Sunday 30 November 2008

Madrak vs. Reznik

Tuesday night Martin and I played a hardcore match. Because it was hardcore there was no time for photos at the time, so I set them up later on and took a few. I think I need to get new lights or at least fiddle with my lighting technique, so as I don't wash the subject out too much.

Anyway the main battle took part in the center, which really suited me, as my flanks were really only distractions and the right one crumbled in the first turn and ran screaming away from the enemy skirmishers. My Champions really acquitted themselves quite well and smashed his heavy troops and broke through to attack his warcaster.

Line of battle

I love the Champions and I really can see why people hate fighting against them. On the other side of the coin, I hate fighting against Vilmon. If I didn't win the game in round three, Vilmon was going to give me a good lesson in body bagging.

Close up of battle

Wednesday 26 November 2008

Super hero battle royale

Thunderbird is no more. Our main story arc in Derek's mutants and masterminds game wrapped up on Sunday night in a climactic battle that took fully two hours to resolve. We busted into the villains lair, rescued the hostages and fought a whole slew of bad guys, before being able to beat down their leader.

My character (Warspite) is no more because he activated the device that would send the main villain back to his home (Hell) dimension and got taken back there with him. It wasn't an accident though, I had a feeling it would turn out like that as I pushed the button; it was time to retire the character.

So now Caliber, Wipeout and Airfist will have to do without a giant armoured behemoth to stand behind. My next character will be totally different.

Saturday 22 November 2008

Kriel Stone Bearer

I just finished this unit. I started them 13 days ago and am happy with the result.

Kriel stone unit

Here is a detail shot

Kriel Stone

Detail from the back

Kriel Stone back

Tuesday 18 November 2008

The day of the dart and the machete

I have decided that because I am not making money off this I will use the real names of those involved at the time, except for when I use their nick names, which some people were often better known by. So here goes anecdote two, which is a long drawn out number of events that took place over a month. I will be as brief as possible.

I had met Andrew playing Killer and we had gotten on quite well, despite the fact that we had tried to knock each other off. I invited him to come down on the weekend to John’s place and have a look at a game of Warhammer 40000. The game was fun and Andrew (and Dennis who came along as well) were keen to get involved and we were keen to be tough in front of the new guys.

Jason was acting the goat (he wasn’t the only one) and so I informed him that if he took another step toward me I would throw a dart (that was in my hand) at him. Not to let anyone down, Jason took that step. Following suit I threw the dart. I wasn’t really aiming to get him anywhere but the shoulder, but I muffed the throw and he twisted so that it was heading for his face.

At the last minute though, Jason threw up his arm and blocked the dart, which promptly buried itself up to the barrel in his flesh. Jason grabbed the dart and I turned to run as he pulled it out; I thought he was going to throw it at me. Running saved my life, but not from the dart. As Jason chased me out the door, he grabbed a rusty old machete with which he tried to remove one of my legs. He swung it back and forth and it was his swing action, which threw off his run and allowed me to escape. Andrew and Dennis were shocked, but still joined our gaming group.

About two weeks later and again in John’s garage we convened; this time to play a role playing game. At one point during the night, Dennis started describing the events of the day of the dart and the machete to those that had missed it. To make the story authentic he reached for the same machete and brought it in for a cross table swipe. It was a great story and the actual weapon being there helped us all re-imagine it, until Dennis lost his grip on the handle and the machete went whirling across the room straight for John’s head.

In a beautiful Spider-sense kind of way John quickly leaned to his left and the blade whizzed above his ear to crash into the wall behind him. We all breathed a sigh of relief, especially when John’s dad didn’t come and investigate the sounds of carnage. If that had been it, we would have had a funny double story, but there was more to come.

About two weeks later we were playing my adapted Warhammer 40000 role playing game (15 years before the real one came out) at my Grandparents place. This time Andrew was doing the retelling. It was all going smoothly until he got to the part where john dodged the blade. Being theatrical, Andrew threw himself side ways and down to simulate John’s (now legendary) move and managed to drive the corner of the wooden chair back into his temple. We all leapt up to see him as he writhed on the floor with a mild concussion. We all sat down. He would live.

Another week or so later, Dragon was retelling the story (again at my Grandparent’s house) and as he got to the part where we all leapt up to see if Andrew was alright, he leapt right into the faux chandelier that hung above the table. The noise was calamitous and we all threw ourselves to the ground, except for Cheezel, who looked directly up into what we all assumed was a cascade of falling glass knives. Not one shard of glass was loosed from the chandelier, but the noise took a minute or so to die down.

We all wanted to retell the story after that, but no one was game to. It did kind of seem like Cheezel had broken the curse by not having anything bad happen to him, but he had also extended the story, so no one was going to chance it.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

The Totem Hunter

Here is the predator.

predator2

Side view.

predator1

I finished him on Saturday in time for Subcultures in Utrecht. I am mostly happy with him, although I think I could do more with the gray; maybe make it a little lighter.

Tuesday 4 November 2008

Bad showing for the Trollbloods

I did very poorly in the tournament in Utrecht on Sunday. When I say poorly, I mean I cam last. Am I embarrased? A little perhaps. Am I annoyed? Not really. If I had won my last game (and I should have except for the rules my opponent broke) I would have finished fourth or fifth due to the decent amount of victory points I scored in my previous matches. Ah well.

It is difficult to explain to people why I lost without it sounding like sour grapes, but that's why I have a blog. Yay! Basically, my opponent was rolling an extra dice on the charge attack damage of her heavy warbeast. She did this three times and I didn't realise she couldn't do it. I am also sure she didn't know either. However this did mean that my stuff was falling apart rather quickly as she targeted it.

The worst mistake though was that she charged the same warbeast at my warlock, even though he was standing behind other figures that screened him. By this stage I was already trying to argue that the charge wasn't legal (according to the rules) for a different reason and after I lost that argument I didn't realise it was illegal from the screened perspective.

The arguing I was doing wasn't with my opponent though and this was the thing that actually pissed me off. Our game was dragging and so the other players filtered over to watch the end of our game as they finished theirs. Advice a plenty was wafting down from them to my opponent. I wonder if they would have been so keen to help if she had been a fat 40 year old man instead of a pretty 25 year old woman. Anyway, it was with them I was always arguing my case and it was clear that they wanted her to win. That is the only thing I am a bit sour about.

Saturday 1 November 2008

My Tournament Army

I have finally finished painting my 500 point Trollblood army for the Subcultures tournament in Utrecht tomorrow.

IMG_8423

I am mostly happy with them, although I could be happier with the Fell Caller (Front Left) and the Pyg Keg Carrier (Front Right). I just didn't spend enough time on them. Also, I didn't paint the Earthborn Dire Troll (Back Right), I inherited it in a job lot that I paid almost (about 25% store price) nothing for.

Eventually I will get the camera settings correct so that stuff isn't so shiny. Maybe I should spray the big yellow guy with matt varnish.