Daily Chronicle: 1/28/2015 'Updated Painting Queue'

It has been awhile since I last wrote a 'Daily Chronicle', and since I will be heading out of town tomorrow for two weeks, I thought I'd do a quick post.

I haven't painted anything also in quite some time and I could not leave a new month, new year unpainted.  Seeing how I recently gotten a resurgence into Warhammer 40K (even though in my New Year's post I gave it a rank of '3' of getting back into the game) I decided to paint up two Space Marines for my Black Templars army.  I needed two more guys modeled with Bolt Pistol / CCW to complete one of my units.  This past weekend I was able to find two guys at Mercenary Market held at Empire Games here in Mesa.  So I decided to quickly get those two painted up so I can have some Painting Points for the month.

I also decided to update my Painting Queue on the right side.  I made the mistake of deleting the Bolt Action items instead of sliding them down, but anyways it is now updated with a few Warhammer 40K models.  I'll be constantly editing this section through out the year.

I am also happy that I was able to get quite a few games in this month also.  4 games of X-Wing, 2 games of Warhammer 40K and 8 games of The Lord of the Rings: TCG.

Looks like when I get back from vacation, most of February will also be devoted to these three games.  I'll need practice for the X-Wing store championships I'll be attending in March, plus my son and one of our friends will be starting a Warhammer 40K map campaign between the three of us so we can familiarize ourselves with the rules again.  Hopefully I'll also be able to paint some more models next month, at least get a few assembled and ready to go.

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D&D 5E: Hoard of the Dragon Queen 1/25/2015

Episode 6: Castle Naerytar  / Episode 7: The Hunting Lodge

The first thing we had to take care of today was getting our Cleric and Fighter conscious again.  Being a Level 5 Ranger, I had still had two spell slots remaining and one of my spells is Cure Wounds.  I quickly cast that on the Cleric so he could gain a few hit points.  Once the Cleric was conscious, he was able to cast Prayer of Healing with a Level 3 spell slot and we all regained 20 additional hit points.  Once we were all on our feet again we were ready to continue through the castle and carry on.

We managed to find the steps leading to the dungeon of the castle and hopefully our way out.  Once in the dungeon we came across a pool of water and we saw looed to be a gem sparkling in the water.  Our Rogue use Mage Hand to reach in and grab the gem.  Thinking it was safe, our Fighter got greedy and reached into the water to scoop up some gold and some kind of glob dripped onto him causing some acid burns.  Once we took care of the glob, the Rogue continued to scoop up the remaining valuables.

Continuing through the dungeon we managed to come into a room that was filled with mist, all but our Cleric rolled poorly on our Perception rolls and the Cleric being short as he is, managed to see on the ground what looked to be markings of a teleport.  Our Dwarf Cleric shouted out the words "DRAZIR" and poof, we all vanished.

The next thing we realized we were all standing in a wooded forest and what looked to be a lodge in the distance.  We decided to proceed towards the lodge and enter.  We searched most of the first floor and the second floor with not much alarm, until we were approached by four guards.  The guards had said that Talis has been expecting us.  Not wanting to put up a fight at this moment, we decided to see what Talis had wanted from us.  When we met Talis and asked what she wanted, she said that she has been watching us from the beginning and has an offer for us.  She believes that her ranking in the Cult should be higher than what it is, and wants us to eliminate Rezmir.  Talis also mentioned to us that she will provide guidance on reaching Skyreach Castle and will also provide a pass-phrase.  We accepted Talis's offer with the condition that she provide us food and shelter for the night and we will continue the journey in the morning.

That was all the time we had for today's session.  By completing Episode 6 and Episode 7, we all gained 2 levels.  Myself, my youngest son the Cleric, the Rogue are all Level 7, and my oldest son the Fighter is now Level 8.

We will be missing the next two weeks,  So stay tuned later in February as we eneter the final episode of the adventure 'Hoard of the Dragon Queen.

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Bolt Action: Errata and FAQ Updated 01/21/2015

Alessio Cavatore and Warlord Games have just updated the Errata and FAQ for Bolt Action.

You can download the latest version here:

Besides addressing their new Theater books and special named characters, they made a few core changes to the game.

Here are some of the key changes and clarification:

Errata:

Flamethrower (vehicles) are now range 12” instead of previously being 18”. Players feel flamethrowers on vehicles are too over powering and most tournaments in the US have started to ban these options. With the range now being 12”, we’ll see if that levels the playing field.

FAQ:

Assaults: Assaulting around/through an obstacle was clarified. The charge move of the first model is what matters. If he has room to go around the obstacle then assault the squad, they will attack first instead of simultaneous. They include a picture as a reference.

Armies of Germany: They also covered four questions regarding the one shot use of flamethrowers that are used with Eintossflammenwerfer Team.

A few more clarifications were also made but I do not see any of them being too major.

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X-Wing: Arizona Store Championships (Winter 2015)

Well it is that time of year for the Winter X-Wing Store Championship season here in Arizona.  Below is a list of the current stores, dates, and times of their events (special thanks goes out to the 'Phoenix Squadron' for this list.)




January 29th 2015, 6:00 PM: Tucson Gadget and Games (Tucson)
January 31st 2015, 10:30 AM Registration / 12:00 PM Start: Game Depot (Mesa)
February 7th 2015, 11:00 AM: Desert Sky Games (Gilbert)
February 21st 2015, 11:00 AM: Imperial Outpost Games (Glendale)
February 28th 2015, 1:00 PM: A2Z Games (Tucson)
March 14th 2015, 12:00 PM: Empire Games (Mesa)

Here is the prize packet each store is receiving for the Winter season.

Personally I plan on attending the one on March 14th at Empire Games, my son is already registered for February 7th at Desert Sky Games and more than likely also be attending Empire Games with me.  We may alos attend the one in Tucson on February 28th, that one still depends on my availablility.

I am really looking forward to my first large event for X-Wing, my plan is to go just to have 'fun'.

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D&D 5E: Hoard of the Dragon Queen 1/18/2015

Episode 6: Castle Naerytar continued

Today's adventure has us continuing to search through the castle to find more clues about the Cult of the Dragon Queen.  We had two encounters today, so not much exploring was done.  From where we left off last week, we headed upstairs to the 3rd floor of the castle and found ourselves inside what looked to be an observatory.  As we were investgating what looked like a telescope (but with the possibly of showing us the future), we were attacked by 4 gargoyles made of stone.  Being made of stone our mundane weapons did hot do much damage to them, only magical weapons had full effect.  It took us quite awhile to bring down these gargoyles, but we finally managed.  We also did manage to find some kind of a keyword, "DRAZIR", not sure what that means yet but I am sure we will be finding out.

We then headed back downstairs to the first floor to continue our exploration.  As soon as we arrived at the 1st floor landing we were approached by 8 cultists and 4 dragonclaws and they gave us a riddle: "when the sun is high", after two failed attempts at the riddle, we decided to attack.... 4 on 12.... we were abe to bring down pretty easily, but being outnubered 3:1 was pretty tough.  We eventually defeated them, but or Fighter and Cleric are both now unconscious.

We ended our session at this point and will continue next week...........

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Battle Report: W40K 1/16/2015

Yes, you read the post title correctly, a battle report for Warhammer 40K.  The last time I played a game of Warhammer 40K (W40K) was just about 2 years ago with my friend Gyan.  We were just learning the rules for 6th Edition.  So I have only played 1 game in the last 5 years.  7th Edition was released this past May (2014) and over the summer my son picked up a copy of the new rulebook with the intentions of playing with one of our friend Gyan.  That did not pan out for him and the books have been sitting on the shelf.

On the 1st of this year when I wrote "What's in store for 2015" I had brought up Warhammer 40K and out of a rating of 1-10 for getting back into the game, I gave it a 3.  Well that changed last night,  the last few days I have been contemplating getting back into the game and started to look at the new rules to see what has changed and if I remember any of it.  I also downloaded some of the GW enhanced Codexes to my iPad.  How serious am I for getting back into W40K, that is still to be determined.  I did sell a lot of my armies 5 years ago, but did manage to also keep quite a few, plus I still have plenty of unfinished models.  I am right now debateing on if wee to purchase another rulebook.  It is nice for each player to have copy rather than handing the book back and forth.

For my first game back I decided to play with my Imperial Guard, or should I say Astra Militarum.  My son elected to go with his Space Marines Salamanders force led by Vulkan.  We were just going to be playing 1000 points since I knew a lot of the time was going to be with our heads in the rullebook.

For deployment we just did standard 12" and we elected to play the mission 'Purge the Alien'.  The Imperial Guard force I was playing was all Mechanized and my son had quite a few Multi-Mela guns.  Ths was going to be good.

To keep things super quick, I ended up winning 10-4 at the end of Turn 6.  I managed to just about kill everything he had except for his Terminator Squad.  The Salamanders managed to get a couple Chimera's, a Veteran Squad and received a point for being in my Deployment Zone.

We still have a lot to refresh with in the rules.  Neither of us had Psykers or Flyers so we did not cover any of those rules, and we only managed 1 round of combat.

Once thing I am not liking about this edition is the wound allocation for shooting, not really sure if I like the fact that closest model takes the wound first and keep applying the wounds to him until he fails a save (if I read the rules right on this).  I'll need to re-read and look at any FAQ's.

Here are a few pics from the game.

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Battle Foam: X-Wing Wave 4, Large Ships, Huge Ships

The foam I ordered from Battle Foam for our added X-Wing miniatures was finally ready to be picked up today (2 weeks from order to pickup).  I sent my son this morning to pick it up so later today/tomorrow we can finally put away the new ships.

I think with these added foam trays, we may need to order a larger bag (I guess we'll find out shortly).

We ordered the Wave 4 expansion, Huge Ships, and the new Large Ship foam trays.  The Large Ship foam tray has room for the new VT-49 x2 and YT-2400 x2, plus additional space for 2x YT-1300, 2x Firespray-31 and 1x Lambda-class Shuttle.  Now we have room for our 3rd YT-1300.  Looks like we'll need a couple more Firespray-31's, Lambda and another YT-2400.

The Huge Ship tray will be housing the Rebel Transport and Tantive IV expansion packs, and the Wave 4 tray will hold all of our Wave 4 expansions (currently housed in spots that fit in our other trays).

Long term goal = fill every spot we have :)

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D&D 5E: Hoard of the Dragon Queen 1/11/2015

Episode 6: Castle Naerytar

Continuing from where we left off, our adventuring party was now approaching Castle Naerytar.  We dismembarked from our canoes and started to make our way towards the castle.  We were approached by some Lizardfolk and talked our way into having them show us the direction to the castle entrance.  Instead of always 'hacking' out way through the adventure, I thought today would be best to try and talk our way out of some of the encounters.

We entered the castle and started making our way through the ground floor.  Most of the encounters we used the same story that we were working for the 'Cult of the Dragon Queen' and that Rezmir (a half dragon) was expecting us.  When we approached the inner ward of the castle we were attacked by 3 guard drakes.  Now that we are all at level 5 and our fighter level 6, the guard drakes were no match for us.  We continued our exploration and came across a guest room that looked to be occupied.  We rummaged through the dresser drawers and came acroos some red robes (we believe they belong to a red wizard we encountered on our caravan) and a small locked wooden box.  At that moment a fireball shot into the room catching the room on fire, our party took full damage except my Wood Elf Ranger only suffered from half damage.  Once we regained some hit points we attempted to pick the lock of the wooden box.  We left that to our Rogue, he picked the lock and opened the box and an acid arrow shot right at him causing enough damage to bring his hit points to 0.  Our Cleric stabilized him and then healed him with some magic.

We were at our stopping point for the day.  In the room we found a spiral staircase leading to the second floor of the castle and we will continue from that point next week.

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Battle Report: X-Wing 1/10/2015

With the 'Store Championship' season quickly approaching for X-Wing, 'Dark Knight' and I got in another 100 point game in yesterday afternoon.  I wanted to test out a Rebel list that I played once before and wanted to see how it did again.  I know we will more than likely be attending one of the store championships (probably at Empire Games on 3/14/2015) and I may be able to attend at least one more.  My son more than likely will also be attending at least 2-3 himself.

Game: Dogfight
Points: 100

'Wes, Wedge, Luke' [100] (Arrow)
Wes Janson (X-Wing) [30]
[Veteran Instincts]
Wedge Antilles (X-Wing) [33]
[Opportunist]
Luke Skywalker (X-Wing) [37]
[RD-D2, Draw Their Fire, Shield Upgrade]

'Han Shoots First' [99] (Dark Knight)
Han Solo (YT-1300) [57]
[Millennium Falcon, Marksmanship, Gunner, Dash Rendar]
Rookie Pilot (X-Wing) [21]
Rookie Pilot (X-Wing) [21]

All I can is that I missed flying without a large ship and all the Shields/Hull.  I decided to take a little bit more aggresive approach and go right after the Rookie Pilots.  That was a mistake and I should have concentrated my fire power on Han Solo first.  I did not realize how easily Han was taking damage once I started firing at him, but by the I was already down an X-Wing.

"Arrow's" Starting Fleet

"Dark Knight's" Starting Fleet

Wes, Wedge, Luke concentrate on a Rookie Pilot.

Rookie Pilot #2 shoots down Wes.

With Han's help, Rookie Pilot #2 finishes Luke.

Han takes a close shot at Wedge and destroys him.

With Wedge being the same PS as Han, Wedge

Fires back at Han and brings down the Falcon.

'Dark Knight' got is first win of 2015.  

The Rookie PIlot #2 was the last ship flying and the MVP of the game.

Now it will be time to playtest another list (probably with a large ship in it).

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LotR-LCG 'Journey Down the Anduin'

Date: 1/10/2015
Quest: Journey Down the Andun
Number of Players: 2
Heroes Player 1: Eowyn, Dwalin, Dunhere
Heroes Player 2: Legolas, Gimli, Thalin
Result: Success
Score: 148
Quest Mode: Easy

After four attempts at 'Jouney Down the Anduin' my son and I finally completed the quest on the fifth attempt.  We attempted the quest originally with the same decks we used in 'Passage Through Mirkwood', but that was not workng for us.  So I then elected to play with the 'Spirit' sphere, and my son was playing with the 'Tactics' sphere (he had to give up his Aragorn from the 'Ledership sphere).

When the first attempts with those two spheres failed, we then elected to customize our decks with some of the player cards from the next two Adventure Packs ('The Hunt For Gollum' and 'Conflict At The Carrock') we then also picked up the next expansion 'Khazad Dum' and added a few of those player cards and the hero Dwalin.

After those changes, we actually managed to complete the quest and were in no danger at all to losing the quest.  The 'Spirit' sphere did it's part in keeping my threat costs low, and the 'Tactics' sphere took care of defeating the larger enemies.  Our final score was 148.

After we completed 'Journey Down the Anduin' we then attempted the third quest in the Core set, 'Escape from Dol Guldur' with the same two decks.  This quest is the hardest of the three in the Core set.  From the get go we were doomed........ stay tuned for more on this quest.

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