ŒŒŒŒŒ複合材料资讯ŒŒŒŒŒ

Round 3 of the July Scrum and I'm paired against Rich who is playing Skorne.  I was happy to play vs. Rich who has won a previous Scrum and I've not played much against Skorne since they've gotten all their buffs in MK3. I figured I'd learn a lot in this match, especially since I've never played against the buffed Derp Turtle (aka. Siege Animantarax) which the internet tells me is particularly strong and Rich had one in both of his lists.

This was a bit bitter-sweet for me, as I knew this was going to be my last round in the July Scrum. We already had a drop, forcing a bye each week and my work accelerated the schedule for the job I'm working on, which was causing me to have to stay later each evening at random nights every week.  This put a strain on my family life - it's one thing to get a game a week in, but to be home late and then still have to go get my game in because it's scheduled well in advance is a bit rough on my wife.  Such is life.

Lists and Analysis

Rich had the following pair:

Morghoul3
-Escorts
-Archidon
-Cyclops Raider
-Cyclops Shaman
-Aptimus Marketh (free)

Extoller Soulward
Feralgeist
Willbreaker (free)
Venator Dakar
Venator Dakar

Beast Handlers (min)
Venator Catapult (free)
Venator Reivers + CA
Venator Reivers + CA

Siege Animantarax
 
Zaadesh2
-Agonizer (free)
-Agonizer (free)
-Archidon
-Krea (free)
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Sentry
-Sentry

Willbreaker
Beast Handlers (max)
Swamp Gobbers

Siege Animantarax

Looking at the matchup I wasn't fond of Grim2's chances into either list.  Morghoul3 could be a disaster with his Blind spell to just lock down a unit entirely and the Venator Reivers out range my units from a base level and their mini-feat is extends their range to go beyond what my units + Grim2's feat can accomplish.  Grim doesn't really like Zaadesh2 who brings a cloud wall that prevents most of my pieces from being able to shoot and has two ARM 21 shield guards in the list that can't be knocked down.

Madrak2 wasn't looking too hot into either list as far as I could tell, but was better off into either compared to Grim2.  I wasn't completely sure what Rich was going to drop since I was only vaguely aware of what Skorne's plan would be, but the match ended up with Madrak2 vs. Zaadesh2 playing Mirage.



Deployment & Rich's Turn 1

Rich won the roll to go first and I picked table sides.


Rich puts out his upkeeps and takes sufficiently threatening positions with the Archidon and the Turtle. He ends up with 2 rage tokens on the Turtle due to missing one attack.


My Turn 1


I use the Runebearer for Harmonious Exaltation to get  Blood Fury on the left Long Riders and dump the rest of Madrak's fury onto stone.

Since I hadn't played against the Turtle before I didn't really think of it as a melee threat, I had only considered it as a problem with its gun. As such I went on the hill to get a defense bonus, but didn't stagger the riders to mitigate melee problems. Boy was that a mistake. 

On the right I staggered my Long Riders to bait in the Sentry, the stone advanced and I really needed the fury generation to give me 2-3 fury, but I only rolled a 1 meaning some of the left Long Riders were going to be out of the aura.

Rich's Turn 2


Well there goes the neighborhood. So as it turns out the Turtle can murder you much better in melee than with its guns, but sometimes it can just do both. I was left with one Long Rider knocked down and on 2 boxes out of my left unit thanks to a Crit Pitch from the Archidon.

Rich puts up his feat and some clouds between Zaadesh and the Swamp Gobbers to try and block me off. Not knowing/respecting the Turtle's output in melee basically put me way behind on attrition.

My Turn 2



Well as you can see, very little died.  I stood up the knocked down Long Rider and tried to Bull Rush into the Archidon, but of course the retaliatory strike crit pitched  the Long Rider into the objective and killed it.  I tried to use Eilish to strip Inviolable Resolve off the Turtle, but that failed due to range and having to walk around Kriel Warriors that wanted to charge in with Blood Fury.  Due to the Agonizer behind the Turtle, I couldn't even get a Raged Bomber to kill the Archidon.

I used my right Long Riders to charge in and kill the Swamp Gobbers, then reposition just outside of melee of his beasts. I moved one Rider to jam up (and stop counter charges from) the Bronzeback and Sentry in the center, I position the Mauler to be able to kill whatever comes in to contest my flag or just go after their heavies if they go into the Long Riders.  I scored my flag to go up 1-0.

Rich's Turn 3


Rich continues to just pound me in the face repeatedly.  I lose most of my Kriel Warriors and the Bomber between the Turtle, Archidon (seen as a proxy base), and the Bronzeback.

The right Sentry kills two Long Riders and is able to get just within 4" of the flag to contest me, and the center Sentry kills the jamming one.  Zaadesh moves into the circle zone to score it, and the Mist Speaker moves to score his friendly flag.  Not pictured here is a cloud right in front of my Mauler to block LOS to the Sentry.   Rich is up 2-1 on scenario.

My Turn 3



Well I was getting absolutely slaughtered and the game is basically over.  In order to get everything going last turn Zaadesh had to heal the Archidon for 2 fury and since he made a cloud, he was on a 0 camp.  I was looking for whatever jank I could pull to get an assassination, and somehow I see one:

Madrak puts Blood Fury on the remaining Long Riders and then casts Warpath.  The Longriders get pathfinder from the Fell Caller and need to declare a Bull Rush onto the Gladiator. The goal is to slam the Gladiator over Zaadesh, then Follow up and make a weapon master attack on him. Ideally I can kill a model elsewhere to proc Warpath to allow the Mauler to move up to the Sentry who will then double handed throw the Sentry over at Zaadesh to finish him off.

I start executing: The Fell Caller runs to engage the Sentry to shut down counter charge and calls Pathfinder for the Riders. Eilish puts puppet master on the Riders.  Madrak casts his spells and the Stone runs into position and pops for Strength.

I made a mistake however when it came to the Long Riders, One rider had the Bull Rush into the Gladiator, the other just ran up.  The problem came when an Agonizer counter charges my Bull Rushing Longrider to prevent his ability to move directly towards the slammed Gladiator.  If I had been careful here I could have done the bull rush move first, and when the Agonizer charged in, the second Long Rider could have declared it as the charge target, allowing me to kill the Agnoizer allowing the follow up move.

As such I was able to slam the Gladiator over Zaadesh doing 6 damage, leaving him on 10, but I couldn't follow up for the melee attack to get more damage in. I did kill the Agonizer with my follow up attack which allowed the Mauler to warpath up to the Sentry.  I cast rage on myself, boost to hit my double handed throw, win the STR check, and then use my last fury to boost to hit the knocked down Zaadesh - only to roll triple 1's.  The scatter goes away from Zaadesh, but my damage roll would have been less than the 10 to kill him anyway and the game effectively ends here since Rich just needs to walk and kill my objective with a Bronzeback and then score his flag again to win. 

Conclusions

I needed to research what these lists could really do more, but I've been struggling to give much thought to the match due to my work situation.  I can't believe I forgot that the Derp Turtle was more dangerous in melee than it was in shooting (especially when not with Rasheth).  I basically gave my Long Riders away and that swung the game very hard towards Rich right at the start.

Rich was a joy to play against and was describing how he thought it was a 50/50 matchup.  I disagreed and then he revealed the key as to why: Lead with the Kriel Warriors, not anchor.  Unlike my last game, if I just play conservatively with the Riders and jam up with the Kriels it's very possible I can kill enough of his pieces to snowball the attrition towards my side.

It's a brilliant idea on how to approach this matchup and I hadn't even thought of it, since well Longriders are fast and so you lead with them, Kriel Warriors anchor.  However, unlike the Circle game last round of the Scrum where Kriels can Blood Fury their way through nearly anything, Agonizers are going to really hurt their chances at damaging ARM 21 Sentries or anything with Inviolable Resolve. However if I just jam with them, I can setup the trades to allow me to get ahead.

Overall it was still a fun game even though Rich basically bashed my head into the ground repeatedly, I honestly look forward to the next time I can play him.

It is a bit sad to end the Scrum here, but I am looking at being able to attend my first actual WM tournament in ages this weekend, though I will be bringing Convergence instead of Trolls.

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You know you're in some shit if someone points.

This one is going to be a short one since we're going to be primarily focused on the use of HQs.  One thing's for damn sure:  I feel that we have some fantastic melee HQ options for the price.

Here are some my favorites so far:

• Archon, Labyrinthine Cunning, Writ of the Living Muse = 72 base
• Archon, Hatred Eternal, Djin Blade = 76 base
• Archon, Famed Savagery, Djin Blade = 76 base
• Succubus, Blood Dancer, Adrenalight, Triptych Whip = 54 base
• Succubus, Hyper-swift Reflexes, Adrenalight, Blood Glaive = 54 base
• Succubus, Precision Blows, Adrenalight, Triptych Whip = 54 base
• Haeomculus, Diabolical Soothsayer, Vexator Mask = 75 base

Let's start with the Archons.  You've all probably seen me take the Archon with Cunning and Writ of the Living Muse in my lists.  That's because it's one of the most powerful Warlords in the game for the points IMO.  Cunning is absolutely fantastic at regenerating CPs whenever a CP is spent for both you and your opponents.  For DE, I find that some of our Strategems are a little costly, especially that Agents of Vect counterspell that costs 3 just by itself.  With Cunning, you can do some really crazy recycling that can help you sustain the longer gameplan:

For example:

• You don't want a 2-cost Strategem to go off so you throw out Agents of Vect.
• Before you even put AoV down, you roll 2 dice for his Strategem for Cunning.
• Next, you AoV and since you just spent 3 CP, you roll 3 more dice to see if you get any back from Cunning.
• Agents of Vect then takes effect, hopefuly blocking his Strategem.
• In this example right here, you're probably going to get back a CP from just playing the game regularly.

When you play Black Heart, you almost have to bring Writ of the Living Muse.  It's one of the best buff batteries in the entire game and enhances the damage potential of every single Black Heart unit within 6".  Everything within this distance gets re-roll 1s to Hit and Wound that that is a huge damage amplifier, especially on things like Dark Lances and Disintegrators when you absolutely need to hit with your more expensive damaging weapons.  Living Muse simply gives you consistent damage and that's exactly what you need to turn your very good shooting up a notch to exceptional.

As for melee Archons, I see two main options here:  Both of which have the Djin Blade of course which is just an upscaled Huskblade.  Hatred Eternal gives you more consistent results via re-roll all wounds in melee but the Famed Savagery Archon from Flayed Skull gives you great burst damage.  With Famed Savagery, you have 8 S5 AP-3 D3 attacks that hits on 2s with re-roll 1s.  Personally, if I was to pick one of the two, I would go for more consistent damage with the Hatred Eternal Warlord trait.  There are bonus points in the fact that Hatred Eternal is a generic WL trait and thus doesn't lock you to any particular Obssession.  As for arming the Archons further, always seek out the Blaster first since you have a fantastic BS2+ and Blasters are amazing with their S8 AP-4 D6 damage from 18" (24" for Obsidian Rose).

I whip my hair back and forth.

The Succubus went from one of the most overcosted units in the entire game to arguably the most cost-efficient melee blender in the game.  I'll start off by listing the Blood Dancer variant that comes with 9 attacks hitting on 2s, re-rolling 1s, and each Hit roll of a 6 turns into 3 Hits instead of 1.  On the regular, she can throw out something like 14 attacks with an Agonizer (Poison 4+ AP-2 1D) and that's just obscene.  Against single wound models, she is almost guaranteed to wipe out entire squads by herself.  She just reminds me of the Blenderlord that I ran for Vampire Counts back in the days of Fantasy.  To make things even more exciting, once you hit Turn 3+, you can activate these multiple hits on a 5+ instead of 6 because of the PFP chart.  The only downside here is that she's a Succubus and she just explodes if anyone swings back at her because she only has a 4++/6+++ with T3 and 5 wounds.  Regardless, LO_OK at her points cost!  For 54 points, she's an absolute steal.  I can't help but hear this garbage ass song whenever she enters combat.

Other variants of the Succubus are also really strong; such as the Blood Glaive Succubus with 5 attacks with Adrenalight dealing S6 AP-3 D3 damage attacks.  I've seen this particular variant built two ways really; with either the Red Grief specific WL trait of 3++ or with Stimm Addict with Grave Lotus and Adrenalight.  This gives her 5 attacks at S7 which is now a serious threat to virtually all targets including light vehicles.  Again, 54 points of awesome.

Another variant I want to introduce you to someone who might be our best duelist.  She has 9 attacks with the Whip just like the Blender because she's from Cult of Strife (for +1 attack), however instead of Blood Dancer, she has the Precision Blows WL trait.  When you're hitting with 8-9 attacks every turn, you're going to be looking for 6s that can just do straight mortal wounds in addition to the regular wounds inflicted with an Agonizer.  That's very good.  For all these Succubus, I highly recommend taking a Blast Pistol on the Blood Glaive Succy to take advantage of her superior BS2+.  Funny enough, the Precision Blows Succubus can still do mortal wounds to Vehicles and Titans.

Never trust someone with 5-6, 7? arms.

Lastly, we have the Haemonculus that you will probably see most frequently if you're planning to take Coven units and Alliance of Agony for 1 CP.  This is because Diabolical Soothsayer essentially pays for itself immediately and you can get 2 more CP if you roll well (D3 in total).  Sure, you also get that once a game re-roll for your Warlord, but no one really cares about that because you also gain access to the Vexator Mask.  This thing is actually pretty hilarious.  You can basically take this Haemonculus and just charge into something to tie it up because they cannot use Overwatch on you.  You can then charge your Wyches into them for free without any fear of OW fire.  To make things even more enjoyable, the mask also gives an enemy unit with 6" of the Haemonculus ASL essentially, making them strike last after all other units have gone int the Fight phase.  That's just funny considering the amount of melee boss HQs we have in the Codex.

What are some of your favorite HQs to bring?  I know I've been extra boring with the Black Heart Archon, but hey, it's been working so why not!

I spent a few days training on Route 11 with Shakespear, Royal and Dustin. I really wanted Royal to evolve before moving on to my next challenge in the Kanto region. I felt strongly that he and Dustin were about to replace Arnold as my star Pokémon, but they weren't ready for that yet. Dustin's only ability when I met him was to put opponents to sleep. As I knew from working with Arnold, that was incredibly useful, but also required you to actually harm your opponent to win a match. Royal could now slap his body into his opponent's body, but I really needed more than flopping around like a fish out of water before I could rely on him.
My training was interrupted after a few days by one of Professor Oak's lab technicians. Royal had just finished tackling and scaring off a wild Ekans when I saw him approaching, his lab coat flapping around his waist in the breeze. I stooped down to rub Royal's scales and watched as the aide approached. He looked utterly exhausted and completely out of his element out on the road and not behind a microscope.
"Fox!" he called out to me. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
"Here I am," I smiled weakly.
"Professor Oak hasn't heard from you in a while. Don't you check your emails?" The aide had a brief angry look cross his face. "Well, never mind that. I can see you're busy with training and research. Can I see your Pokédex?" he asked and extended a hand. I stood up and Royal began to flop around aimlessly. I pulled the Pokédex  out of my back pocket and handed it to the lab tech. He pushed a few buttons and nodded to himself while I wondered what this was all about. "I see your work is coming along nicely. The Professor wanted me to make a detailed report on your progress. He also wanted me to give you this." He handed me back the Pokédex and pulled a strange device out of his lab coat.
"What is this?" I asked as I took the two-pronged instrument from his hands.
"The Professor calls that an Item Finder." He laughed. "Pretty simple, right? Basically it will light up when you are near a Pokémon enhancing item." He held out a small technical machine and the lights on the end began to flash brightly. "It's designed to pick up on the subtle radio waves… well, you don't need the boring details. The gift comes at a small cost, however. Professor Oak wants you to head to Lavender Town to do some research there. There have been some very strange sightings in that town and we believe Pokémon are involved."
"I don't understand," I admitted. Surely, I could just bike over to Lavender Town and there was no need for this strange contraption.
"The only way into Lavender Town these days is through the Rock Tunnel and to get through the Rock Tunnel, the Professor believes you will need to teach one of your Pokémon the hidden move called Flash. And well, you see, the thing is… the Hidden Machine that will teach Pokémon Flash was lost while doing research at the far end of Diglett Cave." He stammered to get out the last sentence. I could tell it was his fault the machine was lost and finding me was his penance.
"So let me get this straight," I began. "I need to use the Item Finder and head through Diglett's Cave. Once I find the HM Flash, I need to head to the Rock Tunnel and take that path to Lavender Town to investigate something for Professor Oak." This felt like a real round-about way to get somewhere. Diglett's Cave would dump me out near Pewter City in western Kanto, and Lavender Town was about as far east as you could get and still be in the Kanto region. Still, I owed the Pokémon Professor a great deal of gratitude and I was out here doing his field testing on the Pokédex. I didn't feel I had much of a choice. At first I was a bit irritated, but after the aide had dismissed himself I began to think Diglett's Cave might be a great place to train up Royal. There was some silver lining after all.

I had been given what you might call a side quest. At the risk of being too brief, I don't want to bore you with all the details. I biked over to Diglett's Cave and began my trek through with Royal tackling any curious Diglett or Dugtrio that came to protect their territory. I affixed the Item Finder to the handlebars of my bike and carefully and slowly walked the bicycle from one end of this narrow little tunnel to the other. Along the way, something equal parts amazing and claustrophobia inducing happened - Royal evolved from a silly, little Magikarp into a massive, intimidating Gyrados. Digletts, beware! This massive monster filled up the entirety of the tunnel! It was spectacular. Now,  Royal was the master and he would take Dustin under his wing and guide his training alongside me.
I found HM Flash as well as a surprise Technical Machine (TM) that taught Pokémon the move Dream Eater. While Hidden Machines had the capacity to teach moves repeatedly, Technical Machines at the time did not. Dustin was the easy and obvious choice for Dream Eater. After lulling Pokémon to sleep with his powers of Hypnosis, he could then feed on their hopes and fears with this devastating psychic attack. Unfortunately, he was also the only Pokémon on my roster who was able to learn Flash and so Flash he would learn - a move I would come to regret.
I emerged from Diglett's Cave on the Pewter City side. I spent a day there recovering. I had a nice visit with Rascal Sr. at the Pewter City Pokémon Gym where he was thriving. I can't believe a month has passed since I was last in Pewter saying goodbye to Rascal Sr. So much had changed since then! I was tempted to challenge him to a battle against Rascal Jr., but I really didn't want to waste too much time in Pewter City when Professor Oak was counting on me to head to Lavender Town. So the next day, I biked over to Cerulean City. I left a small food offering for Nibbles as I passed Mount Moon, but I'll never know if he found it. I really missed that guy. Beyond Cerulean City was the rocky path up to the Rock Tunnel. I didn't see any wild Pokémon as I quickly pedaled through, but I would be set upon by non-stop Zubats as soon as I set foot inside the pitch black caverns of Rock Tunnel.

Now, I need to get this off my chest. I hate Rock Tunnel. This very moment of this very day all these years later, I still absolutely hate it. I hate that I was in Kanto at a time it was nearly mandatory to pass through to get to Lavender Town - thanks to the Saffron City lockdown and a couple of tremendously frustrating Snorlax. Like Mount Moon, the Rock Tunnel is absolutely infested with Zubat. I love all Pokémon, but my tremendously bad experiences with trying to desperately train Vesper to be worth using in a battle had left me pretty jaded. I couldn't even bring myself to catch another Zubat because Vesper was such a disappointment.
I also want to say that the darkness of Rock Tunnel is the worst. Mount Moon had enough light filtering in from outside combined with lights set up by fossil hunters at famous dig sites that there really weren't many issues finding your way through the twisty tunnels. Rock Tunnel is absolute darkness. Without a Pokémon capable of lighting up like a Christmas tree, you can't see your hand in front of your face. For such a well traversed passage, much like Mount Moon, I couldn't understand why someone didn't think to set up lights along the trail to guide you through this senseless labyrinth of stone.
Which brings me to Hidden Move Flash itself - what a worthless waste of Pokémon talent. No one told me that I wouldn't be able to remove this obstacle from my Pokémon's arsenal of abilities. I was a fresh, young trainer and I didn't know any better. Techniques to delete these hard-wired moves wouldn't be developed for several years yet and so now my Dustin was going to be stuck with Flash for the rest of his days. Hypnosis and Dream Eater were so powerful a combination that there really wasn't much of a need for my tried and true method of lowering accuracy - something Flash actually did better than Kiwi ever could with all his sand attacks. As long as a Pokémon could be hypnotized, Dustin would prevail regardless of their accuracy. And as a result of his tremendous successes, Dustin evolved into a Hypno on our journey through Rock Cave.
I guess all those Zubat were good for something after all.

Current Team:
Attacks in Blue are recently learned.




Bill's Storage: Kiwi (Pidgeotto) & Vesper (Zubat)

Old Man Daycare: Charlie (Pidgey)

Title: R.B.I. Baseball 19
Developer: MLB
Publisher: MLB Advanced Media
Genre: Sports
Price: $29.99
Also Available On: PS4, XB1

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First things first: R.B.I. Baseball 19 is the best licensed Major League Baseball product on the Nintendo Switch, but by default. There's simply no competition on the console — which can be, and is, both good and bad. The biggest plus: As its developer and publisher, the league allotted significant resources to its conception, progress, and release. The biggest minus: It remains lacking vis-a-vis MLB The Show 19, the gold standard of baseball videogames and available only on the PlayStation 4.



That said, R.B.I. Baseball 19 offers incremental but no less significant improvements over its predecessor. Weekly roster updates and the presence of the league's all-time greats serve to add value to the series' latest iteration, but vastly upgraded game physics proves to be its biggest come-on. Even as it promises to provide an arcade-like experience, it has clearly taken pains to make subject and object actions and reactions more realistic and, therefore, appealing. And, for good measure, the much-smoother flow of visuals augments its superior feel.



R.B.I. Baseball 19 isn't perfect by any means. Hitting and pitching options remain limited, and fielding continues to be iffy even with practice. Frame drops are evident with the Switch undocked, and, perhaps concomitantly, those angling for online multiplayer matches will find themselves disappointed. On the whole, though, it's a step in the right direction, and one that fans of the sport cannot but welcome with open arms.

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THE GOOD

Some great discussions at Necropraxis/Brendan and Nine & Thirty Kingdoms/Talysman (John) about how much a player should know or have to know to come into a campaign.

This has been a great concern of mine as well, as I run a West Marches style campaign that is pretty open to new folks! I see about 2 to 3 new players a year, as other players rotate in and out, depending on life and interest. These folks need to see something quick and easy to get them into their first game, but also something with depth for further knowledge!

Same is true for long-time players. They've accumulated quite a bit of knowledge and have encountered many different things. I don't want that information lost or hoarded in private journals or my notes.

I also see quite a few new faces at games I run at conventions! All of my games take place in my campaign world, so having something quick and dirty for their use is important - most folks at con games don't want 20 to 30 minutes of campaign backstory, they want to get to the scenario!

My solution is to have two resources - a one page handout for my campaign, and a campaign wiki.

One Page Handout - I've used this pretty much as-is since I started the campaign. At its core, it tells the player the basics of what is going on, what to expect and (hopefully) a feel to the campaign - serious, but not TOO serious.

I have a stack of these for conventions, and I give the link to people interested in the campaign. I think my last few players, I neglected to do that! Because of the ...




Campaign Wiki - My campaign wiki also started in 2009 at Obsidian Portal.[1] and I ported it to a private site last year. Over the years, it's been a collection of information that I provide that is common knowledge, a place for me to track things and a place for players to share what they've encountered (The Adventure Logs).

Some areas are far more described than others, and this is primarily a labor of love for me. The players, by and large, haven't done too much editing, but they are always welcome to, and I find it goes in fits and starts.

This, though, gives the depth of lore should someone really want to do homework and investigate my world.

As a DM, I want people to hit the ground running, but to dive in as deep as they want. That's why I have tools for both.

[1] My Obsidian Portal wiki is still up, just not maintained anymore. I have used a web copying tool to get to the old adventure logs, but it would be difficult to copy them over to Wordpress. Why did I leave OP? The site has not been well maintained over the past few years. It feels like this is a site waiting to be shut down. I'd rather have the fate of Etinerra in my hands!

In both cases I went right through the base immediately and after pinning through I had to cut off the paperclip pin and then file down the bottom to make it flush. You don't want to go tearing up the nice neoprene mats we play on.