I headed down to Frontline Gaming this weekend and got a couple of games in. I learned a lot, especially getting thrashed royally by Israel’s Tau. The new Forge World editions really help those blue skins out!

In the last couple of weeks, I have refused to change my army list. The goal was to learn to play the list, finding all the tricks I could. It was as “refined” as I wanted it, and I promised myself I wouldn’t make any massive changes. I feel I’ve kept to that promise. I have, however, made a few adjustments.

First, I found that the Plasma Siphon just never mattered. Even when plasma was flowing into my units the attacker was more than 12″ away. So I dropped it, in favor of a Warding Staff in my Terminator Squad. It was a small change, after all. I played 3 games with it, and found that I rarely used the grenades that the Xenos Inquisitor was carrying, as well. When I did, I usually didn’t even need them!

Which brings me to the thrashing by Israel down at Frontline Gaming. Oh man did he wreck my dudes. I really took a long hard look at my army list, and I think I found the issue. Coteaz. I just don’t need him at all. I originally dropped my GK librarian in favor of Coteaz, because I thought all I used the Libby for was the Pysmastery 2. Losing Deep Strike was a far larger hit than I thought.

So now I’m back to the Librarian. It’s not a big change, but it is making a world of difference. The list now looks like this:

GK Librarian w/ 2 Servo-Skulls, Psybolt, Master-Crafted Weapon

10 Terminators w/ 2 Psycannons, Banner, Nemesis Warding Stave, Psybolt Ammunition

10 Grey Knights w/ 2 Psycannons, 1 Nemesis Daemonhammer, Psybolt Ammunition, Rhino

10 Grey Knights w/ 2 Psycannons, 1 Nemesis Daemonhammer, Psybolt Ammunition, Rhino

Company Command Sqauad w/Lascannon

Platoon Command Squad w/Rocket Launcher

Infantry Squad w/ Lascannon

Infantry Squad w/ Lascannon

Vendetta

Aegis Defense Line w/ Quad Autocannon

I love that defenestration is a word.

I tend to like having a large brick to throw through my opponents window. Something big, and tough, that can hold the center for as long as possible. In this case, it’s Coteaz (for his Psymastery 2) and the Xenos Inquisitor (also with Psymaster, and a plasma siphon) joining up with 10 Grey Knight Terminators (with a pair of psycannons, banner, psybolt, and an assortment of weapons). The second Inquisitor is my “eh” unit in the army. I picked him up just in case I face a lot of plasma, but I just needed to fill 85 points and he fit in nicely.

The Screaming Heretics made a really good suggestion, that I might shift over to as well, which would replace my Xenos Inquisitor with two small teams of Heavy Bolter servitors. Even with mindlock, that cheap unit puts out 9 shots for just 30 points.

I should also mention I’ve got a “counts as Coteaz” in the form of a conversion I’m pretty proud of. If I don’t find the siphon useful I could drop it for rad grenades, but I’ll have to test to see if those are even necessary. My hope is that this unit becomes a big deep striking deterrent, combined with Coteaz’s ‘I’ve been expecting you’ rule.

The Workhorses: Strike Squads

I want some maneuverable (or what passes for it) units in my core troops. So I follow up the terminators with two identical Strike Squad units. Each is 10 strong with a pair of psycannons, psybolt ammo, and a hammer. They are then mounted in a rhino. While fairly points heavy, they have a reasonable resilience to small arms fire, and they are quite deadly at 24″. My goal will be to place objectives near the center of the table, so that they can react quickly, and make use of Warp Quake to force my opponent to deep strike near Coteaz if I get the chance.

The world’s greatest “troubleshooter.”

Troubleshooters: Imperial Guard

I’ve always had a soft spot for the IG firing line, and the allies rules allow me to use one for fun, rather than as a full strategy. I typically treat this allied group as one tactical element on the table. It has a Company Command squad as it’s HQ, and a Platoon Command Squad with two Infantry Squads as its only troop. Every squad contains only a single upgrade, a Lascannon. This keeps the unit inexpensive, with a single defined roll. Oh, and I bring along an Aegis Defense Line with a Quad Autocannon to put them behind. This gives them some resilience, and a good anti-air weapon.

Armor Hunter: Vendetta

Last, but not least, is a Vendetta, which comes in as my only non-Hq/Troop choice! I use it for anti-air hunting, as well as dealing with tanks on the ground. Honestly, I stopped being afraid I would lose it a long time ago. On the turn it arrives I can usually do a considerable amount of damage, and if I need to start hovering to get another critical shot in, I feel it’s worth the risk.

Possible Changes

If I decide to drop the Inquisitor, I might consider replacing him with a Vindicare assassin. If I do that, I’ll want to also drop psybolt on the strike squads to help make up the points difference. It all depends on which I think is a harder counter for a tough match up I’m concerned about.

Right now, the hardest match ups I have encountered were Tyranids (with a flyrant and plenty of monsters) and the new Dark Angels (plenty of plasma, and the big 4++ blob). Now that I’ve settled on a list, I’m not sure if those two are still going to be a struggle for me. So I need to keep my mind open to meeting that challenge. I might have the tools I need. I’ll want to keep my eye on the possible meta for the tournament, and maybe make my changes there.

Pictures from my visit to Warhammer World

I know it’s been a while. I’ve probably lost more than half of you (although google analytics still shows plenty of daily hits). I’m neck deep in Through The Breach right now, so my time for other gaming and writing articles is extremely limited. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m not still gearing up for the Bay Area Open.

My wonderful girlfriend is, unfortunately, 2000 miles away. The only silver lining to that black cloud is that I have plenty of free time. I put in a good 8 to 12 hours a day on my real job, but I need to do something to keep from burning out. That’s the terrible downside to being a game designer. For that, I return to my Bay Area Open prep. I’m all painted up now except for one Inquisitor (he is tonight’s painting goal) and one Vendetta (which I should have done by Thursday).

I get asked a lot, why I play Warhammer 40k when my company puts out Malifaux. Well, first of all I play Malifaux as well. But I can’t play it the same. I can’t play to compete, because if I get to close to the game, I won’t be able to make impartial decisions. I love Malifaux, it’s a fantastic world. My job, however, requires that I maintain an impartial view on the rules. Frankly, this means I don’t get to “kabitz.”

Coming out the gate! Another picture from Warhammer World

I don’t think that’s even a real word… or the right spelling of it.

No, instead I play 40k for one simple reason. I get to grumble. I get to think about ways I want my army to win, not ways I want an army to play. I don’t look at my Grey Knights through the lens of a designer. I get to look at it like a player. I get to complain when I roll badly, or mock my friends for running “cheesy” units just because I didn’t have something in my army list to counter it.

I want to have fun with 40k. I simply made that decision. Oddly enough, that’s all it took. I now complain less, and am happier. I look for solutions to “problems” under the assumption that I’m the one that needs to change my tactics, instead of the game changing to suit me. It’s made the money  I devote to my hobby hours much better spent, at least to me. I don’t know if it would work for everyone, but I highly recommend giving it a try. Just go one evening at the game store not allowing yourself to  complain, look for how you can adapt instead. You might like it.

I love the smell of short distance warp shunt into daemonic incursion in the morning?

Then again, some people enjoy bitching with their friends. That’s actually not crazy, it’s just how some guys find their fun. Once you know if you’re that guy, you can embrace it! Heck, listen to any sports radio call-in program and you’ll hear it!

So where does that bring me? Well I’m working on my list. Here is the Screaming Heretics episode where they discuss my army list!

The Orko of DLT

Tomorrow (I promise!) I’ll post an updated army list… and maybe even pictures! February, I’m going to start trying to average a game a day until BOA. That means my Saturday’s will be spent at the shops playing 1750 games and so will 2 or 3 days a week.

I’ll take 1 week to play my list as it is. I’ll be taking plenty of notes and such. Then, I’ll allow myself a revamp of the list. After that, I’m going to only make small changes. I’ll just be developing a practice regiment for myself, and I’ll keep you posted on how that gets built!

Also, it looks like the “Let’s Make Something” idea needs to be abandoned. There were some legal hiccups I didn’t anticipate. Nothing we have done so far is a problem, but it’s just one of those super complicated mires that I’d rather not trudge through. I think we, as a group, have gotten everything we need from that though. Most of you guys learned what there was to learn from the experience.

If you’re interested in getting your fingers into an RPG, however, donate to the Kickstarter. Even a small donation ($5 I think) gets you into the preview forums. I’ll be using those forums in a way that no other game has ever done, to help me design the game. You guys will actually have a big hand in steering the ship!

Anyhoo, until my next updated… oh, and I could use an idea or two for a topic you want me to write about!

In the last article we discussed the first step in making a game, the pitch. This also involved defining a lot of the things a person needs to know about the game they are going to design. Today, we are going to go over the outline. For a book, this is also often called the “book plan”. Since we are going to do a simple project (maybe 10 pages total) we should take a look at that plan as if it were a book. Normally I lay this out in a spreadsheet, but for our purposes we can just do it in a simple list of pages.

We’re all this excited about it.

1. Credits
2. Introduction
3. Mission 1 Force Rules and Advice
4. Mission 1: Elite Special Forces
5. Mission 2 Force Rules and Advice
6. Mission 2: New Orders from Headquarters 
7. Mission 3 Force Rules and Advice
8. Mission 3: Call in the Heavy Support
9. Mission 4 Force Rules and Advice
10. Mission 4: Now is the time for a Fast Attack
11. Mission 5 Force Rules and Advice
12. Mission 5: Striking with Full Force
13. Concluding the Campaign

So there we have our 13 pages. 14 with a cover. Now that we know what we’re doing, we can start writing each section. Next we need to assign word counts to each section. After that we gather artists and writers (in a professional project we’d also worry about budget at this stage). Then it’s just a matter of filling pages with words, pictures, and diagrams!

To determine our per page word count we need an outline for the sections, and a clear understanding of what each section covers. The credits page is pretty straight forward. It will list all the names of those involved, and it will have any legal mumbo-jumbo we need to avoid a Games Workshop strike team breaking through my roof with a black helicopter and a lawyer.

I’ll write the Introduction section myself. The campaign needs to be about an event in the game world, something that sounds cool. So we’ll call it the “Assault on Prexus IV”, and it will be about a group of Dark Angels responding to a distress signal sent from an Imperial World that hasn’t had contact (even Tithe contact) in over two thousand years. The intro will also include an explanation of what a campaign is, and how to use the document.

This is how I count words… it takes me FOREVER.

Each of the next sections will be a mission, and advice to a new player. Here is where it gets complex enough that we need to introduce a template for the writers to follow. Each page can hold about 900 words, so that gives us 1800 total. However, we want a diagram on the second page for deployment and objectives, ect. This will likely take a third of the page. This leaves us with only 600 words on that page, for a total of 1500 in our word budget. A Force org chart will also be needed, so that shaves another 150 words off our first page. Now we’re down to 1350 words! It’s ok to come in under word count on this project. However, if a writer comes in to far over, then something will need to be cut down.

This is the breakdown of each of those sections. I’ve listed them with word counts, which are rough. The word counts can go up or down by up to 50 words, but the total needs to be around 750 for the first page, and 600 for the second page.

Page 1

• 150Words: Flavorful “Story” Description of the mission
• 150 Words: Discussion of the unit type, and its purpose in very general terms. You won’t want to overwhelm the player.
• 225 Words: Discussion of Dark Angels unit options for the slot in question.
• 225 Words: Discussion of Chaos Marine unit options for the slot in question.

The advice bits can’t be to complex, it should instead just talk about 2 or 3 possible options, and things should be pretty relaxed. Don’t compare two units and tell the player what they should take. Instead, present the options and give them advice on what a few of the better choices do. Rather than saying, for instance, that you think Vindicator’s aren’t good, instead focus on what is good, and why. Talk about the Predator, for instance, and point out that three lascannons is pricey, and while its strong, maybe autocannons with lascannon sponsors is fewer points, and should be considered. Let the player decide, just give him the information he needs to make the decision.

The Fluff section and the Discussion of the unit type should be “encyclopedic” in nature. Narrative mode will be important here. This means its written in 3rd person. The Advice sections, however, can be from the Author to the Reader. 1st/2nd person is acceptable, and preferable!

Page 2

• 200 Words: Objective
• 150 Words: Deployment
• 250 Words: Special Rules

Click on this picture to lose like… 3 hours of your life.

Now comes the tricky part. Writing good missions for beginners can be very difficult. We have a tendency, as experience gamers, to make things more complex than is necessary to be fun. Everything should be pretty simple, and needs to showcase each unit.

Mission 1: Should be about discovery. It might not even require troops at all! An elite force lead by Librarian Turmiel showing up and discovering a Chaos enclave. Each player can even have his own objectives, with points scored at the end, and maybe even their own Force Org chart (chaos doesn’t NEED an HQ for instance). Probably a good mission to keep small, about 350 points.

Mission 2: Is about reacting to the discovery. Both sides bring in a new HQ, and we introduce Warlord Traits to the players. 500 points would be about right here.

Mission 3: The conflict is in full swing now, pushing things along. This battle should be a break from “new rules” and can focus on letting the players use more points… maybe as much as 750!

Mission 4: This mission should show off fast attacks, so players should start pretty far away from each other. The points might drop back down to 500 on this one.

Mission 5: Finally, a standard Force Org chart! The advice here might be more general, about collecting, or making sure you have enough troops! This game should be the biggest, at about 1000 points.

Legality Note: If a rule appears in the big rule book, it needs to reference the book, we can’t copy and paste (or even re-write) from the 6th Edition book. Or any edition actually.

So, that’s all there is to it. Now we just need 5 brave volunteers to write each of the mission sections! Let’s chat down in the comments. If you’ve never posted a comment before, you’ll have to wait until I approve your first comment (to avoid spam) but have no fear, I’ll respond to it, and then you can post comments without waiting.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1334239018/through-the-breach-a-malifaux-roleplaying-game

For a project like this, we need to have a clear vision. To that end, I’ve compiled a few notes. These are boundaries we have to stay within. In professional game design, it is not uncommon to have an executive/manager/CEO descend from on high and give you some directives. If you’re lucky, that directive is “we need a new book for this RPG line. Find something the fans love and prepare a couple ideas.”

That isn’t very common. In that scenario you, as a designer, get to pick something you are super passionate about. More likely, you get a project defined for you and its your job to become passionate about it. It’s always been my motto that passion breeds awesome. I’ve always felt that I’m doing a disservice to the fans if I’m not also a super-fan and totally into the project.

I’m not a big fan of My Little Pony (sorry Bronies!), I just never got into it. If I was handed the MLP license and told to make an adventure game… well then I’m going to watch every episode twice, buy a bunch of toys, and start hitting conventions. Because if I don’t, well, I feel like I’m not giving the fans what they deserve. BTW, this paragraph example was chosen PURELY because of the images I could find for it.

More often than not, however, you get a much more detailed list of do’s and don’ts from the boss. It will outline the type of game, your resource limitations, due dates, and maybe even some mechanics they want used. Here is another example chosen just for the images.

“We just got the Dukes of Hazard license,” your boss says to you, a twinkle of delight in his eye. “I need you to get a stand alone card game for 2 to 6 players started. It needs to be no more than 120 cards, at most 60 cards per deck, and no more than 3 different decks can be involved in game play. Each player is a different driver in the annual strawberry harvest race. It’s a party card game, so keep the cards simple, and the game easy to learn. Half the card will be a picture that is a still from the T.V. series.”

Then you have to run make that happen!

So lets examine our guidelines, and I’ll generate a simple set of design commandments that we can pretend come from “Baron Von Rumplebutt”, our CEO.

1. No Budget. This will be written “in house” (by me) and any art will need to be done the same way (if we can find volunteers).
2. Supplement. This isn’t a whole new game, but instead it’s a supplement for an established game.
3. Fan Made. This has to fall under the legal definition of fan made content. It can’t ever make any money, and it has to be for a game that I do not currently work on, and did not design.
4. Not a huge project. Come on guys, I do have a real job I have to go too!
5. Target Audience. While my goal is to make this site a more broad game design blog, I have to acknowledge that many of my readers are fans of miniatures games, and as such a miniatures game product will be appreciated most by the readers. It’s also something the fan base will likely enjoy more.

That last one is more about managing a group of designers. When you have 10 designers working for you, it’s important to know which designer likes which games. At FFG, my bosses new I was passionate about Miniatures and RPG games. They put me to work on those kinds of games because they knew I was motivated to make stuff I was proud of. When I moved over to Wyrd, I was ready to try something new. So my bosses at Wyrd gave me a chance to do something new in Evil Baby Orphanage. So in our project, we’ll do something Miniatuares game related, because you guys are more likely to be passionate about it.

So.. what should we do? I think we should make a 2 player campaign for Warhammer 40k. Like DLT used to have back when the site was home to a podcast. While the hosts have gone our separate ways over the years (the core group is doing The Eternal Warriors podcast), I think it would be fun to build a little campaign as a group.

Let’s take it a step further. How about we use the new Dark Vengeance set as a base. We’re going to design a campaign that helps new players expand their army from that core set. So this becomes our vision statement. Here is the job from Baron Von Rumplebutt.

and the font should be Comic Sans!

“Build a PDF campaign for two players who share the Dark Vengeance set. Assume that the players have played through the missions in that book, and understand the rules included. Each mission should have a unique Force Organization slot that adds a new unit to each players army. The goal is to guide their army purchases, giving advice on all possible ‘Fast Attack’ choices, for instance, and then the mission should make that mandatory choice important, and showcase how it functions.”

So that’s our mandate from the CEO. Let’s start spit balling ideas in the comments!

HAVE I MADE THIS VERY CLEAR?

IMPORTANT NOTE!

I want this to be uber super clear. I’m not reviewing the game systems. I want to talk about what each system does well, and where each system has design challenges. This is NOT about which system is better. This is a discussion about mechanics, and how they function. Design challenges are usually overcome. It is simply important to acknowledge that they are there so that they can be discussed!

I’m gonna make that bold too… hold on… There we go… is it bold now on your screen? Shall I make it all caps? Are we all on the same page here? I have to ask, because every time I try to discuss mechanics I get some guy who wants to prove that the game system he enjoys is clearly the best system. That’s not what this is about.

Ok, moving on. How about a quick definition.

Resolution System: The core process of a game used to resolves success of individual components.

At it’s root, a resolution system is just there to give us a “yes, your guy with a gun managed to kill my guy with a gun”. We can muddy that a lot (non-numeric damage tables like in Warmachine) to give us a more interesting result, but the system is still there to generate success (or varieties of success).

Every system has challenges and benefits. Benefits are used to bolster a games them (armies, skirmish, ect) while the way challenges are overcome makes the game interesting. So please don’t think that challenges are where the game is broken. When I mention a challenge, you are likely to think “but they system solves that with …” and to you I say “EXACTLY!”

So lets dig in. I’ll start with the big fish.

My Boyz are assaulting your Hormaguants… I’ll get some more dice..

Warhammer (both 40k and Fantasy!)

Overview: I list them together because both games use a similiar core system. They have a lot of differences between the two, but the core is similar enough for our purposes. Both 40k and Fantasy have a 3 step “gated” process for resolving success. One must succeed in the previous step to move on to the next step.

1. Each model rolls a d6(or several d6s) with a target number based on their own skill for ballistic attacks. Weapon skill is referenced against the defenders skill. The higher the attacker skill, the lower the target number.
2. The player then references his strength (or the strength of his weapon) against the defenders toughness (or armor) and generates an additional target number.
3. The defender has a chance to make a saving roll, which has a target number determined by a variety of variables (depending on the system).

Benefits: The system is best suited towards massed units. Dozens of discrete models can roll simultaneously to resolve an attack.

Challenges: The relatively small spread of numbers (%16.66 between each die face) it can be difficult to represent large or elite units. A large difference in attacker/defender power can be tough to model without making the more powerful unit invincible or unfailing.

Note: 40k and Fantasy are a great example of how a system can adapt over the years. How new designers can breath fresh life into an older system. Studying the evolution of both Warhammers can really give a new designer some insights into the influence of individual designers.

Just saying… this can be useful.

Warmachine & Hordes

Overview: This is also a  2 step “gated” process for resolving success. Each attack is resolved separately  and each model can be resolved on its own.

1. Each model rolls 2d6 and adds their appropriate attack stat (Ranged or Melee) against a target number set by the defending models defense attribute.
2. Each model rolls 2d6 and adds their attack’s power and subtracts the defending models armor rating to determine how much damage the target model suffered.

Benefits: The system uses an unevenly weighted spread from 2 to 12 (or 18) that gives great variety to the skill level of individual models. Models can each be individually resolved with wide variable ranges.

Challenges: As more models are added to the table the games resolution can become time consuming.

Note: Warmachine/Hordes is a great example of how a core system presents some challenges, and how skilled game designers make a game tactically and strategically deeper by addressing those challenges (mostly on the units themselves).

She’s like the Orko of my posts.

Malifaux

Overview: This is also a  2 step “influenced” process for resolving success. This means that the previous step alters the difficulty of the next step. Each attack is resolved separately  and each model is resolved on its own.

1. Flips a card from the top of a deck and adds a skill/stat based modifier. The target also flips a card and adds a defensive skill/stat modifier. If the attacker’s total is higher than the defender’s total the attack succeeds. There are ways to modify this test.
2. The attacker flips a number of cards based on the amount by which he beat the defender in the previous test, taking the best (or worst) result as called for by the rules.

Benefits: The system uses an evenly weighted spread from 1 to 13 that gives great variety to the skill level of individual models. Each model has a variety of options when it activates, emphasizing the importance of each model. The deck is not cycled until it is depleted, reducing the influence of lucky streaks (good and bad), as good luck will be coming if you have bad luck early.

Challenges: The system can quickly become burdensome when the players use more than 10 models.

Note: Malifaux is a good example of a game that knows its limitations and designs itself within those boundaries. Each model is treated as a full unit in another game would be treated. Tournament games require very few models.

Other Notable Games

Rather than go into a lot of details on every system, I’m just going to cover these 3 for now, as they have some fun bits, but they have similar benefits to the other systems.

Infinity: This game has a lot in common with Malifaux (both are skirmish games) but it has a fascinating “price is right” mechanic to success, where you want your miniature to roll as high as possible to beat your opponent (in face to face rolls) but as low as possible to beat your Skill based target number. So higher skill characters have a higher chance at success, but can still lose a throw down with a scrub (if they roll to low). It makes contests between two models very interesting, and equipment very important, which works very well for the skirmish sci-fi game. There are quick start rules on the games website.

Dust Warfare: Mechanically it has a lot in common with the Warhammers. It’s designed for quick resolution of models, with an emphasis on groups of models (units) instead of individuals. The modified d6 (or 5+ success) makes the defenses of the target unit more important than the skills of the attacker (with exceptions).

Mercs: This d10 based system has a few things in common with Warmachine, from a VERY general view of things. It uses a quick resolution d 10 dice roll (often units roll multiple dice) to resolve single unit actions. This makes odds of success easy to calculate, and it puts an emphasis on the actions of each model and how players use them. The stats matter, but not as much as the players tactical applications. There are quick start rules on the games website.

So there you have a quick overview of a few systems “core resolution mechanic”. This is just good information to have if you’re looking to appreciate the design of a miniatures game, or are hoping to design your own. This is a VERY broad view of things, and each game handles its challenges in unique ways. Once again… I LIKE all these games. We’re just talking about the core resolution mechanics and how they influence the design.

It is my hope to take a different approach to preparing for the Bay Area Open. I’m going to stop changing my list two months before the tournament. For two months, I’ll do nothing but learn the ins and outs of the list, and practice on scenarios I think are likely at the BAO. For now, however, it’s open season.

Some how this image pop’d up when I googled “40k Army List”

To begin the process of forming a list I feel works best for me, I decided to establish a base line. I knew that in the GK force the troops do a good amount of the heavy lifting. So to really get a feel for this I built a list chock full of infantry and played a total of 10 games with it, against anyone who was available. I just wanted to see how they fared.

The answer… pretty good. However, they did only a few things really well, like holding positions, and killing other infantry. That all went sideways when I had to deal with aircraft and even some vehicles. The volume and quality of fire just isn’t there in the GK troops list.

A while ago I posted my initial list. It’s been working well, but it was time to revise. Armed with about 20 games all together (10 with the initial list, and 10 with my all infantry list) I have found some things I’m going to adjust. One of the most critical games actually happened last night, against Marc Hein. He was a fantastic opponent who really gave me a thrashing down at Great Escape Games. I really came away with a new respect/fear for Tyranids.

THERE she is, I know you were waiting for her.

First, the paladins are dropping down to regular terminators. Most AP 2 weaponry is Str 8, and I just don’t think the extra wound is necessary for what I’m asking the unit to do. This also gives me another scoring unit.

Next, the Vindicare is out. While I love the little guy, he just ends up giving my opponent first blood way to often, and he just isn’t reliable enough. I know that sounds crazy, but he really only breaks a few units, and they just aren’t something my current list has trouble with.

The Storm Raven is out, at 225 points, it’s a bit more than I want to spend on a flier. As I’ve got allied guard, I think a Vendetta will be a more efficient choice, as I think my GK on foot can do what I need them too without the air delivery system. This also frees me up to remove the dreadnought, giving me a lot more points to use.

So here is the final adjustments, I used those points to bulk out the IG portion of my list, and add some mobility.

==Primary HQ==

150pts  Grey Knight Librarian

==Primary Troops==

270pts  10 Grey Knights w/2 Psycannons, 1 Nemesis Daemonhammer,  Rhino

270pts  10 Grey Knights w/2 Psycannons, 1 Nemesis Daemonhammer, Rhino

495pts  10 Grey Knight Terminators w/2 Psycannons, Brotherhood Banner, Psybolt Ammunition

==Support HQ==

70pts    Platoon Command w/ Lascannon

==Support Troop==

225pts  Infantry Platoon: Command Squad w/Lascannon, 1 Infantry Squads w/Lascannon, 1 Infantry Squad w/Lascannon & Commissar

==Support Fast Attack==

130pts  Vendetta Gunship

So now begins the next phase… buying and painting all of that. The GK portion is done, but I’ll need to drop some cash on the IG parts. In the mean time (I’ll be doing that in December) I’m going to focus on testing out some new units I’ve not really used much, and trying to play against all the codex’s.

With any luck I can get a feel for how a pure GK list will handle a good number of issues, using a variety of tools in the next month before I get started on my guard. Luckily, the guard should only take me a few weeks to get painted up. Heck, maybe I’ll even of a hobby article or two!

Extra Credits: Hosted on Penny Arcade’s “PATV” site, this is a group I’ve linked to before. They work really hard to bring in depth information in quick bite sized chunks. It has a focus on video games, but much of the information is also directly applicable to table top games. It’s all video, and is really easy to get through the whole series in an afternoon!

Digra.org: A conglomerate of industry professionals within the video games world, these is another really good resource for all kinds of games. It can be a little heavy to navigate, but it includes articles on some pretty specific topics, with really strong scientific method. Justin Gibbs turned me onto the site with this article on Exploring Anonymity in Cooperative Board Games. Yeah, it’s articles like that. Heavy, dense, scientific, well researched… just good stuff for the serious pro.

Blogatog: This is Mark Roswater’s Blog, known best for his work on Magic the Gathering. It’s focused mostly on magic, and he has some brilliant insights. Because he posts in micro-bursts, its easy to check in with him every morning, or couple of days, and get a nugget of design knowledge.

Wizards of the Coast Column Archive: It’s got columns from each of their departments. While they run the line between serious concept pieces and marketing, this is a very good look at the internal design process of a very skilled team, as well as individual thoughts on a variety of topics.

Ross won’t mind being upstaged by the always awesome Jennifer Tilly.

Rogue Warden: This is the blog of Ross Watson, known best for his work on the 40k Roleplay titles. He’s an industry professional for a long time, and the guy who helped me get my start in game designing. He has a grasp on game history and the personalities involved that is rivaled by few. His blog is a treasure trove of classic game history including the good and the bad. He’s honest about design flaws, but he has a clear focus on what makes games “fun”.

Gamasutra: Just, well if it’s a big deal or awesome, it will end up here eventually.

So there you have it. The not-so definitive list of great websites to check out if you are into game design!