X-Wing: The Phantom Menace

Look, it's mirrored!

One of the most frequent discussions I've had with X-Wing players is about Phantoms: are they balanced; will the meta ever move past their influence? So I've decided to take a stab at the debate.

The Base Chassis and Upgrades

Before we discuss anything regarding meta and the way Phantoms shape it, let's take a look at their base stats.


I will say, she is quite pretty.

The main feature is obvious: dat phat 4 attack dice. That's an immediate red flag with the Phantom's design - it shoved the standard of attack dice in the game by one. The 2 evade is fairly deceptive - with cloak it bumps to 4, also breaking the law of averages held by the game's other ships. The only issue with the base 2 evade stat is that without cloak, it leaves the 2 hull and 2 shields with much to desire - especially at the high base cost of 25 for the PS 3 Sigma. Everything revolves around being cloaked while shot, and without it the chassis folds up.

Overall, the Phantom chassis is a high risk, high reward ship. It emphasis raw offensive output while relying on outmaneuvering opponents in order to keep itself flying. That might've been the case, but there are still upgrades to take into account. We'll leave the EPT slot alone for now - you can always assume that a Phantom will take Veteran Instincts (VI) to win the Pilot Skill (PS) bid, and I'm going to discuss Veteran Instincts in depth to discuss my gripes with it. Let's move to the system upgrade slot. With Fire-Control System (FCS), the Phantom gains a substantial boost to its already impressive firepower.


Pew-pew.

Following that is the Crew upgrade slot, another extremely powerful slot with a wealth of options. Popular Whisper builds include Gunner in order to ensure she triggers her Pilot Trait, and the upgrade has great synergy with FCS. It also allows for other tech options, such as Tactician for control and Recon Specialist for defensive builds on Echo. Speaking of defensive builds...


Zoom-zoom.

...this is where most people believe Phantoms went all wrong. The common argument is that the upgrade provides too much in terms of action economy - and let me explain what I mean by that.

Action Economy, ACD, and its Outcomes

Disclaimer!: Before I start this section, I want to link Theorist's post on Phantoms. I in no way intend to manipulate or mismanage his ideas, so read this before I comment on it below. My main goal is have a foil for me to write against (luckily, it does differ from my own opinion). He's probably a better pilot than me, so I'd take my writings with more salt than his.

http://teamcovenant.com/theorist/2015/01/01/wave-after-wave-does-phantom-haunt-the-game/comment-page-1/#comments

When I use the term "action economy," I refer to the number of actions or action-like effects generated by a ship during a turn. Examples: a base line Gold Squadron Y-Wing with no upgrades has an action economy of 1, as it can take no more than 1 action per turn.



Autothrusters pls.

On the other hand, Soontir Fel with Push the Limit has an action economy of 3(-), as Soontir will perform two actions using his base action + PTL and is assigned a focus and a stress (hence the -). In Soontir's case, the (-) stress is largely mitigated by the strong green maneuvers on the dial. For other ships, a (-) would restrict far more mobility. The better the action economy, the better the ship. So now let's take a look at the action economy of a standard Whisper build.

Whisper (32) + VI (1) + ACD (4) + FCS (2) = 39

This build, assuming optimal conditions, has an action economy of 4(+) or 5(+). 1. Base action. 2. FCS target lock. 3. Cloak from ACD. 4. Whisper's pilot ability. 5. If Whisper decloaked, consider the movement as a barrel roll or a boost action. The (+) is in recognition of the cloak's additional benefit of adding evade dice, as well as its additional benefit for next turn's movement. In optimal circumstances, Whisper is the most action efficient ship in the game, and ACD has a large hand in this laudable title. Admittedly, ACD essentially grants 2(+) actions with no downside other than its moderately expensive points cost. Theorist of Team Covenant largely believes the combination of high maneuverability, high damage, and high evasion combines to create "an almost broken ship."

My issue with Theorist's critique is that the meta is currently dominated by ships that have high maneuverability, high damage, and high evasion: the large ship brigade with Fat Han, RAC City (Rear Admiral Chiraneau), and Super Dash. To say that those ships don't also create frustrating decisions for small ship squadrons would be hypocrisy. If anything else has helped in pushing out swarms and 4 ship rebel squadrons out of the meta, the release of the YT-2400 and the Decimator must be taken into account as well. In fact, the listed ships play into PS bidding better than Phantoms can, sacrificing a small portion of damage to increase their hull, shields, and a turret - increasing ease of play by great margins. They can largely be considered the natural counter to Phantoms while still being largely playable against a majority of the squadrons in the game. At the very least, the Phantom requires continuous thought and effort in its play - a good Phantom pilot is thinking at least a turn ahead for the purposes of decloaking and facing.

So while I'm inclined to agree that the Phantom undoubtedly shattered the metas previous to it while currently molding the meta into high PS turrets for safety against its predations, I definitely disagree with Theorist's belief that the Phantom is the most "severely predatory." I also disagree that ACD needs to be changed or attacked directly by some new modification or upgrade. Phantoms already have a natural counter that is rapidly gaining (or regaining, in Fat Han's case) traction in the meta: high PS large ships with turrets. If I were to change the Phantom, I would look to two areas: the Cloak mechanic and PS bidding. I believe Fantasy Flight Games took the idea of "PS matters" and executed it quite poorly, resulting in the large ship dominated meta we're currently experiencing. The Cloak mechanic was designed with this mission in mind, and it suffers on whole because of it.

Cloak



Still better than Star Trek: Attack Wing.


Way better than the Proximity Mine/Proton bomb pack.

The cloak mechanic is defunct in two ways. First, the in-game cloak mechanic creates negative player experiences (NPEs) for both players. The ability for a seasoned Phantom player to outmaneuver and destroy a low PS squadron leaves little room for meaningful interaction for an opponent. And even if the opponent manages to take down the Phantom while it's cloaked and has focus/evade tokens, the Phantom player receives the short stick of poor evade dice rolls. The mechanic cheapens the decision making on both sides. The Phantom player should easily outmaneuver the other ships, and just needs to focus fire. The other player is forced to make sub-optimal movement decisions in order to get shots, which will largely be ineffective against the raw power of 4 evade dice.

Now let's look at the other side of this - what happens when the Phantom player doesn't have the higher PS. Let's take two common examples of high PS ships that the Phantom traditionally has trouble against: PS 11 Fat Han and PS 10 RAC, both of which have VI, engine upgrades, and Luke Skywalker/Gunner (respectively). A Phantom player running Whisper at PS 9 and ACD must move before the two ships and fire after them. On average, the Phantom takes 1-2 damage a turn, granting that the Phantom took an evade action. There's also no guarantee of a shot, as the large ships may have been able to dodge the arc of the Phantom. This means that almost every upgrade the Phantom player purchased is rendered useless by lower PS. And without cloak to supplement its defense, the Phantom falls woefully short of expectations. Even when the Phantom gets a shot, the high shield and hull (not to mention defensive upgrades like C3P0 and Ysanne Isard) renders the overall impact of the shot to a minimum. Overall, the Phantom player receives few meaningful choices in the game - probability dictates that the Phantom dies in 2-3 turns of shooting, with 2 being on the more likely end of the spectrum.

Essentially, cloak is unbalanced at its core when it comes to game play purposes. When a Phantom gets the PS advantage with Cloak and ACD, it becomes a ship more powerful than its points total. When a a Phantom doesn't get the PS advantage, it becomes a ship far less powerful than its points total. What mostly concerns me is that the biggest factor that dictates the Phantom's strength doesn't come from game play - it comes from list building.

Pilot Skill Bidding (or, why Veteran Instincts was a terrible mistake of a card)


It's always the simple things.

Having established the unbalanced qualities of the Phantom's base statline, and having established the unbalanced qualities of cloak, we've finally arrived at what is my biggest concern for the game: Pilot Skill. In the above examples, we've seen how much the PS dictates the efficacy of a Phantom. What the above examples fail to show are the ways Phantoms (and the collective concern over Pilot Skill) affects the choices players make before they even start playing. Actually, affects poorly reflects how I feel about this. Strangles. That's the word.

So before you say, "Brandon, k-dramas have made you a bit too melodramatic," let me explain it. Pre-Phantom era, the number of ships running VI was fairly low. The number of squadrons comprised of character ships was also low. But PS still mattered. The number of relevant PS "brackets" settled in around 4: PS 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9+. There would be Academy Pilot TIE Fighters at PS 1, Blue Squadron B-Wings at PS 2,  Dagger Squadron, Obsidian Squadron TIE Fighters meta'd against the former two at PS 3, B-Wings meta'd against other rebel squadrons and Obsidians at PS 4, Biggs sitting pretty with his moustache at PS 5, and so on and so forth. Then you had the special picks players wanted to fly out of personal preference sitting at PS 6-8, ranging from Luke Skywalker and Chewbacca to Howlrunner and Boba Fett. Finally, you had the biggest ballers on the block sitting at PS 9: Soontir Fel always arc dodging when moving last, and we all knew that Han shot first, in the movies or on the table.

Phantoms changed all of that. Today, there's only one bracket of pilot skills - 8, 9, and 10+. PS 8 only remains on that list because it beats out Super Dash builds without VI. PS 9 is the key number, as it's where Phantoms cap out on PS (Whisper + VI). This is the Eye of Terror, the hurricane's eyewall, the epicenter of the PS quake. Anything below this suffers huge disadvantages against Phantoms. Anything tied with this has to play an extremely difficult game of cat and mouse against or with the Phantom. Anything above this has a massive advantage over the Phantom, dictating the course of the game and forcing the Phantom player into a submissive position where they take evades and skirt the edge of engagement, waiting for the turn they need the 4 attack dice to make a difference.

So why is this massive shift towards the upper end of the PS bracket so pernicious to the health of the meta? The first thing it does is immediately restrict the number of playable ships. Lower PS ships like Garven Dreis, Tarn Mison, Nera Dantels, Dutch, Leebo (is my point made yet?), Blount, Colonel Vessery , and the whole slew of assorted TIE Intercepters go from marginal competitive play-ability to nearly zero. Then we look at the upper end of the spectrum. Baseline PS 7, 8, and 9 ships then have their options reduced greatly because of the existence of Veteran Instincts. When list building, looming threat of Phantoms encourages players to take the safe option of VI over most other EPTs. This means that ships that are on the periphery of playable (say, for example, Rexlar Brath at PS 8), whose Pilot Abilities require a little nudge from an upgrade (say, an offensive upgrade like predator so that Rexlar doesn't have to spend his focus to hit so that he can use it for his ability) become immediately unplayable because they can't operate without VI to jump the Phantom threat. It also pushes the meta towards high PS ships with built in offensive Pilot Abilities, such as RAC and Fat Han. RAC's inherent marksmanship at PS10 (w/VI) makes him a natural Phantom hunter. And though Han's ability doesn't technically increase the raw output of his attacks, it does allow a player to mitigate outliers or shoot for them, overall increasing the quality of attacks over the course of a game. The maneuverability of Phantoms also lends itself towards a more turret oriented meta, and I'll eventually post about that subject altogether.

This has even further repercussions. The EPT slot has a wide range of interesting and powerful choices. But because of Phantoms and the existence of VI, the list of playable EPTs also becomes limited. Players not only lose options in terms of playable ships, but lose many viable builds in the EPT. The issue emphasizes itself when strong X-Wing players in my meta have to ask whether or not taking Predator Fat Han is too greedy of a choice. Many times the discussion ends with a nod towards a VI Fat Han build, as the risk of losing initiative to a competent Whisper player would be too great. This creates a double bind for FFG's design teams. Either they have to make EPT options so strong as to be worth the risk over VI, or they lock themselves out of EPT's and are forced to look elsewhere for further design space.

But what makes this entire part of the article so frustrating is that every problem above lacks any direct strategy or tactics related to actual in game play. This is a problem that's largely decided and created during the squadron building process. This means that it's a mechanic that forcibly alters the list of things players should play for a competitive environment, while being a generally negative player experience when played optimally with and against.

Solutions


Yes, this article does end. 

So now that I've spent a decent amount of time ranting, here's what I would propose on how to fix the problem. I don't like the one-upsmanship of releasing cards to directly counter other cards, so I believe Errata should be the way to change Phantoms.

1. Remove Veteran instincts from the game. [greatly weakens Phantoms by expanding the roster of ships that can move after them and fire before them]

I believe this would create a massive change in the meta. First, it alleviates the current stranglehold Phantoms have on the upper half of the Pilots in the game by making their PS cap a hard 7. Second, it alleviates the current stranglehold VI has on the EPT slot, affording players a wider diversity of options in the squad building process. It also means that when you pay for a pilot's PS, you know exactly what you're getting, and how it'll match up against other pilots. It's also quite easy to do: ban the damn card and be done with it.

2. Change the Cloak mechanic by releasing an updated Reference Card. Remove the +2 evade dice. Bump down the base attack value of a Phantom to 3. Bump up the base agility value of a Phantom to 3. Alter points on ACD to reflect that it only establishes a movement bonus.

This would allow the Phantom to survive as a competitive choice without the extremely overbearing position it has on the meta right now. Granted, this is the least likely of any Phantom fix to ever occur, as this would require either the reprinting of numerous cards or the largest non-card printed errata block I've ever seen in a game.

So here we are at the end of a massive block of text. For those who journeyed through it, thanks for reading. For those who TL;DR'd, I don't blame you. But please, let me know what you think on the topic by commenting.

Till next time,

Brandon

Warmachine/Hordes - Masters 2015 and Active Duty Roster

A Summary of Change

So before I get into the nitty-gritty and start the contentious bits, here's a quick rundown of what really changed in Masters from 2014-15:

1. Reduction of the number of total scenarios from 12 to 8.

2. Two list format instead of three (AMEN).

3. 50% of all possible scenarios now have Killbox, an increase from previous editions. [edit: actually, 3/6 scenarios had killbox in 2014, so the percentage remains the same. Thanks to Trevor.]

4. Players select an objective during army construction. Objectives give different buffs.

5. Many scenarios have changed. I'll discuss this in depth later in the article.

6. Active Duty Roster. Four warcasters/warlocks are selected from each faction for a time span running from January 1, 2015, to June 30, 2015. If a player selects two of the four warcasters/warlocks on Active Duty when building army lists, that player receives the special rule "Vanguard." This rule allows the player to take 20 points of specialists for each army list. A current question that I have (which may or may not have already been answered on PP's main forums) is whether or not you can select another objective for your specialists. I'm going to have a section discussing this alone. So let's get to it.

The Good

Reducing the number of possible scenarios is a welcome change, alleviating numerous problems from previous SR packets. First, it lessens the burden of the already massive knowledge base that a competitive Warmachine player needs to know. Second, it makes practicing scenario packets easier, as there's just less scenarios to learn. Finally, it (hopefully) gives PP more time to playtest them all, diminishing the likelihood of unbalanced or odd scenarios (Fire Support 2014, I'm looking at you).

Another change I'm particularly fond of is the change from a three list format to a two list format. The three list Masters format always rubbed me as a bit like a pre-game "rock, paper scissors" match where someone could gain a large advantage by outguessing an opponent. It spread list building resources thin and placed more strain on character restrictions, moving players towards tailoring lists to beat certain match ups, rather than moving them towards more generalist list builds. Three list formats created a game exterior to gameplay, and I find in-game decision making to be far more valuable than exterior decisions. So a great deal of thanks to PP for that change.

The Meh

Though increasing the likelihood of Killbox makes me cringe as a Protectorate player, I don't find this change to be particularly good or bad. What I dislike is the continuous refusal to bend or bow to whether or not Killbox should be in the packet at all. My preference always leans towards less randomization - make it in every scenario or put it out to pasture. I'm tired of looking across the table at Tom Guan's Mortenebra list and having the scenario do a coin flip for me; i.e. "Is there a turn two assassination?: YES/NO."

As for the objectives, I'm fairly neutral to them except Arcane Wonder. Given that objectives may have granted benefits depending on the scenario, I find giving players a decision preferential. However, I'm unsure as to why these bonuses have to exist at all. To make the game more interesting? To increase list building complexity? I don't know the justification, and I won't waste my time trying to figure it out to attack or defend PP. At the end of the day, I'm just sad that they gave a buff to Deneghra1.

The Scenarios

Quick disclaimer - I view things from a Protectorate perspective (my army is slow and doesn't change its X axis position often).

1. Destruction: Still boring. Sure, the objectives changed, but I think they'll largely be irrelevant in this scenario.

2. Two Fronts: I dislike scenarios with Friendly Zone: Dominate = 1 CP, as it encourages castling and non-aggressive play (especially if terrain allows for a safe zone for the opposing warcaster/warlock), but I suppose this scenario is fine.

3. Close Quarters: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

4. Fire Support: The change to off center the flags and make the closer one friendly was a good change. It means that players can deploy with an offensive or defensive posture for controlling scenario elements. For example, if I were playing my Hierarch Severius list on this scenario, I would deploy judicator centered with a lean towards my friendly flag. Severius and the Reckoner would also deploy on that side to aid in contesting. My TFG would deploy on the right flank to contest the enemy flag and screen the Judicator as it moves up to help contest my friendly flag. Unlike the Friendly Zone: Dominate = 1 CP of Two Fronts, the flags are positioned too far up to safely dominate without aggressive play, encouraging engagement while giving players an important decision during deployment.

5. Incoming: See Two Fronts, then add a complaint that the zones are extremely far apart, granting advantages to faster factions that don't require close support elements.

6. Incursion: Now this is a weird one. While I like that the random element of removing a flag is gone, the inclusion of three flags means that its likely both players will be scoring points at the same time, and score those points early on. The likelihood of either force being capable of contesting or controlling all flags seems pretty low, even at 50 points. The ability for a player to secure the points needed to pressure a next turn win after scoring an early point off of one of the flags creates an artificial tempo to the game - and I don't think I like that.

7. Outflank: This is my favorite scenario out of the packet. Though easy to contest, the openness of the scenario allows players to make extremely meaningful decisions during deployment. Choosing to commit to a zone, backing out of a zone, ceding a zone - all of these are options that don't run the risk of an opponent physically blocking contesting models from running in, unlike many box zone scenarios. This classic holds true, and I'm glad PP kept it.

8. Recon: This scenario is busy. Much too busy. I'll devote a post to this later on, as this one bears a lot of play testing.

Active Duty Roster

Aight, we're going deep on this one boys. We've gotta rate the choices of who made the cut as Immoren's least desired (i.e. least played at events). So who gets to join the Vanguard?

Cygnarly

- Constance Blaize: Laughable. No amount of specialists can save her from sinful suckage.

- Captain Jeremiah Kraye: Viable, but I don't envision specialists actually helping him much.

- Commander Adept Nemo1: Also viable. Perhaps specialists allow him to swap a Stormwall (19) for a heavy and infantry of some kind? The real issue is that he wasn't much too viable in the first place.

- Commander Coleman Stryker1: Very viable. See the Nemo analysis.

Then the next question you have to ask is whether or not two of these four play nicely with each other. After that, you have to ask whether or not the benefit of Vanguard is enough to choose that pairing over other pairings of warcasters in the faction. Unfortunately for ya'll, I cheated and will continue to cheat in my analysis of the Active Duty Roster. I skipped step one because I didn't see Haley2 and moved on to the next faction.

The Best

- Reznik2, Wrath of Ages: Viable(?). Though this guy still makes me sad, he isn't in the Constance tier. Specialists might actually allow him to drop against Cryx and another infantry faction such as Khador, as you can take the optimal infantry package against the threat. Against Cryx you can take Steelhead Halberdiers and Attendant Priest (8) with Zealots and UA (8). Against Khador, you can run TFG and UA (8) with a Reckoner (8). The packages are quite flexible, especially if the mainboard runs the Avatar, standard 'jack support, and Tristan + Redeemer package. This is something I'm planning on testing with...

- Hierarch Severius2: I'll just leave this for another post.

- Testament of Menoth (awkward, adding a number doesn't make sense here): Viable, but I don't like him in this meta. Too many things RFP/steal souls these days. His defensive stats are rather lack luster for someone who wants to be 10'' away from the front lines. I don't think highly of him.

- Thyra1, Flame of Sorrow: Laughable. See Constance Blaize.

Altogether, the only pairing I find interesting is Reznik2 and Hierarch Severius. Both can benefit greatly from specialists, as Reznik2 can swap massive infantry packages and Severius2 can drop the Judicator for a heavy kit. My only worry is that they have a similar set of match ups, but I need more time to fully develop this idea.

Khador

I'm just gonna say it. The only list that interests me is Butcher1, and since I don't see a pair for him in Strakhov, Zerkova, or Harkevich, I'm just gonna let this one go.

Cryx (or, the real best)

Since everything is pretty good in Cryx, you can do whatever you want and still win. Follow your heart. Just practice it.

Angry Angry Elves

I wouldn't play Retribution without Vyros2 or Issyria. Sorry I'm not sorry.

CoC

Lucant.

Mercenaries

I almost wrote a longer section for this, but halfway through I deleted it when I realized that mercs don't really need specialists. All of their army lists are essentially built for you by PP. Granted, you can swap out one unit for another, but the unit choices are largely irrelevant in my mind. Mercs are a Galleon or Earthbreaker/Cephalyx pair. Exulon isn't on that list, and neither list really needs specialists anyways.

Trollbloods

I can't write about these guys. I have little experience with Trolls, and they hold my worst win/loss record. Mostly thanks to JFlanz.

Circle of Bradigus (or, also the real best)

See title.

Skorne

Morghoul2 and Naaresh1 can go play with Thyra1 and Constance1, so I'm going to skip to the relevant portion.

Hexeris1 and Mordikaar1 can be a good pairing. Hexeris covers Khador, Cryx, Menoth (tenatively), and most other infantry drops. Mordikaar can be built to handle armor and Legion. Though I'm no expert in mortitheurgy, I'm tentatively excited to see a strong Skorne player try this pairing.

Legion (Basic)

No Vayl2. No Saeryn1. No Absylonia2. No Lylyth2 or 3. I'm all for creativity, but unless your name is Jason Flanzer, I'd just leave this alone.

Minions

PP should've put the whole faction here, because these dudes are definitely missing from tournament data.

On the whole, I think Active Duty Roster has a lot of potential for good and bad. It largely depends on how much you trust PP. Here's what they claim Active Duty Roster will do:

"To further distinguish the gameplay experience, we wanted Masters to promote and incentivize creative list building using as much of a faction’s roster as possible, but we didn’t want to penalize anyone who preferred to use their traditional lists.

"This new rule presents an exciting option for competitive players and list builders. You can stick with what you know and what has produced proven results in the past, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If you are inclined to experiment with your faction, however, you now have a powerful tool to do so. Twenty points of specialists, over a third of your army list, is nothing to sneeze at. With that many points of flexibility, a player can cover a great many of an original list’s weaknesses or further augment that list’s strengths."

I think the above is largely true for individuals that will actively choose to go against the current meta. It will provide fun and interesting ways to create lists, and for that reason alone, I'm all aboard. Despite the somewhat tongue-in-cheek analysis above, the Active Duty Roster actually makes me quite happy with Masters 2015. PP created a system that opens the doors more innovation, and I think it will prove to be affect the game in a positive way.

This all comes with one caveat: PP has to be very careful as to what makes the Active Duty Roster at the same time. Some warcasters and warlocks must never be allowed to get on the roster - Haley2, Morvahna2, and Harbinger immediately come to mind. On a similar note, therein lies another danger: new releases being placed immediately on the roster can be very dangerous to the balance of the format. Play testing and design now have to think of how a new warcaster or warlock affects the current Active Duty Roster for the season.

In Closing

Overall, I'm satisfied with Masters 2015. Not happy. Not sad. Not even mad. Just satisfied. Nothing too crazy has happened (yet), and the Active Duty Roster actually worked out in my favor (for now). So now that you know how I feel about it, I'd like to know your opinions on anything and everything. Do you like Active Duty Roster? What pairings and lists do you believe are viable? How do you feel about the objectives? Scenarios? Let me know.

Brandon

Opening Remarks

Hello, World!

My name is Brandon Cating, a gamer with strong opinions on popular games ranging from  table top miniature games such as Star Wars: X-Wing and Warmachine/Hordes to video games like League of Legends and Hearthstone. I'm beginning this blog for three reasons. Firstly, typing ideas provides moments of more concentrated reflection, which I hope will lead to further insights and discoveries. Secondly, I hope to engage like-minded and similarly interested individuals in discourse through this blog. Lastly, I hope to rectify my lack of engagement with the competitive gaming communities on the internet. As a prominent player in the Warmachine/Hordes community (#humblebrag), I've remained silent on most issues. That ends now.

So why read this blog? What are my credentials as a competitive gamer? Why feed my burgeoning ego? Continuing the not-so-humble bragging, I've been a long-time competitive gamer. Like many other tabletop gamers, I began my road to nerd-dom as a wide-eyed child entering the doors of a Games Workshop. From there, I started playing Magic: The Gathering competitively at the age of 14, devoting a lot of time and energy to the game from the Timespiral-Lorwyn block till the rotation of Scars of Mirrodin. A lot of my competitive mentality arose from those days competing for cash prize FNMs. It wasn't long before my GW history caught up with me, and a close group of friends taught me how to play 7th edition Warhammer Fantasy. Those friends trained the young me to be (as they still fondly joke) a "cold-blooded killer" in gaming. With army choices like Daemons of Chaos, Vampire Counts, and Skaven, it wasn't long before I created a lineage of power-gaming that entailed many long hours of poring over rulebooks and army codices in order to understand list building strategies and abusing poorly written rules. It wasn't long before the golden days of 7th edition (rest in pepperonis) faded into the casual-catering abomination of 8th edition. With that, I needed a new outlet for my competitive spirit, and my good friend, Travis, was more than willing to teach me how to play Warmachine.

And the rest is history. I spent about a year playing Warmachine within my local meta before I decided to start travelling to large conventions to play in large tournaments. I've achieved some notable successes. During my first year of travel in 2013, I took second place in the Iron Gauntlet qualifier, losing to Keith Christianson in the first game Privateer Press live-streamed. I went on to place fourth in the Iron Gauntlet 2014 Invitational, losing to Jason Watt in the semi-finals.  I've taken two second place finishes at Warmachine qualifiers, including the Las Vegas Open 2014 and Store Wars 2014 - the latter of which qualified me for the Warmachine Weekend 2014 Invitational which would then become my first major tournament win. I recently started playing X-Wing in the summer of 2014 and have started playing in local tournaments fairly recently, and have yet to travel to any regional events.

As for the video game side, I've been playing video games since I was a wee-lad. My favorite game is Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1, now known as The Lion's War). A majority of my early gaming revolved around Starcraft and Warcraft III, the latter dealing with the early MOBAs such as Aeon of Strife and DoTA: Allstars. I primarily play FPS, MOBAs, RTS, and non-MMO RPGs. As for League of Legends, I've been playing since Season 2. My highest rank was Diamond 3 during the most recent season, and I'm hoping to rise to a high diamond this year. Most of my posts on video games will likely revolve around LoL and Hearthstone.

As the blog's name suggests, I'm a highly critical and unabashedly opinionated gamer that believes you can take little toy soldiers and space ships seriously while still enjoying the game. Though at times it may sound like I'm attacking or discrediting a game, please keep in mind I only do so because I truly love this hobby.

Sincerely,

Brandon Cating