I have finished priming the unit and will next apply a watered down coat of Chaos Black.

Be Safe tonight and enjoy the holiday!

3 Units of 10 Thousand Son in Rhinos
1 Unit of 3 Obliterators
1 Chaos Lord with 4 Terminators
1 Unit of 5 Chaos Terminators

Ork Forces:

2 Units of 20 Boyz on foot
2 Unit of Boyz in trucks
3 Lobas
1 Unit of 12 Burna Boyz in a looted Wagon
1 Warlord with a unit of Nobz in a Truck
1 Unit of Lootas
       I think, the orks with D3 shots at 48" range.

Eldar Force:

My Army

Eldar Forces:

2 Units of 10 Dire Avengers in a Wave Serpent
with Twin-Link Missile Launchers and Shuriken Cannon upgrade
2 Units of 10 Dire Avengers on foot.
1 Unit of 8 Pathfinders
1 Unit of 5 Dark Reapers
3 War Walkers with Dual Scatter Lasers
2 Farseers

The Game layout:

The game had four objectives and was corner to corner deployment zones. The Eldar won the roll and elected to setup and go first since it worked well for us last game. The Ork/Chaos force failed to seize the initiative. We have 5 turns to secure 3 of the four objectives or at least control more then they could.

It was a great game coming down to the last turn deciding victory. We had 1 objective secured, contested a second while Chaos held the objective on the far side of the table near their deployment zone. A unit of War Walkers came on from reserve in turn 5 killing the 6 Ork boyz holding the objective near our deployment zone. We also succeed in wiping out 1 unit of Thousand Sons and tieing the second one up in CC with a unit of War Walkers. This prevented them from moving back to secure the objective. This cause the unit of Nobz that counted a troops to move back way from the area of battle to hold the second object for them. In the end Ork/Chaos held 2 objective at the end of Turn 5 and we had 1 and contest 1.

This game involved more movment and shooting than the last 2. Due to deployment and some shooting we were able to keep the Orks out of Close Combat which was a big win for us. Overall the Jetbikes did poorly again and the full unit Warp Spider could not cause a single wound on the last Obliterator in Close Combat, lost 2 members and of course broke Oh well I could not make a leadership test to save me life this night. I even had the Farseer run off the board in Turn 2 because i failed his Leadership 10 roll!

I will remove the bikes from the Army and see what I can add for the 120 points they free up. Loking forward to next game 11/6/2008. Two weeks to contemplate what I want to add.

So far each stage or phase of evolution has been pretty easy. I've completed the tribal and Civilization parts in under an hour on Normal mode. I felt they were just a tad too easy. There are only to paths to win the stages: Economic or Military power. When I started the Civilization stage I was a little lost in how to manage the game.

I thought more importance revolved around the Spice plums but once I grabbed two or three I no longer needed to worry about getting more. I just built an economic city, built a ton of economic land vehicles and setup trade routes with the 2 AI players on my land mass. At one point I had so much Sporebucks I did not know what to do with them. Every so often I would hand over several thousands in Sporebucks as a gift until the AI allied with me or I purchased all their cities.

I never needed military vehicles but I built a few just for kicks. I was busy purchasing cities when I stumbled on the special ability to unify the planet for 100k. Clicked this bottom and boom I won the stage.

Now comes the Galactic stage. I hope there is some more depth here than the previous stages, but to be honest the real power of this game is when you take part in the whole experience: Designing every aspect of creature, vehicle and buildings combined with game play. That is where the beauty in this games lies and why I find this game entertaining.

I think EA and Will Wright have does a wonderful job with this game. The infrastructure behind Spore, Sporepedia and the other online aspects of this game are will keep this game fresh and entertaining.

Now if I could only take some time to finish painting my Wave Serpent for this coming Thursday night game

Spore Logo

Well it looks like spore has taken he last couple of days from me so I'll put up a quick personal review. I am playing SPORE on my MacBook Pro with 2GB RAM and a 128MB 256MB video card and I must say so far its run rather well. All the graphic settings are on medium and the game play is smooth. I was concerned that my Pro would have a slight problem running this game as its 2 years old but so far so good.

The overall game play is very addicting. I am really enjoying the game so far. I have made it through the Cell phase and am almost completed the Creature phase. Next up is the Tribal phase and I have not even explored the whole online aspect of the game: Sporepedia, Sporecasts and sharing of creations.

The game play is pretty simple so far and I am looking forward to more advanced phases, but the flexibility of the creature/building/vehicle builder is amazing. I touched tip of the vehicle creation but was a tad overwhelmed with all the options, plus I was to play the game and get a feel for options before really attempting anything significant.

The only con I have right now is that the computer has to be online for the game to even start. It appears you can not play the game offline which I think down right sucks. Why the hell can't I play a game I purchased when and where I want without phoning home?

Oh well, I knew about the weird copy protection when i bought the game I just did not think it WAS this paranoid. Dispite this it's a good game that I and the kids enjoy. I even added my Spore creature widget

I just hope EA gets its act together and realizies that paying customers are not the enemy.

I want to see if I can make better use of the Warp Spiders and the Jetbikes for one, since those units basically hit the table and died.

I also would like to get the second Wave Serpent finished and the Warp Spiders in progress before the game. We'll have to see, as I picked up Spore for my Mac

Setup -

The Eldar won the roll off and we elected to setup and go first. Since there were no special rules limiting LOS we would get a solid round of shooting before the green wave advanced.

Our basic setup consisted of 3 War Walkers on the left with 2 squads of 10 Guardian Defenders with 1 unit of pathfinders and Scorpions in a ruins on the left most flank. On the right were 3 War Walkers 1 unit of 10 Guardian Defenders, 1 unit of Pathfinders, both my Fire Prisms behind a ruined building. An Autarch and Farseer on bikes. We held 1 unit of War Walkers, 3 units of Dire Avengers, Warp Spiders and Jetbikes in reserve.

The Ork Chaos deployment was basically 3 units of 20 Orks with a Big Mech in the center, unit of Nobz in a truck, 5 bikes, 2 units of Noise Marines on our left and 2 units of 10 Chaos Marines, Noise Marines, 1 unit of burna boyz in a truck, 1 unit of boyz in truck and Raptors with lord on the right. This time the Chaos player brought no transports, something I was not expecting.

Battle Break Down -

The Orks/Chaos failed to seize the initiative, so we went 1st as planned. We got an excellent round of shooting in with the War Walkers and the Fire Prism pair kill half the squad of Raptors ( much to the Chaos players surprise, I have never fielded 2 so he did not know what to expect )

This is where things get fuzzy as a lot happened in the 4 turns we played and I plan on improving my turn descriptions. Basically the Orks surged forward and the Chaos Marines followed behind to take the objectives.

The combined fire power of the War Walkers and Guardian units killed the Ork Boyz, the Fire Prism reaped a heavy toll on the Chaos Marines while the Dire Avengers shot out in Wave Serpents to fight over the Objectives.

The Ork Nobz and Warboss  along with the bikes rolled up the left flank nicely killing the unit of Pathfinders, Scorpions and Farseer. Although the Scorpions and Farseer died, I felt they did an admirable job in tying up this powerful unit. There were only the Warboss, Pain boy and 2 Nobz left when the fight was over. I did try to mindwar the Pain boy down but we tied on the roll. Oh well better luck next time.

In the end the Ork/Chaos side claimed victory as they held 2 of the 4 Objectives and we contested 2, but I am happy with the way we played. In this battle we were able to kill all the Orks but the remainder of the Warboss unit, Bikes and 1 boyz unit. Most of the Chaos Marines were dead thanks to the power of 2 Fire Prisms and a unit of Pathfinders. We had 3 under strength Dire Avengers squads, 1 partial Pathfinder unit, 3 War Walker, 2 Fire Prisms, Autarch and Farseer on bike left.

This battle was no where near as lopsided as our first encoutner with the Ork/Chaos combo and we all had a good time.

This is the first time I am trying out the double Fire Prism. I am not really a big fan of the way blasts work in  5th but I am willing to give this combo a shot as the show becomes twin-linked.

The Farseer is a little heavy on points and powers considering he can only use 2 per turn, but last game Mindwar would have been very helpful in removing the Big Mech with the Force Shield protecting the ork boyz as they advanced. It might also be helpful in eliminating key members of the Ork Nobz squad as well. Oh and how can I forget, killing off the Nobz with power claws in units

HQ
1	Farseer		                185
		Runes of Warding	 15
		Guide	                 20
		Mindwar	                 20
		Fortune	                 30
		Doom	                 25
		Spirit Stone	         20

Elites
10	Striking Scorpions	        177
		Exarch	                 12
		Biting Blade	          5

Troops
10	Dire Avengers		        152
		Exarch	                 12
		2 Shuriken Catapults	  5
		Bladestorm	         15
		Wave Serpent w/ Cannons	100
		Spirit Stone	         10

10	Dire Avengers		        152
		Exarch	                 12
		2 Shuriken Catapults	  5
		Bladestorm	         15
		Wave Serpent w/ Cannons	100
		Spirit Stone	         10

10	Guardian Defender		 85
		Shuriken Cannon	          5

10	Guardian Defender		 85
		Shuriken Cannon	          5

5	Guardian Jetbikes		120
		Shuriken Cannon	         10

Fast Attack
10	Warp Spiders		        262
		Exarch w/ Power Blades	 22
		Withdrawl	         15
		Additional Death Spinner  5

Heavy Support
3	War Walker		        180
		6 Scatter Laser	         90

1	Fire Prism			115

1	Fire Prism			115

		Total Points:	       1848