Battle Report: Missing?

Oh yes. There's still games of Warmachine being played on Vassal. Unfortunately a useful software feature was recently discovered to be a flaw for battle reports. The feature is an extra pop-openable window for hiding the unit damage grids, and it's very helpful for getting those damage grids out of the map window, which will be more and more helpful as we increase army size. The downside is: if the damage boxes are hidden when you take a screenshot of the map, your report won't have the damage grids. If we give you just the maps, with no damage counters shown and no die rolls, you're really not seeing what's going on beyond troop movements. Maybe we can figure out a fast and efficient way to work around this, but for now I will be skipping the regular battle reports.

That said, it's time for the news. That first official game (see Battle Report 1) was a load of crap just on account of how much time was spent going back to the book, and getting used to the software. Oh, and the water on the map sucked bad.

The second official game was still with the same units, but on a new map Vader designed. VERY nice map! I think after I get some sleep I will post a pic just so you can see the map itself. Nice design. OR, if Vader sees this before I wake up...post that pic of the map (without units or anything) you emailed me, eh? We made some changes, like using the damage window, and still had quite a bit to look up. Took roughly 4 hours to get through...crap...7 rounds I think.

Tonight, we made more changes, as part of our slow learning process. We changed Warcasters, and added one unit of troops each (until Vader cast a warcaster feat allowing a summon of an entire extra unit of troops). To this end we started learning troop formation rules, troop movements, fleeing (or not), and how much it bites when your troops don't have damage grids and can be killed with one successful hit. All in all, it went well! Three-ish hours for 12 rounds!!! What's that mean? We're getting faster and starting to remember rules and such. I noticed we're also paying much closer attention to using our Warcaster spells, in many cases using them to inflict serious harm on our opponents!

Gotta say, the more I play this game, the more I get into it! Can't wait to try tabletop again, and hopefully by then I will be trained up enough to say "Rulebook? What rulebook?" (that reminds me...anyone else think the laughing smiley looks like a guy blowing his nose or something? I have NEVER in my life laughed like that...wtf?!)

HA! Got back first. Here's the map:

So here is the map Vader supplied us with. Very nice design IMHO.

Had another point to make about our online game sessions but can't remember AT ALL what it was even about, so I will leave you with the map.