Author Archives: tjkopena

Relicblade 2-on-1

Posted on by tjkopena

Tried something a little different in our Relicblade game last night, a large 2-on-1: 200pts of Lone Guard against 2x100pts of Wretched Hive. Seven beacons placed around a 2×4 board. Activate for a round & score a point on a 5+. Deployment within 4″ of table corners and the long edge midpoints.

This worked pretty well, but we over-thought the activation rules. Of course a sequence like Lizard player A, Lizard player B, Guard player wouldn’t work well. So we went back and forth between the three players, i.e., Lizard player A, Guard player, Lizard player B, Guard player, Lizard player A, and repeat. This is ok, and ensures every human gets to do something in a reasonable amount of time. But it gives the solitary player a tactical advantage to sequencing activations in multi-character fights, e.g., to hit Lizard player A’s character twice while they can’t respond because it’s Lizard player B’s turn. So it’d be better to just play Lizards, Guard, Lizards, Guard, etc, and let the team activate in whatever order they want.

Separately, Pigs and Aug-Suul had a flash mob dance party on the temple steps…

MDRA Red Glare 2023

Posted on by tjkopena

I survived vending at MDRA’s annual Red Glare launch event. JUST BARELY.

Friday was so windy as to be very marginal for flying and not that pleasant to hang out in. Expecting the weekend to be even worse, people did manage to get in flights, but many rockets were lost in distant trees. Saturday was canceled as heavy rain started overnight and continued well into the afternoon. Once the rain let up the weather did get beautiful for a couple hours… until the tornado warnings started coming in. Apparently one was seen right nearby, and Brian from CENJARS reported that one touched down at the end of his street back home in North Jersey. Sunday started off much like Friday but then the skies showed us what wind really means. Mid-morning the wind shifted and picked up enough to bend my tent, which was staked down, weighted down, and tied to my car, which was also serving a windbreak. Fortunately Jim from PARA and somebody else happened to be on-hand right then to keep the side bars from breaking until I could reposition the tie-down lines to my car. Hardly anybody flew anything until sometime in the afternoon, when the wind finally died down substantially and there was a sustained push to get all the rockets into the air.

Apparently attendance on Friday was the highest it’s been in some number of years. But between the Saturday cancellation and marginal conditions Sunday, weekend attendance was much much smaller than last year. Various clubs in the region scrambling to hold last minute TARC qualifying launches for their local high school teams before a deadline Monday didn’t help either. So business was quieter than expected. But as per usual for an MDRA launch I learned a lot hanging out with Ken from Performance Hobbies, saw a number of folks I know, put faces to names for a bunch of others, and met some new people.

Staying in a micro cabin within Maryland’s Tuckahoe State Park nearby was also very convenient and nice. They’re basically 10x10x10 wood cubes with a double bed, two narrow bunk beds, a very small shelf-slash-desk on the wall between the beds, and pretty much nothing else. They do have electricity though, which was a requirement so I could recharge my credit card terminal & phone. Mine at least got just enough daylight & airflow to not feel claustrophobic or dark and the campground loop I was in has good visual separation between everybody. So Saturday’s cancellation was a bummer, but ignoring that context I had a perfectly good day holed up in the micro cabin reading novels and listening to the storm.

Beyond all that, the trip was made worth it quickly after arriving Friday when somebody came running up because they were about to leave, were worried I wasn’t coming, and really wanted to buy some of my MicroMaxx kits for their daughter. Another highlight was chatting with a pair of pre-schoolers I know from CENJARS who were expounding at length on the virtues of various rockets. Well, the slightly older one was expounding. The toddler mostly chewed on an old rocket clutched in their fist, though very politely they did offer me a taste several times…

Let it also be known that even without a fully functional roof rack, though admittedly having added a hitch cargo shelf, I smashed previous personal bests by cramming a truly ridiculous array of stuff into and onto the Subaru. Sadly though it was way too windy to setup my grid wall panels and so on. I wound up very artfully propping things up as low to the ground as possible so they didn’t blow around excessively.

In any event, onward and upward! We’re finalizing plans for Alice and I to go to the MARS club’s NY Power launch at the end of May for our next national level event.

Redcap’s Relicblade Winter Campaign: Day 3

Posted on by tjkopena

Round 3!

For some the campaign’s toll is beginning to mount…

While others continue to reap glory and treasure.

With the frontier in flames, the Adversary’s forces seek to consolidate their victories. Heaping piles of stolen supplies, weapons, and treasure are strapped to pack yaks and send to the rear for safety. The Advocate though directs those remnants of its splintered forces trapped behind enemy lines to make the best of their situation and ambush the yak trains. Neither side though knows what may be lurking among the trees and canyons along their routes…

This past week’s mission was a simple variation on the pack yak mission. Adversaries were given a yak to escort and deployed at the center of a table edge. Advocates deployed in the opposing corners. Moving the yak in the monster phase creates some weird dynamics. So instead we played:

  • If no one is engaged with the yak at the start of a round, it immediately runs in a random direction.
  • Otherwise, the player with the most models engaged with the yak at the start of a round may activate it along with one of those models, like a companion. The yak gets 1 AD, MOV 5, and no one can attack them because even amidst the apocalypse there are limits, people, and yaks are sacred.

Adversaries win if they get the yak across the board. Advocates win if they control the yak at game end.

Additionally, each board had treasure markers yielding surprises…

Despite the urgency of her Iguan allies’ escort mission, the notorious thief and brigand La’ra could not resist scaling an ice covered spire to ransack a lonely crypt set high above long ago. For her troubles not only was she beset by a graveling leaping from inside, but the sole treasure found was a Crown of Madness. Suddenly beset by horrors only she could see, La’Ra ran off the cliffs to grievous injury and continued desperately, manically crawling away from the crypt as best her broken body could. Abandoned by their mercenary, the Iguan escorts were overwhelmed by a team of Moldorf who reclaimed the yak and its looted treasures.

In warmer climes, the Warlord Karthor amiably lead his newfound yak friend through sun baked canyons. Their philosophical ponderings though were disrupted by the despicable Pirate Council attempting to waylay the innocent bovine. The enraged pig boss leapt to the defense of his friend alongside his legendary warriors Bei’Khan, Hamlet, Slappy, and Big Pink. Even thrown back and surrounded, the Pirate Council could not set aside their baser instincts. Heedless of their dire situation, they could not resist pocketing for safekeeping some shiny baubles carelessly left out in the weather on the ruins of a dark altar. For their selfless civics the remnants of their group that might have survived the pig onslaught were shattered by the shrieking howls of ghosts stirred by the pirates’ disrespect. As the blood haze settled in their eyes, the pigs were heartened by the zen calm of their yak companion who had quietly taken all of these goings-on in stride.

As they continue their journey through the canyons, …

… the legend of Karthor and his warriors only grows …

… and is writ forever into The Chronicle of the Pigs.