GAME: Agricola
TEACHER: milothewise [Nick]
START TIME: 9:30
DURATION: ~2 Hours, 30 minutes
# OF PLAYERS: 2-5

In Agricola, you're a farmer in a wooden shack with your spouse and little else. On a turn, you get to take only two actions, one for you and one for the spouse, from all the possibilities you'll find on a farm: collecting clay, wood, or stone; building fences; and so on. You might think about having kids in order to get more work accomplished, but first you need to expand your house. And what are you going to feed all the little rugrats?

GAME: Dungeon Lords
TEACHER: milothewise [Nick]
START TIME: 12:30
DURATION: ~3 Hours, 30 minutes
# OF PLAYERS: 2-4
A very involved worker-placement game where the winner is the evil genius with the most elaborate dungeon after 2 years of do-gooder adverturers pillaging your ill-gotten gains.

Have you ever ventured with party of heroes to conquer dungeons, gain pride, experiences and of course rich treasure? And has it ever occurred to you how hard it actually is to build and manage such underground complex filled with corridors and creatures? No? Well now you can try. Put yourself in role of the master of underground, summon your servants, dig complex of tunnels and rooms, set traps, hire creatures and try to stop filthy heroes from conquering and plundering your precious creation. We can guarantee you will look on dark corners, lairs and their inhabitant from completely different perspective!

I'm in on the Warmachine event

Five Regina players ventured North to Sasaktoon this morning, braving snowy roads, high winds, and the minions of Everblight. They returned victorious, taking 3 of the 4 major prizes, and 3 of the top 4 places in the event.

I piloted the forces of the Nightmare Empire (Cryx), using a Witch Coven of Garghast tier list with 2 units of undead cavalry and a Gaspy3 list featuring 27 points of AD (in a 35 point list!). We were playtesting the new proposed SR2016 scenarios, so they were all-new to us. Made for some...interesting games.

Round 1 I played against Rhett, also playing Cryx, with Goreshade3 and Gaspy2. I played the Coven, and he dropped Goreshade. Scenario was a large, circular central zone with a friendly flag oriented below and to the left of the zone. You can dominate the friendly flag for a point, the enemy flag or the zone for 2, and control the enemy flag or the zone for a point.

I get about 7 Blackbanes and 2 Soul Hunters dead top of 2, and feat. I've positioned terribly, though, and Rhett feats to turn most of my Soul Hunters into easy pickings - and what's left is mostly useless when he passes the turn, dominating his flag. I do what I can, contesting his flag, clearing and dominating my flag and killing some McThralls (and the Necrosurgeon, I think). Bottom of three Goreshade moves up to clear his flag, casts two Mockeries and buying an attack, finishing his Ride-by attack back on his flag, camping 2 focus. We both score a point.

I decide that I have to go for the assassination, as too much has died and I can no longer keep the Coven safe from a SPD8, Stationary-causing, POWlots cavalry caster. I get Curse of Shadows on him, then my dice go hot as I fish for a crit Shadow Bind, and roll boxcars twice on two dice at dice-5 on damage. So I got 14 damage on him, but he's still at full DEF14+cover from a wreck. My Withershadow Combine all miss their shots needing 11s. My remaining Soul Hunter misses all his attacks, and its all on Darragh Wrath, dismounted, who hits needing a 7 and polishes off the Bastard.

Round 2 I played Ryan with Legion's Lylyth2 and Thagrosh2. I drop Gaspy3, and he drops Lylyth. Scenario was bizarre. Centrally positioned objectives flanked on each side by a pair of flags - 4 in total. You can control or dominate your OPPONENT'S flags for a point, and destroy their objective for a point.

I win the roll and go first (since the scenario is unwinnable, and likely terrible - also, I'm playing against Lylyth). Terrain is basically symmetrical, and TERRIBLE for Lylyth. I can run turn one and land in a trench. I do that, getting the rest of my force up the table - and my Deathjack and Cankerworm behind a linear obstacle that Gaspy gets to on the top of 2. Ryan's turn one he advances and fires off some Scather shots, not killing anything but setting 4 Raiders on fire that don't go out. He does, however, move a Ravagore into charge range of the Deathjack.

My second turn I get Gaspy behind cover at the midline, camping 4 after allocating and casting Mobility. I feat. Deathjack charges and flubs his initial damage roll on the Ravagore; I end up leaving it on like 8 boxes. Raiders run to jam up his Ravagores and Lylyth. When I pass the turn, he goes into the tank for a long time, and decides that he has to try and kill me. He moves Lylyth to make ranged attacks, feats, gets the boosted Pincushion onto me (2 Souls), and boosts to hit and damage on a shot (4 souls). Feat shot misses; she's sitting on no camp. Ravagore engaged with DJ tries to throw him into Gaspy, but doesn't get the deviation he needs (6 souls). Naga misses two boosted attacks on Gaspy (8 souls). Ravagore 2 casts his animus, and misses both his boosted attacks (11 souls). Ravagore 3 gets knocked down on a crit KD from a Raider as he tries to get free from shots, and Ryan ends his turn.

Rough beats. With 18 focus, I am able to control both flags, destroy his damaged Ravagore for Carnage, destroy the Objective, and then kill Lylyth with one attack.

Round 3 I played Dan, also piloting Cryx with Terminus and Denny2 Body & Soul. I drop the Coven, he drops Terminus. Scenario is an odd version of Two Fronts - the zones are horizontally oriented, and only 8" off the board edge. Friendly objective in your zone, which you can dominate for a point. Enemy zone can be controlled/dominated for 1/2 points, enemy objective can be destroyed for 1 point.

I win the roll and opt to go second, since there is a neat patch of forest hiding my friendly zone, and my plan is to win this one on scenario by denying the charge for as long as I can. He runs everything full to about the midline. I advance a bit, using the zone, my objective, and a Veil of Mists to cover my advance.

He doesn't have a good charge anywhere, and just shuffles a bit, not wanting to expose Terminus to every attack in my army. I get Curse of Shadows on his unit of Knights and kill all ten between a Defiler spray, Siren spray, Stygian Abysses, Soul Hunter attacks, and a Darragh Wrath Hellfire. I also get about a dozen McThralls dead this turn with Soul Hunters and Dark Fire attacks from the Withershadow. I get the Coven into the zone and feat.

Dan clears his zone with Terminus and contests mine, tying us at 1 point each. Doesn't get a lot more done. I continue the plan, killing McThralls, failing to kill his Darragh Wrath but getting both his Necrosurgeons dead with Stygians. I go to 2 points. He charges Terminus out to start threatening the Coven, continuing to attack Soul Hunters and contesting my zone. I clear my zone, contest his, and mostly get in the way, killing McThralls whenever I can. I consider pumping some Stygians into Terminus at this point, but go back and forth on plans multiple times, make a few mistakes, get flustered, and just in general spend a TON of time, ending with a third point and just over a minute on my clock.

Dan finishes off the Soul Hunters, charges into my zone (taking a disproportionate amount of damage from a Wrathe free strike who he hasn't managed to kill yet), but doesn't move any other models into my zone. I get a point on his turn and end my turn for a point on my turn. Rough end for a game Dan played well. Making more than 10% of his tough checks would have helped him contest. I probably lose that game on time if just one thing doesn't go my way at the end, there.

I'm the only undefeated at that point, and go home with first place! Jordan from Saskatoon took 2nd and Regina's Chris Wagner takes 3rd on CP-based tiebreakers. Derek from Regina takes the fully-painted drawing, and the five of us headed home, tired and victorious.

A great day! Thanks to Jeff for organizing, all the Saskatoon guys for the games, and the Dragon's Den for hosting!

Hey all! We Warmachiners are going to try and be a bigger presence here, since we've been kind of standoffish, keeping to ourselves on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/westerimmoren/). We play on Wednesday evenings at Comic Readers.

If you're unfamiliar with Warmachine, it is a tactical miniatures game in a steampunk setting called the Iron Kingdoms. You field an army led by a Warcaster or Warlock that controls big stompy robots or big stompy monsters. You win a game either by taking control of key parts of the board or by killing your opponents Warcaster/Warlock. Small games can be played in 30-45 minutes, and larger games take up to 2 hours (if you're using a clock, which is standard in competitive play. When you get started you take as long as you need to activate your army). Combat is a pretty straightforward 2d6 system - roll the dice, add your modifier, and compare to the target number. All the relevant stats are listed on a card for each model on which you also mark damage, so rules references and such are super simple.

Also, all the rules are free and available online (although individual model rules are not):
Quick start rules: http://privateerpress.com/files/WarmachineMKII%20Quick%20Start%20Rules%20Front.pdf
Full game rules: http://files.privateerpress.com/articles/freerules/Prime%20MKII_eBook_free.pdf

Starting tonight, January 13th, we're going to be kicking off our Journeyman League, which will run for 6 weeks on Wednesdays at Comic Readers Downtown, and culminate with a tournament on the 27th of February. If you're interested in checking out the game, or want to get started, this is a great time! Each week the games get incrementally larger, so you get a chance to step up your play gradually. You get points for wins, losses, and models painted, and there are a sweet set of patches you earn for hitting various benchmarks. It was a ton of fun last time we ran it.

Feel free to ask questions of any of us on a Wednesday night. We're pretty approachable (I'm Nick IRL), and this game is awesome. We'd love to keep growing our community here!

I'm going to return and update periodically with pictures and battle reports when I can so even if you can't make it on a Wednesday you can get a sense of how the game looks and plays. Many of us meet up on weekends to play as well, either at a store or at someone's house, because addictions are fun for everybody. Drop us a line if you're interested in a game, or swing by and pester us on a Wednesday!