4th Edition & Pathfinder

Sorry I haven't been posting, I've been one busy guy.

Recently, Rod has been running D&D 4th Edition. Although when I first looked at it, the changes seemed drastic and startling, after actually playing it the way it's designed to be I love it and so does the whole group. We find 4th Edition to be faster paced and more exciting than before because it doesn't bog itself down. Each 4th Edition character is better at what they do, and would beat a 3.5 character in a head-to-head Aleax duel. As a player and DM who has seen and played D&D (Basic Set), AD&D (1st Ed), 2nd, 3rd, 3.5 and now 4th Ed. I have long since learned that the best possible thing you can do is buy whatever new rules set comes out right away and learn your way around it early, because it's always better.

All that being said, I'm still running Pathfinder. The writing is so good, and my time is so crunched that I wouldn't have it any other way. For me, the story and adventure are more important than the rules. Since it was designed for 3.5, that's how I run it. We talked about a conversion and dismissed the idea. But when I play, I play 4th Edition.

Recent Gaming

Sorry I haven't been posting much, but that doesn't mean I haven't been gaming. Lets see... Since I last entered on this web log, I've finished the second D&D Pathfinder book with the group, won and lost about 4 games of Mordheim and won a Magic booster draft. Yeah, you know me, always gaming with real people, pretty much no video games (except for Scrabble on my phone). My time is just getting so crunched that if I'm going to game, I'd much rather game with real people, books, dice, mini's and/or cards.
I would like to thank John, Sam, Andy, Phil, Joey, Chaun and Morgan for joining me for the Lorwyn/Morningtide draft at Old Town Hobby in Shelton yesterday. I went 1-2 against Morgan in the first round, and I'm pretty sure he would have beaten all of us with his green elf/treefolk and black goblin/removal deck if he hadn't had to leave early; what I saw was really good. And Chaun ended up having to go to work; I didn't see his deck but he's a good player too. But even with those two gone, the competition was still strong. Phil is getting better at draft, and so are Sam, Andy and Joey. Sam ended up taking third. John is not only an experienced player, he really knows the cards. His black/red deck was really good, but I did see a lot of other black and red. I ran blue/white and in my 4 rounds of Swiss, I didn't see any other blue. My cards weren't great, but what I had seemed to come up for me pretty well. If not for the one game I won against Morgan, John and I would have tied for first. Again, I had a great time and thank you all for coming; I look forward to next time.

Zthempust Fujitt update

The City of Mordheim, being brutal, has tempered and grizzled the Lizardmen who have found themselves there, so far from the warm jungles of Lustria. Many have died, lost an eye, suffered chest wounds, or have gone mad from strange encounters with mutated rat-men and worse. So when caverns beneath the city were found, the great and troubled Saurus Totem Warrior, Bok screamed his horrible plea for help into the bowels of the world. Auk, the original Skink priest of the warband had gone mad and had to be dismissed. His replacement, Chellahak had been slain by the dreaded Skaven. A warmblooded "Kroxigor" called "Ogre bodyguard" helped in a single battle, but realizing times had become so grim a warmblood had been brought in, the reptiles knew they were in need of a new, strong leader. Wyrdstone and gold were rationed for future recruitment of new warband members.
In further battles, the Lizardmen faced the dreaded Witch Hunters as well as Human Pirates. A group of Maidenheimers fought side-by-side with the Lizardmen against their age-old enemy, the Skaven, and though four of their number (counting giant rats) were beated, the fight again ended in defeat.
On the other side of the world, Auldonhelm, a young and promising Skink Priest, heard Bok's plea, and felt compelled by the Old Ones to answer it. Bringing just three Saurus Braves (the Xanthic Red-Eyes) and three Skink Braves (the Lustrian Skirmishers), he commanded the Sea Serpent Misolandving to transport them across the great waters in order to reinforce their bretheren.
Upon Auldonhelm and his escort's arrival in Mordheim, the humans looked upon the scaly ones with indifference. Stranger things by far may be found in this place than lizardmen. Upon settling their business arrangements, the group now numbers 12. Criit, Dulu, Ekka and Fyyk are pleased to note that their new leader bears the mark of the old ones. Using what they had saved between them (including selling some gear for half-price), they were able to purchase equipment for their new leader and henchmen as well. In spite of this great outlay of resources, Zthempust Fujitt has still managed to save four shards of the precious Wyrdstone for future needs.

Jan. 5, 2008: New Year, New Warbands

For Mordheim yesterday, Roddy was the champ as usual. Not just for his winning Skaven (who have a rating in the 300's now) but for showing Marshall and Shawn S. and Bella how to play Mordheim. Yes, Shane and I helped too, but I really think Rod did the heavy lifting.

Bella's Human Mercenary Middenheimer warband, "The 15 Knights of the Most Amazing Colors" who I have been calling the Maidenheimers, got off to a pretty good start. One of her heroines, Heart Hunter and a member of The Tigers henchmen group were each taken out of action, and the Tiger did not survive. But in the skirmish her warband accomplished the rare feat of taking one of the Skaven out of action as well. This is getting to be a bit like taking out a Vampire, as anyone who has played against Rod knows only too well. And yes, Lady Luck had a lot to do with it... But anyway, from exploration the ladies found a Straggler who replaced the lost Tiger, and through experience, one of the other Tigers got promoted to Hero/Heroine. Storywise, as I've chosen to have it turn out, the Tiger in question was actually "she" all along, who had joined the henchmen group disguised as a man to seek her fortune. You know, like in "Mulan." So Bel's warband now has six heroines and three henchmen, all fairly well equipped. Yeah, the underdog bonus helped too.

Strangly, Shawn and Marshall each built their first warbands at different times and in different places yet have nearly identical Possessed groups. Each has three guys, each with one crazily powerful Possessed guy. This will be something interesting to follow, just to see how each develops because they are arch-rivals. My advice is always to try to shoot anything that's a threat, especially if it has more than two arms, acidic black blood, a scorpion tail or giant claws.

Shane brought a brand-new Pirate warband that I thought was pretty cool. He had the sheet, and I rustled up some minis that worked okay. Rod, me (Dave) and Carson (who didn't make it yesterday) know Mordheim really well but Shane is a very experienced Mordheim player who knows a lot of the rules better than any of us, and because he has skirmished against other players, Shane has a different interpretation than we might of some rules. More often than not, he's right, but different groups have different house rules so I try to pay attention because I still end up learning new things but I try to look things up whenever possible. One of my favorite rules is the Games Workshop suggestion that if you can't find a rule that satisfactorally resoves a question, roll a d6 for it; 4-6, it goes your way. My suggestion to any player new to Mordheim is this: whenever someone like Shane makes it to a game of Mordheim, try to ally with him because he definitely knows what he's doing.

My Lizardmen had huge gains and losses alike, but in the end came out pretty well. They are getting so beat up by Skaven they are becoming the most grizzled warband I've ever run. I keep rolling weird things on the Survival table like: "Blinded in one eye," "Chest wound," "Stupidity," "Stupidity," "Survives against the odds," "Hatred," "Hatred," "Old wound," "Captured," etc., etc. You get the idea. One of my Saurus warriors got "The lad's got talent," but I had six heroes already and chose not to dismiss any of them. Later, the Saurus henchmen group were all taken out of action and all failed their survival checks. But my heroes (five of the six are Skinks) did well on exploration and I ended up with the Ogre Bodyguard joining the warband for free, though I'm not sure whether I'll want to pay his upkeep later. Just for fun, I'm using the Kroxigor mini for him. The underdog bonuses helped my guys quite a bit and my rating is currently 270 or something, 25 of which is from the Ogre.

Our next session is this coming Saturday, Jan. 12. at 3:00. And yes, we'll probably play whatever everybody wants to play the most, be it D&D, Star Wars, Mordheim or whatever.