Op Compass Game 6 - Surprise, Surprise

Back to the Desert for the 6th game of our ongoing Op Compass, linked scenario Campaign. In this match up the two forces are rushing to their own objectives in the middle of a Sandstorm when the weather clears and they spot each other across the Desert plain.

If you want more information on the Campaign I have set up a separate page which is updated regularly with updates on rules along with links to all the previous games,

https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/opcompass-1940-resource-page.html

The games are based on an excellent book by Robert Avery which is available from The Toofatlardies, there is a direct link to purchase the book on the Resource Page.We use 28mm figures with this scenario taking place on an 12 x 6 table using a home brew set of rules, based on Iron Ivans Disposable Hero's.

Don't laugh, at least they don't have to walk.

Historical Background 

It's the 9th December 1940 and the Italian Forts at Tummar West and Nibeiwa have fallen, it's time for the British and Empire Forces to move onto the Tummar East defences. 

The weather had deteriorated and visibility was poor as British troops raced towards the start line for their attack on Tummar East, Italian Forces drove in the opposite direction to relieve Tummar West, as the weather cleared both sides were surprised by what they saw.

Pass me a Yorkie Bar you big Trucker !

Table Set Up and Terrain 

This game was played on a 12 x 6 table which was covered in areas of scrub and low hills, the area to the top right of the photo below represents the ditch around Tummar East with a lone unoccupied watch tower.

The following Special Rules are in force (see Resource Page for full details.

All vehicles which move off the tracks are subject to a Difficult Going Roll.

Sandstorm  - there are 3 Sandstorms placed down the long center axis of the table, one in the centre and the other two equidistant to the short table edges. I used some randomly shaped pieces of card about 12 inches round to represent, see Resource Page for full details.

British Briefing

The day is going well and Italian Forts have fallen, it's time to move on to the next. No time to rest. Move your forces off the far end of the table defeating any opposition you meet. Don't expect reinforcements, this time you are on your own.

Your troops are as follows,

In the lead of the convoy are 3 Bren Carriers, each contains 3 men who may dismount as either a Boyes AT Team or a Bren LMG team.

Next up are eight trucks, the first four contain,

Truck 1 - HQ Section of Officer, Radioman and Sgt, a 2 man 2" Mortar Team and a 2 man Boyes AT Team.
Trucks 2,3,4 each with 1 x 10 man squad Sgt with SMG, 2 man Bren Team and 7 Rifles.

The following 4 trucks are the same with the rear of the column brought up by two Bren Carriers, one with a 3 man HMG Team, the other with a Mortar.

The front of the column is halfway down the table opposite the front of the Italian column.

Italian Briefing

Things haven't been going to well, reports coming in are all about losses and surrender, Tummar East will no doubt be the next target. It's time to fight back and get troops in motion towards Tummar West and hold the line there.

Get the convoy of trucks off the bottom end of the table as soon as you can, the rest of your troops will arrive on foot. Engage any British troops you find and stop them from exiting the top of the board.

The Italian Convoy sets up on the opposite side of the table with the front of the column level with the watch tower and the front of the British.

1 x Staff Car with 2 x HQ Figs 
6 x Trucks each with 1 x Italian Squad of 1 Sgt with SMG, 1 LMG with two men and 7 Rifles.

The remaining Italian Troops will arrive at random, place an Italian Reinforcements card to the activation deck, each time the card comes out the Italian players will pick one card at random to add to the game deck. The new unit arriving on the next turn of its card.

Italian Reinforcement Cards
4 x Rifle Section each with 1 Sgt with SMG and 10 Sgts
4 x LMG Sections each with 1 Sgt with SMG, 2 x 3 man LMG teams and 2 Rifles 
2 x Tankette Sections 3 x L3 each
1 x Medium Mortar
1 x 3 Man MMG Team
1 x 10 man Bersaglieri Motorcycle Squad 1 Sgt with SMG, 2 man LMG team and 7 Rifles.

Draw 4 cards at random prior to the start of the game and add to the deck, the remainder added as reinforcements as above.

How did we get on

Another great game, what I have really enjoyed about the match ups so far is we are playing with troop types and mixes of troops that we normally wouldn't go near and as a result  having fun.

Before we started the game I thought this would be an easy win for the Italians, dash the convoy off the table and hold the line with superior numbers preventing the British from exiting the table, Bing bang bosh, easy win for the Italians and onto game 7.

It all went wrong for the Italian Convoy very early on, I had command of the rear of the Allied Column and immediately on spotting the enemy trucks, I debussed my Mortar and Vickers. Hands up I got lucky, I underestimated my Mortar aim point and missed by a good 10 inch, spun the spinny thing and rolled my dice and deviated right on top of one of the trucks. The same turn, the truck in the photo two up was bogged down and easy prey for the Vickers. 

Meanwhile at the other end of the table the Italians had got all their Tankettes on the table early doors and formed a solid (ish) line on the hills just North of the Watch Tower. L3s aren't much use but 6 of them with 2 machine guns a piece is a decent amount of firepower.

The British Infantry took up a position on the low ridge in front of the Italians, the Bren Carriers selected Boyes AT mode and a big firefight started up.

But even with some cover the Boyes teams and the Allied Mortars started to pick the tiny Italian Machines off one by one. Things hadn't got any better for the Convoy either, turn after turn trucks where taken out by Mortar and HMG fire until the Italians escaped with only a Staff Car and one Truck.

Under the cover of one of the Sandstorms the South African Infantry dashed across the open gap and into the trench and the Watch Tower in an attempt to break the deadlock.

With the convoy destroyed I had the chance to reposition the HMG and pour some more fire on the Italians.

One red meeple equals one morale fail, safe to say this Italian Tank wasnt happy !

The British and Empire Commander declared that he had insufficient forces to breakout and the game ended in a draw. The Brits had prevented the Italian Convoy leaving the table whilst the Italians had prevented the British from breaking out.

So that's 2 points a piece and the British lead in the Campaign 15 to 9. 

Just remains to say that my brand new Bersaglieri Motorcycle Squad was the last reinforcement card out of the deck and spent a grand total of one turn on the table, on the plus side it didn't take any casualties and avoided the traditional first game drumming.

The Op Compass Campaign will take a break for a while whilst we concentrate on our yearly Naval Campaign. See you all soon.

Downlod Gta 3 Highle Compresed In 98.0Mb By (Ayush Anand)

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gta 3 minimum reqirments2 gb ram1 tb hardiskintel pentunium processorwindow 7.8.xp only                                      (plese downlod winrar software to wotk )                                                     (also downlod direct x)                                                      (plese disable antivirus)the game is given by ayush anand  and sponserd by y.yada gamerGrand Theft Auto III is an action-adventure video game developed by DMA Design and published by Rockstar Games. It was released in October 2001 for the PlayStation 2, in May 2002 for Microsoft Windows, and in October 2003 for the Xbox. A remastered version of the game was released on mobile platforms in 2011, for the game's tenth anniversary. It is the fifth title in the Grand Theft Auto series, and the first main entry since 1999's Grand Theft Auto 2. Set within the fictional Liberty City, based on New York City, the game follows Claude after he is left for dead and quickly becomes entangled in a world of gangs, crime and corruption.The game is played from a third-person perspective and its world is navigated on foot or by vehicle. The open world design lets players freely roam Liberty City, consisting of three main islands. Development was shared between DMA Design, based in Edinburgh and Rockstar, in New York City. Much of the development work constituted transforming popular series elements into a fully 3D world. The game was delayed following the September 11 attacks, to allow the team to change references and gameplay deemed inappropriate.Upon release, the game received critical acclaim, with praise particularly directed at its concept and gameplay. However, the game also generated controversy, with criticism directed at the depiction of violence and sexual content. Grand Theft Auto III became the best-selling video game of 2001, and has sold over 14.5 million copies since. Considered one of the most significant titles of the sixth generation of video games, and by many critics as one of the greatest video games of all time, it won year-end accolades, including Game of the Year awards from several gaming publications. Since its release, it has received numerous ports to many gaming platforms. Its successor, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, was released in October 2002.

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Tenth Anniversary!

Today, the Ides of February, is the 10th anniversary of the CRPG Addict.

I have no long screed for you today. The value that I get from this project, my gratitude toward my readers and commenters, my hopes for the future, have mostly been encapsulated already in my recent 10th-anniversary entries:
             

• 10 Reasons I'm Still Blogging
• My 10 Most Controversial Opinions
• 10 Years of Commenters

             
I had originally planned to do a lot more of these, but most of my ideas required going through my blog from the beginning. I thought I was going to have time for that during the winter, but it turned out not to be the case. I might still get to a few more.

Today, I'd like to simply announce three things:

1. If you haven't already noticed, we have a new banner! Sebastian from Switzerland, who previously made my GIMLET logo, put this together. (That's part of my map of Fate: Gates of Dawn in the background.) I just love the shield.

2. I just posted a couple of helpful new pages. Both were created by longtime commenter Abacos, and the first organizes many of the games I've played into their series, both in a macro sense (e.g., "Forgotten Realms") and a micro sense (e.g., "Infinity Engine"). Yes, he has places for those yet-to-come, too.

The second page is a long-awaited index of special topics entries over the years. Both are accessible from the right-hand navigation bar on desktop and from the top navigation menu on mobile.

3. Finally: You're going to be seeing a fairly significant change on "The CRPG Addict": a relaxing of my rules to allow me, slowly and cautiously, to move forward without necessarily finishing every game from the previous year.

I know this move will not be popular with everyone, but I feel it is necessary. After more than two years of work, I still have 23 games remaining in 1992. There are 80 for 1993. I've managed to cover 350 games in 10 years; that many again will barely get us through 1997. I want to play Baldur's Gate and Morrowind again before I die, not to mention some classics that I've never played, like the first two Fallout games, Planescape: Torment, and Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates.

However, I'm going to put some strict rules on the endeavor, one of which is that at least one-third of the games that make up my "upcoming" list will be the earliest games that I have not yet played. I will thus still keep sweeping up the past, still finishing years, still designating "games of the year," and so on.

Beyond that, I don't really want to explain my rules just yet. I floated some ideas with my Patreon subscribers and received some great comments. I'm going to experiment with a few methods of selecting games from my long list. However, there is one rule that is very important for me, to ensure that my blog still remains chronologically relevant: I can play no game before its antecedents. I mean this in several ways:
            

• Direct antecedents: Icewind Dale must come before Icewind Dale II.

• Spiritual antecedents: Dark Souls must come before Lords of the Fallen because the latter is clearly designed to evoke the former.

• Technical antecedents: Neverwinter Nights must come before Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic because they both use the Aurora Engine.

• Cultural antecedents: Abandoned Places: A Time for Heroes, the first Hungarian RPG, should come before any other RPGs from Hungary.

• Source antecedents: Even though they're not part of the same specific series, Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny must come before The Dark Eye: Drakensang because they're both based on The Dark Eye tabletop setting.

• Major thematic antecedents: The first game to do something significant should be played before other games that include the same element. For instance, Ultima Underworld should be played before any other dungeon crawler with continuous movement.

• Personnel antecedents: As the first BioWare game, Baldur's Gate should come before any others from that developer.

           
You can see how this rule ensures that I won't be jumping to Mass Effect 3 any time in the near future. Indeed, the "central tendency" of my blog will likely remain in the early 1990s for quite some time. Trust me for now, watch what happens over the next year, and we'll do an evaluation on my next anniversary. In the meantime, help me by telling me if I've missed any clear antecedents. Thematic and technical ones are particularly difficult to look up. If you see a game on my "upcoming" list that shouldn't be there, let me know and I'll replace it with its antecedent, if I agree.

Thanks as always for your readership and participation. I have no intention of quitting or slowing down, and I look forward to the next 10 years!

Beach Fallacy

This month we celebrate our store's 15th anniversary. I am happy to report in year 15 I learned from failure. Failure means I'm still trying to innovate and change things up. This particular failure was one I recently realized while speaking with a friend who just sold his business. It comes down to this: The idea you can remotely manage your business with an installed manager is temporary at best. The 4-Hour Work Week may work for a turn key business, but most businesses are not even remotely turn key.

You may have a great manager, but they won't be there forever, and the process of getting a new one trained up, will be time consuming and not conducive to lying on a beach. So even if you have the skills to train them, how fast can they reasonably achieve mastery? In general, the concept of remote management for me has gone from something I might be able to do full time to something that may be possible half the time, that half determined by chaos in my business.

So I may be able to live in Mexico, for example, six months out of the year, a random six months at that, but I better have a place to stay when it all falls apart and I have to retrain staff for six months back home. The idea you can do this all remotely, living elsewhere, is a myth.

Here are the three areas that I see, that if I were a better owner or had magic powers, I would be able to solve to extend my six month theory. If you think you have skills in how to quickly train up candidates in these areas, this is where I would pay for a consultant:

• Gross versus Net. A bad manager will spend your business into the ground with no apparent benefit. An alright manager will spend your money on long term investments that pay off later, but still leave you in the poor house right now, as they usually don't understand cash flow. A great manager will always spend cautiously and be conscious of the bottom line and the cash needs of the business.

I was not a "great manager" of cash until I had distributions from the net profit. I became incentivized to focus on net. Unless you can incentivize someone with bonuses for producing net profit, you'll always be watching your back (which you will always do regardless). Or you may train someone to be so overly cautious with your money, they take no chances at all.

• Tight Employee Management. A good manager sets employee expectations via an accurate job description and solid training. The manager manages those expectations through the employees tenure by means of additional training and corrective action. Then they reward or penalize employee performance based on how those results are achieved. 

Most managers, most people, can't do this. They simply can't without some very good training, and even then it's not within most peoples personality range. I can tell you from the corporate world that most managers are untrained and awful. Training a manager to master this process will ensure you always have good people, but good luck finding someone skilled at this for what you can afford and good luck developing the skills in yourself when you've probably only had bad managers.

• Inventory Accuracy. Does anyone other than you really care if your POS system is only 90% accurate? Inventory accuracy results in better buying practices, higher sales, lower taxes, and happier customers. Yet, it is very difficult to have a manager who cares about this accuracy as much as you. It is very much tied to net profit. If you find someone outraged at inaccuracy, and they have skill in the other two areas, find a way to groom that employee for manager. 

So those are the three areas that require an owner to be involved in a store on a near daily basis. This does not mean your store sucks if this is the case. In fact, there's no reason this should harm the value of your business if, say, you wanted to sell it. Someone with these three concerns will always need to have their hand on the wheel, but it's unlikely to be an employee for very long.

Super AiG Screenshots Of The Year: 2019

This week on Super Adventures, I've got a page full of screenshots with writing under them for you. Sounds pretty typical for this site, but this time there's a twist: you've seen them all before! There's absolutely no new content here for you!

I usually do my Screenshots of the Year post on New Years Eve, but I didn't see the point in keeping you waiting a few weeks when I'm already done writing about games this year. I'm taking another break, no more games until the end of January I'm afraid.

Taking all these two months breaks has really helped me out though. For one thing it meant I only had half the amount of posts to look through when I was picking out my favourite screenshots. Plus it meant that my short list turned out to be a lot shorter than usual, so I didn't have to agonise over what screens and GIFs made it into the final post. The moral of the story, doing less work is... good?

(If you see a screenshot from a modern system you can probably click it to see the same image in glorious 720p!)

Read on »

20Mm Big CoC At The WHC Gavrus: Part 1

 I've been badgering Mark Freeth about CoC for about a year now, first of all to do it in 20mm, then of course its turned into 28mm. Meanwhile, The group of lads from Huntingdon who do an annual game to remember their sadly missed old friend Carlo were coming to Basingstoke.
Now I knew they had played CoC, and I also recall Carlo being partial to the game, so I thought it ideal to use them as guinea pigs for trying out Big CoC! They were more than happy to go along with it, so a format was put together. As the 28mm stuff is still being painted (nearly done though!) this weekend would have to be in 20mm
I thought that for 8 players, a Big CoC campaign of 4 games over the weekend from Friday night through to Sunday afternoon would work fine. I allowed for an extra scenario just in case things went a bit quick.
What to do?
An obvious choice was Normandy, I had all the kit required, and of course, Mark has his amazing collection of Mick Sewell buildings which were aching for a run out.
I only needed a reinforced company for both British and Germans, plus various AFV options, all of which we had.

 The scenario was to be the action at Gavrus on 29/30th June 1944, when the 2nd battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders came under ferocious attack by the 10th SS 'Frundsberg' division.
The battle is reasonably well documented, particularly in Iain Dalglish's book "Operation Epsom: Over the Battlefield" which includes some fantastic aerial photographs of the area taken just days after the battle, these would substitute perfectly for maps.
I came up with 4/5 scenarios with games running into each other to replicate the fighting:
The first was a bit of a "what if" with infantry companies from each side recce-ing the village of Bougy about a mile South of Gavrus, the Germans supported by an armoured infantry platoon in half-tracks and the jocks by their carrier platoon. Both sides did recce Bougy, but I doubt they did it in such strength or necessarily at the same time, but I thought it would give a good introduction for the players, and set the tone for the weekend.
This was to be a fairly standard Patrol scenario as per the CoC rules, with each side receiving an additional 8 points of support to be drawn from a fairly limited selection

                                                           Main road at Gavrus

                                                          The British briefing:      

                                                        

                                                   Scenario 1:  BOUGY- BRITISH

This depicts the action between The 2^nd Argylls and the 10^th SS Frundsberg Division early in the morning of 29^thJune 1944, around the village of Bougy. This is a patrol action as per the main CoC rules. National characteristics as per the main rules.

7 Patrol Markers will be placed along the respective baselines, resulting in 6 Jump off Points. Vehicles will enter via the Gavrus road.

The adjutant may either: Act as an off table senior leader for 1 platoon. OR for the entire company, in which case he will just add +1 to their deployment rolls

Casualties from scenario 1 will carry over to scenario 2.

British Infantry: 3 platoons, C Company 2^nd Argylls, Regular, 5 command dice

 Each as follows:

HQ:

Lieutenant: Senior Leader armed with a pistol. 

Platoon Sargent: Senior Leader armed with SMG

PIAT Team: 2 men

2" Mortar Team: 2 men.

Sections 1 to 3:

Corporal: Junior Leader armed with SMG 

Bren Team: Bren LMG 3 crew

Rifle Team: 6 riflemen

SUPPORT OPTIONS:

List 1:  Medic, Adjutant(max 1),,

List 2:  PIAT Team: 2 men, 2" Mortar Team: 2 men.

List 3:  Sniper Team, Universal carrier Bren Team with Junior Leader.

List 4:  6 pdr Anti-tank gun with 5 crew and Junior Leader (max 1)

ELEMENTS, CARRIER PLATOON, 2^ND ARGYLLS: , Regular, 5 command dice.

1 x Universal Carrier with driver, 2 man Bren team, and Senior Leader with pistol

Section 1:

1 x Universal Carrier with driver, 2 man Bren team, and Junior Leader with SMG

1 x Universal Carrier with driver, 2 man 2" mortar team, and 1 rifleman

Section 2:

1 x Universal Carrier with driver, 2 man Bren team, and Junior Leader with SMG

1 x Universal Carrier with driver, 2 man PIAT team, and 1 rifleman

Section 3:

1 x Universal Carrier with driver, 2 man Bren team, and Junior Leader with SMG

1 x Universal Carrier with driver, 2 man 2" mortar team, and 1 rifleman, OR 2 man PIAT team, and 1 rifleman

No Support may be allocated to the Carrier Platoon

Total support points.8

Each asset picked must be allocated to a specific platoon for the duration of scenario 1

                                                  Recce half-tracks move up( die-cast vehicles, AB crew)

                                                        The German briefing:

                                                   Scenario 1:  BOUGY -GERMAN

This depicts the action between The 2^nd Argylls and The 10^th SS Frundsberg Division early in the morning of 29^thJune 1944, around the village of Bougy.  This is a patrol action as per the main CoC rules. National characteristics as per the main rules.

7 Patrol Markers will be placed along the respective baselines, resulting in 6 Jump off Points.

Vehicles will enter via the western road

The adjutant may either: Act as an off table senior leader for 1 platoon. OR for the entire company, in which case he will just add +1 to their deployment rolls.

Senior Leaders must be allocated to a specific platoon

Casualties from scenario 1 will carry over to scenario 2,

German Infantry: 3 platoons of the 1^st Company 22^nd Pzrgrenadier Regt, Regular, 5 command dice

 Each as follows:

HQ:

Obersharfurher: Senior Leader armed with a SMG. 

3 Panzerfaust 30.

Sections 1 to 3:

Scarfurher: Junior Leader armed with SMG 

M42 Team: MG42 LMG 3 crew, 1 Rifleman

M42 Team: MG42 LMG 3 crew, 1 Rifleman

SUPPORT OPTIONS:

List 1:  Medic, Adjutant (max 1), Panzerfaust 30

List 2: Senior Leader armed with a SMG.  Panzerschreck team with 2 crew

List 3:  Sniper Team, Panzergrenadier team: Junior Leader armed with SMG, 5 riflemen.

List 4:  Mg 42 MMG team and 5 crew

List 5: Sdkfz 250/8 with junior leader, 250/9 with junior leader

3rd Kompanie, 10^thSS Panzer  Aufklarungs-Abteilung:  Superior Regular *, 5 command dice

1 x Sdkfz 251/10 + Obersharfurher: Senior Leader armed with a SMG.

 Panzerschreck team with 2 crew

3 x Infantry sectionseach:

1 x Sdkfz 251/1 Scarfurher: Junior Leader armed with SMG

M42 Team: MG42 LMG 3 crew, 1 Rifleman

M42 Team: MG42 LMG 3 crew, 1 Rifleman

*Superior regulars treat a single 6 on their command dice as a 5. Other rolls are unchanged.

No Support may be allocated to the Recce platoon

Total support points.8

 Each asset picked must be allocated to a specific platoon for the duration of scenario 1

                                             Cautious grenadiers (Elhiem and Adler figures)

Convergence Of Cyriss - A Side Project

This post is going to start a hobby documentary on how to rehabilitate poorly treated used models and salvage an army using hobby skills. It'll also document my dabbling with Convergence of Cyriss from a gameplay perspective. I'm still mainlining Trolls, but I figure I'll play with my new CoC every once and a while. 

Why start Convergence?

I've had bits and pieces of CoC sitting in my closet for years. Maybe a year after release I picked up an original Prime Axiom and Transfinite Emergence Projector basically new in box for like $60 for the two of them, figuring it was a deal too good to pass up.  I also picked up a friends Aurora and Clockwork Angels when he was selling out of the faction (my wife said they were pretty).

In terms of design, they've certainly appealed to me from a gameplay perspective. With the latest release of Orion for the faction they really seem like they have the tools to be able to deal with pretty much anything, which is something PP has been setting as their goal for their limited release factions. I also kind of like the idea that once I've bought into it, I'm basically done with major purchases. It's all about experimenting with the limited toolset as the meta changes.

Also the focus induction mechanics seem really cool. I appreciate the puzzle in each game of trying to mastermind how to make the clockwork like system of getting the focus around to maximize efficiency.  I'm an engineer by trade and the way PP made that clockwork system into a game mechanic really intrigues me.

What made me actually jump into the faction was that I found two separate retail for retail trade opportunities.  Someone was looking to trade CoC for 40k Orks, and was interested in the entire lot I've been looking to offload for years.  I also found someone who wanted nearly all of the Circle I was trying to offload and we worked out equitable trades.  It's always a great value when you can do retail-for-retail trades on models you own to get models you want.  The downside is that the very large lot I got in exchange for my old Orks was largely piles of crap that I had to salvage. Luckily the trade I got for Circle was excellent.

What to do when you get badly treated used models

One mistake I made on my first trade with the Orks for CoC was not asking for pictures of the models I was trading for. Note to readers: Always Ask For Pictures When Trading On The Internet.

This ended up being pretty bad overall, since the models I got were nearly all broken, some of which looked like they were given to a young child to try and paint, and some were clearly nicely done conversions that were then traded to this person who then mistreated them.  My trade was to include an Axis and Lucant, but since the models weren't complete the person included a second version of the models, all of which still required bits orders from PP or just wholesale replacement of the model to get something functional.

Nearly every walking Vector chassis had all their legs broken off at weird angles, and two of the Inverters I got are missing the chain+flail bit altogether.  What's worse is that I found the unit of Reciprocators I received weren't actually glued to their bases. The person used blue sticky tac and then spray painted metallic spray over all of it.

I didn't take pictures before I started fixing everything, but you can see exactly how awkward the pinning/leg reattachment went on some of the jacks, as well as how bad the paint job was:

 

Nothing like sticky tac for getting models on bases!

 

It was actually piled all the way up in huge amounts. Lots of scraping to clean it up.

Talk about a mess.

You can see what lengths I went through to get the legs back on. This was the only way it'd fit.

It looks like a 5 year old was told to pain this guy. The leg in the air was the only leg actually still glued to the model when I received it.

The solution in nearly all cases was simply pinning, lots and lots of pinning legs back after dry fitting to see which pieces went with which broken jacks.  Fortunately I was able to get all my vectors up and stable on their bases.

My unit of Reciprocators were missing the tips of their halberds. These are near impossible to find bits for online, but I ended up going with the Steelsoul Protector spear from PP and luckily I was able to use the tip of the spear as a replacement for the halberds and have it work out nicely.  All in all it was $30 in bits from PP to replace parts either too broken to salvage or bits that were straight up missing. Not terrible, but not great either.

What was worse is that the Clockwork Angels and Auora model I had effectively fell apart over the years they sat in my closet.  My friend had used some really thin pins and apparently a not very good superglue.  I basically re-pinned everything with the Angels, though making sure to use a much thicker paperclip as my pinning.

Thicker pinning = Better Pinning

Between pinning up Aurora, 3 units of Clockwork Angels, and building a fresh Father Lucant, lets just say I never want to build anything like that again. My fingers still hurt from all the pinning I had to do to get those things securely built!

 

Next Steps

Once everything has been built up (I still have a few servitors to do), I'm going to apply basing material and then test out using a metallic spray paint as a base coat. I'll have to paint the base and the basing material black again, but it theoretically allows me a lot of speed up in terms of getting the army painted up quickly.  I definitely like the metal look, and I'm really keen on the idea of an easy to paint faction. 

Gaming Results

I've been wanting to play a Synergy caster since forever and now I have my first opportunity with Syntherion.  He's also got a really nice toolkit and is pretty well rounded. Apparently he's fallen out of favor with the larger meta as very few people seem to be talking about him, but I wanted to give him a shot.

Since I was playing a friend of mine who is just hopping back into the game with a brand new faction (Circle), I decided to avoid some of the more blatant power pieces like the TEP or Axiom, just giving things a go with heavies in Destruction Initiative:

Syntherion
-Corrolary
-Cipher

-Cipher

-Assimilator

-Assimilator
-Inverter

-Diffuser

Optifex Directive

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

Elimination Servitors

Elimination Servitors

Attunement Servitors

Attunement Servitors

I squared off against Tanith running

Feral

Stalker

Loki

Reeves of Orboros + UA

Skinwalkers + UA

Wolves of Orboros + UA

Gallows Grove x2

Unfortunately for me the first time I put CoC on the table I had…performance issues.

I initially thought that being a WM veteran of over 15 years I'd be able to master the Focus Induction mechanic in my first game. I was wrong. We weren't playing on clock since my friend isn't really used to the game yet, but if I was on clock I'd have surely clocked out given the amount of time it took me to figure out how to allocate and induct in the right order to accomplish everything I wanted to in each turn.

I was actually holding my own fairly well in the game, but a missed Magnetic Hold screwed up my plans and then after charging in on the Feral+Loki on my feat turn, I didn't realize a mistake: I charged in where I'd trigger admonition, but this charge was the last activation for me in the turn – meaning the Stalker with Admonition could move to threaten Syntherion and not worry about anything else coming in.

I also was bad at contesting when I easily could have multiple times, so rather than having to take the assassination victory, my opponent just had to kill an objective and survive a free strike to move Loki into another zone to win on scenario.

After the game I realized that taking a single TEP in the list would dramatically improve my ability to handle the 20+ infantry on the table, allowing me to better focus on getting up in the trading game.

So basically Destruction Initiative = 1 TEP minimum, at least to start.  Given how excited I am to play with that piece, let alone the possibility of a few lists running two of them, this seems like a good general principle to start with.