That's not a big deal, if 4E works for you why change it? They've got so much source material you could not get bored with the current edition for many many years.

Shadowrun 5E now with 200 dice pool rolls and even more factors to consider!

I don't know if any of you guys know of this man, but I met him today at school. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Grubb

He was a guest speaker in my game narrative class (need the vlpa credit) and he talked our ear off about rpgs and table-top games and D&D and stuff. Very informative about that type of stuff, though nothing I was centrally interested in (otherwise I'd be in this thread way more).

Blast from the past! Wish I could have been in your class

I have recently started playing Ars Magica (5th Edition) and have found it quite enjoyable. Any other players on here?

Lost all three games in my first Warhammer 40k tournament. Fucking Flamers of Tzeentch! My first two games were against Daemons with the usual Plaguebearers/Flamers/Screamers arrangement, which was annoying for my Wolves. We did do a number on Death Company on game 3 where my opponent only won my secondary objectives since my Land Speeder roasted his scouts trying to make off with the relic and only had a Terminator squad with Corbulo and a Librarian left alive.

I get that Daemons have gotten better, but I still can't understand how you lost to them Bad rolls I assume? I haven't lost a game to them yet.

Are your opponents not using Flamers? Template that wounds and glances EVERYTHING on a 4+ with no armor or cover saves? I don't even get rolls!

I tend not to let them get close enough for that to happen. Then again, I DO play Necrons. Usually no flyer spam though; tends to get boring.

That's really hard to do when they have to deep strike. I tried bunching up my dudes on game two making myself hard to approach, but we got no objectives (were playing Emperor's will) besides our home one and lost by secondary objectives.

the flamer/screamer combo is actually pretty nasty now. If they can Deepstrike or outflank near you you are in for a lot of hurt.

I always prepare for things like that. I'm pretty good at it. If there was one thing my parents gave me, it's a mind for strategy games. Not much else, but it's something.

care to elaborate? Flank denial? Bubblewrap? I'm not just talking about one or 2 units in a wider army - the tournament meta here is to pick the best combo in the codex and spam it, so we're seeing daemon armies that are all flamers now.

WELL I had a good post and my internet disconnected. I'll sum it up:
Always assume your opponent has units to deepstrike. In the case of Daemons, they won't have enough troops to wipe out your entire unit if they're doing LOLSPAMFLAMER. It really depends what's going on in the current game you play, but I know in the last one I played against Daemons (about a few weeks ago maybe?) I believe I remember him deepstriking half of them and fielding the others regularly. Necrons generally have enough speed to take the ones fielded already quickly enough (especially Deathmarks) and your opponent has to rely on luck with the deepstriking. If they do, you shouldn't even worry. Always have a couple units ready to outflank. I generally use a Deathmark squad and a throwaway Warrior squad.

Ahhhhh. You play Necrons. That makes sense then. 6th ed is full of "hard counter" armies, and daemon flamers is one of the ones that works really nastily against foot guard. It's not difficult for a unit of, say, 7 flamers to just about insta-fuck a blob of 30 guardsmen.

As much as I love D&D 4E, it's supremely easy to make a cheesy min/max character. But you know what? That's fun, too. Especially for a level 1 character.

I wonder how the next Encounters season will go once I introduce my Human Hybrid Warlock/Executioner who deals 4d8+6 damage every turn with an at-will melee basic attack...

At level 1!?!

Yep. I'm Human, so I have 2 feats. The first feat is Mindbite Scorn, letting my Warlock's Curse deal an extra 1d6 psychic damage. The second feat is Killing Curse, increasing the Curse damage to d8s instead of d6s. And since the other class is Executioner, I get a +1d8 damage on any and every weapon attack once per round. And I'm using a Longsword.

So with my Eldritch Strike, a Warlock at-will melee basic attack, my damage is 1d8 sword + 1d8 Curse + 1d8 Curse Pt. II + 1d8 Attack Finesse + 5 for my Con modifier + 1 for holding my sword in two hands = 4d8+6 damage every round.

That's pretty hardcore, man. Awesome combo and it works like a charm I see. and here I am with my level 3 Bard still sporting a 1d8 +1 base attack :') Granted we're playing 3.5 and once I get the Dashing Swordsman specialty class (oh yes) it'll get more awesome

3.5? Roll an Assassin. Take down dragons in one round like a champ.

But regarding 3.5, I will always love the Monk. Scaling weapon damage? Hell yeah! Stuns and incapacitates? Hell yeah! Immunity to diseases and aging? YES, SIR!!

I used to like warlocks, but now I know Zelkiiro plays one

And wtf, this attack is fucking overkill for your level!

I'm playing a lv. 12 Tiefling warlock named Aknoch. I have a proficiency with rapiers, I'm like a noble gay historian, quite badass. I talk 5 languages too.

Well, the scale of damage in 4E is way higher than in previous editions, but still, that's pretty ridiculous...

Why the hell are you applying a constitution modifier to an attack roll though? 4E...

I think my strongest attack is "Iron Spike of Dis". 10 of range, CON vs REF, 3d10 + CON modifier (in my case +5), hit: target is immobilized, miss: half damage. + my implement (my staff of 3d6 + 5 necrotic damage)

Eldritch Strike uses either Constitution or Charisma for its attack roll. I went with Con.

Well, since you're level 12, your Curse does 2d6 without Mindbite Scorn, so there's that.

4d8+6 is just the total of all the effects I churn out. Eldritch Strike all by itself does 1d8+6. :V

So, I've been hanging around at one of the local game shops assembling Shoota Boyz and the store owner gets in the new Chaos Daemon Codex. I am proud to say that Flamers and Screamers of Tzeentch are no longer the power gamer bullshit they used to be. All hail Phil Kelly.

Yeah, new daemons codex looks pretty cool. Although I do think its pretty cynical that they did the WD update which buffed flamers/screamers, let all the powergamers buy some, then hit them with the nerf bat.But I think Kelly generally writes good rules.

Had a pretty cool game this afternoon. My mate wanted to try a necron build he'd found on a podcast. 3 units of warriors, imhotek and all the gubbins to have every unit able to teleport across the board each turn, even out of combat. I took a list from the new Dark angels codex. Came right down to the wire, but in the end his mobility kept me on the back foot all game. In the end he won the game by regrouping 9 inches onto an objective and me failing a charge with some bikes.

Man, Ghost Stories is really damn hard, we played 2 games today and no victories again I think I played like 15 games so far and I only have one victory and we play at the easiest mode! After that, we played our Shadowrun campaign, but this is quite complicated and we weren't used to it (only the 2nd time we play) so it was quite long. The highlight of the night was when Necroticism174's character (a badass black dwarf) almost threw a frag grenade in a small bar while he was in it, he decided to shoot the thugs with his machine gun instead, probably a wise decision...

Had a first go at playing Apocalypse this weekend:







As an experiment, it was a mixed success. We stupidly played lengthways across all my terrain, which is about 2 tables. Which just meant massive traffic jams with all those tanks on the board. It also meant that my brother had to drive all his stuff straight into the teeth of an Imperial guard artillery corps. It sorta bogged down after turn 3 due to the lack of titans/D-weapons. Would have been much better with an extra 2 tables and playing width-ways. We also, stupidly, just went for anhilation victory conditions rather than mission objectives. Still, it was cool seeing what 35 terminators on the board can do (ie not much when they get shot by that much stuff haha)

Thoughts for next time: need to borrow an extra 2 tables and another 2 players. And take the apocalypse formations with their D-weapons, Orbital barrage etc rules.

For any Twilight Imperium players out there, what are your favorite races to play? I've only played about a half dozen times, but the Ghosts of Creuss are fantastic when my PDSs start lighting things up through wormholes. The homeworld sucks badly though. I also enjoyed playing as the Universities of Jol-Nar because the racial tech is great for surprise attacks and upping the speed on Dreadnoughts, War Suns, and Carriers. I also experimented a little with advanced fighters, but they kind of suck terribly when facing down 2 Destroyers with the right tech. Thoughts?

Cool! I <3 Twilight Imperium! I played 2 games with 2 different races so far.

The first one I got the Mentak coalition, they're a very good offensive race with a good fleet at the beginning, but they suck for trading (well, they can steal trade goods) and diplomacy, I managed to piss off almost everyone with my fleet but in the end but in the end, the player who had the Emirates of Hacan (the Lions) won the game. You have only 1 home planet (4 resources, 1 influence) so expand quickly at the start to build your fleet. I suggest that you go berserk and act like a rogue or a pirate. They're definitely a cool race to play, just don't expect to have friends during the game!

For the second game, I played with the Sardakk N'orr (big ugly bugs) and I won. They're a very good compromise between attack and diplomacy. Your special power (+1 to all combat rolls) will give you the edge in almost every battles but the problem is that you start with a very small fleet. It's a simple race to play, attack to get what you want and negotiate after. I had a difficult start but I managed to build a nice fleet and do my objectives.

Not true, it's Mongeon who won. He was playing the Yssaril Tribes.

Oh right, these little frog fuckers. The Hacan were 2nd place and you were 4th place!

To be fair, the Trade Cats usually do exceptionally well. No offense, it does not take a whole lot of skill playing them to control every economic interaction if you play your action cards right. I despise the Yssaril Tribes though. It's like battling a thousand green little Gollums.

I'd like to try the Barony of Letnev or the Universities of Jol-Nar next time.

By luck of the draw, I've never played as or against the Barony. What's their racial bonus[es]? My advice for the Jol-Nar would be to expand rapidly, turtle, and let your economy and reap the rewards of massive technology advances. The -1 bonus to all attacks doesn't sound that bad, but unless you're using Cruisers or Dreadnoughts or massive quantities of other ships, expect to lost everything. PDSs are highly recommended as well as any tech that let's you fire before regular combat. Also, make us of that good trade agreement. It's the only way I survived being next to the Sardakk N'orr.

Awesome table, Scorntyrant. Makes me wish I was still active with 40k. New Tau stuff looks impressive, I'm waiting for the urge to start an Ork army to get strong enough I will turn green and talk even more retardedly, then it will be time.

I think Orks were supposed to get a new codex this year. Don't quote me on that.

Is there a campaign setting based on the twilight saga?

It would not surprise me - they have been pushing them out pretty quick of late. So I'd guess Black Templars get a new one sometime around 2021.

Anyway, table looks a bit scrappy due to bad lighting and subbing in drinking glasses as drop pods, sitting dice on tanks as hull point markers etc, I'm aiming to finish it sometime soon. In other news, a mate of mine gave me an entire unbuilt Blood Angels army recently. So I cant see myself needing to buy anything except paint for at least a year.

I've been running a half-comical campaign on the old, crappy Palladium Games Heroes Unlimted system for the daughters and their friends. The system is sucky as hell, but it's been fun. Last time, they found out that a particular boulder in a Zen garden has actually been their boss all along, and that you can't kill a 100 kg mushroom by simply punching it repeatedly. A little bit of surrealism never hurt anyone.

What I'd really love to do is to create a mini-campaign of sorts for three to five sessions, either in a post-apocalyptic Fallout environment based on certain ideas I got when I browsed my old Gamma World books I found while looking for books a few weeks ago, or on an enormous seed ship on its 2000 year trip to Alpha Centauri with a million people sleeping in ice and a few dozen awake and doing the maintenance. Both would have immense story-telling potential. Maybe I should get the old crew together once again... multiple dudes having kids killed the group a decade ago, but now everybody either has their kids in the 6+ years age bracket or none of them, and things might be possible on a limited scale once again.