Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Pg 33 (Digest) says that mercs do not get the army special rules.

We'll try to make this clearer in a future edition, make sure to bring it up whenever we do the 3rd edition playtest.

Then mercs don't gain the army rule they are enlisted into?

Like if I take weasels to my Scyzantium army, the weasels don't get +1 AR?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
Then mercs don't gain the army rule they are enlisted into?

Like if I take weasels to my Scyzantium army, the weasels don't get +1 AR?

Correct.

Edit: Wow, I'm slow, ignore this redundant post.


Also, Mercs don't get the special rule of the army they 'used to' belong to. Weasels in a Scyz army do not gain Ambush.

Interesting...

I would suggest to rename the merc units so they never have the same names as their army specific variants. If I remember correctly, the Squad rule says that models have to be the same type to be in a squad, wich could only mean that their names have to be the same. I don't see what else could it be.

Renaming the models would make them feel that they are not part of any nation, so it would be much easier to follow the merc rules.

The merc Rat Raider is already renamed by some reason...

Thats not a bad idea.

 Cyporiean wrote:


This is something that i've wanted to do for some time, but we haven't been able to get many 'full armies' painted up yet. This will be solved over the next couple of months, and you'll start to see more Armies in Action style pictures. Its pretty amazing having 15 painted Legion ready for photography

If you need any more help with that, let me know. I can pump out full armies at a decent quality pretty quickly.

This army went from bare metal/plastic to finished in about a month's time:





I'm fairly cheap and prefer product over money(the above was done for a friend for a Max unit of Wolves of Orboros + UA and a Wold Guardian) and the chance to pad my resume with more recent freelance work never hurts.

Plus, it lets me paint all day and the wife can't get mad that I didn't do house work because it's technically work.

Between February 6th and February 9th, On the Lamb has been at TempleCon up in Warwick Rhode Island. Besides being the home for some major Warmachine and Hordes announcements, TempleCon also plays hosts to several miniatures companies, Steampunk fashion shows, and old school arcades. This year it also played host to the second ‘major’ Brushfire Beginner’s Tournaments. A small series of consecutive games designed for beginners of Brushfire to come and test their mettle. What made this event different from other companies’ beginner’s tournaments is that On the Lamb had a few loaner armies for beginners to use. We held two of these events, the first being on Friday, February 7th at Noon and lasting until 5. The three round event consisted of three “veterans” and three “rookies”. These six players played in three 50 resource/HLVL 2 games that lasted an hour per round. After the three rounds, we calculated the victory points earned by each player as well as the total number of resources killed throughout the event to break any potential ties. Coming in first was Rich, with an Axony army, followed closely by Steve whom was borrowing one of the loaner armies, 6 Badgers and a Mole. Congrats to them both!

The following lists are generally representative of their armies, numbers are included only where I’m certain.
Scott – Civitas – Conquistador (HLVL2), Juan of Brisca, 2 Chipmunk Weapon Teams w/Trajectory (mortars), 2 Civitan Marines, Mouse Lancers, and Mouse Conscripts w/Bows
Steve - Aquitar – Tactician General (HLVL2) w/Sinkhole Rank 2, 5 Badger-At-Claws w/Medium Armor, Iron Claws
Patrick – Cult of Exomorphism – Queen (HLVL2), 3 Trolls, 2 Will-O-Wisps, Lots of Legion (22?)
Richard – Axony – Imperial Duke (HLVL2), Robin Milne, 6 Bull Regulars, 4 Kernish Terriers
John – Civitas – Capitan (HLVL2), 15 Mouse Conscripts w/Bows, 10 Mouse Conscripts w/Sword and Shields, Civitan Marines
Daniel – Chugoku (Red Claw) – Dynastic King (HLVL2) w/Jade Seal rank 2, 4 Red Wu Chugokan Color Guard w/Bingfa, 2 Red Wu w/Dagger-Ax, 2 Lem Han w/Medium Armor and Rifles, and Hua Poi Kay and Lao Yi



See more: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152257103332915.1073741826.347886992914&type=1

We invited everyone that participated in the first tournament to come and play in the second one Saturday night from 8 to 1, and got several of them showing as well as some new people. The format for the second tournament was the same, but this time with 8 people. Unlike the first tournament where we had several people using armies they owned, this time we had half of the field using loaner armies, which was great because it meant more new people! Several of the people in the tournament were playing their first full games of Brushfire, and had only gotten a demo earlier that day. In the end, we had two undefeated armies facing each other in the finals, Guillaume and Scott. It was a hard fought match and down to the wire, but in the end, Scott pulled out the win and took down those pesky Chugokans, and because of our resource tally tie-breakers, our first and second place winners were Scott and John, Civitas taking 1 and 2 in the tournament. While he fought admirably in his second and third rounds, Guillaume missed out by a few resources in the tie-breakers. Though since he walked away with some nice Warmachine swag from their charity raffle, he can’t be too upset

Saturday's Lists: Again, representative of what they had, exact numbers shown only where I knew them
Scott – Civitas – Conquistador (HLVL2), Juan of Brisca, 2 Chipmunk Weapon Teams w/Trajectory (mortars), 2 Civitan Marines, Mouse Lancers, and Mouse Conscripts w/Bows
John – Civitas – Capitan (HLVL2), 10 Mouse Conscripts w/Bows, 10 Mouse Conscripts w/Sword and Shields, 5 Civitan Marines w/Axes
Guillaume – Chugoku – Celectial Tactician (HLVL2) w/Classical Warfare rank 2, 4 Red Wu Chugokan Color Guard w/Bingfa, 2 Red Wu w/Dagger-Ax, 2 Lem Han w/Medium Armor and Rifles, and Hua Poi Kay and Lao Yi.
Bill – Aquitar – Tactician General (HLVL2) w/Rapid Deployment rank 2 and Signal Lamp, 5 Badger-At-Claws w/ Medium Armor, and Iron Claws w/Effigy of Defeated Foes, and Flute of the Wandering Albatross
Ed – Axony – Imperial Duke (HLVL2), 6 Bull Regulars, 4 Kernish Terriers, an Expert (May have been Bram).
Steve – Vandalands – Rat Warlord (HLVL2), 5 Valkyrs
Rich – Cult of Exomorphism – Queen (HLVL2), 3 Cultists, 3 Trolls, and Buttloads of Legion (30 I think)
Antoine – Chugoku – Dynastic King (HLVL2) w/Jade Seal rank 2, 4 Lem Han w/Medium Armor and Rifles, 2 Red Wu w/Targes

Pictures from Saturday Night:


See more here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152258323912915.1073741827.347886992914&type=1

So those are the lists people brought to our first TempleCon Tournaments, and while there were a few snafus on my part as TO, I think everyone had fun. I’d like to thank Pat and Len for providing the terrain for the event, as well as everyone who came out and participated in our little events. Next year I hope to get some more events going so we can have beginner’s tournaments for those that truly are new to the game, or need a refresher, and then have a ‘super serious’ competitive type tournament.

With that being said, here are my thoughts and recap on the tournament(s):
1) Event Organization: TempleCon as a whole is well organized to keep the show running for four days in that small space, unfortunately we had some communication breakdowns on where exactly we were supposed to be for our events. And the staff seemingly forgot our second event, as we had to play on top of Warhammer boards. This is partially my fault, I’ve never organized events at shows, so I’m not used to the organizational side of things. I’m hoping that next year On the Lamb can basically claim a section of the minis hall as our own so we can just run continuous events. The plus to the event organization is having people like Pat there to help. If it wasn’t for him, we would have been without terrain, and it would have taken probably twice as long to get the next round pairings set up because I’m that bad at them.

2) Tournament Rules, Scenarios, etc: This is where I think we can make the biggest improvement. Kill points and straight win/loss/draw works well in a beginner’s event, I think that it doesn’t quite capture the victory severity that we’ve worked really hard to put into the game. If I crushed my opponent and only lost a few models, then I have a bigger win than the guy who won on the final die roll with one model left. Ideally that would have bearings on the standings of the tournament, and is something I’d like to see for future events. The easiest way to do this is with a tournament packet that we can distribute before the event (kind of like Steamroller, Gaining Grounds, or even AdeptiCon’s 40k mission packets). This will let us have round times, resource sizes, HLVLs, and scenarios pre-set for players before the event starts. This works best in a “Veterans” event where the players have been playing for longer than a demo. Ideally we’d have two packets, one for competitive and another for beginner events. So, attached to this post is a PDF of the tournament rules as they stand now. Take them, read them, use it for toilet paper, beat the rules to hell, and give me feedback. Tournament play is something that I’d love to see come to
Brushfire, and I feel that with the readers of VH, as well as those that attended our small events can give useful insight into hammering out solid tournament rules. Like I said earlier, there were a few mix-ups on my end, but for the most part, the players had little issue with the rules (although I could be misinformed and everyone really had a terrible time with the rules).

3) Errata and FAQs: Catyr and Matt mentioned a few posts up about mortars in a game that didn’t allow for siege weapons. The mortars followed almost all of the siege weapon rules, and while they weren’t terribly hard to get around (flank, ambush, shield armor) they were still pretty powerful, Scott’s second round opponent didn’t have a way to deal with them (well he didn’t want to Flank his guys because of his 2TS on most of his grunts), and so he was punished by them. His first round opponent didn’t seem to have too much, but then again he was ambushing practically every turn. Guillaume hunted them down with Hua Poi and Lao Yi in round three. BUT that’s not to dismiss the fact that they did have a distinct advantage in the game, on a small field, they had control of the board, didn’t need LoS, and removed the ES bonus for cover. Combine that with a +8RS, meant that things under it were going to die. So that’s something we’re going to think about once Matt and Emily return from being trapped in the North East due to that blasted storm. There were a few other things that were brought up that required clarification, and a glaring typo for one of the Exomorph’s stats. Once we've gathered enough of these, we’ll probably put out an errata document that hopefully fixes most of the issues players brought up to us during the tournaments.


So, it wouldn’t be a Visiting Hours if we didn’t have questions, so here goes:
1) Does Tournament play appeal to you? Why or why not? Would you play in a Brushfire tournament?

Tournament play is something I go back and forth on, I like the chance to play a whole bunch of games in a single day, and try to win, but I know I’m never that good and I generally don’t want to be stuck in a game with an opponent that bugs me. So for the most part, I’m for events that ‘mimic’ tournaments where you play several games in one day. Other games might call it a One Day Achievement League, or something along those lines. I would totally play in a Brushfire tournament, I think that the game has a lot of potential for people to create full armies of 150 resources with 5 hero levels, and play on 4x6 boards for an entire day.

2) Was there anything that surprised you about the results of our tournaments, or the lists the players took?

It surprised me that people showed up . Seriously though, I was surprised at the number of people that showed up. I knew that Catyr was bringing a few friends from his local play group that went to the Warstore Weekend with him, and I knew that Tonio and a friend signed up, but to convince 4 random people to come play in our event astounded me, and what made it better was that they had fun too! Not seeing too many “competitive” lists for Brushfire, it was interesting to see what several of our players took, and why they took them. From the Civitas players, they took bow mice to farm critical hits. If you roll enough dice, you’re bound to get a few 10s. The Axony player took the Imperial Duke to give more armor to his Bull Regulars, and the Exomorph players differing between Cultists and Will-o-Wisps, so it was cool to see differences between the lists, and to see how people ran the lists that they ran.

3) What sort of “competitive events” are you looking forward to seeing from On the Lamb?

The biggest thing I want to try is a weekend long map based competitive campaign for Endless. Where at the end of every battle you have to roll and see if your dead stay dead, etc… And vie for the center of the map/dungeon to claim the prize. It’d either need a lot of people so that everyone is playing a game every round, or have enough volunteers to play the “Dungeon monsters” during the game.

Great report Alf! I wish I could have been there.

Those Civitas lists do look scary. Going up against 20+ models, many with ranged attacks, would be daunting. Model count can be an important factor. I'm glad to hear Axony could hold their own with only 12 models. Speaking of which, It looks like that Axony list must be bringing in extra Bull regulars and/or Terriers as mercenaries?

It is interesting, though not surprising to see the two armies I've been eyeing, Zabar and Scyzantium, left out. Ribenguo's absence is a little more surprising. I don't know if Zabar's current released models could have held up against some of the lists you posted.

Part of the 'Represented' factor is skewed by several of the armies being loners from Alf and Catyr.

With Zabar and Scyzantium getting more troop options this year it should be much easier for players to build competitive armies using only OTL models.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing next year's events, including the Vets 150 Resource Tourney.

 Galen wrote:
Great report Alf! I wish I could have been there.

Those Civitas lists do look scary. Going up against 20+ models, many with ranged attacks, would be daunting. Model count can be an important factor. I'm glad to hear Axony could hold their own with only 12 models. Speaking of which, It looks like that Axony list must be bringing in extra Bull regulars and/or Terriers as mercenaries?

It is interesting, though not surprising to see the two armies I've been eyeing, Zabar and Scyzantium, left out. Ribenguo's absence is a little more surprising. I don't know if Zabar's current released models could have held up against some of the lists you posted.

One or two of the bull regulars were bought using the gold only option listed in their profile, but they lose out on quick nock for their rifles.

The chugoku and aquitar armies were loaners from me.

1. Does tournement play appeal to you?

I would play in tournaments. It allows me a wider variety of opponents. It also gives me a chance to play the same army list over and over, as opposed to picking a different list for each game like I normally would. The major negative for me as far as tournaments go is timed games. I enjoy playing competitively, but I am not a fast player and tend to take my time, debating over moves. I would definately try to play in any Brushfire tournaments I could make it to.


2. Was there anything that suprised you about the Adepticon Brushfire tournaments?

I didn't realise there would be such a big difference in model count between certain lists. Was it limited to one LVL2 hero or could people field apair of LVL 1s? My instinct would be to run a pair of heroes. I haven't heard any gripes about exemplars rolling over opposing armies. I thought there might be one or two expert or seven wanderers builds running around, then again low points may have prohibited that a bit. I was most suprised to see the 5 valkyrs vanderlands list.


3. What sort of competitive events are you looking forward to seeing from OTL?

Nothing particular jumps to mind. Playing one-off EFT games could scratch my competitive itch for a while by itself. Slow growth leagues, or map leagues would be entertaining. One idea I had for an EFT tournament would be bring 12-15 Crystals worth of models and pick a 10C list before each match, after seeing the board and scenario.

Trying to be more active around here.

1) Does Tournament play appeal to you? Why or why not? Would you play in a Brushfire tournament?

Tournament play doesn't really appeal to me per se. What I do like are games that have been designed for tournament play because that ensures that they are (hopefully) balanced, so even my one off games with friends are as fair as possible. Would I play in a Brushfire tournament? I wouldn't say never but certainly have no plans for it.

2) Was there anything that surprised you about the results of our tournaments, or the lists the players took?

As I do with most games, I don't really look at armies outside of my own until I face them so I can't speak for any of the others., but the 5 Valkyrie Vanadalands list definitely raised my eyebrow. It's an extreme style build that I would never have even thought of myself.

3) What sort of “competitive events” are you looking forward to seeing from On the Lamb?

The Miasma War is what is appealing to me most right now. Excited to see more from that.

1) Does Tournament play appeal to you? Why or why not? Would you play in a Brushfire tournament?

Yes and no. I kinda like competitive play, but no longer want to invest the ressources and particularly time into it, as that would mean putting other games and projects aside. I still like going to tournaments though, as it'a a huge drive for painting, and I get a kick out of the social part of it. When I go now, I take softer lists, and enjoy the roadtrip and meeting new opponents.

I did take part in the TC Beginners' Tournament, so I think the second part of the question answers itself. I would probably think about getting in a bigger one someday, but as my only way of playing BF right now is at Con, my experience level might be a bit too low.


2) Was there anything that surprised you about the results of our tournaments, or the lists the players took?

No expectation really, as I'm not experienced enough with the game.


3) What sort of “competitive events” are you looking forward to seeing from On the Lamb?

A EFT narrative event would be cool. A bit like the Story Encounter based tournament Malifaux has.

No Visiting Hours this week?

Nope, for the past few months, we've switched to every other week for VH, so the next one will be on March 1st.

Today's Visiting Hours is a special release of "The Quiet of Graybasin" a short story set in the world of Endless. A few months ago, you saw a preview of the first chapter, but today, we bring you the complete story, along with something extra.

It is a time of war in Halleford half the country lies under the control of a dark force, corrupting soldiers to fight for it. In such times, heroes rise and make history. This story is not about those heroes. The Kingfishers are a third-rate guild who have never made an impact upon the world, or at least, the chronicles of history never note their influence. Journey through a fractured look at their past, and those around them, to discover their importance and their obscurity.

In addition to the short story "The Quiet of Graybasin", playable cards for the 5 members of the Kingfishers are included in the second PDF. These are 2C Characters. Like 3C Characters, they have fixed command lists and are unique per party. In Campaigns, they can replace Class 2C models at Level 5. Once they have become these characters, they can no longer level up.
Knight -> Laird
Archer -> Edrin
Thief -> Raetan
Cleric -> Drast
Rune Fencer -> Filin

Story | Cards

Good stuff Matt! It took me a little while to remember who all the characters were, but a quick glance at the cards helped me cheat.. I'm always a bit suprised by the dark, gritty feel of your writing. I forget that the main story arc in this world is a massive war. When Szabo's name came up I had a feeling I knew where things were going.

As far as characters go the idea of a "runefencer" with a spear was my favorite. I felt like all the kingfishers had a good chance to show their personality even in this short piece. The one thing I could have done with a little more of is backdrop/setting, but there is nothing wrong with keeping that focus on the characters and the action.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I didnt get a chance to mention my thoughts on the eft cards. That will have to wait for later

My next planned story, should be a more light hearted story. Halleford will not be at the center of the plot, and it will introduce some new world details, mostly surrounding Nacre.

Glad to hear you like the Kingfishers, they may show up more in the future.

On the 'backdrop' comment, I'll admit, I'm terrible at 'environment porn'. I find it difficult to talk about the locales for extended periods without delaying the story. I try to train myself to break way for a paragraph or two to talk about the setting, history, etc, but I always feel it needs to tie in to what the characters are discussing or interacting with. A challenge I find myself struggling with.

 miskatonicalum wrote:

On the 'backdrop' comment, I'll admit, I'm terrible at 'environment porn'. I find it difficult to talk about the locales for extended periods without delaying the story. I try to train myself to break way for a paragraph or two to talk about the setting, history, etc, but I always feel it needs to tie in to what the characters are discussing or interacting with.

You are not alone. My wife deals with the same situation in her writing. I, though I haven't written anything in some time, fall on the opposite side of the spectrum. I can blather on about minutiae all day with no plot in sight. I blame all the non-fiction, often animal/plant field guides, that I read in elementary school.

Back on your story, the part about the beastmen construction from when mages ruled really stuck with me. It gave the world some character. I also found it interesting that everyone wants to get their hands on a miasma shard to experiment on.

Though he didn't not get much time in the foreground, I found the scenes with Drast entertaining. His quirkiness was oddly endearing.

I was pleasantly suprised that new EFT cards were released with the story. After a cursory glance these characters seem to be on par with standard 2C classes, which is good. I think Eldin and Drast would be the most likely of the group to see time in one of my parties.

Perhaps taking some more time to read some non-fiction would help me in that. I have a few historical books I've been meaning to power through that would serve purpose.

The Miasma is a very recent phenomena, and the crystals themselves have only been on Terra for 200 years. I felt this was a great place to delve into the mysteries surrounding them, before revealing more in the Miasma War campaign, coming later as a series of playable battles.

We have a basic system for balancing the cards based on their point cost, but I figured the extra command wouldn't outbalance the Kingfishers, especially considering their lack of flexibility (like other 2C models). Hopefully that will hold true as players build their cheese lists. They also reassert our intent to provide more options to players and embrace the 'palette swap' essence of JRPGs.

I've had the beginnings of an EFT story kicking around for the last year. I don't know if it will ever come to anything, but it brought up a fluff question. Are cows, goats, sheep, and chickens raised, or are there alternate creatures kept for food/milk production?

 Galen wrote:
I've had the beginnings of an EFT story kicking around for the last year. I don't know if it will ever come to anything, but it brought up a fluff question. Are cows, goats, sheep, and chickens raised, or are there alternate creatures kept for food/milk production?

Yes.

Sidenote: Steamed mandragora is delicious.

 miskatonicalum wrote:

Sidenote: Steamed mandragora is delicious.

I imagine they would taste something like brussels sprouts. Roast 'em up with copious amounts of butter, yum!

...And the 2C character Mandragora can be named Kale!

Lol. Sounds great.

As a 'real' answer to your question, Kirin replace horses and can also replace cattle if need be. To avoid specifics of species name, you could always use the words 'poultry', 'cattle', or 'livestock' etc. I don't think we're going to stat up such creatures for EFT, but something might happen as items/whatnot for the RPG down the line.

But who is to say real world farm animals and fantasy farm animals don't both exist on Terra?

How things going on there?

For Saturday we've got a brushfire scenario, which I think will be fun, along with some EFT art. We have some other stuff cooking for the future.

Sound's good. Is there any progress with the plastic minies?

 WhiteRoo wrote:
Sound's good. Is there any progress with the plastic minies?

We ran into an issue with our original planned manufacturer being unable to produce the amount of detail in the sculpts, so we're investigating other options. Our hope is to use someone domestic, but we may end up going with WargamesFactory (China).. which would add another year or more till we'd get them.

It is unfortunate that so many companies have to go to China for plastics manufacture. Reaper bought a machine for production of their Bones plastics after their first kickstarter, but still had to source Bones 2 from Asia to fulfill in any reasonable timeframe.