In the Finest Hour Podcast

Ep14: Ladies' Night

What happens when you accidentally knock two-thirds of the show's hosts into the warp? Aside from assorted cursing in tongues older than mankind itself, you get a 40K Ladies' Night!

Shaylynn Allen, Lady of Titan and The Good Host, takes over the center chair this week and is joined by Eleanor Byler (of Team Doll Wars) and Jessica Bowman (of Team Warhammered ) in a very special episode of In the Finest Hour. All three Ladies delve straight into the social contract- a critical component of the competitive experience that is perhaps the most important thing in keeping players coming back. The three of them get into the details of why such a simple thing can get so complex to deal with, and how it intersects with players' emotions and assumptions as well as how to untangle those connections. The ladies also talk about how to address conflict within your gaming experiences so that everyone can walk away from the table content with the experience and ready for another game.

The second part of the episode shifts gears as the three of them lay out the good, bad, and ugly realities of being a woman wargamer. A vast majority of the time, things are fine and fun- but when the go south they can reach depths both grim and dark. The hosts also give tips for how to better interact with, and better attract, female wargamers to your own community as well as some do's and don'ts of being around them. (Hint: asking whose girlfriend they are right off the bat is not a good start.)

As promised, the mentioned events and links:
Jessica's RTT- Command Zone Games & Hobbies Warhammer 40K Tournament (link)
Eleanor's GT- Clash Of The Titans 40K (link)

Episode Music: Dankmus

Icon Artist: Rylan Woodrow

Sponsored by: Vreda Forge

Website: https://www.inthefinesthour.com/

Directed by: Sean Morgan and Shaylynn Allen

Edited by: Shaylynn Allen

Ep13: Sacrificial Units

Ask not what your army can do for you, but what you can do for your army. In every game we inevitably end up losing some of our units, but in a lot of cases that's not such a bad thing- and in this episode, we look at the roles that sacrificial units can play in your army and how best to make use of them. We talk about how to get yourself in the right frame of mind so as not to be upset about those losses, ways and reasons to sacrifice something, and the most dreaded and worthless of all phrases: "m a k i n g  y o u r  p o i n t s  b a c k".

From speedbumps to tempo, from objective-holders to shields, and from board control to assassination runs, we cover all of the ways you can make your little spacemans die heroically for you in battle. "Your life is the currency of the Emperor- spend it well."

Episode Music: Dankmus
Icon Artist: Rylan Woodrow
Sponsored by: Vreda Forge
Our Patreon: In the Finest Hour
Website: https://www.inthefinesthour.com/
Directed by: Sean Morgan
Edited by: Shaylynn Allen

Ep12: The Command Re-Roll

The simplest stratagem in the game, and arguably the most important as well. This time around, we dedicate an entire episode to the humblest of strats in the game and one that everyone has access to. Although it may not seem like much, especially if you haven't played earlier editions of the game, the Command Reroll strat is incredibly important and can be a matter of win-or-lose in innumerable situations. In this episode, we talk about those many uses, how it existence changes the game, and why you need to be thinking about how our when you use this critical stratagem.

 

We also talk about when not to use it, the math of what portion of an attack sequence you should use it on, how it affects other stratagems, and much more.

12 LVO 2019 Hottake

Sean and Shaylynn talk LVO 2019. Josh sensibly decided to sleep instead.

Ep11: Target Priority

Remember when I said I'd kill you last? I lied.

This episode is all about choosing your targets- what you can afford to ignore and what you can't, what needs to die and what can wait until next turn. While the movement phase might be the phase that can win you the game, that's hard to do unless you're getting rid of the units in the enemy army that can prevent you from winning. And since you can't kill every unit in their army simultaneously (since it's not 7th Ed anymore), that means picking and choosing your targets carefully to get rid of the ones that can do you the most harm.

Over the course of the episode, we talk about getting rid of threats to your threats vs. getting rid of threats to your victory conditions, how your target priority should change over the course of a game, and when you should shift priorities based on bad rolls. We discuss how to deal with reactive stratagems and abilities that your opponent can use against you and how to get around them as well as advice on how to choose the order in which you activate your units, both of which can be critically important in destroying targets effectively. Plus, we cap it all off with a short lesson on knowing your math and overcommitting versus undercommitting- and if you'd rather not do that math yourself, you're in luck, because we have a couple of links created put up by helpful individuals that can do the math for you!

http://www.dice-hammer.com/#!/damage

My preferred calculator for quick-and-dirty stuff. There's some features it's missing (like "rending" style effects), but if you're just running some raw math on things it's handy. This is probably your best bet for comparing options, since it lets you set up multiple "armies" to contrast them.

http://mathhammer.thefieldsofblood.com/

Doesn't let you compare, but provides more in-depth stats on a single unit or weapon. Provides not just the average, but also the distribution on things, which is great for understanding your chances of getting different results.

Episode Music: Dankmus
Icon Artist: Rylan Woodrow
Sponsored by: Vreda Forge
Our Patreon: In the Finest Hour
Website: https://www.inthefinesthour.com/
Directed by: Sean Morgan
Edited by: Shaylynn Allen