Silver Tower Part II - Knight ... Kaldor?

"Face me, daemon!" bellowed Draigo.  He drew his sword and charged the Gaunt Summoner, a hideous and powerful servant of Tzeentch.  Draigo feared no daemon, but The Lord of Change and his ilk rarely fight head-on, and they never fight fair.  As he brought his sword overhead for a fearsome blow, he felt it in his gut.

'This is...too easy!'

The Gaunt Summoner's form shattered like glass, imploding into an indigo and black vortex.  It violently pulled Draigo in, but before he could steel himself to resist, he stood still once more.  He found himself in a small chamber.  He felt four other presences, and took the time to examine them.  One was a barbarian, sporting spiked pauldrons, an axe in one hand, and a sword in the other.  His chest was bare, and a leather cloth and hide boots made up the remainder of his attire.  The second was a dark-skinned priest of an unknown God.  The third was the priest's pet, a strange bird-dog hybrid.  The forth and final was deeply heretical - a brutish servant of Khorne, whose very presence carried profound and terrible bloodlust.

He hated it to his bones, but these ... people ... were the closest things to allies he was ever going to get here.  He'd warily accept their company, for now...

This time around, the party was in dire need of a tank and I wanted to try out a different character.  Draigo is one of my favorite models, as are most of the GK Terminators (its the helmet...and the weapons...and the whole thing).  I proxied him as the Knight Questor per my previous post.

Ooooh baby yeah, that's the stuff.

I have him mostly painted up - the only major part left undone is the force weapon.  Luckily it's pointed toward the camera so it's slightly less obvious.  This time around we chose Aqshy:  The Searing Fire.

When you with squad and about to enter an ever-shifting entropic hell

As the tankiest character by far, it made sense for me to take the front.  We worked our way through a long passage to be confronted by a horde of mooks.

Our barbarian raced ahead - so much for tanking!  Storm Bolter for display purposes only.

They were pushovers before our awesome might.  We even got to take turns beating up the acolyte for questioning.

I'm so sorry we couldn't afford Michael Madsen

The hallway came to an end and we decided to split up.  The priest and the barbarian went left for a fight for renown.  Khorne dude and Draigo went right and found...the treasure room aww yea!  Character be damned, get the ca$h!

Scrooge McDuck's bones were never found

If it seems like I'm light on actual text up to this point, it's because the game went all too smoothly...even the ending fight was too easy for my taste.  This post isn't intended to be a review of silver tower itself (that comes later), but I couldn't help but realize an important similarity to D&D:  If you want a challenge, you'll likely have to amp it up yourself.

To elaborate:

The enemies in silver tower are spawned based on unexpected events and the encounter table rolls.  The former are, well, unexpected.  The latter generally occur when you move into a new room of the tower.  You roll on the encounter table requested by the room, and enemies spawn accordingly.  Most of these scale based on the number of players, but some do not.  The ones that don't scale tend to be pushovers with 4 players, especially when "D3 monsters" becomes "one monster who has no friends because he won't stop talking about his new gluten-free lifestyle."  For some of these, you may want to add to or double the roll.  For example, "D3 monsters per 2 players," or similar.

To be fair, this guy is pretty scary even solo.

But let's say you get plenty of monsters via events that scale, high D3 rolls, and/or hilariously bad unexpected event luck.  The next hurdle to a good fight is the 'behaviors.'  After the player characters have moved, the monsters move.  Their behaviors are determined by a chart on their profile.  Simply roll a D6 and consult the chart.  

As an avid player of 'Betrayal,' I am used to this sort of mechanic.  Some of the haunts were player-controlled, but many were automated in some form or fashion via dice rolls and protocols.  The latter tended to be far weaker and far less interesting to play against.  The reason for this is that the behaviors frequently flew in the face of common sense.  Silver Tower suffers a similar problem, especially since players take turns "controlling the monsters" (instead of having a dedicated traitor or DM).  A DM or Traitor would interpret the monsters rules in the harshest way possible, making for a better challenge.

I'm going to use the game's last room as an example.

This should have been the epic climax to the game

As you may be able to tell, this picture suggests a serious battle.  There are foes in front of us, and two portals that both allow enemies to get right behind and surround us (via the portal on the far left).  The horrors have good firing position for their blue fire and the acolytes have a good wall with one extra guy for each portal.

I took zero damage in this battle, and none of our characters came close to being KOed.  This happened because the rules as written forced the acolytes in the back to shoot arrows at the minion (faintly visible at the bottom of the picture) rather than go through the portals.  The pink horror should have been trying to go through the portals too (to use his AoE spell on all of us) but he pretty much sat in the back and idly cracked off a couple fireballs before getting smacked.  Even the blue horrors would have performed better in melee, but were forced to shoot and not close the gap.  This stagger formation resulted in us more or less being able to divide and conquer the room.  The lack of challenge was even further exacerbated by the fact that we were able to summon an extremely powerful ally (literally a hero stat profile) without him counting against us for encounter tables.  Five heroes for the price of four, as it were.

Summed together, we took the room in three turns or so suffering no considerable wounds.  Any initial fear of enemy numbers wore off after the first turn.

This line is for questing parties only please step aside!

In all fairness this was only one game, and the first game I played was a far more vicious struggle.  Half of the team was grievously wounded.  Your experience may vary, but at this point I'm two for six in terms of getting close battles.  If things are feeling too easy, I would strongly recommend replacing the behavior tables with far more sensible behaviors as needed and/or more harshly scaling the monsters according to the Hero Party Size.

Brutal struggles and deaths make for far more interesting stories (just ask GoT and Dark Souls).  If one person survives, the whole party can usually revive so you can keep your precious shards.

I can hear the death noise every time I see these pics...

To each their own as always.  Until next time, fellow gamers!


Likely upcoming posts:  Homebrew Damsel rules and a tactical analysis of the Knight Questor.

Silver Tower Part I - Damsel, Hold The Distress

I mentioned in my previous post that the Bretonnians had no heroes in Age of Sigmar.  While this is true, there is some room for proxying.  The Damsel of the Lady (on foot) is actually a pretty good stand-in for the Dark Elf Sorceress.  To that end, I set about painting my one Damsel model.  In the spirit of the Brets, I made her dress white, her skin fair, and her hair fire-orange.  I adorned her with silver and blue for her trinkets and cloak, respectively.  Her gems are glowing Green, as her power draws from the Ghyran (green wind) of magic.  She is not quite finished - the base is incomplete, and the gems could use some 'ardcoat.  That being said, the model is one I am proud of, and is more than painted enough to bring to the table.

For this old Finecast model, this is the best "front" angle

The back is far more forgiving angle-wise

This past Friday, I went down to The Bunker to paint and hang out.  With a Silver Tower game going, I was invited to join in next round.  I got the sorceress rules on the Android App - the price was more than fair but I would have paid extra for a printout (especially the nice laminated ones the board game comes with).  At some point I'll probably just do it the old-fashioned way and write everything down (or type it up and print it out), but I digress.

My first time playing was a blast - we played through "Hysh - A cleansing Light."  Our party consisted of myself, an Excelsior Warpriest (the party healer, with a minion), a Knight Questor (a 'Tank' with solid damage potency as well), the Mistweaver Saih (DPS and disruption), and the Chaos Lord (a 'Bruiser'-style character).  We worked our way through the ever-changing dungeon, braving fearsome monsters and cursed dice rolls.  I rolled far better for the monsters than I did for my own character (even getting half of the party mortally wounded), but I had a lot of fun.  My strongest moment was probably throwing a Warpstone Bomb into a crowd of Horrors (a few Blues and one Pink) and Acolytes, killing six of the Warp-Mutated Bastards Species-Fluid Otherkin as the warp-dust cleared.

I learned a lot about how to play the game itself, and I learned a little about the Sorceress as a character class.  My experience can be roughly summed up as follows:

Pros:  

• Great and reliable at stunning opponents from range (2+ to use, 2+ to hit).  This is a great way (I would argue your best way)  to add value to the team, especially since many of the maps are corridors.  It's easy to stun front-most opponents to prevent rest from attacking or getting good position.
• Decent Damage (D3 damage on a 3+/3+) from range with Bladewind
• Good movement, and great agility
• Blood sacrifice lets you re-roll any/all of your hero dice in a pinch

Cons:

• Very low armor save
• Melee attack mostly just a way to burn a 1 if you have no other choice, and you shouldn't be close enough anyway
• Power of darkness requires a 4+ to add 1 damage to Bladewind, but it's often statistically better (or at least as good) just to attack one more time using that 4+ dice.  Would be far more useful if you could burn 1's on it instead
• Hard to generate renown with trait.  The odds of doing 6 or more wounds with Bladewind are low without Blood Sacrifice and/or fate dice.  Problem is exacerbated by fact that you are really REALLY useful for stuns, tearing you between earning renown and being a great utility mage.

Here are some rough stats behind Bladewind:

• On a typical turn (i.e. one where you don't use blood sacrifice or fate dice and have 4 dice because you're in the back and therefore uninjured), 2/3 will be high enough to use Bladewind...this rounds roughly to 3 dice (~2.67), with 2 being eligible for Power of Darkness.  
• Any given shot has a (2/3) chance of hitting and will deal 2 wounds on average (average of D3 is 2).
• Your options are either to take 3 shots regular, or 2 better shots (D3+1, average of 3 damage because the '+1' is a given)
• The Three-shot case has a best case of 9 damage, while the Two-shot PoD case has a best case of 8 damage and is less stable because it relies on one fewer roll.
• The Three-shot case has an average of 4 damage (2 of 3 shots hit, do 2 damage a piece).  The Two-shot PoD case has an average of 4 damage (1.33 shots hit, doing 4 damage.  Of course, this will usually behave more like either 3 or 6, with favor toward 3.  Due to low sample size, it can't be treated as a normal distribution)
• As these averages imply, Power of Darkness is only better on average when all 4 of your dice are good enough for Bladewind (c'mon Blood sacrifice!).  In this scenario, 2.66 hit times 2 damage = 5.33 (for No PoD) versus 2 hit times 3 damage = 6 with PoD.  Otherwise, it's more akin to a bold risk.  Fate dice make PoD even more favorable, of course.

From this analysis, it would seem that I need to be more willing to use Blood Sacrifice and the Fate dice to grab that sweet renown.  I was admittedly hesitant to use it as none of my hero dice rolls were particularly bad.  Also I just plain old need to roll better.

This Spooky Mr. Skeltal gets it.

All jokes aside, I am far from a power-gamer.  I merely find the stats interesting.  I intend to play plenty more Silver Tower games, repping Bretonnia hard.  I may also want to have a tank character just to mix things up a bit.  I like the Knight Questor rules, but I'm not so crazy about the model.  Luckily, Games Workshop actually has a dynamic sword-and-shield model to replace him.  He has hulking shiny armor, an engraved shield, a shimmery blade, and clearly has plenty of experience fighting daemons where they live.  He also looks Fucking Awesome.

Ahhh...there he is.  The hero we deserve.  Go ahead, tell me he couldn't find his way to the tower.

I'm also gonna dream up some 'home-brew' rules for the damsel, based off both the Dark Elf Sorcerer stats and the AoS Warscroll entry for the Damsel.  I'm thinking something more healing/protection oriented, but we'll see.

Enjoy the Memorial Day weekend!

[Wh40K/AoS] Are the Brets Coming Back?

The Short Answer:  Probably Not.

Last summer, Warhammer Fantasy was broken down and reforged in the End Times Crucible to become Age of Sigmar.  Hulking golden warriors and zealots of Khorne took center-stage, soon to be followed by Nagash and his armies of death, Fyreslayers, and Treants Fucking Durthu 'n' Friends Sylvaneth, and more.

But in GW's long-term goal of securing IP from imitators, there had to be sacrifices.  Many ranges were gutted, leaving only scarce few (and more unique) models.  I held my Bretonnians tightly as the Tomb Kings breathed their last, only to find my love dying in my arms.  The Brets too breathed their last.  I held them in my arms and wept...well okay I was mostly just sort of salty.

Fake emotions aside, I find myself without an army.  It's not that the new ranges are "bad" per se, they just really don't fit my aesthetics the way the Brets did:  Gallant knights, shining steel, vibrant heraldry.  "But they're still playable," one might argue.  This is technically true, if you have the old models, if you use the old warscroll (as their rules cannot be found in the order tome), if you accept that your army will lack future support, and if you look at Silver Tower and accept that not one of the heroes is a Bretonnian.  Much of the army is horseback to be sure, but Paladin had a foot model as did the Damsel of the Lady.  A small homage would have been nice, but oh well.

One might also argue that a release is around the corner.  After all, the Orks got the Ironjawz, the undead got the Flesh-Eater Courts (and kept their old vampire count models to boot).  The End Times lore also pointed to the Grail Knights and Damsels being invited to join a new pantheon of gods. Given this, and the lack of a new Elf range of any kind, there appears to be a niche for another order faction...but will it be one that at all resembles Bretonnia?

The root problem with Bretonnia (and a crucial part of its end) was the fact that every last bit of it was based on the Arthurian legend and basic medieval motifs.  In other words, GW had nothing it could hold IP on.  Pretty much anyone could make 28mm scale minis resembling a trebuchet or a man-at-arms or a french knight and proxy them in.  Any and all buildings would be pulled straight from history books...and therefore anyone could make and sell suitable terrain.  Should a new army rise in their place, I would have to accept that the Arthurian motif will at least have to be far less direct if it exists at all.

With this implicit problem statement in mind, the new faction would have a regular minefield to negotiate.  The Sigmarites only happened because they look like the 'lovechild' of a Zack Snyder - directed Flash Gordon Reboot getting knocked up by the Ultramarines.  However...they are indisputably unique.  This new faction (let's simply call them 'Knights' for now) would have to have a name and appearance that is unique for branding purposes while not tempting me to change my stance on abortion.  The Knights would have to retain the shimmering steel, the gallant demeanor, the bright colors of cloth and heraldry, and the appeals to an idyllic and medieval land that never was, all while remaining unique enough to be worth producing from a business standpoint.

The Knights would have to have a clear niche in the new lore, where the Sigmarites dominate the niche of valiant and shiny heroes with my derision notwithstanding.  This may necessitate a new spin, perhaps making them Knights in touch with an ethereal plane.  They could be led by a ghostly form reminiscent of the Green Knight.  That being said, it may be wiser to make them very obviously human (including models with exposed heads) to contrast them with the faceless warriors of Sigmar.  Or a combination of the two - maybe they learned how to channel an ethereal form, and could be magic knights bearing similarities to the Grey Knights of 40k?  Giving them runes and wards would be a great way to make the range stand out, as would emphasis on nature, as would a color palette of bright greens and blues.  Of course all of this is the naive hope of a contrarian, but there is material to work with.

Will they do it?  Will they take a risk and add another force to Order?  It's always possible that I will see the spiritual return of Bretonnia, but if I had to bet money, I'd hold my cash, breathe easy and mutter two words as I focus on 40k instead:  "Probably Not."