Escape From the Holdfast

by on February 3, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Posted In: SFB

In Y149, the Tholian Harassment Squadron entered the Tholian Holdfast to steal web technology. Having captured the PC Solitude, the Klingon task force turned back to the border, but was herded into a Tholian trap.

Patch, Mark and I played this scenario from CL8 Saturday. As with many of the larger pre-published scenarios, it didn’t stick with the script. The general idea is that the Klingon force has to thread its way through asteroids and webs, protecting its prize, or perhaps grabbing a different one (the ship isn’t important, just the technology on it). Meanwhile, the Tholians get reinforcements, and if the Klingons hang around too long they just might get a force that can deal with the Klingons on something approaching even terms.

The problem with this is that the printed asteroid field map, is more of an asteroid belt, with a nice maze running down the middle, but clear areas on each side. It was too possible to get to one of those areas and run through the empty area. Me and Mark actually partially stuck to the script and stayed near the middle for a while.

The second problem was that it was too easy for the Tholians to snipe at the captured ship, and destroyed it after about three volleys. I kind of wonder if the idea is for all the asteroids (and the firing penalties they cause) to protect the captured ship, but it certainly didn’t work that way for us in practice. If we’d been thinking, we should have had the scout protect it with loaned ECM.

At any rate, it was destroyed near the beginning of turn 2, and we didn’t have any good ways to chase down one of the other web-equipped ships. Patch decided that was good enough and disengaged everyone near the beginning of turn 3. That ended the scenario, and keeps the Klingons from just siting on an entry point for reinforcements waiting for someone unlucky to come by to get captured and towed off the board.

The scenario counts as a solid draw, as the Klingons have to get an intact web generator off map to win, and the Tholians have to prevent that and destroy a Klingon ship to win. Historically, it was also a draw, but a lot bloodier on both sides. The most successful part of the exercise was probably setting up a laptop to run a spreadsheet on web strengths (which has me wondering how we can set up everyone with Excel for EA)….

Since we did manage to end a bit early, I showed the both of them Game Kastle, a game store that I had found a while ago. Mark ended up buying Commands & Colors: Ancients, which he’ll have to tell us about later.

It looks like the next SFB session will be Selected Attack from Module C1 in Y152, and the next gaming session will be us trying out Onward Christian Soldiers (though we are still looking for more for Soldier Kings).

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New expansion, new challenges

by on January 29, 2007 at 9:23 am
Posted In: MMO

I’ve been a bit slow really getting involved in the new BC content. I’ve done some questing in the first zone, and am starting to get somewhere with that. The obligatory new draeni, Aldisha, hit level 12 yesterday and is finally moving on to the second starting area. Merisan, a night elf warrior I’ve had for a while now, looks to be my contribution to the now level 20+ team of new characters that’s forming. I expect she’ll go the same way as Farmishi, that is she’s going to see a nice rise in levels as she helps everyone else get through instances. Considering that most, or all, of these won’t be mains either, she’ll probably keep up with everyone else for a while.

I’m keeping Farmishi on continuing lvl 60 instance duty at the moment. I’m sure there’ll still be runs for a while to come.

Though, the last two were in places that Dunain is still trying to finish up with. We did a Upper Spire run, that only got eight people. However, everyone went in with something from Burning Crusade, and most were over 60. The only death was me, as I tried to lead Drakkisath around. I did, however, get a better idea of how I might do it in the future without getting caught.

Most of us then went off and did a dead-side Strathome run. Actually, we did a 45-minute Baron run, with the idea that the newly-increased firepower would make it easier. Which was correct, we actually got through, and did the run with three minutes to spare, and Blondiewood finally got her Dungeon 2 upgrade.

Last night, though, was our first instance run in BC. Hellfire Citadel is a multi-part instance that you get directed to pretty quickly once in Outland. We went in with Blanc, Dunain, Thermidor, Blondiewood, and Asclepius; the only way to get any more classic Muse would be to replace Asclepius with Brunev or Jariedthe.

The Ramparts, the first part, or wing, of the Citadel is pretty simple with three bosses, there’s one quest going in, and another generated by the final boss. Apparently, everything through the first boss should be doable with 60s in vanilla greens. And I’d say that’s about right, the normal stuff certainly gave us no real trouble. The main part was just getting used to what they could do. The final two bosses (well, three, one’s a pair) were decidedly tough and generated multiple wipes between them. A good plan and group is decidedly needed going in, especially if you’re at about level.

That said, they’re quite doable. The main thing is there’s a lot of wide area of effect going on, and our resistances still aren’t where they probably should be. The last pair is exceptionally nasty since a relatively fast fight changes modes a couple times, and certainly left me struggling to keep up with what was going on. Most of the team got something good from the run. Dunain didn’t, but he did finally get to level 61. We have another three active main 60+s who need to do this, so we’re going to have to plan for that as well as doing the sequel wing, the Blood Furnace.

The video is decidedly more demanding on BC. Zangarmarsh (the second area in Outland) has seriously bogged down Haruhi when I’ve gone there. Oddly, Micca does well there, but Smudge reported that Hellfire Ramparts was really bad for her, when I didn’t have any trouble. Upgrading Micca is fairly straightforward if it comes down to it (though I had hoped for another year before even needing this), Haruhi is another matter. I’m already at the limits of what I can do without replacing most of the system.

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Other than that, how was the con?

by on January 23, 2007 at 10:39 am
Posted In: Conventions

Further Confusion is the most important convention for BackBreaker, as it is generally the highest grossing show we have. Even better, it is local, and a grand lot of fun.

However, there’s been a nasty flu going around, and Smudge caught it a few days before the con. I had a couple minor symptoms for a few days, and then they went away. I thought I’d beaten it off, but I started coming down with real symptoms Saturday night, and spent a fair amount of Sunday up in our room trying to recover. I basically skipped our Coffee, Tea & Memes panel that night because I knew I was in no shape for it.

About that room… Baron was the Artist Guest of Honor this year, which meant that he got one of the fancy suite rooms at the hotel courtesy of the con. The room was practically as big as the current place we’re renting. And the bathroom was just silly. We also brought Micca over and set him up in the room, so we never used the TV as Micca’s monitor is so much better….

On the other hand, the normal restaurant in the hotel was big disappointment this year. It’s normally slightly pricey food with quality that varies from well worth it to worth the convenience factor. This year the menu was minuscule (a single page, and half the meals were sandwiches), and food decidedly sub-par. Oddly, we found that room service had the normal full menu….

Generally, the con was very good this year. I had a great time Friday and Saturday. Managed to contribute a bit to the Furry Espionage panel (which is more Baron and Dave’s subject), and the Mad Scientist panel (which was easier, but also right when I started coming down with the flu. We found out later, that apparently the Mad Scientist panel was being broadcast live… if I’d known that, I’d have tried to look a little more intelligent…. -_^ At any rate, both of them went really well.

Spent some good time with several friends. Spent an evening entertaining Gerald in our room, and used the opportunity to introduce him to four anime series we thought he’d like (Full Metal Alchemist, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, and Utawarerumono), and he enjoyed them all.

Sunday, I tried to keep from getting the flu too bad while Smudge was largely recovered. So I popped into the Coffee, Tea & Memes panel long enough to offer my apologies, and grab some cookies (^_^). The upshot was that I was available to get Diana guilded, so we got that done.

Apparently, on Monday I looked worse than I felt, and I did not feel at all well. Smudge had relapsed and was worse off than I. So, getting the room and dealer’s table packed up and taken back home was quite an undertaking. We owe the con (and especially Carl) a big thanks for being understanding and very helpful during the entire process.

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As if I weren’t distracted enough…

by on January 16, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Posted In: MMO

It’s official. Burning Crusade is out. It’s installed on my machine, my account is upgraded, and I have seen the elephant (or at least the other side of the Dark Portal).

It is kind of odd. For the past many months I’ve been able to roam somewhat at will around Azeroth. Partly because I knew my way around, as well as being at the level cap. Now it’s all new, and while at the moment all the normal monsters are slightly below my level, that can’t last long.

And there is the fact that I’m in for the beginning of everything other than the beta. Last time, the game had been out for six months before we hopped on the bandwagon. The initial Alliance area and quests are just flooded.

I’m also slightly gratified that what I’m seeing in quest rewards is right about at the level of my existing equipment. It’s been slowly gathered from higher 5-man instances, and I’d hate to see all of it rendered useless by the first few quests, the way some have made it sound.

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Saturday Fun

by on January 7, 2007 at 11:32 am
Posted In: SFB

Yesterday was planned to either be Soldier Kings or a historical SFB scenario. None of us could really get a fourth, so SFB. However, Mark had to call Saturday morning and inform me that he had come down with the flu Friday, and couldn’t make it. Considering that I have a co-worker who’s been out all week, that wasn’t too surprising.

So, half-an-hour later it was just me and Patch, flailing around to figure out what we were going to do. I showed him my current stack of other games, and he decided to look at Plan Orange, as he doesn’t play too many naval games.

The problem is that they just don’t have any operational campaigns that are great for a first go. They all have way more ships than we really wanted to keep track of. So, we went with one of the battle scenarios. (Not the same one as I played with Dave, but very similar). I, as the Americans got to long range and started working on his CLs. He sank most of my destroyers. He then realized that I’d knocked out most of the guns that could hurt my light cruisers. Fortunately for him, he was able to get initiative on the second round and get out of sighting range before I could finish him off, with him winning for all the VPs he got from my destroyers.

That was quick enough, and after lunch we decided to go with a thought I’d had right before we dived into Plan Orange. We did a simple SFB duel with him flying a Gorn CA and me in a Fed CA.

The Gorns are the one active race that we haven’t seen yet, and I’d been meaning for Patch to try them out. He’s been mostly playing the Klingons, and the Gorn are pretty much the opposite philosophy from them. I figure this will give him a broader base and help his overall understanding of the game. The Gorns aren’t actually in contact with anyone besides the Romulans for another eight years, but that’s not a big deal here, since the ships won’t change.

Flying the Fed was different. I’ve mostly been in Kzintis lately, which are a bit zippy because there’s hardly any heavy weapons to charge. The Fed CA (especially before refits) has a hard time going at high speed, and that’s what’s needed against plasma.

The first round went well, I went as close as I dared, peppered him with two overloaded Photons and phasers on turn 2. Ended up trading my #5 and a phaser hit for his #1. It could have been worse, as a plasma got me that turned out to be a pseudo. So we both had half our heavies left.

This was the first round of what turned into a reasonably drawn out battle. I generally went 12, 17, or 23, and cursed my inability to get over that. Fired off another half volley on 5 and went in to try and get a more decisive result on 7. On nine I petulantly fired off another volley and turned to go off map (fixed) while I was only still crippled.

I’m happy with my overall performance, but it still wasn’t up to snuff. The big thing is that I should have gone in much earlier. On… turn 4, he had one Plasma and I had a full spread, and that’s the time to try to use the crunch power of the Fed. Die luck was also good to me. I generally hit slightly above average, and the overloads tended to hit. I weaseled (my first time ever) with a planned speed of four on turn 8, and it did well enough. The main thing is that Patch just slowly got rid my shields, and did a few internals, and I wasn’t answering in kind. I ended with just my #2 and #6 shields, no phasers (after repairing two) and… all my photons.

The main thing that affected me was a near inability to find power for overloads. I’m used to thinking in terms of going in with full overloads, and that just wasn’t going to happen, and delaying to see if I could make it happen caused me to not try and use some earlier opportunities.

So, two hard-fought victories for Patch. We’re currently hoping to meet the weekend after FurCon, and I’m hoping we can get Escape From the Holdfast done.

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