Mail Time! New Toys!

I received a package today I have been waiting for since Templecon. I have been extremely excite and I am thrilled to have it in my hands finally. Lets start off with a little story prior to getting to the pictures shall we:

If you may recall day three at Templecon was spent hanging out and playing some demos. We headed to the board game room to play a demo of Zombicide by Cool Mini or Not.

Here are Cash and Nick getting ready to demo w me and Abe (Oh Buddy!)

 

After playing the demo game I was pretty excited about the game and was seriously considering buying a copy prior to leaving. I got to talking with the CMoN guy running the booth and asked about the promo characters from the season one kickstarter. I was told they are never going to be reproduced and that unless you got them from the kickstarter or off eBay you would be out of luck.....then there was a but. He mentioned that anyone buying the game would receive a raffle ticket for an abomination pack. I was unaware what that ment at the time and he explaned it came with some of those characters and some other stuff.

 

I was pretty much all in at this point until it was said you had to be there to win and the drawing was at 5pm. Seeing as we were leaving at 3pm there was no way I could be there to win. I left the booth and head to one of the WM tables were Zack and John were playing a game. In conversation it turned out they would still be there at 5pm so John offered to head by the booth to see if I had the winning ticket at 5pm. OK back to the CMoN booth. It turned out they only had 4 tickets in the drawing for Sunday so I picked up my copy and ticket then and there. While we were driving home I received a text from John saying he was the only person present at the drawing and that I won the pack!!!! He was going to leave it with a buddy of his to mail out since John didn't want to fly home with it to Atlanta.

 

That brings us to today. After I got up from my nap I headed downstairs and saw the package on the dinning room table. Here are the sexy goodies within:

 

 Custom dice....who can't use more dice?

What's an abomination pack without an extra abomination? there are also some more zombie spawning cards.

An extra tray of zombies. While this may seem like trouble I am really excited about this as one of our biggest issues has been running out of zombies and getting killed to the extra activation 

 

Now we get to the really sexy part of the abomination pack! The extra promo characters.....

 

Here is Dave the Geek aka Dr. Sheldon Cooper. He has a cool ability to make two molotov cocktails instead of one once he gets the two parts. 

Second out of the pack is Nick aka Lt John McClane. This is the first of the new characters I want to try out. He has tough as a built in ability and therefore ignores his first wound each turn.

Last but not least we have El Cholo aka Danny Trejo aka Machete. Shockingly he gets to start the game with....two machetes. How 'bout dem apples.

 

 

So here is my abomination pack I have been so excited to receive. I want to say a really big thanks to John (Moz) and Mike for sticking around to pick this up and mailing it to me. I really appreciate it guys and I have the first round next convention we make it to. Those of you that missed out on the season one exclusive and don't want to miss out on season two head over to the Zombicide season two kickstarter going on right now. They are up to nine exclusive characters right now and soon to be 10. Five of the promo characters are added to the base game when you buy it the rest you have to add on for $10. 



Templecon Day 3 Wrap Up

Day three was going to be a little bit of a slow day for me and the crew. I had been up most of the night the past two nights and was just looking to take it easy on Sunday. Due to changes in our plans we were going to be heading back Sunday afternoon versus staying to watch the super bowl and heading back Monday. We had to be out of our room by 11:00am we packed up Les' car between 10-11 and then headed out to scary up some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. After we picked up food we returned to the convention to east and check out the  gaming hall to see what was going on.

Abe: "I snore? Really?" the rest of us "YES!"

Looking a little groggy big fellow. Too much Rowan's last night? 

We had to be out of our room by 11:00am we packed up Les' car between 10-11 and then headed out to scary up some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. After we picked up food we returned to the convention to east and check out the gaming hall to see what was going on.

 Some last day iron arena action going in the hall outside the main gaming hall.

 

After finishing my breakfast sandwich I headed into the hall to check out the first round pairing for masters. Those of you that go to a lot of national events (I don't) will recognize a lot of the familiar "big guys" in a few of these photos.

 



When I was looking at the pairings Jake was matched up with a troll player first round. when I looked at the troll players board I was a little surprised to see a Gunnbjorn theme force as one of his three lists. Looking at Jake's lists I really think this might have been the list to play against him but alas the player selected an eDoomie list with the mountain king. FYI Jake won.

 

There is Paul from midnight madness day one

 

I didn't think I would say this but I was a little burnt out on Warmachine so I didn't even bring my army back inside the convention hall. The previous night one of the guys demoing Zombicide told us they put a full version of the game in the boardgame room so a group of us headed down to the boardgame room to check it out. Abe had played the game a time of two so he was in charge.

 

 The boardgame room. Table filled with games just say what you want and play away.

 

Cash and Nick pulling out the zombies.

 

After we finished out demo game we headed back down to the gaming area. I really enjoyed the tutorial mission of Zombicide we played and was curious to hear more. I was on the fence back and forth weather I was going to pick up the game or not but based on previous posts you know that answer :) I will get more into the things that pushed me into my purchase in a later Zombicide post. Around 3pm we said goodbye to Zack, John, Cash, and a few other people we met along the lines and started the drive home.

Les and I were the only two people who didn't pass out on the drive home. Thankfully Les didn't as he was driving :) Templecon 2013 was once again amazing. Despite having to return home a day early I think 2013 was even better than 2012. Templecon is a really great time and look forward to doing it year after year with the Team Spite crew.

 

 

Templecon Day 2 Wrap Up

I had big plans for day two prior to heading to Templecon but those changed for me. I was expecting to play in hard core but after finishing the warcaster's dilemma tournament at 7am that morning and getting to sleep around 9am I just didn't have it in me and I actually didn't get up until 11:30 (30 min after registration).

Team Spite had two players hitting up hardcore. The first was Zack aka playing Galleon oh I mean mercs. His list was a T4 Shae pirates life. This list had a very heavy assassination focus (more on this later). The other representative was Adam aka Bloodyarcane the junior member of our crew. As I think about it Scudo may have played his Circle army in hardcore too but I cannot remember.

Round one was starting as I was getting out of the shower I received a text message from Adam say he was paired with Warmahorde super start Jake Van Meter (neutralize). I knew Adam was super pumped to play him but was afraid he was going to be a little start struck. Well turns out I was right as Jake turn two assassinated pDenny with Typhon and didn't kill a single additional model. This is important to not as the new hardcore rules have been changed for mage hunter and killing a warnoun w/o killing another models puts you at the top of the heap to win. As it turns out Zack was playing Volt Ron playing Protectorate. I was hoping to run into Volt as his blog is one of the ones I check into regularly and you can see it here http://miniarmyhugetimesink.wordpress.com/  Well it turned out that Zack got an assassination as well killing only one model in addition to the 'caster. This would have put him in great shape for mage hunter if it were not for Jake's 0 against young 'arcane.

After hearing round ones results Zack was on a mission and was "hunting that zero" the rest of the day. Round two found him a L, round three another assassination with only one model killed in addition to the 'caster. Then came round four and Zack got that zero putting him in a tie with Jake with a 0. Round five came about and saw Jake and Zack matched against each other. As long as Jake didn't throw a 0 up against Zack he was going to hold on and take home mage hunter.

Picture says 1000 words. Team Spite dun got a metal! z1g1 "sniffed out that zero!" and won mage hunter.

Those that know hardcore know the four metal categories and my personal favorite is master craftsman. Master Craftsman was won by a gentleman named Erik Lui (I believe). He painted up a stunning Gaspy3 force. I took a few photos for y'all. Behold the beauty!

The water on the back of the base was hand painted! 

 How can I not love this army he even did trolls! Cryxian trolls but trolls.

While hardcore was going on I wandered around a while once again looking at the demos and watching some of the hardcore matches. It was during this time I got a demo game in of Rivet Wars. Rivet Wars had a kickstarter going which ended Monday am around 3am. I had been watching the kickstarter pretty closely prior to heading to Templecon and when I saw they had a table set up I knew I wanted a demo. I had a fun demo with one of the cool min or not guys and when I got home late Sunday I jumped on the computer and bought into the kickstarter as a birthday present to myself. I now have another game to look forward to in September.

After my game of rivet wars I headed back to the room to grab my trolls to hit the iron arena. Last year I didn't really have a clear cut goal for iron arena points this year however I had a very specific targeted item at 45 skulls. I also wanted to try and get a game with one of the PPS guys this year. As I was just getting back down to the gaming hall Ed Bourelle was walking in with his tray and appeared to be looking for a game. I inquired as such and off to a table we went. Ed was playing a new Legion army for himself (only the second game played I believe he said) while I was playing my beloved trolls. I feel I kinda net decked him a little when I pulled Jarl out against his Saeryn list. I played:

Jarl Skuld, Devil Of Thornwood (*6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
War Wagon (9pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)

I played one point down as the only one point mini I had was swamp gobbers and they aren't worth taking out of the bag against eyeless sight beasts.

Mr Bourelle's list:

Saeryn, Omen of Everblight (*5pts)
* Naga Nightlurker (5pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Carnivean (11pts)
* Ravagore (10pts)
* Scythean (9pts)
Blackfrost Shard (5pts)
Blighted Nyss Legionnaires (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Captain Farilor & Standard (3pts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd (1pts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd (1pts)
Succubus (2pts)
 

In game action.

The game was a ton of fun and I am really grateful that he took the time to play me. The game was a bloody mess with both forces being decimated. When I finally killed Saeryn all I had left on the table was five Nyss, an impaler with 6 life, Jarl with 4 life remaining and on fire, and Saxon with 2 life left. It is interactions like these that I feel set PP apart and really fuel my love for the game and the people developing it. I doubt he will see this but once again thank you for the game Ed and hope to play again some day!

After the completion of hardcore a group of the guys found a table and set up a game of Twilight Imperium. They played a game the night before which I watched a little. I was going to join in on this one but it looked far to complex for my current mental state plus I had those 45 arena points to track down.

Adam and John setting up

 

Adam looking tough or trying at least

 

Dave and Zack really getting into TI. The adult beverages may have helped here :)

The standard issue tournament was going on after hardcore as well. Team Spite's Oxyguy and Theprofessional Mr Cash played in this event. Les one one of the round by round drawings for not having any characters. He won a Thor blister. Unfortunately for Les this was about the only thing he won that afternoon.

While the other guys were playing TI or standard issue Abe, Nick and myself hit up the iron arena. We played a few multiplayer games on scenario tables.

Abe borrowed Nick's stormwall for this game. He played Nemo2 double stormwall. If you look at the bottom of the picture mountain king is saying bring it old man.

Nick breaking out some Skorne. 

Last game of the night we played a four player 2v2 game on a cave scenario board. At this time I was pretty shot mentally. We picked up another play to fill out the team. I forgot to write his name down and it is eluding me at this time but he was playing pSevy. We ended up losing on scenario around 4am but I got my 45th skull and hit the redemption table!

 

Here is my prize. I saw on day one they had a stack of about 10 copies of No Quarter #1. I was a little set back by the number of pts required to get one but I think it helped keep them "in stock" while i was building my points. I was very excited to see these on the prize stand as I was only missing three issues of No Quarter prior to heading to Templecon. I only need issues three and four to complete my collection.

 

 

Templecon Day 1 Wrap Up

OK Templecon was officially to begin. After being up until about 2am catching up with out of town Team Spite members we woke up about 7am to get some breakfast and head down to the gaming hall to get seats for the keynote address.

Les rocking the new official Team Spite shirt. I picked these up two days before we hit the road. 

 Little Scudo wandered over to say what up and get some steamroller sheets.

z1g1 wide eyed and ready to roll to the team tourney.  

The crowd grew outside the gaming hall as we awaited our chance to grab seats for the keynote presentation. Guarding our door was the famous/infamous G'daybloke. It was nice to BS and catch up a little prior to getting into the hall.

PPS Ed Bourelle, Will Shick, and Lyle Lowery preparing to dazzle the crowd with the new hotness. If you haven't seen the keynote presentation yet....but I am sure you have head over to privateer press and check it out.

 

After the keynote address and Q&A it was time to get down to some gaming. The first event of the weekend was the team tourney. I played in this last year and lord is it a long event. it is far too long for my liking so I sat it out and decided to try and play in the 75pt time crisis event later in the day. I walked a round a little checking out the demos in the hallway, the vendor booths, registered for iron arena, and headed back to the room to relax and work on some lists for time crisis.

Time crisis was suppose to be a 75pt event with frenzy timing per the new steamroller 2013 rules. Frenzy timing for those of you that are unaware uses the turn times of two point lvls lower. This means a 75pt event would have seven min turns with one three min extension! The didn't have enough of the correct clocks so we ended up playing 42min deathclock instead. There was a drawing for anyone using two 120mm bases in a single list after watch round. The two lists I settled on were:

Chief Madrak Ironhide (*6pts)
* Mountain King (20pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

and

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Mountain King (20pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
War Wagon (9pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Champions (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)
* Skaldi Bonehammer (3pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

The Madrak list is a variation of the pMaddy list I have been paying for the last year and love to play. I have this list down pretty darn well and have my order of activation pretty well set. The second list is a Family Reunion list that I have played some but never with the two 120mm bases. I was really excited to try this guy out and planned to play this most if not all of the games. It was at this time that I ran into a serious snag in my plans. While I was unpacking my lists for the tourney I noticed I didn't have my keg carrier! I ran out to the war store booth to try and buy a new Borka but they had non in stock. Well looks like just pMaddy for me. The event had a pretty small entrance seeing as so many people were still playing in the team tourney.

My first round opponent was Andrew from New Jersey. The first round scenario was into the breach. He decided to run a Constance Blaze list. We both made some mistake throughout the fight but I think he forgot the effects of snaking when he selected his list as on his feat turn my beat up beasts destroyed large chunks of infantry and due to snaking he didn't get the souls and therefore the major benefits of the feat. The game ended with Constance being assassinate. We both played a little sloppy but it was a fun game and was a good opponent. 1-0

Round two I played Brian from New Hampshire. He was playing pDenny.....uggh. As a troll play I loathe pDenny since unless I am play pDoomshaper I know one of my units/beasts will be out of play the entire game. The game was back and forth. While he decided to crippling grasp the mountain king and take him out of action I was able to do some serious counter damage and was able to weather Denny brutal feat. This too was a fun game but there was a clock SNAFU on my part. Since we didn't have a chess clock that switched time over I forgot to start my clock. In response I decided to let my clock run off time as a penalty which we both felt was fair. I forgot I could just adjust the time and restart my turn. Well the round time ended and we learned of a new SR2013 rule. If the combined time on both clocks is greater than 5 min the game is considered a draw. my clock showed 5 min and his showed 1 min. Result = draw. We were pretty sure his clock was <30 sec so while waiting for the pairings for the next round I hit the start button and began to count. the clock had 12 sec left. Uggh I screwed this game up. 1-0-1

My opponent for the last round was Tim from Pennsylvania. I am not sure if you can make it out but this was a Sturm and Drang force made up of seven war hogs and two road hogs! Here I thought I was rolling beast heavy. The mission at hand was incursion. Incursion is not a favorite of mine playing beast bricks as spreading out is something I really would like to avoid. The game was going pretty well for me as the mountain king just wouldn't die and I was able to continuously block charge lanes with spawning whelps. I got a little careless however and ended up losing on scenario as I couldn't get enough back to contest the last flag. S&D killed the mauler that was contesting the last flag and dominated to get the last two CPs required to win. When the dust cleared I killed all seven war hogs and one of the road hogs but that darn scenario victory jumped up and bit me.

I finished 1-1-1 and never having played at 75pts in the past I have to say it was a fun event to play in. I enjoyed playing with all three of my opponents which helped to make it a fun event. Time to grab a little dinner and get ready for midnight madness. The midnight tournament was warcaster's dilemma which was a 35pt event with specialist. Specialists is a new feature in SR2013 which acts like a sideboard. The two lists I selected for the event were:

Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
specialist:
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (4pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)

and

Jarl Skuld, Devil Of Thornwood (*6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Ršk (11pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
specialists:
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Alten Ashley, Monster Hunter (2pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)

My opponent for the first round was Tyler from Connecticut. He was playing Legion and while I cannot remember what his other list was I was pretty sure he was going to pick Saeryn and he did. I went with pDoomie. In hindsight I am not sure why I picked this list as I think Jarl would be a bit better here. I had an odd feeling the dygs were really going to get their moneys worth and maybe that is why I picked pDoomie. I won the roll and went first. Turn one nothing eventful on either side other than buffs and advancing. Two tur I popped the dygs, fell called them, fortuned them, and purified the respawn on an angle. The dygs then charge an angle and neph bolthrower killing the angle and taking out half of the neph. This was an early piece advantage for me and I was able to ride this out to a W. it did get a little hair there for a second near the end when I left the smallest of gaps between minis allowing Saeryn to throw some knifes at Doomshaper but he made it through relatively unscathed. 1-0

Round two I ran into Derrick from Canada. I actually met Derrick last March when I headed up to Toronto to play in the Conquest Tournament that Northblade and Boots were running. Based on his two lists I selected Jarl planing on popping feat early to prevent some shooting. He selected Ravyn as 'caster. The game ended top of three when he moved Ravyn a little too far forward and I was able to drop two sniped bomber shots on top of her. 2-0

Round three was Chris from NYC playing Protectorate. I watched some of his game from the previous round and hear him say he like to play Thyra versus trolls so I had a pretty good idea which list he was going to play. I selected my Jarl list. The game was back and forth with both of us making some mistakes. My biggest mistake came when I had an enlivened Avatar in charge range of Rok. When enliven was put on the Avatar I laid out my plan to trigger enliven and still be able to get Rok on him. Well when I got to that part of my turn I forgot my plans and just primaled Rok and charged....oooppps. We were both starting to see a lot of attrition when the judges came over and called time. I was a little thrown off by this as we didn't have any major clock issues that I could recall. His deathclock had less than a min left on it and my had just over 5 min. What did we learn earlier kiddies? Doh another drawn 2-0-1

 

The last round of the tourney started about 5:30am. I was pitted against Paul from NYC (a buddy of Chris in fact). He was playing Cirle and picked a Grayle army. I went with pDoomie for no specific reason. I was a little on auto pilot at this time and figured out game really didn't mean anything. Paul had me from the get go. He was putting his pieces in far better location and was just out playing me without question. He ended up winning the game on scenario. We had a fun game but he won really easily. While out game was still going on the sun began to shine through the windows and when all was said and done it was 7:00am when the event was over.

 

I really enjoyed this event and liked all my opponents. Despite being thoroughly beaten by Paul I was really happy to hear during the announcements that he finished fourth in the event and qualified for masters. I guess our game did mean something. 

 

After the tourney nick and I stumbled a round for a little bit looking to grab some breakfast but ended up just heading back to the room and crashing. That wrapped up day one of Templecon and I have to say it was a fun day and I was really glad to have seven games that were enjoyable and seven opponents I would gladly play again in the future. Thanks guys for fun games.