Author Topic: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April  (Read 13822 times)

Ryjak

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #30 on: April 22, 2016, 08:36:29 pm »
It's too bad you guys are way out in Colorado; this looks like it'll be a great event!

Landlubber

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #31 on: April 22, 2016, 11:42:56 pm »
It's too bad you guys are way out in Colorado; this looks like it'll be a great event!

HA! Actually, it's too bad that you're in Virginia, otherwise you could come out and play! I'll post lots of pics.
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hypnotini

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #32 on: April 24, 2016, 01:47:09 am »
had a good time out there today thanks guys

Landlubber

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #33 on: April 24, 2016, 12:30:52 pm »
had a good time out there today thanks guys

Hypnotini, was great to meet you guys yesterday, always good to have more DW opponents!

Thanks much to everyone who showed up to play--special thanks to Dalek Unz, Ulric the Grey, DemonFerret, Zorper, Hypnotini, and Darth Doot for supplying ships and terrain, running games, and helping me explain rules. The day wouldn't have been nearly as smooth without your contributions.

And Ulric, that Mountain Dew hit the spot--perfect re-supply drop at the perfect moment.

I'll get pictures up in the next few days.
"Sometimes, you gotta roll the hard six."--Commander Adama

Ryjak

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #34 on: April 24, 2016, 06:28:06 pm »
Days?! Ugh!

Landlubber

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #35 on: April 24, 2016, 10:58:36 pm »
Sorry. I was waiting on a few more pics from Dalek Unz.

We had a pretty good day. We made some good connections and played some good games. I have plenty of pictures to post, so I'm going to break this up by the games played, starting with Dystopian Wars.

The Dystopian Wars scenario was a basic "hold the middle" game. We played Prussians, Chinese Federation, Republique of France, and Federated States of America.





This is what happens when the Chinese battleship opens up with the heavy flamethrower at close range:



One HP, one AP, two Corrosion markers, and five Raging Fires.

After the big demo game, I coached a couple of new players through a game of Dystopian Wars using the Shadowhunter starter set. New forum member Hypnotini (one of the players) actually built this board and the island in the center. He and his opponent played the game out to the bitter end.







I told Hypnotini that I'm going to twist his arm for a terrain-building class sometime this summer.

Firestorm Armada pictures in the next post...
« Last Edit: April 25, 2016, 12:20:00 am by Landlubber »
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Landlubber

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #36 on: April 24, 2016, 11:12:58 pm »
So, I actually don't know what scenario was played for the Firestorm Armada game, as I was coaching the Dystopian Wars game, so I'll let Dalek Unz chime in about that if he would like. I know that, at the least, we had Terran, RSN, and Hawker fleets on the table. In the meantime, here are some of the pics from that game:







There was also a game of Firestorm Taskforce:



Next up: Halo!
« Last Edit: April 25, 2016, 12:21:29 am by Landlubber »
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Landlubber

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #37 on: April 24, 2016, 11:32:47 pm »
For the Halo: Fleet Battles demo game, I used a modified version of the new Firefight scenario (you can find the full rules for the Firefight scenario in the Halo Tournament Guide on the Spartan Games website). The two flagships were my UNSC Punic-class  supercarrier and forum member Quickdraw's beautifully painted Covenant CAS-class assault carrier (many thanks to Quickdraw for supplying the ship; he couldn't make it to the games day, but he loaned me the CAS for this demo game). We deployed the two flagships per the rules, for the scenario, then I built six battlegroups apiece for the UNSC and Covenant (using some of forum member Ulric's Covenant ships), designated players to be the UNSC and Covenant fleet commanders, and we were off to the races. I had them roll for random board edge deployment for two battlegroups per turn, which is a modification from the original Firefight rules (I had to streamline the rules to make it work as a demo game). We had a lot of fun playing, and it was good to see the Punic and CAS on the board together!

The two flagships sizing each other up before the fight:



And the fight is on!





We ended up having probably 75% of the reserve battlegroups deploy on the same board edge. I was hoping for a little more variety, but it did make for some pretty interesting engagements. We opted not to use the interceptors and bombers--just too much going on--but we did use the boarding craft. Holy cow, there were a LOT of Pelicans and Type-28s flying around the board.



The UNSC player REALLY wanted these SDVs and that CCS dead...



The two massive ships survived, but surprisingly both had their front sections wrecked pretty early on--I think by the end of turn two. The Punic only got off one salvo with its forward MACs, unfortunately. And we did have one critical core breach, which wiped out three other battlegroups. Always a good time.





The Punic and CAS acted nicely as "centerpiece" models. I set them out alone in the middle of the table while I was building the other battlegroups, and they definitely got a lot of attention.

Stand by for pictures of our last game: Firestorm Planetfall!
« Last Edit: April 25, 2016, 12:26:49 am by Landlubber »
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Landlubber

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #38 on: April 24, 2016, 11:45:15 pm »
And now for our final demo game of the day, Firestorm Planetfall.

I don't know if they were running a specific scenario; Dalek Unz ran and played in this game while I was finishing up the Halo game (which the Covenant won, but not by much). Dalek Unz's Relthoza squared off against forum member Zorper's Sorylians.







The large terrain piece(meant to be a warehouse) in the middle is actually a telecomms card rack turned on it's side, and the smaller pieces off to the side are parts of office phones (meant to be power generators in the game). Awesome use of non-traditional items for terrain pieces!





All in all, it was a good day of gaming. Again, many thanks to the various forum members who helped out. And also a big thanks to Gamer's Haven for giving us the tables to use.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures!
« Last Edit: April 25, 2016, 12:34:53 am by Landlubber »
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hypnotini

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #39 on: April 25, 2016, 01:52:58 am »
wait till that island is finished he he. I used the online tutorials I found to the T . I should have enough foam to build 100+ more islands its 15$ for a 2x8x2" chunk at lowes :-D rest is chopping, painting, then the parts I havnt done. flocking, sand, and trees :-D, so maybe we can get an island building day going :D

Dakkar

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #40 on: April 25, 2016, 11:51:12 am »
I'll let Dalek Unz chime in about that if he would like.
There was also a game of Firestorm Taskforce:

The scenario was a basic "Take the base" set-up. But it also showed once more that RSN really lacks ... something... compared to the insane resiliency of Hawker and Terrans.

Taskforce games were good to learn and teach the game. And fun because of players involved. And I like the movement system, restricted as it is, a lot more each time I use it here or in HALO.

But I have to say, the Damage Table mechanic in that is one of the WORST game design elements I've seen in a while. Doubly so for an intro game. For example, here's how dialog on a single shooting action would sound from one side of the conversation:

"So you look at your Weapons firing at the target, add them all up. But yes, different ranges make for different dice"
"And yes, since I'm obscured, you use the heavy dice mechanic, and sixes don't generate rerolls. And yes, since that one ship is behind the minefield, he adds half as many dice"
"Okay, now count the number of dice that rolled 4+, and sixes count twice"
"Compare that to my DR - you've exceeded but not doubled it. So we look at this ting chart here, and that says you get a +0 modifier. on the Damage Chart rolls. But because you have Pack Hunter, you get an automatic +1 modifier. An then because I'm a Difficult Target, you get an automatic -1. So back to zero."
"Yes, the modifier affects both our rolls. You roll on the column, I roll on the header row as Defender."
"So you rolled a 1, I rolled a 2, so that's only 1 disruption marker. If we'd both rolled higher, you would have blown up my ship."
"Why did you do the first bigger dice roll? In case you rolled higher enough to get a plus one on the chart roll."

Yeah... I think I'd rather melt down all my resin before justifying that mechanic as simple or elegant in any fashion.

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Dakkar

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #41 on: April 25, 2016, 12:03:40 pm »
I don't know if they were running a specific scenario; Dalek Unz ran and played in this game while I was finishing up the Halo game (which the Covenant won, but not by much). Dalek Unz's Relthoza squared off against forum member Zorper's Sorylians.

The building in the center is a giant industrial complex that only non-flying, non Leviathans can enter. Nothing outside can affect what's inside. It's worth 3 TV each turn to have the most TV pts occupying it.

My regular Relthozan infantry dropped in as normal, but now that their Spires aren't assault vehicles, Tod had ample opportunity to shoot the spire dead, removing a key Drone node, and pre-activating the Infantry inside. Which is what happened to both squads - neither got a Turn 1 activation, and 1 squad just died while stuck in the open.
At first I thought this was a fatal nerf to the whole faction. But in order to shoot the spires down, it pulled Tod's massive Assault Helix battlesuits out of position. Then they couldn't get into the Objective building in time. And the initiative sinks meant that my heavy infantry drop spires went all but unopposed when they landed, and they proceeded to tear up the Sorylians lines, flyer, and Infantry. Then they retreated to dominate the objective.

There was a definite luck swing in my favor too in turn 2. But the Relthozan aren't nerfed to oblivion by any means. It will just take a full rethink of army construction.

Thanks Greg for posting all the pics!
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zorper

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #42 on: April 25, 2016, 03:32:23 pm »
I'll let Dalek Unz chime in about that if he would like.
There was also a game of Firestorm Taskforce:

...

But I have to say, the Damage Table mechanic in that is one of the WORST game design elements I've seen in a while. Doubly so for an intro game. For example, here's how dialog on a single shooting action would sound from one side of the conversation:

...

I didn't hate it as much as you did, but I've never played Armada, so I don't have a basis for comparison.  I'm going to give the system a chance for a while.

zorper

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #43 on: April 25, 2016, 03:35:10 pm »
I don't know if they were running a specific scenario; Dalek Unz ran and played in this game while I was finishing up the Halo game (which the Covenant won, but not by much). Dalek Unz's Relthoza squared off against forum member Zorper's Sorylians.

...
 But in order to shoot the spires down, it pulled Tod's massive Assault Helix battlesuits out of position. Then they couldn't get into the Objective building in time. And the initiative sinks meant that my heavy infantry drop spires went all but unopposed when they landed, and they proceeded to tear up the Sorylians lines, flyer, and Infantry. Then they retreated to dominate the objective.
...

Yep, your spiders were still plenty tough.  Good game.  I think that I stumbled on a pretty good scenario idea that with tweaks could be useful in the future.

Thanks for putting on the day and the pics Greg and all!

markymark1970

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Re: Spartan Games Day at Gamer's Haven, CO Springs--23 April
« Reply #44 on: April 28, 2016, 02:51:26 pm »
Thanks for all of the pictures, looks like I missed a great event.  Glad it went well and looking forward to the next one.