Gaming App Fun

   So recently I have been painting furiously as I wanted to get my Warmachine battle groups ready for some gaming. I already have the Cygnar battle group, and now with the two boxed set of Warmachine, I have a Khador and Menoth battle group. I am also almost done painting the contents of the box. Just have the Exemplar Cinerators to paint. Man am I done with painting white!
   The next purchases for my armies are on their way, a new heavy warjack for my Cygnar, a new war caster for them too - Allistair Caine, and Alexia and her unit of Risen skeletons. Because who doesn't like the option of semi good guy undead in your army! Next up after them will be gun mages and Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team. Yeah gun mage army. So I should soon have 25 point armies. Which then gives me a number of variations, and also the choice of a 30 point Cygnar army (I'm trying to build themed armies). So then I can start of Hordes (I want the two player boxed game, and then to focus on getting 25 point armies for Troll Bloods, for which I already have a battle group). Of course this means I have quite a few models for use in the Iron Kingdoms RPG (like undead, trolls, ogrun etc).
   So staying on topic I recently got my rpg group into playing Warmachine. So I spent the best part of the evening teaching them how to play the game. And it was a great opportunity, what with all the smartphones and tablets, to use the Privateer Press app, War Room. War Room is a digital way in which to create and store army lists for the game. Furthermore it allows for the referencing of the entire rules for the minis, and also through the game track damage of your men and warjacks. If you spend some money you can get the full army cards for each force (you buy individual sets, or whole sets for Hordes and Warmachine - and if you buy one you get access to all the wargame rules!). The app also allows for the linking of accounts, so that players can check the health of the opponents units on their own device, rather than having to ask their opponent.
   Overall the app is quite great, and a really good example of how gaming apps should be. Great art, good UI, and also useful. I really hope to see this type of thing expanded to included the Iron Kingdoms rpg.

   Next up on the gaming app list is the new Magic the Gathering: Duel of the Planeswalkers 2014. Now I haven't collected Magic cards in something like 15 years. It became too much about who had the biggest wallet. So I have generally stayed away from ccgs. But this app (Playstation, Steam, Xbox, Android, iOS) has got me back into Magic. It gives me all the fun and challenge of the game without having to do more than buy the game. Now of course you do have micro transactions to unlock stuff faster, but meh, I will stick with the challenge. Playing can either take the form of challenges, designed to teach you how to think in Magic, campaign mode, were you play against theme opponents and Planeswalkers in order to unlock new decks and cards, or you can play against the computer or online, using either the decks or sealed draft. It's a great game and really give me back what I wanted from Magic.