Ouch! I hope that I have better luck with what I bid on than you have... can you show me a link where the folks here are selling personal collections?

Thanks for the head's up!

look in neutral ground.

All I can say is, take what you have, see how it would work together, try to build a tactical doctrine for yourself, and play it. You learn by playing.

Me, I tend to create an army that, in turn one, can quickly rearrange itself into a firing line, preferably with MB hiding behind, chargers to either side, and melee hiding in back. Then, I advance in a block. If he bases my artillery, the chargers run out to smack him and the artillery can finish it off. If not, the artillery softens up his army (wounds or kills vital pieces), then the chargers and melee charge in to finish off. After that, if necessary, the artillery pieces themselves will move in for close combat support or even fire support against those not in combat.

I've flipped through there a little bit... there do seem to be a few
nice deals available there.

Right now I have atotal of 452 points work of figures (20)... I'm sure that once my large lot comes in that I'll have more than just three orcs and six black poweder folks to work with formation-wise.

With your artillery method, do you ever just softe them up, and move in to capture, or is it simpler to just polish off the enemy completely?

You're completely right about the "learn by playing"... theory works to a point, but in practice it's simpler to learn (and a lot more fun!)

MB hiding behind.. what does that mean?

Thanks for the great advice!

I'm going to have to disagree with you Celtkhan. I think that lots on ebay are the way to go. When I first started I looked on ebay for good lots every couple of days. You'll often see people who are quiting the game selling everything they own for about a 10th of what its worth. When I was building my Dungeons set I bought a lot of Dungeons stuff on ebay for $100. I was able to complete my first set. and a second and had around 100 extra figures and 10 extra uniques. Too date I've made just over $150 resaling stuff just for the lot and I complete my set and pick up so cool Dungeons extras. I think that buying a lot on Ebay can be the best thing a new player can do if they want to jump into the game quickly. But you do want to be very careful. Make sure that they give you list of every thing in the lot or at least the important peices. I'd recommend buying from someone with a lot of feedback especially if you're new to ebay. If you find a lot and aren't certain if its a good deal you could always post the link here and someone could tell you want they think.

Sweet! they don't mind if you post offsite auction links here?

I did make sure that the person I bought from had at least 25 or more positives, and no negatives before buying.

is there a regular auctioner that you reccomend?

I stay away from auctions if it doesn't tell me what I get, if I want randomness I go with boosters, they are more fun anyway. Auctions are fine, I would just make sure they have good references.

As for other aspects of starting the game, when I started playing I played EL and NS, I thought that was good because I had people alive long enough to actually play. I found when I played with BPR and AG everybody was dead before long, with EL and NS the games lasted longer so I learned more. but really it is just a matter of preference. My best advice is build an army of figures you like and go play. I had figures I loved, then I played em, and they sucked. So just grab some peices and play as much as you can, and most importantly HAVE FUN!

they're really isn't one seller that I recommend because I've found that often the best lots are people getting out of the game. If you need help decidin if a lot is a good idea go ahead and PM me and I'll give you any help that I can. I've help several people get into ebay and I buy stuff there all the time and I have a VERY good grasp on what stuff is worth.

Great.. I'll do just that! don't mind if I add you to my buddy list.

I hope you get your six next time. ;)

I'm pretty easygoing... all the factions look like fun. Do you reccomend any in particular to specialize in?
[/b][/quote]

Hi scottobear!(please god let me have spelled that right, my head hurts tonight) I've often taught new players, a few friends, new kids at our shop, and I was wondering, for convinience, do you have any messenger system? I have MSN, ICQ, and AIM. Anywho, lets get on with the army building, shall we?

Your wood golem is, quite sadly, a bad figure, however, you have its counterpart which makes up for it. The living elemental!
But I will get to him later. First, lets look at a good figure to construct your army around. Uniques are by far a good figure to build around and the Chaos Mage is a versitile figure to do so!
lets look at the pluses; cheap, versilitile, and more special abilities than there is chineese population!
THe true way to expose and use these amazing abilties is via pushing and healing. Veiwing your list o' figures you have a very cool healer: the leech medic!, now, I know you want to keep her with your other figures, but she is wicked with the chaos mage. push to a slot you need, and heal him with the medic if you want a different spot, but obviously his psychically strongest slot is his magic blasting spot. Unless You have great reason to do otherwise, try to keep him on this spot. I see you also have a large amount of the Black Powder Rebels. Why not try grouping the freelancers and dwarven fuser, boomer, and amazon together? That provides a large, healthy formation of different figures. The Fuser and boomer provide powerful ranged support while the amazon and freelancers go on their own missions. The amazon is a very powerful close combat-expertise. Her weapons-mastery allows her to deal alot of damage and she has a small ranged attack to boot! the freelancers can formation attack with her to overcome enemy figures defenses, and possible have the freelancers capture an enemy figure, or send one straight at an enemy ranged figure while you close in, so they have to kill the freelancer and then face your fury!:) For this group, I would advance the lot to where the big skirmishes are or where terrain is in your favor. Leave the fuser and boomer behind while the rest leave to enter the fray. let the boomer and fuser attack whatever comes in range. To provide a little support, why not throw in the blue grave robber? his necromancy skill allows you to recycle dead figures! this ability alone has the power to overwhelm any opponent.just remember they get kill points every time they kill a figure, so try to only use necromancy to bring back a key figure at a key time. dont just necromancy a figure just because its dead. that simply feeds your opponent points. and that is far from good. proper use of necromancy is hard to learn, but pays off oh-so much in the end. You may want a bodyguard for the grave robber so why not use the ranger? both have stealth and can hang out in hindering terrain without worrying about attacks. For an awesome prisoner-taker and figure to tie down ranged attackers, use that ** shade. his ultra fast speed and quickness really helps in 200 pt armies. How you will set up depends on the terrain but heres a tip:
CM: Chaos Mage
LM: Leech Medic
DF: Dwarven Fuser
BPB: Black Powder Boomer
AB: Amazon Bladesmisstress
KF: Khamsin Freelancer
GR: Grave Robber
R: Ranger
S: Shade


S-R KF-AB-KF
GR DF-BPB
CM
LM

As for terrain, hindering makes a good spot to park the GR and R, and the S if hes wounded, blocking makes a good spot to Magic Blast with the Chaos Mage. And If you want to use your fuser and boomer well, stay away from terrain! They thrive on open feilds of fire and somtimes terrain gets in the way.

Army:
Chaos Mage *U*
Leech Medic **
Khamsin Freelancer **
Khamsin Freelancer ***
Dwarven Fuser ***
Black Powder Boomer ***
Shade **
Ranger ***
Grave Robber **
Total: 198 pts.

Good Luck;)

hides behind:

Troll Arty-Troll Arty-Troll Arty-Troll Arty
Mending P-Magus Drac-Mending P

Trolls block line of sight to the Magus Draconum and serve as a firing line. Magus drac can hide and still toss fireballs. Plus, when I need to rearrange later, the entire chunk can be broken into 2 2 Troll/1 Priestess combos with the Drac running off to do his own thing. Add a (for example) couple of lancers to the rear outside of the priestesses to discourage basing the trolls.

Capturing is a touchy subject. It's really up to personal decision at the moment. If you can get him back to your starting area, it's extra points for you. It's also a "one hit kill." If you can't get your captive home, it's simply less points for your opponents. Further, it denies you the combat use of one of your own pieces. If you can afford to capture, and reap the benefits from it, go for it. If it's too much of a risk, cap the joker and move on.

apoc67 - if you want to reach me, I'm biglug23 on aim (usually home, even if set to away... try and msg me some time!)

I thought for some reason that if the grave robber revives a figure that the points are no longer the opponent's? Would you be able to point me to a FAQ that mentions that? (I'll need to convince my other players in my group about that!)

The hint about pushing to cycle through abilities sounds very interesting... I've generally tried to keep him unwounded so as to focus on the magic blast... but my opponents have caught on, and are more prone to trot out magic resistant dwarves and such to tweak that out. pushing could be the answer I'm looking for!

Celtkhan - I didn't realize that capturing turned off the combative powers of the "jailer" fig... that will certainly affect my decisions as to using the option or not. Not sure what you meant about the assorted troll-part of your post. :)

Keep the recommendations coming... I've learned a lot these last few days, and I really do appreciate the help!

Hmm... stick to EL and/or Atlantis if you're new. They're very easy to work with. Orcs are fun if you're good at rolling dice...

Atlantis: This faction contain broken figs... The amotep gunner*** destroys formations, can be enhanced, has an attack of 10 for the measly price of 24 points. The scorpem gunner is just as powerful, with bound.

The disadvantage: atlantis figs usually have good starting stats and low stats after 1 hit.:( Keep a healer nearby. The techun, thunder, blade and storm golems are exceptions to this rule...

Elemental tree-hugging hippies: :D Just use the * or ** arties with corrupted priest/mending priestess. Centaur Lt's(**/***) for bodyguard duty... Troll gunners are a mix of the amotep gunners F/L and the arty's toughness. Try him out...

Downfall: Uncool sculpts... :D And slow movement on the arty.

Anyway, if you're starting, collect those shades... You're gonna need a lot of * or ** ones. 3 of each should suffice (I haven't even got 3 of each ;) I'm still looking...

your question about the grave robber necromancing, I don't have a link or anything, but the way it works is, if I kill your zombises(or whatever else) and you bring it back, then I kill it again I get the points again. So with necromancy you have to be careful of feeding your enemy points because they keep the points everytime it is killed, for friendly games I would recommend him.

Capturing is tough, personally I don't do it, you tie up one figure with escort duty, all that figure can do is move. while not even killing an opposing figure. So unless you can make it back to the starting area alive, I would avoid it.

If you are gonna try the pushing with the choas mage, the one thing you need is to know his dail very very very good, it is so hectic it is hard to work with unless you know it very well, I keep him on his first click as much as possible, his dail is just too shallow to push him a lot.

In Celtkhan's post he was talking about hiding, it is a very good tactic, he basically said if you put the trolls in front of the magus drac (anything with magic blast will work) then the trolls will act as a sheild while the magus drac can still blast through without putting the magus drac in danger.

oh, one thing I forgot to mention: experiment. Don't shoot to win every game. I have tried army where my artillery pieces were triple-enhanced Stormy, Quad troll artillerists, or nothing but Noble Archers. Build armies with different percentages devoted to long-range firepower. Try a melee army once or twice. Accept that you will lose in the beginning, and just try out new things to get a feel for timing, movement, power, range, and the various other factors of the game. To that end, play at least one game a week, although you might want to limit the max at three (more than three games a week, and I tend to burn out. A tournament can turn me off MK for two weeks, sometimes more).

Just have fun, pick fights (in a good way!) with as many different players you know, find the best player in your area and challenge him to a head-to-head. Accept that you will lose in the beginning. I strongly feel that, more than reading tactics here, more than winning battles, the greatest lessons you learn about how to play the game and about tactics comes from the post-mortem on a lost fight.

if you want a reliable 300pt. army i suggest going with the BPRs specifically the steam golem and the stomper. they can take a beating and still be formidable. My suggested army would be 2x**steam golem, 1x dwarven stomper, an EGM (emerald glade mystery), 1x*grave robber. Believe me I used this army in a tourney and it bagged me 1st place.

Formatons:

(F1)
2x**steam golem
1x dwarven stomper

Lone:
EGM
**grave robber

If you use this army always keep in mind that you should always keep your EGM in base with the Golems. This increases the defenses of the golems to 19, and dont be shy to bully your opponent he'd have a hard time trying to hit you. Just keep away from enemies with ram or flame/lightning they can remove the defend ability of EGM easily and lower your defenses.