Warmachine - what were we thinking?
Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 8:05 am40k - it's so simple! Well, it blooming well should be, I've been playing it for over 20 years!
Here lies the chronical of my first foray into a non Games Workshop wargame.
Wednesday began as normal day. An unearthly calm had settled over the realms of midlands-earth as the sultry summer haze rose from the meandering brooks and streams, skylarks sang, mice frolicked in the fields, and badgers did, well whatever it is that badgers do. Elsewhere in the realms, things were stirring. An internet drama of unequalled proportion had shattered the peace. The previously benificent rulers of the kingdom, Games Workshop, had seemingly swayed to the dark side over the last years of its rule, but its latest edicts were (aparently) from the very mouth of hades itself.
The serfs of the kingdom were moved. Moved to find themselves a new ruler, a ruler without an evil intent to control the kingdom with an iron fist. A ruler who website was easy to navigate. A ruler who could get an errata out in a reasonable time frame. A ruler without the evil sock puppet Mat Ward. A ruler with MAT, RAT, and POW! WARMACHINE WAS COMING!
But before that, back to Wednesday. KMB & I had tasked ourselves to read the rules & arranged a game for Sunday. Seriously, we've played GW for ages, we even understand some of the rules (which is more than many), so how hard can this "easy to get started" game be? Well apparently very.
True to form, Ljundhammer devotedly stole a rulebook, stole company time & paper & ink, opened the rule book & immediately read all the fluff in it. Which took 3 days. Which meant that in one day he had to read all the rules. KMB, in his low cunningness had found a 'quick start' rulebook, but, so satisfied was he in his cunningness, that he didn't read it.
Thus we arive at Sunday. A hodge-podge of 40k figures, 2 rule books (both unread), a bag of dice (which Ljundhammer was assured we wouldn't nead as he remembered the bit of the rulebook he'd read which stated that you'd only need 6 dice), a small wall for some terrain, 2 cups of tea, a 4'x6' table, a woman (!), a cat, 2 chairs, well, you get the idea.
We found a bit in the quick start rulebook that had some sample armies, and we therefore removed most of the models we'd put on the table & started the game.
Once we started the game, we reaslised that we actually had no idea what we were doing, so in true manly style, we blustered our way through it, fully utilising our powers of bluster, bullshit, and borrowing rules from other games systems. This game, so alien to our GW addled brain, was mind-blowing. It took us about 30 minutes (the length of time of a normal 40k game for us) just work out what this 'focus' thing did, how we got it & where it went, but due to the power of "making stuff up to make the game run quickly", we probably fudged that too!
It was good, we rolled loads of dice, we marked things on bits of paper, we took things off the table, but neither of us are exactly sure what any of this meant, and, indeed, if any of it actually meant anything, nevermind happened in any meaningful rules framework.
To summarise:
we played warmachine
we didn't know any of the rules
we rolled some dice & some stuff happened
we have about a million rules queries
this is a placeholder to ask the rules queries, but having a post with "placeholder for rules queries on warmachine" seemed quite dull!
Here lies the chronical of my first foray into a non Games Workshop wargame.
Wednesday began as normal day. An unearthly calm had settled over the realms of midlands-earth as the sultry summer haze rose from the meandering brooks and streams, skylarks sang, mice frolicked in the fields, and badgers did, well whatever it is that badgers do. Elsewhere in the realms, things were stirring. An internet drama of unequalled proportion had shattered the peace. The previously benificent rulers of the kingdom, Games Workshop, had seemingly swayed to the dark side over the last years of its rule, but its latest edicts were (aparently) from the very mouth of hades itself.
The serfs of the kingdom were moved. Moved to find themselves a new ruler, a ruler without an evil intent to control the kingdom with an iron fist. A ruler who website was easy to navigate. A ruler who could get an errata out in a reasonable time frame. A ruler without the evil sock puppet Mat Ward. A ruler with MAT, RAT, and POW! WARMACHINE WAS COMING!
But before that, back to Wednesday. KMB & I had tasked ourselves to read the rules & arranged a game for Sunday. Seriously, we've played GW for ages, we even understand some of the rules (which is more than many), so how hard can this "easy to get started" game be? Well apparently very.
True to form, Ljundhammer devotedly stole a rulebook, stole company time & paper & ink, opened the rule book & immediately read all the fluff in it. Which took 3 days. Which meant that in one day he had to read all the rules. KMB, in his low cunningness had found a 'quick start' rulebook, but, so satisfied was he in his cunningness, that he didn't read it.
Thus we arive at Sunday. A hodge-podge of 40k figures, 2 rule books (both unread), a bag of dice (which Ljundhammer was assured we wouldn't nead as he remembered the bit of the rulebook he'd read which stated that you'd only need 6 dice), a small wall for some terrain, 2 cups of tea, a 4'x6' table, a woman (!), a cat, 2 chairs, well, you get the idea.
We found a bit in the quick start rulebook that had some sample armies, and we therefore removed most of the models we'd put on the table & started the game.
Once we started the game, we reaslised that we actually had no idea what we were doing, so in true manly style, we blustered our way through it, fully utilising our powers of bluster, bullshit, and borrowing rules from other games systems. This game, so alien to our GW addled brain, was mind-blowing. It took us about 30 minutes (the length of time of a normal 40k game for us) just work out what this 'focus' thing did, how we got it & where it went, but due to the power of "making stuff up to make the game run quickly", we probably fudged that too!
It was good, we rolled loads of dice, we marked things on bits of paper, we took things off the table, but neither of us are exactly sure what any of this meant, and, indeed, if any of it actually meant anything, nevermind happened in any meaningful rules framework.
To summarise:
we played warmachine
we didn't know any of the rules
we rolled some dice & some stuff happened
we have about a million rules queries
this is a placeholder to ask the rules queries, but having a post with "placeholder for rules queries on warmachine" seemed quite dull!
)