Wednesday, January 27, 2010

My Anima Tactics

So I've noticed people coming to my blog for Anima Tactics stuff and me not having any recent Anima Tactics articles. You won't find a lot of places with strategies and tactics for winning games, so here is my current tactic for winning with Church forces.

Two things are pivotal to the strategy. You must take the Church Leader High Saint Elienai and the Church organization advantage Divine Meditation. Besides Elienai you should take a full sweep of Inquisitor Warriors, you shouldn't need much healing if done right.

Just having a character in Elienai's large control zone of 12 inches allows you to use Gnosis rolls after you've seen the result. This is a HUGE advantage because you don't waste the few Gnosis points you have but only spend them when you need them. In addition Elienai can deny an opponent's use of Gnosis so they don't get the extra die roll to achieve desired results. You can also as an alternative action grant every warrior in range of her an extra die for Dodges and Attacks. Potentially you can roll 3 dice with Gnosis. But it doesn't there, the organization advantage of Divine Meditation allows you to reroll once per turn. So if that attack is really pivotal... you can roll 6 dice. In Anima Tactics you're normally only rolling one die, so potentially getting 6 dice to roll and choosing the favored result is a MASSIVE advantage.

With those expert dodges you won't be healing your soldiers as often. Also, Elienai can use "Door to the Beyond" to bring them back to life at a sacrifice of some of her own. The disadvantage is that rolling too high can kill her. But with economical Gnosis use and the reroll ability you can make the odds against this pretty good. I always take the advantage card "Dragon Blood" which gives you a chance of bringing a character back to life. Again, rerolling increases your odds of not only being successful but having better success. So the odds of losing Elienai when she is at full health are quite low. Though using warriors like Nero or Xavier who can self-heal helps a bit to save the need to use Door to the Beyond.

Another trick I can use for health on one of my characters is the card Aberration power. Normally few people take this card because a bad roll on activation can have your character removed from the game! But with this Church force you're the master of rerolling, simply use Gnosis if you need it... and even a reroll if you're desperate. I'm still getting the timing of when its best to use the card, but my last game saw it used to great effect. In playing against Empire and Samael the thing to watch out for is your opponent's critical attacks and getting sniped. Do your best to control both and you should be able to win with this strategy!

Monday, January 25, 2010

Vor the Maelstrom review

Youtube need a bit more VOR the Maelstrom



Expect much, much more this next month.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Israelis committing more "Atrocities"

So I was rather astounded the other night. After my youtube video asking people to help out with Haiti if they could someone gave me a 3 star right away (Many others have given me 5 star ratings, but still why you watch and rate down a call to help people who are dying?). I know there are people out there who are completely selfish and it shouldn't suprise. Still, after seeing it personally I'm astounded.

Anyways in their "honor" I dedicated these series of videos where the Israeli Defense Forces "IDF" commites more "Atrocities" as they're frequently accused of in Haiti.






Israel does so much to make the entire world a better place. Also, have you EVER heard of a Muslim country sending relief and rescue forces to some un-allied country like this? Please watch these videos and think of them next time you hear about how "horrible" a country Israel and its military is.

Also, if you think the situation in Haiti isn't serious and there isn't a need for people all over to pitch in then I hope you reconsider after seeing some of the damage and devestation done there. If it ever happened to your home, who would help you in return?

Friday, January 15, 2010

Helping Haiti

The Folks at Joe User had an excellent idea I've decided to pass along and publicize.

Donations:




If the Red Cross isn't your style consider some of these others:

Salvation Army
World Vision
American Jewish World Service



If the only thing you do to help is to send a text message, try to do something to help today.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

It has been a Looonng week.

It has been a busy work week. I was hoping to do youtube videos or more blogging this week, but work has been kicking my butt. At least right now I only live 5 minutes away from work! I'm hoping to get a video this weekend of our new and improved art space.

There are no updates to Elemental till February, blah. So no updates there. No updates that I know of with VOR since the Masher update.

I rented Avatar for the Wii and found it a fun game and I liked how it made use of the balance board. I'll be adding that one to my wish list as being a Dad and settling into our house didn't give me enough time to really get through it.

Not making any progress on any terrain right now. I've got 4 figures I'm working on painting between now and the end of February, all for Anima Tactics. They are:

Church Agent (for a contest from Cipher Studios)

Kairos (Last time I assemble this model EVER!!!)
Momiji (Greatly looking forward to this one)
Samael Agent

I'll try to get some in progress photos of something up on the blog before too long. I'll try to be interesting again soon when the work week is over!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Teaching your kids

Are you a parent who wonders if playing games around kids is okay? are you a kid who's parents are worried about you playing games?

Then you might want to read some news. Scientific Research has shown that games can improve Kids' reasoning and and processing abilities. Not only that but the type of game you play will improve different types of skills and learning abilities, duh! Whether you're playing an action game or strategy game for instance makes a difference in developing a Kid's reaction speed and problem solving abilities. I'm not advocating that you should just let your kids playing anything, but you should let them play. Kids who can play video games learn better communication skills and hand eye skills. Myself, as a kid I was inspired to learn to read mostly so I could play Scott Adams' Adventure games. These text adventure games were a lot of fun as a kid and inspired my imagination and storytelling. Fond memories those are, the kids these days just don't have any appreciation for the classics right? (For that matter neither do the adults, we enjoy our fancy graphics!)

For parents stressed out at their kids educational-recreational activities, maybe they need to play some games of their own to de-stress? Then sit down and play some games with your family. My kids and myself have recently been rediscovering the Wii again and they're very enthusiastic about playing with Daddy right now. That family that plays together, stays together I say!

P.S. - This blog entry written while my 9 month old son fell asleep on top of me.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Just me playing games

Here is a video report of me playing a game of Anima Tactics at my Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS).

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Time for a product review

I've posted a product review of the Anima Tactics rulebook on youtube



Should I do more product reviews?

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Decyphering Cipher Studios

Cipher Studios is the manufacturer for miniature game lines Anima Tactics, Hell Dorado, and AE WW2. They really are a Cypher as first of all I thought they were still in the Seattle area but found they had relocated down to the Oregon/Washington border. Luckily I was invited to come tour the facilities by Cipher President Kai picture to the right. Otherwise, nobody would ever find the place as their facilities are completely hidden and unadvertised. Rabid stalker fans and Ninjas have their work totally cut out for themselves.

The Quality Proces Analyst in me liked the small, isolated seclusion of the facility. They clearly get a lot of work (and play) done without wasting space. Small warehouses mean that they're moving product rather than wasting rent storing product. Nice workspaces organized by process rather than "territory". Lean, but could use a little more 5S. :D

Okay, sorry for the distraction. You wanted to read something more about games right? I got a few spoilers including sneak peeks at the rule book which is now out and I snuck a look at some of the miniatures in process. Looks like Samael is getting a certain "Amazon" Jayan combat monster. Wissenschaft also has a nice combat monster they'll be seeing before too long as well.
Also, I got to see all the terrain pictured in the new rulebook. I hope their upcoming battle report was played on it because it looks totally awesome and was a big center of attention for our traveling party visiting the company. What is pictured is only one piece of a full tables worth of large terrain tiles that can be mixed and matched to make a fun table to play on. Hopefully one of these days at convention or if I'm lucky on another visit I'll get the opportunity to play a challenge game against them on it. Maybe if we're lucky Cipher will do some battle report games on their terrain as well.

Anyways to all at Cipher Studios thanks for the Christmas visit as all of us had a great time. Keep up the great work!