Video: A Dead Game Billboard

Warning!  This video is strictly for fun - don't take it, or yourself, that seriously!

Another Confrontation Interlude

On Friday four of us brought a dead game out of the graveyard.

Again.

Not Brent Presents: Not GW and Not Warmachine, III

So we've come to Confrontation.  Or at least a few Confrontation miniatures.  He's got more, but I can't be bothered to take pictures of them, so you'll have to wait.


You can click on the picture, if you've a mind.

Evil Homer: Something Wicked This Way Comes, Part I

So, Evil Homer is back after a long hiatus. What does a fanged-cartoon character who is sometimes evil-funny and sometimes evil-scary do in his spare time? You're going to find out... and it will blow you away. Seriously!  It's that epic.  Follow along over the next several Tuesdays as Evil Homer shows you a glimpse in to the mind of a madman.

Every obsession has a beginning. My newest obsession started with hate.

Sometimes you hate a model so much you just can't bring yourself to put it on the table. That's me. I hate the GW Plaguebearers. I play Deamons in both systems. That's a problem no matter how you slice it.

Shooting Miniatures: Lightbox or No?

Okay, we've got one miniature and two different ways of taking its picture.  Say cheese!  The model in question is a Centurius Clone, painted by the Master Manipulator (every store needs one).  He shot pictures for Dakka Dakka using advanced techniques (...can you say 'the right way?'  I knew you could!); that is, a proper background and light source.  Then you've got my typical point and click...

Which is, by the way, the way I've taken every picture for every model that's ever appeared on this site.  Assuming it wasn't one I borrowed (...can you say 'stole,' boys and girls?  I knew you could!).

Gamer Porn

"What," says our hero, waking upon a new day fresh with excitement and two days removed from a misunderstood rant, "is this I see in the mail, arrived just today from France?"

*heartbeat quickens.  palms are sweaty.  it cannot arrive too soon...*

What Does That Game Have 40K Doesn't?

Part the second.  Click here for the first part of this article, in which our here (me, of course) is learning to play Confrontation and insta-kills Little Barrera's big giant tower of doomy-bullshit by rolling BOX CARS BABY!

Did you read it?  Are you back?  Good, let's move on.

So Little Barrera is a gamer: he won't quit and never, ever gives up a game early.  Still, my Undead (Acheron) hit his Evil Dwarves' (Mid-Nor) line and slowly started rolling up it.  Still and all, he used his special abilities to stall me out then slowly concentrated on killing my weaklings, a unit type called Morbid Puppets.  Suffice it to say, it's a model prone to folding faster than the French army during an invasion... any invasion.

I ganged up on his models and started killing them, one by one.  Then my Cerberus got in the game!  That, of course, is a big three-head mutt from hell, reborn to chase cars and eat the people inside - fuck the bumper.

I've been a bit obsessed with Confrontation lately - but doesn't that happen to all of us at one point or another?  This weekend I've put together and based coated my Goblins.  I've also worked out a few different lists I hope will compete.

Cerberus eats his way from my left flank to the right.  Little Barrera makes a last ditch charge with his last two models, but it's not to be, 'cause I'm faster!  Cerberus charges then -

BOX CARS, BABY!

What the fuck just happened?  That's my line, right?

Little Barrera had whispered to his dice, begging for sixes.  He rolls them, instantly killing my model, payback for the first fight of the game when I killed his.  I almost went deaf for the yelling; in shock, I drop the three dice I was holding.

They must have listened to him, too.  Three 6's came up.  Fat lot of good that did me!

Still, I won the game... but was that really the important thing?  We'd played a game we'll both remember, and long after the details of other games grow fuzzy I'll remember the narrative that made that game with Little Barrera such a classic.

You see, I understand what the Master Manipulator (every store needs one) means when he said most of his top in-game 'moments' come from Confrontation.  That system of exceptional wounds is designed to allow even the weakest models a chance to kill the most powerful; it doesn't happen often, but when it does it's memorable.  It's dramatic.

So, how does this apply to 40K?  Stay tuned for Part 3, where I look at one last game then wrap up my points.

What Does He Have I Don't?

The question refers to a joke I made in my article over on Blood of Kittens titled Strictly Plasticard.  If you haven't read it, take a few minutes and give it a once over.  Moving on though, the punchline was, "... in high school the answer was a cool car, a hot girlfriend, and way too much sex."

But this last week I've had some experiences that prompt a variation on a theme.  Today, let's ask What Does That Game Have That 40K Doesn't?

Let's start with the mother of all dead games, Confrontation.

Here's a selection of my Acheron - that is, the Order of the Ram or the Undead, take your pick of names.  Anyway, Con is a skirmish battle game, and at the points levels we've been playing lately you won't have more than 20 models, and most armies won't have more than 10.

I've posted recently about how much I hated playing this game in the past but that recent experiences have changed my mind... but what is that specifically?

Let's take a statement made by the Master Manipulator (every store needs one)... and keep in mind when analyzing anything said by this man that it could be a subtle meme, a word virus of sorts designed to change your mind, pointing it toward a worldview more palatable to the powers that be.  Namely, him.

He said that most of his top 10 gaming experiences have come from this game.  I had one of these moments a few nights ago, so now I get what he means.

The system has a rule called the 'exceptional wound' where if you roll a double to damage (as any roll to wound is made on 2d6) you automatically, with no save possible by your opponent, do him a dirty.  A double 3 is a light wound, a double 5 is a critical wound... you see where this is going?  A double 6 is DEATH.

Boxcars, baby!

I took my Acheron army over to Little Barrera's house on Tuesday and played a game against his Mid-Nor.  That's a faction of evil Dwarves who keep their essence in a separate puppet for protection; imagine a runty little dude with a teddy bear, but its an EVIL teddy bear - how cool is that?

Anyway, our forces lined up.  Across the field of battle I could see what looked at first glance like a tower, and mounted upon that was a cannon wielded by shadowy shapes.  Then the tower moved, thudding inexorably toward my line.

How cool is that?

I set my Heavy Centaur on a path to charge the model, hoping to soften it up for Cerberus, but I underestimated how far this thing could charge and so on turn 1 this monstrosity is all over me like a WAAC-Playa' on a baby seal!

He hit me, knocking off dusty bits of bone and archaic armor, and I swung back, with huge negatives on my wound roll due to his massive resilience...

BOX CARS BABY!

The dice roll 6 and 6, and instantly me, Little Barrera, Farseer Tim, and the Master Manipulator (every store needs one) go berserk laughing and jeering.

I had my moment.

(to be continued)

A Confrontation Interlude

For those of you who may not be aware, Confrontation was (is?) a skirmish game created by Rackham Miniatures, a French company, created for their line of fantasy miniatures.

Rackham minis are by far my favorite - they put everything else to shame.  That said, there are more and more start-ups all the time producing really awesome stuff, including the designers that made Rackham so great.

Confrontation was a religion around here.  It was, and still is (not bad for a dead game, no?) the all-time favorite game for such Strictly Average notables as the Master Manipulator (every store needs one), Little Barrera, and Evil Homer.

So how come I hated it?

(The Gravedigger, and Warrior-Priest for the Undead faction.  Sorry for the blurry pic, but 5 years ago this was widely considered the best miniature I ever painted.  I think I can do better now, but that's probably a matter of opinion.)

I can admit it now: I hated Confrontation.  I didn't enjoy it at all.

I tried to like it, but I played it out of a sense of loyalty to my store.  If that was the game being played, I tried to support the community by playing it as well.  That meant losing 10 bucks each month in our local tournaments, but whatever.

So now we're at a bit of a stall in our local gaming area.  We just spent 6 months playing high-level 40K practicing for Hard Boyz, and then most of us couldn't go because GW scheduled it on the Saturday of college graduation.  That was a let down, let me tell you.  So we're tired of 40K, for the nonce, and there is no point playing Warhammer Fantasy with a new edition right around the corner.  So everyone is looking for something to do for 2 months; thus, Confrontation was broken out again.

I can understand the impulse.  You should see Little Barrera's game room - it's like a shrine to the game.  It's crazy.  It also turns out we were both Ebay bidding for the same miniature, which he won.  I hope I ran the price up on him.

Dutifully, I tried to get excited about the game.  I went to the store last Friday and played Evil Homer...

...and promptly got my teeth kicked in.  I didn't enjoy the game at all.  It was time to either give up or try to understand why.

I spent that Sunday relaxing, with plenty of time to pour over the books and cards.  (For those of you who remember, my Sundays are terrible affairs.  My wife likes to be left the hell alone to unwind, so I'm sent packing to my brothers or my gameroom.  It's a hard life.

Anyway, by the time Evil Homer sent me an email on Monday to touch base with me about the previous butt-kicking, I'd pretty much analyzed what had happened.  Here was my response:

It's not you mate, it was me.  You're playing like you always do, which is at a high level.  It's why I call you my nemesis in 40K, because win or lose you're always my toughest challenge.  I really enjoy that.

In Con though, there's a twofold problem.  The first is I'm not at your level of expertise, and the second is I've not ever really hit my stride with the game.

That said, I did learn quite a bit from Friday's game.  I've been thinking about it all weekend and I came to this conclusion:

1) I've never really tried to excel at Con.  I'd just put together a list and play.  I wouldn't do that with 40K, so I'm not sure why I expected it to work in Con.

2) I needed to put some effort in to more than painting the models.  I needed a strategy and some tactics.

I've spent all weekend studying my book and cards.  I've got 3 different army lists to try out, each with a plan of action.

I'm excited about playing the game now.  My expectations were off on Friday - how was I going to have fun with a bang-together list?

Do you see how that applies to any game in our hobby?  I know most of my readers are here because of 40K, so let's relate it to that.

How much of this Fluff vs Competitive stuff we read about on Ye Ol' Blogosphere have to do with assumed expectations?

One player is setting down for a friendly game with a thrown together list of his favorite models while the other is testing a tournament list he plans to take to the next big event...

...someone's going to be crying in the bathroom with no one to console him, while the other someone's going to feel bad about clubbing a baby seal.

Unreasonable Expectations.  Get that tattooed on your belly as a reminder that most hurt feelings anywhere happened because one two-legged mammal was needlessly thoughtless towards another two-legged mammal.  Your big brain developed as a response to social pressure, does it shrink when you fail to use it to solve such?

I played a game of Confrontation over at Little Barrera's house last night.  I had a blast.

The Problem With Old Melmoth

Okay everyone, undead group shot - this ones for print. Smile in the back there - all three heads: there's a good Cerby!
Melmoth, look up, baby. Melmoth? Into the camera, mate, into the camera.
Dammit, Melmoth - look up!

(psst - 40K next post)

Melmoth!!! (or A Confrontation Resin Interlude)

So, for many years at Galaxy Books and Comics in Wichita Falls, Texas (the FLGS) two games fought for dominance, for the top-spot as favorite.

*yawn* Okay, I'm already bored with the lead-up, basically Confrontation and 40K were played alternately month-to-month for many years. For the record, I was pretty horrible at this game - come to think of it, I'm probably not even in double digit wins - but I loved it for the miniatures. I really enjoy painting Rackham minis, largely because of the beautiful and diverse sculpts. This was also the favorite game for the Master Manipulator (every store has to have one) and the Partner In Crime (enlist him for a sure thing), both of whom have a large collection of gorgeously painted miniatures.

But even this couldn't stop the game dying the moment Rackham stopped supporting it. Their decision to change the game to prepainted figures killed it overnight. Even the repeated attempts to resurrect it by playing 3.5 failed: who wants to support a dead game?

That said, the Master Manipulator (every store has to have one) and the Partner In Crime (enlist him for a sure thing) have decided to push the game again, using a combination of rules from 1.0 to 3.5; basically, the best rules from all sets. We'll see how long this lasts, but I'm always game to support the FLGS.

Plus, a new sculpt for Melmoth hit the store today. Man, I'm excited about this one.

Nice box.
This is a really nice plastic. Very detailed, almost no flash. Also notice the different shaped female slots: putting this together is a no-brainer.

And voila! I literally snapped it together for this picture. It's not glued, but the pieces are so well developed they hold in shape perfectly. Wish all miniatures were like this...
I'm not going to be able to resist the temptation to paint this model before I continue work on my other various projects. Matter of fact, I'm off to work on it now.

Take care - Brent