The New York City Gang Of Four

[chas]

Kolakoski Pays It Forward!

A shout out to our Kolakoski, who is now divesting himself of the rest of his Scape, which originally came to him from a friend of mine for practically nothing. Since he can come over here and play with everything, he's transferring his stuff to Magic Gama, who is running demo Heroscape games at a game store in Manhattan, along with his pal, who lives right near here, and who I will meet next week.

Having bought many of the Customs we enjoy from him during his original sale here on site, K. has gifted me with a Cyprien since mine is still missing, and a few other figures as he empties out his own building room storage area on his secret island base.

***

Other NYCG4 Personal Updates

Our most enthusiastic army builder, K. is the only other person besides me to play on both game dates with my scenario Faction Flags (aka Capture The Flagbearer). Since we have not had Ullar and Einar participate yet, I've offered to play it again some time on a different map. Since Taeblewalker, who missed out, is taking his turn next month in November, he has the option of playing it for a third time here, and of course bringing his friend who was also unable to come.

Although he now lives three hours upstate, TW has continued to be a full participant in our monthly games, as well as occasionally coming down here to play other board games. He is also now a participant in a lively game scene up north in Poughkeepsie, through people I introduced him to from myh own contacts. He also plays at two of his own local stores closer to him.

Sherman Davies has been active on his three customs threads onsite here lately, and making new maps for Superhero conflict games. He's also supporting a possible revival of our local Islandscape (Long Island, that is) Con, once primarily run by Grisnakh and Warbanner. And like me on our first date of our latest scenario, he won both games recently on our second session!

[chas]

As reposted from another thread on Age of Annihilation, here is my facetious take on dealing with its unpainted figures for those who don't want to paint them!

***


C'mon! Its so easy to meld them without painting...

AHEM!

After many years of conflict, with so many beings coming to gather their energies, the differently colored waters of the Wellsprings, partially consumed by the constant wars, grew weaker, and could only transmit their powers by passing on their growing impurities to those who bathed in them. Thus the younger beings of the Age of Annihilation were tinged with their colors, as the price of gaining their magic powers of inspiration for magic, craft, or other abilities. And so it was that while the immortal Elder Characters lived on in eternal resurrection after every battle in which they were defeated, those who came years later to the magical waters were stained by their original plunges into the sources of their power. And the younger races and younger members of older ones lost their original coloration, which was replaced by the colors of their patron Archkyrie's particular spring. And even a few of the greatest of the Elder Races born in or summoned to Valhalla, who gained wholly new power levels, also became tainted in this fashion...

See? Done!

[chas]

Faction Flags: The Narrative

Its hard to go back and recall the four games we've played so far. The great thing about this scenario is that you can pick your times to go for other Flagbearers (FBs), or stop others efforts. The timing of what happened surprised us all quite a bit, with some players forcing the pace, and others reacting to their moves! Note that we use CV Customs.

In the first two 3 Player games, I followed my usual play style of hanging back a bit, and getting most of my army up a bit from the Start Zone together. Since I had a shooting Vydar army (two squads of North Carolina sharpshooters and the Krav) but with a three good melee units (Breach, Major X17, and Agent Carr (my safety clean up guy). I tended to set up shooters for very long range combat, but then move in the others to affect the FB grabbing, and stop others from running away from the game.

At one point during the second game the Sharpshooters were getting an 11 hex range, benefitting from their own, plus their own bonus, plus Laglor's bonus! That enabled me to reduce some enemy FBs to inactive capture status by doing all their wounds, and then rushing in to grab or stop a third player from moving them. Several times one person surprisingly got one FB close to his start zone, before someone else locked him down, sometimes for most of the game.

For the first 4 Player (Free For All) game, Sherman Davies (he formerly of the C3V Inner Sanctum) and Kolakoski (our most intellectual Army Builder) went at it hammer and tongs, and Magic Gama and I moved toward their battle area to join in, leaving each other along to prevent an early victory. Since MG was our new guest, I didn't have a line on his play style in a multi player game, having only once met him for a couple of two players on a different ROTV original map.

But later I made some slick sudden moves, knocking out Magic Gama's FB with the Sharpshooters, and grabbing him with Major X17. MG's army like mine was now thin on the ground like mine in the space between our respective start zones, but he managed to use his Sgt. Drake as a clean up, still back in his start zone, to prevent what we thought might become a win for me.

The rest of my army was up on or by a hill closer to SD's start zone, my plan being to catch him with K.'s FB, since SD was getting the better of that conflict over on the far side of the battlefield. But surprisingly, SD was able to retrieve K.'s FB for the win. Very impressive. But you don't ultimately play Heroscape just to win, and I was very happy with my sudden surprise lunge for victory!

For the 4 Player Team game we once again rolled for start zones, changing our board /seating positions. (These could have been 5-6 player games, but Taeblewalker and his pal were unable to show that day, so I had rejiggered the 24 hexer Start Zone positions once again), my partner was Sherman Davies. Our initial pregame talk saw me going for the win while he basically blocked and prevented their win. However, since my closes opponent K. had gotten control of the hill between us (the one I'd used in the previous game), and SD had moved in close to the MGs enemy FB, it became obvious that we needed to completely reverse our strategy--letting him go for the win while I kept K. busy, since I had to engage in melee.

However, I did make a cool move by finally bringing up my "safety" Agent Carr. Passing him through Brunak with Ghost Walk, I then suddenly took him out in one big attack. I'd taken to taunting K. more than I had any right to, but I included psychological warfare with our usual friendly enemy banter! Then I was able to pass Carr and grab K.'s FB! There was no way I would be able to drag his FB back through most of his army on that fateful hill, so I moved him up toward the other two battling instead, hoping to add the unwounded Carr to SD.s battle.

But it turned out he didn't need the help, as he'd gotten good die rolls with his dwarves against MG, our New Guy, who was fitting in with the group very nicely on his first meeting them. That itself was a big win--over 14 years, we've never been able to enlarge our group permanently for various reasons of individual availability. So SD literally dragged MG's FB over to his start zone for the victory.

Just as I'd won both 3 Player Free For Alls on my own on the previous session, SD had now won both 4 Players, a Free For All and our only Team Game so far. And I had helped, and had a shot at the first 4 Player, so I felt good about the army I'd picked and my playing fate as well (its posted upthread).

***

The Follow Up

1. Since Taeblewalker is our next November GM in our usual group rotation, I offered him another shot at this scenario then, which I came up with and we all like. So we may play it again as a third session in the series, or at some future date. And TW may be able to bring his new friend he's now game designing with for a small game company upstate where he lives, who he was going to have come this time, when he had to cancel out.

2. Since K. has moved into a smaller apartment on his secret island base (Roosevelt Island) and needs to clear some storage space, he's passing his figures and terrain on to Magic Game, for use in the demos he runs at a game shop in Manhattan. Basically, MG will get an almost free Scape collection, which he's needed to rebuild, having lost some of his own old stuff, based on the collection I got for K. years ago in much the same circumstances. What goes around comes around!

3. It turns out MG has a pal working at that game shop who lives only ten minutes away from me here in Brooklyn Heights where we play. So I've now exchanged emails with this guy, and we will meet up for lunch next week! So a local player for Scape and other games here which I'm always hosting perhaps! Wow.

All in all, it was a very fun afternoon, and also an eventful session for the future of the group. Nice!

And for next year, since I'm now backing Age of Annihilation, which is currently 25% funded (good for a Haslab, they tell me), if that goes we'll have that to play with too.

[Sherman Davies]

Chas' Faction Flags scenario made for a couple of very wild and fun games. I won the first game solo, somewhat unexpectedly after the other three players turned on me when they saw I was in a position to win early. I figured playing kingmaker was my most likely outcome, but kept playing my army as if I were trying to win regardless. Luckily, once chas put himself in a position to win, the others were distracted enough from me that I was able to eke out a victory.

My army for both games, not counting the Dwarf flagbearer:

Mok - 220
Axegrinders of Burning Forge x 3 - 210
Mogrimm Forgehammer - 120
Marro Warriors - 50


I believe @MagicGama played this army, not counting Sir Gilbert:

Finn the Viking Champion - 80
Raelin (RotV) - 80
Sir Denrick - 100
Knights of Weston - 70
Tarn Viking Warriors - 50
Sgt. Drake Alexander (RotV) - 110
Airborne Elite - 110


I have to say, between MagicGama's army and the appearances of Agent Carr, Marro Warriors, Deathwalker 9000 and the Krav Maga Agents in the other armies, it was the most old school game I can remember playing in a while. Good times!

Originally Posted by chas

Since I had a shooting Vydar army (two squads of North Carolina sharpshooters and the Krav) but with a three good melee units (Breach, Major X17, and Agent Carr (my safety clean up guy). I tended to set up shooters for very long range combat, but then move in the others to affect the FB grabbing, and stop others from running away from the game.

Originally Posted by chas

For the first 4 Player (Free For All) game, Sherman Davies (he formerly of the C3V Inner Sanctum) and Kolakoski (our most intellectual Army Builder) went at it hammer and tongs...

Originally Posted by chas

For the 4 Player Team game... my partner was Sherman Davies. Our initial pregame talk saw me going for the win while he basically blocked and prevented their win. However, since my closes opponent K. had gotten control of the hill between us (the one I'd used in the previous game), and SD had moved in close to the MGs enemy FB, it became obvious that we needed to completely reverse our strategy--letting him go for the win while I kept K. busy, since I had to engage in melee.

Originally Posted by chas

However, I did make a cool move by finally bringing up my "safety" Agent Carr. Passing him through Brunak with Ghost Walk, I then suddenly took him out in one big attack.

Originally Posted by chas

But it turned out he didn't need the help, as he'd gotten good die rolls with his dwarves against MG...

Not good enough to save Mok from Sir Denrick, though:

[AMIS]

What's with the mentos on the dwarf? Is that the flagbearer or a Dwarven snack?

Looks like a lot of fun.

[Sherman Davies]

Originally Posted by AMIS

What's with the mentos on the dwarf? Is that the flagbearer or a Dwarven snack?

That was to indicate which dwarf mini I was using as a proxy for the dwarven flagbearer, since a lot of the dwarf minis... look alike. (I'm not dwarfophobic, I swear.)

[AMIS]

Originally Posted by Sherman Davies

That was to indicate which dwarf mini I was using as a proxy for the dwarven flagbearer, since a lot of the dwarf minis... look alike. (I'm not dwarfophobic, I swear.)

That was funny...

[chas]

Magic Gama fielded a nice Jandar army from a limited collection--we all like to play with our own toys, don't we? Although here at The Game Palace, we always offer our complete collections of Classics and Customs (often with proxy figures) to anyone who comes over, including each other. MG actually was nice enough to ask if it was okay if he played the (overpowered) Raelin. I told him to go for it, since the rest of us, while very friendly, would be building our best armies and playing to win, as we always do. This doesn't mean all "A" Class units, but some like Raelin would be putting in an appearance.

After trucking over to Kolakoski's to get his collection the next day, MG will have a lot more of a choice in the future. While this collection is now made up of Classics, since I bought most of his "semi-official" committee chosen Custom figures during K.'s previous sale (held onsite), MG also got to see a few Custom figures and cards played for the first time in these last two battles.

[chas]

Fresh Blood!

Magic Gama now has all of the Scape stuff, and is playing with it. I met his pal for lunch yesterday and we really hit it off. We talked Scape, other games, anime, and all kinds of things. And he came over to see some of the toys, books, and DVDs piled up all over The Game Palace. Now the NYCG4 has two new members, and this pal lives only blocks from me. He'll probably be joining the site soon, and I'll have a handle to call him by (we don't use real names here). So they will probably both become our New Regular Players. With all The Rights and Privileges That Accrue, as they say. After 14 years, its about time for some New Blood!

I told Taeblewalker to plan for six players for his November game on 11/9. We've had 5-6 players before, but very rarely. Hey, if TW brings his own pal down from upstate like he was going to, the last time when we he had to cancel, we might actually have 7 Players. Its a good thing we play on really large battlefields.

We haven't had a crowd like that since Jeff Van Ness (Craig's bro) came over to play. I sent an invitation to Craig to come himself some time on his own thread recently, since we're all actively posting again. Unfortunately, when "foreigners" come to visit NYC, they often have other things planned, for some reason...

[chas]

Just got back from an unscheduled week in the hospital after an unexpected brush with a mean urological infection that migrated to the blood. There's some nasty bacteria out there, and I'm taking nasty antibiotics for another ten days here at The Game Palace to keep it away from my door.

***

We're discussing various ways to Scape with six players amongst ourselves. If this becomes regular, we may have to call ourselves the New York City Gang of Six! If you've run games for this many players or thought about doing it, feel free to chime in! Of course, we've done it before for special circumstances, but not as a regular thing.

Taeblewalker and I also talked over his upcoming scenario on November 9, and he's thinking about how to adapt it to our new player count (or even up to seven, if he brings the friend he was going to bring before we had to cancel). He'll be posting the scenario, and it looks like it will be Marvel Superheroes vs Supervillains. Don't think our two new member have played Supers yet.

[chas]

How Many Will Gather For TaeblewalkerScape On November 9th?

I have to leave it up to our upcoming monthly Game Master TW to answer this question. He'll include six for sure, but now we have a seventh local player available, who is an old online site pal of his. And we could have eight available if TW bring his other pal down from upstate, as he's tried to do before--once he couldn't show; once I had to cancel the whole game! I have played my Faction Flags scenario twice now, once with three players including one of the new players, and once with four, with the same guy but without TW. Since this scenario is particularly flexible in accommodating different numbers of players, and since we haven't seen an Ullar or Einar army made for it yet, which TW was going to build, I offered to let him or anyone in their GM rotation turn play it once more on a different map, and that offer still stands.

But TW has his own idea for a scenario he wants to offer. So it looks like I'll be building at least three small tournament maps this time around! He is thinking of having three Marvel hero groups fighting three of their typical villains. So he's expanding his planned scenario for the increased player count of six (we've almost always had four players over the last 24 years, mostly because we could all make Wednesday afternoons).

How will this be changing in the future? Stay tuned!

***

Just a note that we've done this before when practicing before our annual (Long) Islandscape Tournament. I also won a similar "mini-tourney" I ran here once. I even got myself a trophy, so we could display one with NYCG4 on it! Most of the trophies I've won at Islandscape have been "Worst Luck!"

[chas]

After only a bit of discussion, we've decided to go with my scenario Faction Flags again for Nov. 9, as the three new players have barely seen Customs yet, let alone Supers. We're going to keep our Generals from last time, reassigning one or two as necessary. We'll have so many people that I'll probably run two maps, and switch some people between them for Game Two. We're now expecting 7, possibly 8 players! And a number haven't met anyone or everyone yet. It should be quite a gathering!

Taeblewalker will probably run his Supers game in December for everyone, if the new guys agree to try it out. Luckily for them, with Heroscape, they have as much chance of winning as the rest of us--well, almost.


*NEW PLAYER CORNER*

1. Magic Gama is our first new addition, and has been here twice, playing against myself and then with three of our four core members. He's now still collecting lots more Scape including terrain from Kolakoski, who just uses my stuff now-- including all the customs I bought from him to "save" for us during his Scape Sale here onsite. I'm taking a few more single squads from this old collection myself, (which I introduced originally from another pal of mine) as I never collected as many of one squad as many others out there for "Squadscape." Of course, anything I keep here at The Game Palace is on tap for all of the group any time I'm not using it for a particular game.

2. Benjy is his pal, who runs Scape demos with him at a game store. He just joined the site. I had a great time meeting him for lunch recently, as he lives right here in my neighborhood. Nov. 9 will be his first play with us. I've assigned him Valkrill, since our pal Ishmel had that General in our first try at the scenario but can't come regularly. I recently sent Benjy links to the 4 Official and 29 Custom Valkrill units at his request (Books of Index) and the two Valkrill armies Ishmel used previously as well listed upthread.

3. Thrasher Darkrai may be meeting me for lunch in November, for a talk and orientation to our gang. I'm letting him choose any General, since we've now run out of them! (Maybe next year we'll have some new ones with Age of Annihilation). If TW's guest can't come, he can also use the Ullar Army he's made for her. TD is joining us now that he's moved back from upstate to NYC. We just connected in the Islandscape event thread. Although I'm not attending due to health issues, some of the old Long Island gang and Sherman Davies will meet out there for a session soon, although it won't have all the trappings of a Convention its had in the past.

4. TW's Guest from upstate missed her chance to come when TW had to cancel out. So while she may not be coming regularly, she's welcome any time. She's Scaped before, like the other new folks, and will use the Ullar Army TW will have for her. The two of them are currently working on game design and testing for a small game company up there. (She's not on the site as far as I know).

Wow--three or four new people at once! Its going to be a crowded apartment, and I'll put in the table extension for this one. We ran four smaller "tournament" maps before here at once, and we can certainly fit two medium sized maps. (I call the maps we usually use for four players large maps, but more than six players on one map would mean a very long game).

Over the years we've had a few guest players, but no one who was able to stick with regular play. This is something revolutionary for us!

Welcome to our New Scapers! We're glad you came/are coming.