Minx the Maligned (Guild Ball)

The following article is a mix of opinion and tactics specifically centered on the Union player Minx. I was torn on which label I wanted to apply and decided it's best to go with both and leave it at that. It's not uncommon that outside my local guild ball group I hear disparaging comments about how Minx is not very useful. I specify outside my own play group as my local area has come to respect her through multiple games against my own teams where she is included. I particularly like her in my Captain Rage Union list, there she plays a key role "turning on" the team. I've also gotten good use from her in my Hunters teams, although she does not play as strong a role there as in Union. She's been available since the release of the Kickstarter but is not regularly used. I suspect that's going to change as more time passes and players realise the fantastic tech she brings to team. I'm going to do my part ahead of the curve and help explain where and how she plays best.

Minx - Looking at the Card

I think it's best to start out looking at her card and digging into the basic mechanics of what she does. Looking at the front of her card we are immediately struck my her exceptional movement stat of 7/9. Minx can swiftly move across the board and appears to threaten 10 inches for her attacks. We see a fairly basic TAC, Kick, and the "average" defence on her. Then we reach the second eye catching point on her stat line, which is the 2/2 influence. As a player when you see an influence stat that is equal such as 2/2, this should trigger a question and cause you to scan the card to see if there's a reason for the odd stat. In this case, we find on the back of her card that Minx is furious, charging for free. Overall this makes her a very efficient model, bringing 2 influence and able to charge a target 10 inches away for free without using that influence.

Moving to Minx's playbook and character plays we find she has evenly spread momentous damage on 1, 3, and 5 successes. This points toward her being a damage dealer with nicely placed momentous damage generation. It also means that on a charge, should she get enough results to wrap, she can easily take advantage of damage buffs such as commanding aura and tooled up. On her playbook, we find two interesting character plays, both of which can be triggered from her playbook non-momentously. Screeching Banshee applies a movement penalty to the target model along with delivering 2 points of damage. Marked Target is more interesting, being able to be triggered as well as paid for with 1 influence. This is an 8 inch ranged play which applies a movement bonus for models charging the target the play was applied to. This threat extender can be incredibly helpful to "known threat range" models who want to charge into combat.

Swapping over to the back of her card we catch sight of a couple more interesting tidbits. The first, Furious, I mentioned above and is part of the key nature for Minx in a team. Furious lets her charge a target without influence, getting at least one attack. The second eye-catching trait is Damaged Target. This ability increases Minx's charge range by 2 inches when she is targeting a damaged model for her charge. This increases her overall threat range to a very impressive 12 inches. The third trait is one that's often forgotten but can be useful in niche situations. Follow-Up allows Minx to utilize her 7-inch jog to stay engaged with a model that moves out of her melee range.

Reviewing all of the information and stats for Minx we find the ideal situation is one where she can charge someone 12 inches away, hit them for 3 - 4 momentous damage then bounce away using the double dodge at the top of her playbook. This makes her a finisher model, supporting the rest of the team with both 2 influence to be assigned elsewhere and the final 2 - 4 points of damage for a take out.  If looked at in those terms she is just ok, not an amazing model at all.

One wonders why I would be writing this if that were all?

The Union team led by Captain Rage

Minx can be played with multiple teams but I feel she truly shines in a Captain Rage led union team. She brings some incredible utility to that team which increases the overall effectiveness and threat of the team. My current favorite team roster for Capt. Rage includes Minx, Coin, Gutter, Avarisse & Greed, and Mist. This team brings a total of 12 influence to be allocated turn 1, plus the Bag of Coffers influence allocated during the turn. Often turn 2 will see a desire to allocate 4 influence to Rage, 4 to Gutter, and 3 or 4 to Mist, draining the base pool of allocatable influence. This means that the other models, in this case Minx and A&G, are left with no influence. This is not a problem for Minx as she can still charge for free, adding some additional damage to a select combat. Almost more important, Minx can charge from "seemingly nowhere" to set up a gang-up bonus for a targeted combat. This becomes very beneficial for Capt. Rage when using Bloody Coin.

The second, and somewhat more important, value Minx brings to the team is Marked Target. Minx is able to extend Capt. Rage and Gutter's threat range. Of these two models, Capt. Rage has the more important threat range to extend. Typical opponents will be accutely aware of Capt. Rage's 7 inch charge / 8 inch threat range and endeavor to stay outside of it. Savvy opponents will often consider "Quick time" on Rage, extending that threat to 10 inches and will stay out side that. Minx can often charge into that range, hitting to trigger marked target and adding an additional 2 inches to increase Capt. Rage's threat to 12 inches. Even when she cannot charge, such as during turn 1, giving her a single influence gives a 1 dice chance to land Marked Target on an opposing model within 15 inches of Minx's starting point. It's especially useful to use Coin to give Bag of Coffers to Minx, giving her the influence and a bonus time for the character play when activation is not an issue.

Lastly and least important is her actual damage. Minx being able to charge an engaged target, attacking in range of Capt. Rage's legendary play can deliver some reliably good damage. In this situation she should be rolling 11 dice, averaging 5 hits for a momentous 4 damage plus a 2 inch dodge. Often she will spike this roll to 6, 7, or 8 hits and escalate that to 7 damage, 2 momentum, and a 2 inch dodge. It's a fairly nice finisher to a turn where she was not allocated any influence.

Minx vs Gutter with Blackheart

I've been fairly vocal about my disapointment with Gutter after the April errata, specifically when played with Blackheart. On Guild Ball Tonight I commented that I have switched to using Minx in place of Gutter because I felt she was better. This is a good place to discuss this comparison and where my preference comes from.

Following the April 2016 errata Gutter moved from a reliable control player to a damage focused player, specifically utilizing Scything Blow for her damage. Many people point out that Gutter still have a 4 inch chain grab along with reliable momentous damage. I always hear the stories about Gutter getting multiple scything blows off on models that get grouped up, thus delivering amazing results and incredible take-out's to generate points.

I'll point out that this is not untrue, in specific situations. Gutter when is an amazingly dangerous player when used to focus on maximising damage via scything blow. I'll go further and say that in specific teams (Butchers and Capt. Rage) she is a top choice among players, almost critical for a Capt. Rage team in my opinion. That said, she's not as good with Blackheart.

Blackheart benefits Gutter in two ways, via crowding out her target and via Commanding Aura. Commanding aura will grant +1 damage to playbook damage results and +1 TAC while attacking a target within the aura. In these situations, where Gutter can position appropriately to not endanger Blackheart or another friendly model, Gutter generates moderate results. She will be attacking with TAC 7 (base 5, +1 for gang-up, +1 for commanding aura) which only reliably generates 4 successes. This means that Gutter can choose momentous 2 (becomes 3 damage) or momentous scything blow (3 damage to everyone in 2 inches). Not bad damage, especially if she positions to get multiple people in range. Maximising this attack to get 12 damage by using all 4 influence on attacking means Gutter had to start within 8 inches of the target model and be able to walk to a position where she is not within 2 inches of any friendly models. She'll aim to pick this position to also have 2 or more enemy models in range.

Let's lay that out as a list:

1. Must be within 8 inches of 2 enemy models
2. Cannot end within 2 inches of a friendly model
3. Blackheart is already engaging the target model she'll be attacking

That's the "ideal" situation that can be reasonably expected to scything blow and put 12 damage on 2 models.

Looking at Minx in a similar situation we can start by making a couple assumptions. The basic one is we assume Commanding Aura and engagement, but that the target model has not taken any damage yet. In this case Minx can charge the model from 10 inches across the board and will be making her first attack with 11 dice (base 5, +4 charge, +1 gang-up, +1 for commanding aura) and reliably generating 5 successes on the hit. This will do 4 damage, followed up by 2 attacks at TAC 7 doing an additional 3 per attack. Let's compare with the following list:

1. Must be within 10 inches of the target
2. Blackheart is already engaging the target model she'll be attacking

The comparable damage is 12 damage to the single target (possibly 12 to 2 targets in an ideal situation) vs 10 damage to a single target. Gutter took 4 influence and had to be closer to the target. Minx was further away and only required 2 influence. Gutter generated 4 momentum while Minx generated 3 momentum.

I have found that the more often I play savvy opponents, both locally and at the top tiers of tournaments, those opponents know how to counter Gutter. They watch for her and since she's a threat they focus on removing her or mitigating her threat. Minx tends to slip under the radar more and is not considered as much of a threat, or considered out of range to get into combat. When I combine this with her Marked Target being useful for Decimate and Blackheart charging, extending both their threat ranges, she is far more useful to me. Gutter can still chain grab, but in a team that cannot boost her number of attacks or drastically increase her damage on character playes, every chain grab is less effective damage she delivers.

As such, Minx is better with Blackheart. Spelling it out here are my reasons:

1. Greater threat range
2. Similar damage range (10 - 12), same threat if her charge spikes to 1 additional success.
3. Only 1 less momentum generation (which becomes same if Gutter has to chain grab)
4. Better team enablement with Marked Target

Conclusion .... for now

This should give you a good handle on how to start including Minx into your lists. I think she works very well with both Union captains, as you can see above. Minx also plays for Masons, Butchers, Hunters, and Morticians. I will write a future article about how she works with the Hunters, suffice it to say I think she's very useful in that influence constrained team. I think she fits well with Butchers as well, enabling the build of a team that's almost completely furious. I don't think she brings as much use to Morticians nor Masons, not really filling a necessary niche in those teams.

Guild Ball - Must Take Players?

I struggled to determine how to classify and tag this post. On the one hand I'll be talking about tournament strategy a bit. It'll be a look a Guild Ball player who is quickly becoming a key choice for tournament players. On the other hand I'll be discussing how the idea of a "must take" player annoys me. After everything I decided to jump in and start writing, then made the decision after reading what came out. It ended up as I suspected, more ramble than either tactics or soap-box.

Don't those two look familiar?

I've been playing in a number of Guild Ball tournaments this year. I've tucked a total of 8 under my belt since January, averaging a bit more than 1 per month. In between those events I've also run 3 tournaments including the (to date) largest tournament in the US. The Guild Ball tournament scene is maturing in a very short time and trends are starting to emerge. One of those trends I've found myself partaking in, despite my annoyance. Avarisse and Greede have been showing up in more tournament teams with each passing event. This has to make one wonder what this player (these players?) do so well that they make it in so many lists.

Avarisse & Greede

Avarisse & Greede are a single player choice for a team roster who bring potential two players to the table. Through a unique ability called Detach on Avarisse a second player can be put on the table during a maintenance phase, making this player into two different models. Once detached Greede acts on his own and generates his own influence. Should you want to recombine them Greede has the Attach ability to combine the two players back together.

Starting with Avarisse we look at his card and see a typical big guy stat line with 20 health and a 3+/1 defense and armor combined with Tough Hide on the back of his card. We also see a single influence, but this is off set by detaching Greede for a second influence (while detached). A movement of 4 inches is not overly impressive, but the jump to 7 inches on the sprint/charge becomes respectable. Combined with his TAC of 6 we see a model that really wants to be charging.

Avarisse shines when you look closely at his playbook. The majority of his playbook is momentous and it's easy to focus on the top end results with both damage and double pushes. Considering he has a short playbook (TAC 6 playbook 5 long) this seems really good, but it's not the strength of the playbook. Non-momentous knockdown on 2 successes is really good when it comes to counter-attacks. Momentous Singled-Out is the gem of this playbook though. Adding 2 additional TAC to other models who attack the target is an amazing ability. This can really increase the effectiveness of other playbook plays and triggered character plays.

Switching to the smaller of the pair we take a look at Greede. First we should focus on the very impressive 5+ natural defense on his card. This spikes up to 6+ when he is within 4 inches of Avarisse. Overall Greede is slow with a relatively low TAC, a very low health of 4, and Crazy to increase his TAC. This means that his playbook is very long to match his Crazy triggered TAC of 8. Greede, who is already vulnerable to taking a hit during a counter attack, becomes even more fragile if you use Crazy to get decent attacks. It's unfortunate that there are so few decent momentous results on his playbook, making the choice to attack with him not one of the better choices. Along with his defense Greede's kick stat really stands out on his card. A 4/4" kick makes him very reliable kicking, but only over a short distance.

What's the big deal?

Sure, knockdown, pushes, and Singled Out are all good plays. Sure, Avarisse is a big guy with lots of health and tough hide. Is that enough to see them showing up in most tournament lists? Are people truly making incredible use of a 4/4" kick to get those crazy snap-shots? I'm fairly certain that none of this is the reason. The reason these are being added into so many lists is for the extra activation. Activation control in Guild Ball may not be as important as other games, but it can be critical in the early turns for specific game plans.

Typically use for Avarisse & Greede runs in a similar fashion regardless of the team they are playing on. During the first maintenance phase Avarisse uses Detatch to offload Greede onto the table behind him, typically in range of the friendly goal.  Avarisse may get an influence or not, and at some point during the turn he trundles up the board toward mid-field. During the turn Greede will move back within an inch of the friendly goal and hide there for the bulk of the game.

The usefulness here is to force use the extra activation to force your opponent to commit to their game plan and move up the board before you have to commit. This can give an advantage to any team who's plan benefits from taking the last activation or an uninterrupted final activation. Any Shock & Awe style game plan almost requires A&G on the team to assure maximum effectiveness.

Condition play focused teams such as Smoke led Alchemists, Alchemists teams with Venin, Hunters, and Fillet led butchers all make use of out-activating their opponents. Forcing conditions that cannot be removed before the end of the turn converts immediately to near guaranteed damage. Combining this with heavy momentum generation can deliver a devastating combo hit to a team as the conditions wear them down lining up multiple early turn take-outs.

First turn aggressive scoring focus teams such as Fishermen, Pin Vice led engineers, Masons, and Union or Mortician teams including Mist benefit from the final turn activation. These teams tend to aim for scoring late turn 1 to minimize the ability of an opponent returning a goal during the turn using the goal kick to get the ball down the field. If these teams can capitalize on the goal with initiative on the following turn they can retrieve the ball and possibly convert a second fast goal early on turn 2.

Aggressive take-out focused teams such as Butchers, Brewers, Masons, Morticians, and Union have a trickier time making the most out of the last activation. These teams typically need a way to increase their own threat range or to pull a target model toward them. Gutter and Minx can be great for this, as can Puppet Master (Obulus), Lure (Cosset), and Times Called (Spigot). Take-out plays can be particularly effective utilizing a final activation due to the amount of momentum typically generated. The momentum typically results in grabbing initiative on turn 2, allowing the team to do more damage or complete a take-out in the first activation of turn 2.

Thoughts

I don't like the whole philosophy behind must take characters. Aside from taking Masons I'm seeing A&G being added to lists partly to counter other lists taking A&G. I'm adding A&G to specific lists to compliment my strategies in the early turns. Once I'm into late turn 2 or later I'm using Avarisse to deliver Singled Out onto key targets along with an occasional knockdown. A&G activation control and Singled Out really compliments a Captain Rage led union team just as nicely as any Union team containing Mist.

I believe other people are starting to figure out how to use these two, specifically the strength that Avarisse brings with a single success momentous Singled Out. I've talked on Guild Ball Tonight about how I was having trouble figuring out how to use them well. Early on I was not getting a lot of value from the dynamic duo but have begun to learn how to use them over the past couple months. It's entirely feasible that others are following along the same track I am, learning how to use them well in similar timing. I hope this is the case as I'm sometimes seeing A&G in teams I'm not sure are the best fit. I'm still unsure if the extra activation is so strong in play that it needs to be countered. If this is the case it's a sad day for Guild Ball as A&G become must-take models and we'll start seeing team diversity decreases throughout competitive events.

Blood Rage - Initial Thoughts

Last week I received a comfortably large box containing my blood rage kickstarter rewards. These arrived the day before Thursday gaming night, giving me a great opportunity to bring it out and play with the group. Since then I've also gotten 2 games in with my wife and feel pretty comfortable with a first look. As with most of my games, I'll wait until I get a solid half-dozen games in before reviewing it.

Unboxing

Cool Mini or Not (CMoN) kickstarters are known for delivering enough miniatures to be nearly disturbing in the volume. Blood Rage does not deliver as many mini's as Zombicide, but still put 84 models on my table. This does not include the very nifty kickstarter exclusive 3D tokens that replace the cardboard counters in the game. All of this was delivered in a single box for the core game, plus 7 additional boxes of various sizes for the expansions. These additional boxed (I'll post pictures with the full review) look like retail release boxes, although considering all the extra's are labeled Kickstart Exclusive they would not normally have a retail release.

This is probably an appropriate place to talk about the kickstarter length for delivery. Overall I am very satisfied with this kickstarter. The communication was acceptable between the end of the campaign and delivery and the shipping was tracked, with notification once the box was in the US shipping system. Original anticipated delivery was September 2015 and I recieved my box and the full compliment of backer rewards mid-October. The only portion of this that was a bit frustrating was CMoN selling the core game (no kickstarter exclusives) at Gencon. This meant I had to watch people who picked up the core game at Gencon play the game for ~2 months prior to my getting my copy.

Quality

Blood Rage met my expectations in terms of quality, both on the board and the models. I was expecting the models to be the same material and level of detail as Zombicide models, which they are. The board is a very nice quad-fold board made of a solid material that should hold up well under repeated play. The rules for the game were very easy to read and understand, letting us quickly jump into playing the game while making it quick to search for answers when questions arose. Additionally the game was simple enough that after a single read-through I was able to quickly teach the game to my wife, who picked it up after just a single game. The simplicity of the rules is an excellent sign of solid game design when compared against the depth of tactics and strategy in the game.

Initial Overall Thoughts

I'm enjoying playing Blood Rage, and everyone who's played so far seems to have enjoyed it as well. During our game night we had 2 players form outside our group ask to join us, both having anticipated the game and not had a chance to play. All 4 of us enjoyed our game and picked things up very quickly. The only area that things seemed a bit unbalanced was not drafting our "Gifts of the Gods" cards on turn 1. During the game your supposed to draft these cards but the recommendation is to not do so during the first turn of the first game (to give you a chance to learn about the cards themselves).

Blood Rage plays quickly, clocking in at approximately 30 - 45 minutes with experienced players. I do think the game is better with the expanded selection of Kickstarter Exclusive monsters, adding some really good choices to the game. The exclusive models more than double the monster choices in the game, adding many additional abilities, tactics, and strategies to the game. I'm not sure what CMoN's plans are, but I would hope that alternate retail sculpts for each of these models end up available for sale at a later date.

As mentioned, I enjoyed the game and look forward to playing more.

Guildball union player Mist - Broken or Not?

Hello dear reader, it's time for me to climb up on my soap box and share some of my opinions. I'm on my soapbox today relating to some recent discussion and opinions about a character in the game Guild Ball. I've been listening to recent opinions, jokes, commentary, and discussion about concerns that have captured my attention. It's captured my attention because I think that the direction of the discussion is inaccurate and uninformed. Overall I am getting the feeling that there are some sour grapes being used to fuel an agenda to scale down a character that simply works well and is not an issue. The focus for this soap box article is the Guild Ball Union player Mist.

The Problem

Mist is a striker who plays on the union team and can also play for the Alchemists, Masons, and Morticians. Mist has a base movement stat of 6"/8" and a kick stat of 3/8" along with 2 inch reach for attacks. Mist is able to use a character trait called "Cover of Darkness" to increase his movement to 8"/10" if he starts his advance (jog, sprint, or charge) within cover. He can create his own cover for the cost of 1 influence by using a character play called "Smoke Bomb" and also have a 1 influence character play called "Where'd They Go" that gives him a 4" dodge. The final consideration for the perceived problem is that Mist has a playbook which includes a Tackle result on 1 success that also generates a momentum.

All of this rolled up together means that Mist has a potential 22 inch threat range to make a goal shot if he is holding the ball at the start of his activation. It means he can potentially take the ball from a model 12 inches away from him, and if he ends up 12 inches from the goal when he does that he can make a shot after taking the ball.

Doing some digging for clarification, and listening to the various discussion and commentary, I've been able to ferret out the support for a "Mist is Broken" claim. The concern is that Mist can score a goal in the first turn, then score a goal at the beginning of the second turn, and potentially score a third goal during the second turn to win the game very quickly.

Let me acknowledge that this can absolutely happen, if the player kicking the ball to Mist is frankly not that good of a player or the player playing Mist is an exceptional (or exceptionally lucky) player. To go further, Mist is not the only model in the game that can do this.

Mist is not Broken

Let me come out here and say that Mist is certainly not broken, and there is really no reason to look at him for any type of revision. Instead of broken we need to be using the correct term, Mist is a Striker. While there are better and worse strikers in the game, let's take a look at the current strikers and see if we can discover the design methodology used for them.

Guild Ball Strikers

• (Union) Mist - 6"/8" (8"/10") move, 3/8" kick, 22 inch threat goal shot
• (Masons) Flint - 5"/8" move, 3/8" (4/10") kick, 22 inch threat goal shot
• (Brewers) Friday - 6"/8" move, 3/8" (4/10") kick, 20 inch threat goal shot
• (Alchemists) Vitriol - 6"/9" (8"/11") move, 4/8" kick, 19 inch threat goal shot
• (Fishermen) Angel - 6"/8" move, 4/8" (5/10") kick, 18 inch threat goal shot
• (Butchers) Brisket - 6"/8" move, 3/8" (4/10") kick, 18 inch threat goal shot
• (Engineers) Velocity - 6"/8" move, 4/8" kick, 16 inch threat goal shot

 Looking at the threat ranges for all of the strikers it's pretty easy to see that they are very similar, with Flint and Mist being at the top and scaling down after that. Poor Velocity is one of the worst strikers in the game overall, with only a 16 inch threat range on the goal. It's interesting to me that one of the characters that seems to be most used to compare to Mist, Velocity, sits comfortably in the middle of the threat ranges.

Part of the complaint was not only Mist's threat on making a goal shot, but also his ability to easily take the ball from another player. The ability to take the ball from another player is a combination of low success tackles plus reach of an attack plus momentum generation. We should take a look at how many strikers have a 1 success tackle, and how many of those plays generate momentum.

Strikers and Tackle

• (Union) Mist - 1 success Tackle, momentum, 2 inch reach
• (Masons) Flint - 1 success Tackle, momentum, 1 inch reach
• (Brewers) Friday - 1 success Tackle, momentum, 1 inch reach
• (Alchemists) Vitriol - 1 success Tackle, no momentum, 2 inch reach
• (Fishermen) Angel - 1 success Tackle, momentum, 1 inch reach
• (Butchers) Brisket - 1 success Tackle, momentum, 1 inch reach
• (Engineers) Velocity - 1 success Tackle, momentum, 1 inch reach

Ratty's Vitriol

So looking closely at this it appears that there is only a single striker in the game who does not have a momentum generating tackle. This seems to be a bit of an aberration in how the strikers are designed, along with Mist and Vitriol both having a 2 inch reach.

It really appears that the design methodology for strikers is pretty straight forward. It's baseline design includes a momentum generating tackle on 1 success, a base move around 6 inches, a sprint move around 8 inches, a kick stat around 10 inches, and then some other abilities to add color.

Overall, while Mist is certainly a top tier striker in the game, he is not broken by any means. I will go further and respond directly to the claim about his ability to score repeatedly 1st and 2nd turn. If a striker is set-up on the deployment line (10 inches onto the board) and my opponent kicks the ball near that striker, 3 strikers (Flint, Mist, Friday) can make a shot on the goal without receiving a pass. Every striker in the game can score turn 1 if they receive a pass from another player on the team and use the 4 inch "Pass 'n' Move" dodge. In every case at least 1 (and for Brewers 2) momentum needs to be generated prior to the striker moving out to make their shot on the goal.

I want to offer some closing thoughts before stepping off my soapbox. First, if you kick the ball at the start of the game, don't kick the ball toward your opponents striker. It does not matter if that striker is Mist or another striker, just don't do this. Second, take some time and think about how you will deal with any of the strikers on the field. They are important parts of the Guild Ball game, which ultimately has the primary objective to be scoring goals. These are going to be the best models your opponent has to score those goals. It pays to think about how to deal with them.

Traveling and Painting

Howdy readers! I was going to do a quick post and show on some of my newly painted WWX models today but then thought there might be something more I could write about. I got the new models painted while I was on some recent business travel and it occurred to me that might make a somewhat interesting article.

I travel a lot. I travel in some way approximately twice a month for business and that travel takes me all over the US. My customer has offices spread across the US and strongly believes in telecommuting for their employees. This means I am best served by heading to their local areas for meetings, which they find flattering and helps me in business as a whole. Add in that my corporate office used to be in Manahattan NYC, and has now moved out to northern NJ. When you consider all of this, think about the fact that I am located just outside Washington DC, just a short drive away from Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia. That all adds up to a lot of travel.

This is a good place to mention, I am generally a nervous traveler. I try to never check my bags as I prefer to get in and out of the airport as quickly as possible. I am always somewhat anxious going through security and in all my time traveling I have only been stopped for a check one time. I go to some lengths to be prepared when going through the airport, with my ID and ticket out before I get in the security line, liquids bagged up before the security check, and everything as efficient as possible to get through Airport security in the shortest time possible.

All of this means it gets to be a bit tough to travel with paints or modeling tools and glue! Airports seem to be a bit finicky when it comes to a big bag full of paints and they want to know if all those paint bottles are 3oz or less. On the other side of the coin, I have traveled with my models before, bringing them on the plan and getting games in on the far end of my trip. Some of these trips have contributed to lasting friendships and very enjoyable breaks from the work I am traveling for. those who are wondering, I use Battlefoam pretty much exclusively, as I have found it travels best in relation to my mini's.

This article is about a different situation though, specifically about painting. My travels will, from time to time, not involve an airplane but instead will be on a train or more importantly will be a drive. Typically I try to drive to any meetings that are 4-5 hours from my house. I find the drive is simpler than trying to take a train or a short flight to those locations. In the circumstances when I can drive it's pretty easy to toss my paint kit into the car along with some mini's to paint while I'm on the road. I always find there is some time in the hotel during these "shorter" trips where I have the time that I could use to paint.

Years have gone by with my old Citidel Paint set as my primary source of paints. I had augmented the set with various paints from other lines, but the metal briefcase the set came in was good for traveling. I made a switch last year and my wife bought me the entire P3 Paint line from Battlefoam, which came with paints and a case for them. This is a great little bad which holds all my paints, my brushes, and also has space for a couple models to bring along. It's small enough to make it easy to carry along with my laptop and garment bag, and is pretty handy keeping everything sorted out and organized once I'm in the hotel room. I've been generally pleased with the upgrade to P3 paints as well!

So, once I'm settled into my room and getting read to paint I need to set-up my painting area. I find that typically (I'm a Marriott guy) there is a desk with a nice pull-out table in the rooms I stay in. I position myself under the light on that desk and pull out my paint trays from the P3 bag, setting them up on the desk. My models get setup on the small pullout table just in front of the desk so my paints are in easy reach and the light is good for painting my models. Typically I have packed a couple pieces of paper towel in my bag so I have a cloth to clean my brushes. Now comes just a couple more items I can scavenge from the room itself. First is a "water pot" to use in cleaning my brushes. This is pretty easy as every hotel room I've stayed in has some type of coffee cup in the room. I grab this and fill it with water.

The other item to scavenge took me a while to figure out, and that's something that works as an easy pallet for paint mixing and such. I paint a fair bit straight from the paint pot, which I realize is a no-no in general. That said, I still use a pallet a fair bit for limited mixing and for "evening the paint" on the bristles of my brush. The trick with the pallet is to have a surface that will not soak up the moisture from the paint but also can be tossed away when your done painting. After some time I realized that the little cardboard fold they give you your room key in is ideal for using as a paint pallet.

Once I have all this set-up I settle into a chair and start painting. It makes a nice break while on the road and help me keep moving forward with the hobby side while I'm on the road and not able to get games in. I do not pack large models for these trips for a couple reasons. First, smaller models fit in my paint bag better, especially infantry size models. Second, I prefer to sit and work on models that I will get mostly or completely painted up, and that typically does not work with large models. On my last trip I was particularly inspired and effective, ending up completing four models while on the road. I was able to put some flock on them when I got home, snap some pictures and then seal them.

 

This last trip helped me complete enough models for my WWX Union Special forces. I have 1 model remaining to paint up and I'll be set with 2 Union lists to play around with. I hope this little article helps you out a bit, either with inspiration to paint while traveling or in helping you find some creative tools for enabling your hobby while on the road!

Cost Comparison: WWX vs Malifaux vs Warmachine

Recently a friend of mine was discussing new games and general mini-wargaming topics with me and caught my attention with a semi-random comment. His claim was that the new Wild West Exodus (WWX) models and game were "awfully expensive" for what you get. This intrigued me, as I was involved in the kickstarter and had not really thought about the larger release cost of the game. Furthermore, I had picked up a couple random figures and did not feel they were overly expensive. I did realize I had no real idea how WWX compared on price to other games, so I thought I would go do some research (as I tend to do).

I wanted to compare somewhat similar games which is how I settled on Warmachine, WWX, and Malifaux. All three are using plastic or plastic and resin figures currently. Malifaux is aiming to replace thier metal line with plastic so I thought that was a good comparison. Beyond that, all three have what I would consider "reasonable" starters which should be able to get you to a playable level of force with only the starter box. They are also all within the Skirmish to Squad based game size, which I believe makes them comparable.

Having my choices limited down and the approach I wanted to use for comparison in mind I set out to gather some information and compare away.

Starter Sets

All three game systems sell single player starter sets. Warmachine and Malifaux contain all plastic models in their starters while WWX contains a mix of plastic and resin. I ranked them cheapest to most expensive with commentary.

Malifaux

Malifaux has a range of prices on their plastic starters, running from $35 through $45 in price. They all contain generally the same number of models with the count coming to 6 models in the starters. The Guild Judgement starter that I selected has 6 models and is at the top of the price range, coming in at $45. The models are all "man sized" models on 30mm bases and can be fielded in a Malifaux game for 33 points (including SS Pool but not counting the additional upgrades). The basic Malifaux game for M2E is recommended to be played at 50 points, so this comes in a bit shy. It can probably be brought up to snuff by adding in an additional model or adding a couple upgrades overall. However, it is likely to be in the same points limit as other plastic starter boxes.

Warmachine

Warmachine uses a single price for all of their starter sets, $49.99 (essentially $50). I did find it interesting that through the different starters the number of models in the starter ranged from between three plastic models and five plastic models. All the of Warmachine starters had at least one and often more large base (40mm or 50mm) models and only one to four "man sized" 30mm model in the set.  The Cryx starter had the largest number of models in the starter set of all the Warmachine starters, totaling up at 5 models. This starter totals up a 14 point force by the Warmachine system. Warmachine is commonly played at 50 points, leaving a tremendous amount of room to add more models before getting to the general "playable level". Once again, starter to starter box games will generally be at the same point level (within a couple points overall).

Wild West Exodus

WWX uses a single price for all thier currently released starters in the same fashion as Warmachine. This comes in at the most expensive starter set, ringing up to a total of $69.99 (essentially $70). All of the WWX starters have the same number of models in them, totaling 13 plastic and resin models. They are generally man sized (30mm) with the one current exception the Warrior Nation. The 13 models are the same profile across the available factions, including a Boss, Sidekick, Infantry Light Support, 5 Long Ranged hired Hands, and 5 Close Combat Hired Hands. The set pictures comes to a total of $595-points for hiring your posse. WWX is played at a number of defined levels, with $500-points and $750-points laid out as the skirmish levels and $1250-points currently being discussed for the tournament level. This leaves you in fairly good standing to play the game at a skirmish level and all the boxes are fairly well balanced against each other, with Enlightened as the aberration at $450-points for the starter box.

Groups of Models

All three game systems sell sets of multiple models for thier game which are produced in plastic. In all cases that I looked at I aimed to compare small based (30mm) models in sets.

Malifaux

Malifaux has set's of 3 models for some of thier repatable characters in the game. The Rotten Belle's are not only iconic Malifaux models but fit the theme of undead-like models across the three game systems. Malifaux had the cheapest set for a "group of models" box, but also had the smallest number of models. This was a tough comparison as they would be the most expensive if the numbers were similar. For this 3 model set Malifaux runs $21, coming in at a total of $7 per model.

Wild West Exodus

WWX came in the middle of the pack on a "group of models" purchase with a fairly standard price of $45.99 for 10 models. WWX had the most standard pricing and selection across their "group of models" selection, with $45.99 as the price across the factions. The Hired Hands set's for all factions come with 10 models in the box, bringing the per-model cost to the lowest point of $4.60 per model. The set pictured stuck with the undead theme, although the other hired hands set's are more detailed than the undead abominations pictures.

Warmachine

Warmachine had the highest price for a "group of models" purchase, coming in at $49.99. This is also a set of 10 models, bringing the per model total to $5.00 per model. This places them right in the middle when it comes to a per-model cost comparison when breaking up the group of models. Warmachines plastic squads are very detailed and compare equally with both other game systems.

Single Model Comparison

There was no simple way to do a direct single model comparison between the three games. Wyrd is currently not remotely started with converting their metal single models over to plastic, throwing the overall price comparison off. Warmachine still uses a mix of metal and plastic across thier range and Wild West Exodous is solidly using resin or plastic for their single models. Looking through the websites for all three games it appears that the general cost of a single man-sized model will range between $11 and $20. The price ranges and selections are fairly consistent across all three games, with nothing jumping out wildly as out of "the ordinary".

Conclusion

When comparing the three game systems I have come to the following conclusion (for myself).

Cheapest (kind of): It appears to me that Malifaux is the cheapest game system to get started in and pay at a basic "community" level. It certainly has the least models and fills in truly as a skirmish game. The rating as cheapest comes directly from the reduced number of models necessary to play, as on average Malifaux has the most expensive models when looking at the cost for a "general man sized model". Malifaux's starter set averaged $7.50 per model, their "group of model" single model cost stayed consistent at $7 per model,  then their single model was in the same range as the other games.

Middle (essentially): WWX comes in the middle of the road overall. While thier starter box was more expensive overall in raw dollars spent, it's per model cost of $5.38 per model was the lowest. The "group of model" single model cost of $4.60 per model dropped that average even lower, and the single models stayed in the same range as the other two games. WWX came in fairly close to being able to play at an acceptable level straight from their starter, and seems to be only slightly more than Malifaux for the least expansion necessary to get to a "regular" play level.

Most Expensive (really): Warmachine is pretty clearly the most expensive game of the three games compared. While the starter set rated in the middle for raw dollars spent, the per model cost was the highest at $10 per model. This price gets even steeper if you choose the 3 model starter set, bringing the per model cost to almost $17 per model. The $5 "group of models" single model cost goes a ways to balancing out the starter set costs, but then single models still sit in the same range with the other two games. What makes Warmachine so much more expensive is the simple distance of expansion necessary to get to the "publicly common" play level of 50 points. It requires a lot more buying in Warmachine to get to that level than either of the other two games.

Final Thoughts

Overall this was an interesting exercise for me, especially since I started without a strong expectation of what I would find. I hope that it's helpful for everyone reading this as well. I believe that over time players will spend similar amounts on miniature games regardless of the initial costs. The big question will be, what is the "bang for your buck" for that money spent. This is one of the motivators for my departure from GW games, as I no longer felt a positive "bang for my buck" in those games. I think in all three of these systems players will find once they reach a pretty common level they will gain the same "bang for their buck" regardless of the system.

Sometimes it's the little things

I have to admit that sometimes it's the little things that really shine. There are small things that show when a company is willing to go that extra step because they care about their customers or their community. Many of you know that I backed the Wild West Exodus kick-starter. I am greatly looking forward to getting the kick-starter rewards in hand and getting some time to try out this new game. I have a tough time lately keeping my hopes for the game in check until I get to play a couple times and see how it really "feels" on the table.

Even with my high anticipation and carefully reigned in enthusiasm, I have to say that the communication on the kickstarter side has been the best of any kick-starter I have been involved in. Furthermore, it's far better than most of the kick-starters I have heard about or looked at. Yesterday evening I recieved an email from the kick-starter that was just a step further than any other game company has gone. It's such a nice touch and I really wanted to applaud Romeo and the Outlaw Miniatures team for going this extra step.

Project Update #139: The Boat Is Leaving China!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hey everyone.

If this weekend could not get any better we have official news that the boat is leaving China. 

Here is the boat name Hatsu Courage 0795-058E 

Go to this website - http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/ 

From there enter the boat name in the top left hand side. (Hatsu Courage) 

We also have the container number for you to track if you need it. FSCU4632150 

Here is how you can track this beast full of WWX goodness all the way to the USofA.

http://www.shippingline.org/track/?container=FSCU4632150 

http://www.searates.com/container/tracking/ 

You will get an exact live location of what the boat is doing and when it will reach US Customs. 

Keep in mind that once the boat reaches the US it still needs to clear customs and get put on a truck to reach our warehouse. 

From there we take the container, unpack it and begin the process of shipping orders. This should be a very exciting month. As always please email us if you have any questions. 

Thanks guys and as always, In Jesse We Trust

 

 

 

 

 This is such a cool little thing they decided to do, sharing this information with the people who are building their community and are buying their product. What amazes me even more is that its such an easy thing and no one else seems to have done this. Again, bravo Outlaw Miniatures!!!

 

 

Book Review - Honor Among Outlaws

Welcome back faithful readers, today I am going to take you on a bit of a trip away from the regular DTP fare. It has been over 3 years since my last book review and this book is a great way to jump back into that earlier practice. Over the next couple weeks I am going to go back and update the labels on the earlier book reviews to add the "book-review" label so these are easier to find. I'm also planning to start writing some regular book reviews for the blog, interspersed with the variety of other topics I am discussing.

That brings us to whats on the table today. Honor Among Outlaws is a new book I was blessed and privledged to be sent a preview copy to review. This is a new book not only along the lines of "newly published" but also a first on multiple fronts:

• First book published under the Winged Hussar imprint Zmok Books
• First book written in the Wild West Exodus alternate history 
• First book written/published for author Craig Gallant

On recieving this book the very kind folks at Winged Hussar/Zmok Books sent along the following blurb: 

In an alternate history twisted through the evil influence of strange, mysterious creatures, the greatest figures of American history battle for dominance and control of a war-torn nation. High tech machines and weapons dominate the land as the world changes daily with each new invention.  Amidst this clash of giants, two lone outlaws, Jesse James and William ‘Billy the Kid’ Bonnie, strive for recognition and their share of the glory, struggling for their place on the national stage.

Craig Gallant has written fiction for several game companies and is the author of the comic published by Outlaw Miniatures for Wild West Exodus.  He co-hosts the internationally renowned gaming podcast, “The D6 Generation” available on i-tunes and on the website: www.thed6generation.com and you can follow his blog at http://mcnerdiganspub.blogspot.com/.

Wild West Exodus is a game set in an alternative history of the US following the period of the American Civil War.  It is focused in the old west where Native Americans, outlaws and what is let of authority battle it out for control of the territories.  More information can be found at http://www.wildwestexodus.com .

Zmok Books is an imprint of Winged Hussar Publishing, LLC dedicated to action, adventure and imagination.  It currently published books focusing on science fiction, fantasy, horror and mystery.  Winged Hussar Publishing publishes books on military history from ancient times to the modern day for students of history and history students.  More information can be found at https://www.wingedhussarpublishing.com.

 Let me provide a little background before diving into my overall review of the book itself. I familiarized myself with the Wild West Exodus "world/alternate history" last year when they ran a successful kick-starter. This game provides a "Weird West" feel similar to Firefly, but based in the setting of post US Civil War wild west. I was very excited when I heard that Craig was writing the back story for the game and this excitement carried over to hearing he would be writing a novel series as well. Followers of this blog are likely aware that I am a voracious reader with a variety of interests. My previous book reviews were on Black Library books which are primarily written in a "sandbox fiction" setting. Honor Among Outlaws (HAO) would be a new author writing in a new "sandbox fiction" setting. My expectations were set for a book that was a little rough (he is a new author) with what I would describe as a "pulp" style action story. I was expecting lots of action, little to moderate character development, and some exciting scene's that I would read through fairly quickly.

I wrote my previous reviews on the blog primarily for books written by Gav Thorpe and ADB. I chose these books because those two authors "broke the mold" I was expecting from the "sandbox fiction" they wrote. Their writing surpassed my general expectations for the genre and they provided excellent character development and story building, surpassing the typical genre writing. I have to add Craig Gallant to this list of writers as one I will watch in the future, as he achieves the same level of writing in HAO. This surpassed my expectation for typical "sandbox fiction" while simultaneously delivering a novel that feels like its written by a writer with more experience than someone's first published novel. In my experience this does not happen often and I applaud Craig on his work!

HAO introduces us to the world of Wild West Exodous (WWX) through the eyes of the infamous outlaw Jesse James. The story does a very good job of immersing us into the pseudo-sci-fi world of WWX while simultaneously introducing us to the bad ass outlaw leader himself. Gone are the expected wild west hallmarks of bullets, gunpowder, and horses and we are quickly introduced to the RJ-1027 (read secret and mysterious technology) blasters and gravity defying hover bikes. This immersion is handled elegantly, leaving enough questions out there to cause the reader to want to learn more but filling in enough holes that nothing feels forced. No where did I find myself scratching my head in confusion, the technical changes flowed naturally, allowing me to just accept the changes in the world while still feeling comfortable it was a world I knew. I especially enjoyed the "remember when we used to ride horses" discussions that came through a number of times in the book. These types of conversations not only helped flesh out the personality of the characters but also softened the immersion into this alternate history.

Jesse James is a sarcastic bad ass character and this comes through very quickly in the story. I really enjoy these types of characters and was a little concerned at the start of the book where the sarcasm felt a little forced to me. The criticism is a little hard to pin down, as I would describe it as the character being sarcastic but not sardonic. I realize these are synonyms but hopefully you understand where I am heading here. I have to point out that this impression smooths our a great deal as I reached the middle of the book and Jesse James became a fully established character in my mind and in the story.

Many new writers have issues with presenting fully fleshed out characters, often providing more of a "2-D cutout" character opposed to a "3-D" one. Craig did an excellent job avoiding this trap, not only fully realizing Jesse James as a well rounded character (flaws, strengths, doubts, dreams, and all) but going further to provide a real feeling for the primary supporting characters in the story. There are very few "2-D cutout" characters in the story and when those show up they are always shorter-term supporting characters where the level of detail is appropriate to their role in the story.

Conclusion

Overall I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more from Craig Gallant and more from the WWX "sandbox".  I only had two criticism overall in the book, which itself speaks to how good this book is.

Criticism #1 - I mention above the sarcasm displayed by Jesse James in the start of the book. This came across a little stilted or forced during the early chapters. This smoothed out a great deal as I reached the middle of the book and disappeared completely by the end. It's a minor criticism and something I likely pick up on as I really enjoy these types of characters.

Criticism #2 - I will not spoil the end of the book but the final chapters left me in a situation where I come to 2 differing opinions. The very nature of "sandbox fiction" limits the full extent of what an author can do within their story. An author writing Star Wars fiction cannot just kill off or maim Darth Vader too early. An author writing for 40K cannot have the Emperor jump off his Golden Throne and do a jig. Likewise there are limits on what Craig can do with this story. The end of the book leaves me with two paths to what happened.

• Path #1 provides the basis for what could become one of the most devious, menacing, and downright interesting villains in a book series. 
• Path #2 has Craig setting up an epic finale to his first novel and then running into the immovable "sandbox" wall and having to tap out in favor of maintaining the sandbox integrity. 

Considering there are 2 more novels coming I hold out for the first path, but can see where some readers will get the impression Path #2 is the reality. We will not know for sure until we see where the series is taken next, but I am worried that there is a different author for book 2.

Honor Among Outlaws is due for release on October 22, 2013. I strongly recommend this book and believe you will truly enjoy the plunge into the story!!

**For those that are interested, I will be posting an audio book review as part of the Gamers Lounge - No Gamer Left Behind segment in the next couple weeks. I will update this article when that's recorded and released.

Passing Interest and Amusement

Sometimes you just have to sit back with a bucket of popcorn and watch the show.......

93 Malifaux pictures - Mostly New Art!!!

The public Beta of Malifaux V2 brought more than just rules and changes to models to the Malifaux community. The Public Beta brought some early looks at some of the new art for the upcoming models. Wyrd is updating all their art, presumably in preparation for the transition for models to plastic. This is further supported when you consider that the art for the current Storm of Shadows models has not been changed from what we saw in that book.

Part of the draw Malifaux has for me is an art style that I find appealing. I find that the majority of the art used for the game is in a style and has a look that I really prefer. Wyrd has done a fantastic job in transferring a very accurate representation of that art into the actual models that are produced. I have not found this to change at all with the move to plastic. If anything, some of the new plastic models better represent the art than the metal models do. In some cases this makes me very interested and excited to see some of the new models.

As with many of the decisions Wyrd is making lately, I am also disappointed with the direction of a fair amount of the new art. I want to first say (and wanted to start out this article) by pointing out the positives. There is a fair amount of art that I really like, even with the changes and evolution of the individual pieces from its V1 art. There is a nearly equal set of art that I just do not find to my liking. This is certainly a disappointing situation for me, as there was so much of the aesthetic that I previously enjoyed and appreciated which now has moved in a distasteful direction. Nino Ortega (pictured to the left) is one example of this move in art style. The first edition art had some fantastic style to it that is now completely replaced by what I consider a pretty bland looking gunman.

There is other art that is certainly nice art despite my dislike for the asthetic. Joss (pictures to the right) is one of these pictures for me. Joss used to be "Injun Joss" in the early sculpts, an American Indian in Malifaux who works as Ramos's enforcer and is wielding two powered axed linked to a generator on his back. The new art for Joss looks (to me) like a reject from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. He has a real "meld of machine and man" look combined with a strong post-apocalyptic feel to him.

I won't dive into a deep critique of all the new art, but I wanted to post a small article about it and my thoughts. Gaming on Tuesday evening it was mentioned to me that some people had not been able to get a look at the full art that was used for the new V2 stat cards. The cards were not "flattened PDF's", which made it fairly straight forward for me to pull the pictures out and save them off for upload. Now there is a whole archive of the art in my flickr account linked here. Enjoy poking around and looking! This is all the art I could find in the Stat cards except the 10 Thunders cards, which do not seem to have changed.