contemplated a system where 2 stand units occupied two adjacent 3" grid squares giving an easy way to reflect formations and frontages without complex or confusing rules or excessive empty space to confuse me mid-game or distort the look of the thing. The result feels much more "old school" than the Square Brigadier ever did but with all the convenience of a simple gridded game.
So far that is! Early days yet.
 |
| #2: An old chestnut of a scenario and improvised basing but a brisk game. |
So far that is! Early days yet.
How Free Games Like Pubg Earns Money?
Have you ever thought that how freely available games like PUBG or COC end up earning more money than paid games? So here how it earns money :
There are actually below given ways through which such games earn money.
1. In-app purchases:
You might have seen that PUBG allows the player to buy many additional skills and guns with real life money. The same applies to other online games also. They are mainly cosmetic upgrades but still rake in quite a lot of cash.
2. Ads driven revenues :
While playing some games or using some apps you might have seen that there are ads or pop-ups. These are actually the primary way of earning money for such games.
Though games like PUBG earn less by in-game ads so they focus on earning money through in-app purchases.
3. Targeted ads :
It is rumored that the big companies sell your data (in PUBG it is primarily the voice chat ) to the ad-companies for money. By listening into the audio devices they pick up keywords which are in-turn sold to advertisers for a large profit.
So this was how PUBG earns money. We hope you liked this. For more interesting topics on PUBG click here or on the link :
https://sudragamer.blogspot.com/?m=1Storium Theory: Get Emotionally Invested
I've finished up my Storium Basics articles, so now, I'd like to take a little time to write about one more thing. This is something that I think is important for anyone playing Storium, or indeed any sort of RPG or storytelling system. Heck, it's important for general writing as well.
You have to let yourself feel.
If you want to tell powerful stories, you have to let yourself feel.
If you want to truly portray your character, you have to let yourself feel.
If you just want to have the best time you can roleplaying, to have an experience you'll remember and look back on fondly, you have to let yourself feel.
Some people can do this really easily. Others, myself included, have a tougher time with it.
I have a tendency to get pretty mechanical when I'm writing, particularly in RPGs, storytelling games, or the like. I find that I distance myself from the events of the story, from the emotional impact of what goes on, in a way that I don't if I'm just watching a movie or reading a book or playing a video game. When I'm not participating in the writing, I can get involved in the emotion of a story easily. But when I'm participating...
When I'm participating, I spend more time thinking about what should happen next, or what I'm going to do, or what cards I'm going to play, or what my strategy should be for the next step, what abilities I want to use, how my tactics will affect my dice rolls...any or all of that, depending on what sort of writing or gaming we're talking about. It's really easy to distance myself from feeling what's happening in the story, and look at things as the basic exercise of writing or gaming rather than the full-fledged emotional experience of a tale.
There's a social aspect, too, though that's less of a concern in a play-by-post sort of game like Storium. But still...I'm not a guy who likes to have his emotions on full display. I'm not that open, really, and so I tend to consciously or unconsciously resist letting myself react to story events emotionally when I'm writing or playing with others.
I've learned that I have to try to break out of that shell.
The best moments I've had in Storium, in tabletop gaming, in online roleplaying, in MUXes, in any kind of collaborative writing experience...those moments have all been when I let my walls drop. Those are the moments I remember most fondly.
The moments when I let the tears come while I read and wrote.
The moments when I felt anger at the deeds of a villain.
The moments when I worried for a hero who had disappeared.
The moments when I dove into my character's mindset and felt the fear he would about the monster lurking in the dark.
It's so very easy to separate ourselves from the tale. Sometimes we do it because we'd be uncomfortable otherwise. In a horror game, for instance, we'll crack jokes or make table talk about the real world, reemphasizing the unreality of the horror. In the midst of a tragedy, we'll have our heroes stand bold and proud, brushing off the sorrow and just going on being heroes. We can't have them break, because someone might think we've broken too.
But I've learned that when I allow myself to feel, when I allow that fear or horror or sadness or pain or joy or hope or dream or love to affect me, and then allow it to affect my writing, I get an experience I can remember, and an experience others can remember as well.
I've learned that I can best write a character who has gone through struggles and pain when I let myself feel the sadness, just as I would if I weren't participating in the writing. I've learned to force myself to treat roleplaying and collaborative storytelling just like watching a movie or reading a book or playing a video game with a great tale - I've learned to drop my guard and let things hit me.
Because when I let things hit me, I let them hit my character, and when I let them hit my character, my character's reactions are more honest, more powerful, more raw and pure. It makes the character feel like a full-fledged person, with hopes and dreams and fears and pain, who is affected by the tale, driven by the tale, pushed to react and to experience emotion and to be changed by those experiences.
For me, it's hard. It's honestly hard. It's so easy to slip back into just thinking, "Well, what should happen next?" or "What card should I use here?" or "What tactic seems best?" or "What would be a cool thing to do?" or "What's my next one-liner?" And look - all of those questions can be, frequently are good things to ask. But not if they separate you from actually feeling. And for me, they can, unless I force myself to into the right mindset. For me, they can, unless I specifically connect myself with the heart of the tale.
This isn't something I can tell you how to do. Everybody's different. Everybody reacts to a story differently. For some of you, this isn't even something you'll have to think about. Some of you are reading this article and thinking, "Wow, I mean, I just get in my character's head and I feel this stuff anyway." And that's great! There are people who can just do that, who can just feel like a character, get in their head, think like they do, and feel like they do. It's something you hear about from great actors all the time, and it's something I've heard from great roleplayers as well.
But if you're like me, and you find yourself thinking clinically about stories, thinking about plot designs, thinking about cards or dice or what-have-you, thinking about character motivations from a distance...I can't tell you how to do it, but I encourage you to try to break that. Think like a reader, think like someone who is experiencing the tale. Don't think what your character should do, feel what your character will do.
If you're like me, that isn't going to be easy, and you aren't going to succeed all the time. But those moments where you do succeed? Those are going to be the moments you remember, the moments you deeply treasure, the moments you look back on years from now and relive in your mind.
When that happens...you see the true treasure that roleplaying, that collaborative storytelling, that writing in general can be. You leave a part of yourself in that story. You become a part of it, and it becomes a part of you. It is a beautiful, wonderful experience.
So...let yourself feel. Open yourself to that experience. Let the story in.
This will be the final weekly article of Storium Theory. I'm not going to say that I'm solidly done, that there will never be another article, but I've said just about everything I can think of to say at present. I've written one hundred and thirty-three articles about Storium, counting this one, and I've written about it since November 2015. That's...probably more than I've written about anything else in my life, ever. And that's not counting my participation in Storium Arc, where I've spent many hours talking about this great system and community as well.
It's amazing to me the level of depth that a system like Storium has turned out to have...the fact that I could find so much to write about it, the fact that I could write for such a long time on it and it alone...that honestly surprised me. When I started this out, I didn't initially set it up on my blog. I was just going to have four or five little articles on a webpage somewhere, just a quick little guide of sorts for new Storium players or narrators.
But Storium was deeper than that. Storium was more than that. Exploring Storium took longer, took more thought, became more interesting to me. I found myself exploring the ways the system could be used, the ways you could use challenges to do interesting things, and that got me thinking about how things could work in my own games or with my own characters, and those fed back into articles here.
Now...again, I can't say I'm done. I'm still playing Storium, and topics will still likely arise. But for now, this is the end of weekly articles, of regularly scheduled articles.
I hope that those of you who have read these have found them useful. I hope that I've helped you get more comfortable with the Storium system, and to learn to use it in creative ways, ways that can enhance your stories and lead to memorable and fun games. I hope that I've helped you get into your characters and explore them more deeply.
But now, as ever, I want to emphasize something: My way to play Storium is not the only way to play Storium. My way to write is not the only way to write. As I close up this post, and with it, the regular Storium Theory articles, I want to encourage you to look not just here, but to the community in general, to other Storium games, to other resources. If you need help, ask for it - the community is willing. If you need examples, look for them among the other games out there. See how things have worked. Explore. And come up with your own methods, your own interesting ways to use the system, your own house rules.
Storium is a simple system in concept, but a deep one at heart. Take the time to get to know it and it will reward you.
May the future bring you friendship, great stories, and treasured memories.
You have to let yourself feel.
If you want to tell powerful stories, you have to let yourself feel.
If you want to truly portray your character, you have to let yourself feel.
If you just want to have the best time you can roleplaying, to have an experience you'll remember and look back on fondly, you have to let yourself feel.
Some people can do this really easily. Others, myself included, have a tougher time with it.
I have a tendency to get pretty mechanical when I'm writing, particularly in RPGs, storytelling games, or the like. I find that I distance myself from the events of the story, from the emotional impact of what goes on, in a way that I don't if I'm just watching a movie or reading a book or playing a video game. When I'm not participating in the writing, I can get involved in the emotion of a story easily. But when I'm participating...
When I'm participating, I spend more time thinking about what should happen next, or what I'm going to do, or what cards I'm going to play, or what my strategy should be for the next step, what abilities I want to use, how my tactics will affect my dice rolls...any or all of that, depending on what sort of writing or gaming we're talking about. It's really easy to distance myself from feeling what's happening in the story, and look at things as the basic exercise of writing or gaming rather than the full-fledged emotional experience of a tale.
There's a social aspect, too, though that's less of a concern in a play-by-post sort of game like Storium. But still...I'm not a guy who likes to have his emotions on full display. I'm not that open, really, and so I tend to consciously or unconsciously resist letting myself react to story events emotionally when I'm writing or playing with others.
I've learned that I have to try to break out of that shell.
The best moments I've had in Storium, in tabletop gaming, in online roleplaying, in MUXes, in any kind of collaborative writing experience...those moments have all been when I let my walls drop. Those are the moments I remember most fondly.
The moments when I let the tears come while I read and wrote.
The moments when I felt anger at the deeds of a villain.
The moments when I worried for a hero who had disappeared.
The moments when I dove into my character's mindset and felt the fear he would about the monster lurking in the dark.
It's so very easy to separate ourselves from the tale. Sometimes we do it because we'd be uncomfortable otherwise. In a horror game, for instance, we'll crack jokes or make table talk about the real world, reemphasizing the unreality of the horror. In the midst of a tragedy, we'll have our heroes stand bold and proud, brushing off the sorrow and just going on being heroes. We can't have them break, because someone might think we've broken too.
But I've learned that when I allow myself to feel, when I allow that fear or horror or sadness or pain or joy or hope or dream or love to affect me, and then allow it to affect my writing, I get an experience I can remember, and an experience others can remember as well.
I've learned that I can best write a character who has gone through struggles and pain when I let myself feel the sadness, just as I would if I weren't participating in the writing. I've learned to force myself to treat roleplaying and collaborative storytelling just like watching a movie or reading a book or playing a video game with a great tale - I've learned to drop my guard and let things hit me.
Because when I let things hit me, I let them hit my character, and when I let them hit my character, my character's reactions are more honest, more powerful, more raw and pure. It makes the character feel like a full-fledged person, with hopes and dreams and fears and pain, who is affected by the tale, driven by the tale, pushed to react and to experience emotion and to be changed by those experiences.
For me, it's hard. It's honestly hard. It's so easy to slip back into just thinking, "Well, what should happen next?" or "What card should I use here?" or "What tactic seems best?" or "What would be a cool thing to do?" or "What's my next one-liner?" And look - all of those questions can be, frequently are good things to ask. But not if they separate you from actually feeling. And for me, they can, unless I force myself to into the right mindset. For me, they can, unless I specifically connect myself with the heart of the tale.
This isn't something I can tell you how to do. Everybody's different. Everybody reacts to a story differently. For some of you, this isn't even something you'll have to think about. Some of you are reading this article and thinking, "Wow, I mean, I just get in my character's head and I feel this stuff anyway." And that's great! There are people who can just do that, who can just feel like a character, get in their head, think like they do, and feel like they do. It's something you hear about from great actors all the time, and it's something I've heard from great roleplayers as well.
But if you're like me, and you find yourself thinking clinically about stories, thinking about plot designs, thinking about cards or dice or what-have-you, thinking about character motivations from a distance...I can't tell you how to do it, but I encourage you to try to break that. Think like a reader, think like someone who is experiencing the tale. Don't think what your character should do, feel what your character will do.
If you're like me, that isn't going to be easy, and you aren't going to succeed all the time. But those moments where you do succeed? Those are going to be the moments you remember, the moments you deeply treasure, the moments you look back on years from now and relive in your mind.
When that happens...you see the true treasure that roleplaying, that collaborative storytelling, that writing in general can be. You leave a part of yourself in that story. You become a part of it, and it becomes a part of you. It is a beautiful, wonderful experience.
So...let yourself feel. Open yourself to that experience. Let the story in.
This will be the final weekly article of Storium Theory. I'm not going to say that I'm solidly done, that there will never be another article, but I've said just about everything I can think of to say at present. I've written one hundred and thirty-three articles about Storium, counting this one, and I've written about it since November 2015. That's...probably more than I've written about anything else in my life, ever. And that's not counting my participation in Storium Arc, where I've spent many hours talking about this great system and community as well.
It's amazing to me the level of depth that a system like Storium has turned out to have...the fact that I could find so much to write about it, the fact that I could write for such a long time on it and it alone...that honestly surprised me. When I started this out, I didn't initially set it up on my blog. I was just going to have four or five little articles on a webpage somewhere, just a quick little guide of sorts for new Storium players or narrators.
But Storium was deeper than that. Storium was more than that. Exploring Storium took longer, took more thought, became more interesting to me. I found myself exploring the ways the system could be used, the ways you could use challenges to do interesting things, and that got me thinking about how things could work in my own games or with my own characters, and those fed back into articles here.
Now...again, I can't say I'm done. I'm still playing Storium, and topics will still likely arise. But for now, this is the end of weekly articles, of regularly scheduled articles.
I hope that those of you who have read these have found them useful. I hope that I've helped you get more comfortable with the Storium system, and to learn to use it in creative ways, ways that can enhance your stories and lead to memorable and fun games. I hope that I've helped you get into your characters and explore them more deeply.
But now, as ever, I want to emphasize something: My way to play Storium is not the only way to play Storium. My way to write is not the only way to write. As I close up this post, and with it, the regular Storium Theory articles, I want to encourage you to look not just here, but to the community in general, to other Storium games, to other resources. If you need help, ask for it - the community is willing. If you need examples, look for them among the other games out there. See how things have worked. Explore. And come up with your own methods, your own interesting ways to use the system, your own house rules.
Storium is a simple system in concept, but a deep one at heart. Take the time to get to know it and it will reward you.
May the future bring you friendship, great stories, and treasured memories.
miércoles, 4 de marzo de 2020
Super Adventures With The Xbox Game Pass
But what you likely don't know, is that I joined it like a week or two too early to get the three months! I only got one month! It's an actual tragedy. (Also I'm not getting paid for all this advertising I'm giving them and that sucks too.)
So this week on Super Adventures I decided to get three months' worth of gameplay out of my one month by playing too many games for not long enough each! I can't do a full post on each of them so I'm going to skip past the part where I try to be funny underneath screenshots and jump straight to the bit at the end where I sum up my first impressions. It's a bit of a change of format, but don't worry it's not going to stick.
I was really rushed last month (and I still am) so a few of these 'reviews' are just going to be me pointing out something funny I saw in the first ten minutes, right before I got bored and quit. You don't have to finish a game to know that it's bad, but giving it a few hours definitely helps and I didn't always do that, so don't take my complaining too seriously. I'm just showing off some of the games I played, because it felt like it'd be wasted opportunity not to.
Read on »
Locke Vs. Irusk2 #RockLockeInCoC
I was fortunate enough to be able to get a second game in last week, and I decided I want to start practicing my Convergence.
Since Friday was the release date for Crucible Guard, my FLGS had my preorder for Locke in and I was able to pick her up and assemble it that evening. On Saturday afternoon I was ready to drop her into whatever my opponent brought.
Honestly I think Locke is a better Convergence caster than she is in Crucible Guard, and frankly she's going to be more appreciated in CoC than CG because of her spell combination and what it brings to the table for us. Hence the hashtag: #RockLockeInCoC
For my list I decided I wanted to run a TEP with her, despite the common opinion that it's best to run more heavies. Part of this was that I've yet to play with a TEP at all and I wanted to see what it can do, but also because it gives us a strong Road to War trigger in that it can fire off at least two shots near guaranteed to kill something, possibly more depending on the matchup.
Here's what I went with:
Locke in Destruction Initiative
-Corollary
-Inverter
-Inverter
-Assimilator
-Cipher
TEP
ADO
ADO
Elimination Servitors
Elimination Servitors
Elimination Servitors
Attunement Servitors
Attunement Servitors
Eilish
Optifex Directive
My friend Brian showed up with Khador and decided to try out Armored Corps:
Irusk2
-Spriggan
-Rager
Man-o-War Shocktroopers + UA
Man-o-War Demo Corps + Dragos
Man-o-War Siege Chariot
Man-o-War Drakhun
Man-o-War Kovnik
Kommandant Atanas Arconovich & Standard
Man-o-War Suppression Tanker
Man-o-War Suppression Tanker
Kayazy Eliminators
We rolled for scenario and got the brand new Mirage, which is incredibly live.
Brian set the terrain around the table and I won the roll off, he picked sides.
Deployment, Mistakes, and My Turn 1
I didn't get a picture of the pure deployment, and after the game we realized Brian didn't take any advanced moves from his theme benefit. Neither of us thought it would have been particularly impactful to how the game played out given that I out threat his units by a decent amount and the fact that Locke doesn't need to cast Engine of Destruction to be able to easily hit the Man-o-War troops, especially if I play my Attunement Servitors correctly. This lets her hot swap around Red Line if necessary and with two Inverters that have chain weapons to ignore shield bonuses, further swinging things my way.
Of note: Brian is proxying Sorcha3 as the Shocktrooper UA.
I do however have a picture of my turn 1 after I ran everything forward:
I will likely put another post up expressly about how to deploy Locke and her Vector package so that she can cast all her upkeeps on turn 1 and still have the Corollary's free focus allow all the jacks to run turn 1, while ending things so that the Corollary can get the focus back at the end of the run/induction sequence. There are at least a few other casters in Convergence who need to use the Corollary/Induction focus game to get their spells cast turn 1 while also ensuring the Corollary can be primed for turn 2.
Brian's Turn 1
Brian runs basically everything up, though he keeps the Siege Chariot back a bit further than I expected. He is flanking hard with the Drakhun to threaten my TEP once it comes up to shoot. One mistake I think Brian has made was not positioning so that Irusk could cast Fire for Effect on the Chariot, though against Destruction Initiative the Siege Chariot is going to really struggle due to all my shield guards.
My Turn 2
Pre-measuring shows me that I can safely get the Drakhun in range of the TEP while also staying back far enough to avoid the Shock Troopers. I configure the TEP to use 2 dice to hit, 4 dice to damage, and one extra shot. Between that and one Elimination Servitor shot, the Drakhun dies.
I also use the Assimilator to catch three Shocktroopers in a ground pounder, which was particularly effective since the Shocktroopers needed to run on turn 1. This put some damage into the unit while I managed to spike and kill one Shocktrooper outright.
I position the Redline Inverter on the right to be just out of the Spriggan's 11" max melee threat. I position a servitor on both the middle and right flags to force contesting. I don't bother with the left flag since he doesn't have any solos close enough to take it and is already contesting in a way I can't meaningfully kill anyway.
I do however position two servitors on the left flank and shoot them with rough terrain from the Cipher to make things at least inconvenient for the Eliminators. I could have done better with placement.
Brian's Turn 2
Brian runs his Kayazy around the rough terrain to contest my zone. Atanas gives the Demo Corps pathfinder and they run/charge to clear a servitor and contest the center flag. Irusk puts Artifice of Deviation on the lake and the Shocktroopers shield wall up.
The Siege Chariot takes a shot at my Cipher and I shield guard, however I do it to a servitor that is then in line to slam into on of my ADO's, which I was planning on to arc spells over to the Kayazy. Note for next time, pick better shield guard targets.
Brian of course feats this turn to slow down my reprisal, though he is unable to catch the TEP and Cipher in his feat.
Brian scores his zone but I'm able to score my right flag, so we tie scenario 1-1.
My Turn 3
Locke allocates two focus to Cipher and holds onto 5 to try and spell down the Eliminators. The Cipher takes its sentry shot with the POW6 blast at the Eliminators but it scatters far off of them.
The Optifex directive moves up and gets into my zone fully while also giving the Cipher and left Inverter pathfinder. Then I move on to Flare Time from the Attunement servitors: My left most Attunement servitor aims and is within 5" of the Eliminators. I manage to nail the 8 to hit and flare both Eliminators. I then use another servitor to flare the Spriggan and another two servitors are able to flare the entire Shocktrooper units.
The Corollary fills to 3 Focus and transfers it to the Assimilator. The Assimilator then moves its paltry 2" to get out of the TEP's way and drops shots onto four Shocktroopers via ground pounder. I'm able to boost three damage rolls and kill two outright, damaging two others. This focus inducts to the Redline Inverter on the right.
This proc's Road to War for the right Redline Inverter and the left Inverter. The TEP moves up and I consider just trying to spray the Objective down but I figure the Inverter should be able to pull that off. I then start using 5 dice to damage shots into the cluster of three Shocktroopers still alive. After both shots I leave the UA on one box, and it passes its tough checks from Elimination servitor shots.
Locke activates and feats, moving 2" into the zone to get in range of the Eliminators. I boost to hit Bombshell on them and hit, then boost blast on the second Eliminator to....eliminate both of them and clear my zone. With Solid Ground purified off, the Redline Inverter charges into the Spriggan (induct to Corollary) and puts a Macropummler + precision strike to take out the Cortex and knock the jack down. I then take two swings with the chain arm into the objective, killing it, and then take my last two swings into the Spriggan (induct to the other Inverter), ignoring its shield and crippling its lance arm.
I charge the left Inverter into the Demo Corps but only get one in melee (this inducts to the Corollary). This was the only one that was contesting the center flag however. I'm unable to buy more attacks and the focus sits. I then use the Cipher to walk into the Demo Corps and start wailing, doing damage but not killing any models yet due to Sanguine Bond.
Once everything was done, I scored 4 points this turn: My zone, Brian's Objective, Center Flag, and the Right Flag. Brian scores nothing and I'm up 5-1.
Brian's Turn 3
The Demo Corps get Vengeance moves/attacks which result in getting a crit stationary result on my Inverter, who then starts taking tons of damage. Luckily my Cipher gets missed by both Demo Corps.
Irusk allocates one to the Rager, then moves up and casts Battle Lust on the Demo Corps and cast a second spell that I don't remember, giving me two feat tokens that I put on my Cipher.
Dragos annihilates the stationary Inverter, but the other Demo Corps start missing/not doing enough damage to my Cipher to take any systems out. The Siege Chariot impacts its way into the zone and takes a shot at my objective, which I shield guard to a servitor that doesn't slam into the objective.
Then Brian makes a mistake by using the Rager to try and attack my Inverter, using focus to boost damage rolls which then gives me more feat tokens which I put on the Inverter. Not much damage is done and to put insult over injury the Rager rolls a 2 and blows itself up. What Brian should have done was run to contest my flag.
Brian moves up the Suppresion tankers and sprays down the servitors on my flags, but isn't close enough to contest.
Realizing his error he charges the Shocktrooper UA into the TEP, doing decent damage but not enough to kill it. Neither of us score any CP's this turn.
My Turn 4
To end the game I simply move an Elimination servitor up behind the lone Shock Trooper and use gun fighter to plink her to death. An ADO moves to my right flag and I win the game on scenario 6-1.
Conclusions
After the game we spoke about how the Armored Corps list was slow, and then we remembered he would have had advanced move on a bunch of models.
After writing the report it's clear this would have helped him more than we initially thought about the game. He would have at least been in shield wall for my turn two shooting instead of having had to run, or he would have been significantly closer to charging me. The downside to this is that he potentially gets into my threat ranges with the Shock Troops who match up very poorly into Chain Weapon wielding Inverters.
The Siege Chariot ends up being effectively terrible in this match due to my high number of shield guards, and my winning the dice roll to go first really hurts on a scenario this live vs. a list as slow as his where he will be out threat significantly due to Road to War and Redline. Since he's so low on DEF I don't need Engine of Destruction to hit, allowing me to cycle Redline easily which would punish him moving up enough for scenario.
I think Brian just needs a few mods to his list and he can be in a much better position for this game, though I'm not sure this kind of melee oriented Armored Corps wants to fight into #RockLockeInCoC. Convergence guns can eat through Demo Corps and our best melee Jack can power right on through Shocktroopers shield wall.
As for evaluating Locke herself and CoC in general, I definitely liked the list. I appreciated the amount of firepower I can bring to bear in a jack focused list design while also having a high enough model count to be relevant at least early on in scenario and being able to have a competent melee threat as well.
I do however position two servitors on the left flank and shoot them with rough terrain from the Cipher to make things at least inconvenient for the Eliminators. I could have done better with placement.
Brian's Turn 2
Brian runs his Kayazy around the rough terrain to contest my zone. Atanas gives the Demo Corps pathfinder and they run/charge to clear a servitor and contest the center flag. Irusk puts Artifice of Deviation on the lake and the Shocktroopers shield wall up.
The Siege Chariot takes a shot at my Cipher and I shield guard, however I do it to a servitor that is then in line to slam into on of my ADO's, which I was planning on to arc spells over to the Kayazy. Note for next time, pick better shield guard targets.
Brian of course feats this turn to slow down my reprisal, though he is unable to catch the TEP and Cipher in his feat.
Brian scores his zone but I'm able to score my right flag, so we tie scenario 1-1.
My Turn 3
Locke allocates two focus to Cipher and holds onto 5 to try and spell down the Eliminators. The Cipher takes its sentry shot with the POW6 blast at the Eliminators but it scatters far off of them.
The Optifex directive moves up and gets into my zone fully while also giving the Cipher and left Inverter pathfinder. Then I move on to Flare Time from the Attunement servitors: My left most Attunement servitor aims and is within 5" of the Eliminators. I manage to nail the 8 to hit and flare both Eliminators. I then use another servitor to flare the Spriggan and another two servitors are able to flare the entire Shocktrooper units.
The Corollary fills to 3 Focus and transfers it to the Assimilator. The Assimilator then moves its paltry 2" to get out of the TEP's way and drops shots onto four Shocktroopers via ground pounder. I'm able to boost three damage rolls and kill two outright, damaging two others. This focus inducts to the Redline Inverter on the right.
This proc's Road to War for the right Redline Inverter and the left Inverter. The TEP moves up and I consider just trying to spray the Objective down but I figure the Inverter should be able to pull that off. I then start using 5 dice to damage shots into the cluster of three Shocktroopers still alive. After both shots I leave the UA on one box, and it passes its tough checks from Elimination servitor shots.
Locke activates and feats, moving 2" into the zone to get in range of the Eliminators. I boost to hit Bombshell on them and hit, then boost blast on the second Eliminator to....eliminate both of them and clear my zone. With Solid Ground purified off, the Redline Inverter charges into the Spriggan (induct to Corollary) and puts a Macropummler + precision strike to take out the Cortex and knock the jack down. I then take two swings with the chain arm into the objective, killing it, and then take my last two swings into the Spriggan (induct to the other Inverter), ignoring its shield and crippling its lance arm.
I charge the left Inverter into the Demo Corps but only get one in melee (this inducts to the Corollary). This was the only one that was contesting the center flag however. I'm unable to buy more attacks and the focus sits. I then use the Cipher to walk into the Demo Corps and start wailing, doing damage but not killing any models yet due to Sanguine Bond.
Once everything was done, I scored 4 points this turn: My zone, Brian's Objective, Center Flag, and the Right Flag. Brian scores nothing and I'm up 5-1.
Brian's Turn 3
The Demo Corps get Vengeance moves/attacks which result in getting a crit stationary result on my Inverter, who then starts taking tons of damage. Luckily my Cipher gets missed by both Demo Corps.
Irusk allocates one to the Rager, then moves up and casts Battle Lust on the Demo Corps and cast a second spell that I don't remember, giving me two feat tokens that I put on my Cipher.
Dragos annihilates the stationary Inverter, but the other Demo Corps start missing/not doing enough damage to my Cipher to take any systems out. The Siege Chariot impacts its way into the zone and takes a shot at my objective, which I shield guard to a servitor that doesn't slam into the objective.
Then Brian makes a mistake by using the Rager to try and attack my Inverter, using focus to boost damage rolls which then gives me more feat tokens which I put on the Inverter. Not much damage is done and to put insult over injury the Rager rolls a 2 and blows itself up. What Brian should have done was run to contest my flag.
Brian moves up the Suppresion tankers and sprays down the servitors on my flags, but isn't close enough to contest.
Realizing his error he charges the Shocktrooper UA into the TEP, doing decent damage but not enough to kill it. Neither of us score any CP's this turn.
My Turn 4
To end the game I simply move an Elimination servitor up behind the lone Shock Trooper and use gun fighter to plink her to death. An ADO moves to my right flag and I win the game on scenario 6-1.
Conclusions
After the game we spoke about how the Armored Corps list was slow, and then we remembered he would have had advanced move on a bunch of models.
After writing the report it's clear this would have helped him more than we initially thought about the game. He would have at least been in shield wall for my turn two shooting instead of having had to run, or he would have been significantly closer to charging me. The downside to this is that he potentially gets into my threat ranges with the Shock Troops who match up very poorly into Chain Weapon wielding Inverters.
The Siege Chariot ends up being effectively terrible in this match due to my high number of shield guards, and my winning the dice roll to go first really hurts on a scenario this live vs. a list as slow as his where he will be out threat significantly due to Road to War and Redline. Since he's so low on DEF I don't need Engine of Destruction to hit, allowing me to cycle Redline easily which would punish him moving up enough for scenario.
I think Brian just needs a few mods to his list and he can be in a much better position for this game, though I'm not sure this kind of melee oriented Armored Corps wants to fight into #RockLockeInCoC. Convergence guns can eat through Demo Corps and our best melee Jack can power right on through Shocktroopers shield wall.
As for evaluating Locke herself and CoC in general, I definitely liked the list. I appreciated the amount of firepower I can bring to bear in a jack focused list design while also having a high enough model count to be relevant at least early on in scenario and being able to have a competent melee threat as well.
I'm overall very excited to play CoC once the Scrum is over and enjoy the change of pace from Trolls. I think Destruction Initiative is very well positioned to excel in SR2018, and there may be some really strong play that can be done with a Prime Axiom that can create "free" servitors every turn to contest or score. Similarly I think that if I owned all the Obstructors I needed there may be some game for Clockwork Legion as well, but that's a separate question that requires some testing.
Finally, if you're playing Locke in Convergence, make sure to let PP know how much we appreciate her with #RockLockeInCoC
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