Zombies!!

So recently someone posted a challenge on the Privateer Forums. The challenge was to make a 50 point list that could handle a 150 point list consisting of nothing but Mechanithralls. That's 300 mechanithralls. Obviously this was meant as a thought experiment, but I took it a step further and put it together on Vassal.

I won't give a step by step "battle report", but I did take screenshots of the vassal game as it progressed. I think just the pictures and some captions will be enough to get a feel for how the game went down. 

Petition to Fix Shield Guard

Before I begin this blog post, I want to say that I really love the way Privateer Press has gone about dealing with rules issues. Coming from years of playing nothing but Warhammer 40K, it's a breath of fresh air to play a game from a company who not only writes a tighter rule set, but has a plan in place for dealing with the inevitable rules issues that come up when you play a game as complex as Warmachine. In fact, if this was a GW game, there would be no point in writing this article, because nothing would ever be done by the game company.

In this article, I am going to be writing about something that has been bothering me for the last several weeks. There was a ruling made on the PP forums several months ago that I have only recently found out about. The discussion and infernal ruling can be found here: (LINK). The issue being discussed is whether a model with the shield guard rule can intercept a shot when it is not in LOS of the attacker. the thread basically boiled down to the fact that there is a "tactical tip" on several models with shield guard saying "Shield Guard - If this model cannot become the target of the attack for some reason, it cannot use this ability."

is it time to toss the Brute?

This one statement has caused quite a few questions and references back to the infernal ruling in the link above. The problem is, it seriously harms the Shield guard rule. in my opinion, this is beyond a nerf to an over-the-top ability. I believe the ruling was meant to clear up one issue without fully examining other situations that might be affected. This has led to a "trick" that a canny player can use to completely eliminate shield guard as a usable ability. Only players who happen to see the infernal ruling will know to use it, and will have an advantage over anyone who happens to bring a shield guard model.

In this article I will be examining the rules in question, along with other similar rules. I will explain and demonstrate the "trick" that has shown up in our gaming circle, and will show why this trick needs to be dealt with. I am doing this to try to convince someone at PP to errata the shield guard rule ASAP. If you're interested in this argument, read on

Friday the 13th Edition: the luck factor

I've been wanting to do a post on luck and strategy for a while now. But like a lot of my ideas, haven't gotten around to it yet. Today is a new day, in a new year! And it being Friday the 13th gave me as good a reason as any to pull out this article.

Wargames in general walk a fine line. you want a game that takes strategy and thought, but at the same time we desire randomness and chance. if you didn't want a game with luck or chance involved, you would play chess. Some people really like chess. but it doesn't give you the same kind of game as one where a perfect plan can turn into a terrible loss with a single roll of a die.

On the other hand, there needs to be strategy involved. otherwise, why would all of us be blogging about it, or reading blogs about it? if you don't want a game with strategy and want all randomness, go play Uno Attack (seriously, that game messes with you). so today I'm going to write a little bit about the strategy of mitigating risks that are inherent in a tabletop game, be it warhammer, warmachine, or any other game involving plastic dudes and dice.