Playing without a full deck (14) - Mammoth announcements

Blizzard recently announced a number of things related to the upcoming Year of the Mammoth (AKA the time after Reno).

In this article I want to take a look... er... I wanna put down my thoughts. On it. I'll be dealing with the following points in particular:

1) Lost Secrets of Un'Goro
2) Hall of Fame
3) The end of Adventures
4) Login-Rewards
5) Maiev Shadowsong

See you after the break!

Big and slow?

...or how it took over four year to finish one model.

Hi there everyone, Arides here with a mayor update on one of my oldest huge-based (120mm) model painting projects.

I hereby announce that on Thursday November 17th 2016...

The state of Research...

...or: What if it's the WTC and I couldn't care less?

Seriously, I can't be bothered this year. Faithful readers of this blog might have already wondered why there's absolutely no coverage of the WTC (like there was last year), or of Warmachine at any rate.
The answer is: Since ClogCon '15, I only touched my models to put them into cases, and those cases into my basement. Between work and two children (the younger of which requiring way more attention than his sibling) there's just not enough time to break out the models, play, and produce content. Also, there was Mk3 rocking the general boat.
They're not gone, though, and once time permits, games will be had, and you will know about it!

On Hearthstone: I've promised an ONiK review, and that'll come, but it was delayed since... I wanted to clear it in heroic mode, and now that that's done, it's coming. I'll start typing today. The post series will, however, be "rebranded" as they say, into "Playing without a full deck", but only the name, not the numbers. This has two reasons: 1) I think that, now that I did my first adventure in heroic, I have a good inkling of what I'm doing in general and 2) that name is easy to translate into German with both versions being as idiomatic as possible. Yes, select posts of the series will be translated, and linked to the Hearthstone Deutschland FB page.

Until next time,
farewell.

Happy New Year!

Better late than never. Here's to 2015, which I pray will be a year of positive change.
That emcompasses everything - wargaming, family, career/work, you name it.

As a very brief review within the scope of this blog: 2014, dubbed to be the "Year of the Beard", went... a lot different than anticipated. But with me scoring my first (and currently only) success with Harkevich, I can still declare it a success. So here's a farewell to the beard!

*Ba-dum-tsh*

And for this year, if you're on Facebook, you might want to look out for this hashtag:
#ZerkovaWorldDominationTour

More news on that later!

WM Hiatus

   I've reached a decision today - I'll be pausing WM/H for the time being. This decision is in no way caused by any state of the game itself, it's because of my state as player, and my outlook on the future progress of me as a player.
   There will be no WM related posts on this blog (by me, at least) during that time.

This hiatus is in effect starting now.
It will end February 2015 (i.e. when I own a fully painted Zerkova resculpt (AKA Alexandra Flamenkova). Then it's Zerkova World Domination Tour time!)

"Breaking" C.R.L. News

This just in:

With 915 views, my most viewed article is ... the one on Dawnlord Vyros alternate Theme Force. o.O?

Film at eleven...

Compromised by an imperial Spy 02 - Cantina Games V RoundUp

You may not notice it, but this post airs before Cantina Games V ends, heck, even begins. How does that happen?

Make an educated guess.

Seizing Command 06 - Breaking (as in Borken) News!

So now we do have an answer from Fearlord, the HC infernal who was kind enough to check on what "unused" means:

The answer is: Any card from a faction's whole pool of cards costing up to three and not granting victory.

Which means: Forget what I said about detachment choices. Just pick which you want most for your strategy. Good god, play Cygnar R/G/B with all the Journeymen readily available...

Game Report is delayed, btw. Still trying to schedule it. Hang in there!
And until then, farewell.

ClogCon Progress

With Team Marth & the Machines currently at ClogCon in Leiden, I guess this post will have to do to cover all our "achievements":

Blood, Sweat, & Tiers (Fri morning)
Marth - 2/2, ends up 6th (Jay, new record! Won two games in a row!)
Arides - 1/3, ends up 14th

Doubles (Fri evening)
Marth & Fiona AKA "Team Beer Kamikaze" - 0/3
(We ended up dead last, but still had fun even due to very bad matchups. First round against Team "No time for love Dr. Jones" (Ossyan/Haley Xp), second round against Team "Think of sth. funny" (Kromac/Rask), and last round against Team "Rocket" (Magnus/Sorscha Xp) - and that will be batrep'ed, since it's a "fight" between Marth & and the Machines and OrsusZoktavir.

Steamroller (Fri evening)
Arides - 0/3, ended up 14th (Turns out: Sleep deprivation and dehydration hamper your play ;-))

Team Tournament (Sat morning)
This actually was the prime reason we came here with Arides (or rather, it was the reason he came along with Fiona and me), however - Fiona was feeling really bad, and sort-of not up to it. Arides and Me were feeling worn out from that amount of gaming (and staying up 20+ hours straight), too. So we, as a team, minding our teammate's condition (and ours, but her's primarily) reached the decision of not participating.

That may seem ironic, but sometimes situations change in a way that you can no longer conduct the original plan. And I think it shows that we learned sth important about being real team.

Hydra (Sat evening)
Marth - 1/2 (Note: Win was a bye. I used the time to play a game against Fiona)
Arides - 0/3
 We were actually expecting a fourth round (probably pairing Arides vs. me), but the TOs decided that, with a clear top three of players, there wouldn't be one.

Steamroller (Sun morning)
Marth - 2/2, ended up 7th
Arides - 2/2, ended up 8th
Fiona - 0/4, ended up last.

So all in all, it was a very fun and exciting experience, and we'll try to repeat it. A brief summary/discussion can be found here: Dice Rage Live Ep. 5

Realigning the CRL look

Just did a small update on the looks of this blog - took stuff that was hidden at the bottom of the page to the right, rearranged the order, and took the Bloglist off (I wasn't following them that closely).

Maybe the glaring lack of followers proves inspiring. ;-)

Artwork & Battery 01

So, for some, these might be old news - but I guess that for enough people, it's not. My brother, Arides, also has a Youtube channel, which he uses to show off painting & similar topics. It'll be regularly featured here (that is, whenever he has the time to make an episode) to up this blog's painting game. Enjoy!

Demoboard - Pattern Developments

So, the other day, Arides went ahead and created a .psd file where he went and compiled all the SR 2012 patterns into a single file - and to scale.

This proves quite handy as our LGS has "refitted" one set of tabletop gaming boards to expand their games display, leaving us with one, which we have to share with 40k gamers that come over from the local GW whenever it's too full or busy with other stuff.

Since that situation needs a solution, our WM/H group has briefly been considering doing a kickstarter for new gaming tables. Not in all seriousness, though. However, as we will need another table, I've resorted to using aforementioned .psd file to compile suitable patterns. The idea is this:

Marth & the Machines #68 - and now on Facebook, too!

All that like the show and have an account are invited to join & like & stuff. ;-)

All that like it and do NOT have an account - create one if you want. Just remember: What happens on Facebook, stays on Facebook.

In issue #68, I'm sending Zerkova up against Constance Blaize. Witness one of the most stylish ends ever!

An end is nighing...

...assuming that's even a word. What I'm referring to?

Marth & the Machine's summer holiday vacation is about to end! Expect issue #67 next monday, and another issue every week again!

(Which will last until I completely catch up with my material... and that's not too far off.)

Lt. Caine's GungHo Guns

While M&tM is on Summer Holiday Hiatus, here's a minimal spoiler - a List that I'm going to play in an upcoming report.

Lt. Caine (-6)
Hunter (6)
Defender (9)
Trencher Commandos (min) (6)
Rangers (5)
Black 13th (4) "Lynch the Flare", "Ryan the Magestorm", "Watts the Hotshot"
GMCA (2) "Booth the Assassin"
Squire (2) "Beep-beep the Robot"

Yeah, consider it a Trigun homage. :)

The Druzhina - pending list of topics...

... or should I rather call them "lectures"?

At any rate, with the Khador board on PP's forum in a mood of "let's get constructive again", this gave me some incentive to pick up the notes on what I wanted to do in the "Druzhina" video series. Here's my preliminary list of topics I've settled on covering. You are free to comment, in fact, feel encouraged to!

So here - we -go:

This year's first tournaments

Here's a short announcement. The CTU, as well as the Zeitgeist (both gaming clubs in Koblenz, FRoG) will be hosting tournaments this March, and I intend to attend both. The second is supposed to be more of a "beginner-friendly" tournament - which for me means "no eVlad." ;-)

The other will be regular. Both will be 35 points, SR 2012. (7 minute turns. *GACK!*)

I hope I do get a game in in the meantime! And that I manage to give you some faster coverage...

The Druzhina - Preparations

Alright,
 after stumbling onto Mr. Malorians outstanding U-Tube "Podcast" called "The Orc Tactical Team", where he covers numerous aspects of Warhammer Fantasy Battle from a competitive orcish(&goblinish position), and watching through the whole thing, I was stricken with the thought: "Hey, that could work for warmachine, too. Plus, I could do it, and on top of that, it'd be fun."

Merry Christ-mas from CRL!

The crew would like - well I, Marth, do, and I think Arides'd be in too - to wish everyone reading these lines a Merry Christmas. That is all. :)

B.A.D. thing coming up!

Just for your information, our local community - which has been growing a lot lately - has decided to get a first tournament going in July!