Do you have a flag?

I decided to go against my better judgment and put the flags on the back of the Seneschal. The steps required to do so were many and complicated, but the main points were:

1. Drill (1mm drill bit) into the shoulder blades of the model.
2. Cut the pewter tabs off the base of the flags.
3. Incise a cross into the place where the tabs have been removed.
4. Drill carefully into base of the flag.
5. Lose patience with the amount of time the careful drilling is taking.
6. Push hard on the drill.
7. Drill through the miniature and into the thumb holding it.
8. Resolve to go back to clamping pieces before you drill.


Here is the culprit



Here is the innocent victim


No flag no country!

Kreoss in Red and Blue

High Exemplar Kreoss is done and here* are the photos:







*Is it redundant to say here they are when you can already see them as you read the sentence?

No flags for the Seneshal

I have assembled my Exemplar Seneshal after having bought his in April last year, but I haven't completely assembled him because I am toying with the idea of leaving off the giant annoying flags. I think they would look great, but I know they will be a fiddle pain in the arse and will definitely require pinning.

I have now varnished Kreoss and in the morning I will take a picture of him and post it here. The exemplars are also just about finished and will probably star in a photo of their own. Maybe they will get together and have one taken witrh Kreos; he is their boss afterall.

Good night.

The solution is flames

I started playing Warmachine in April 2006 (or thereabout) and my faction was Menoth. I played Menoth until June last year when a guy on the periphery of our group decided to sell his Trollbloods. He wanted 150€ for 394€ (I priced it all at my LGS) worth of stuff. It was a whole army ready to go. Since then I haven't played Menoth at all; I even stopped painting them to focus on the mass of cheap tin that I had just acquired.

Yesterday I noticed my Knights Exemplar and thought to myself,
if I just spent a few hours on them, they'd be finished.
So I picked them up and started painting them. After a little while I noticed that there were only five of them, so I went looking for the missing guy. When I finally found him, I noticed Kreoss and Reznik and thought,
if I just spent a few hours on them, they'd be finished.
So I added them to the painting queue.

So I spent a few hours yesterday and today painting away and I have just about finished the knights and Kreos. During this time, Martin decided to challenge me to another game and because I have painting enthusiasm for the old religious nutters, it expanded and transformed into gaming enthusiasm. So next week I am rolling out the incinerators and uncorkin' the napalm for an old timey Skorne roastin'.

Borka vs. Makeda

Skorne List

Makeda (m)

Titan Gladiator (T)

Cyclops Savage (C)

Basilisk Drake (B)

Venators

Cataphract Acuraii (A)

Ancestral Guardian

Trollbloods List

Borka Kegslayer (B)

Dire troll Mauler (D)

Winter Troll (W)

Longriders (L)

Fell caller (F)

Gudrun the Wanderer (G)

Feralgeist

Martin and I played a 500 pt game to break in his new Skorne miniatures. We rolled up the Domination scenario and the following map shows the basic terrain. The Khaki coloured blobs are hills and the dark green are forest.

Domination is about controlling the 9 areas of the board represented with a cross.

Set up

We rolled to set up and I was first. I tend to play pretty aggressively, so a tight bunch in the middle (designed to punch though the opposition) is a common formation for me. The map shows my Trolls as the blue circles, with the code letters referring to the letters by the names of the army lists at the top of this post.

Martin was hampered by a forest (he put it there) in his deployment zone, so he was spread right across the board. His are the red circles at the top of the map.

Opening moves

The map represents the first round and a half. It is mostly accurate, but a few things may be not in exactly the right place as my memory was hazy on some details. My force streamed across the board (claiming the middle ground) in my first turn, while Martin moved forward only a little and got his troops into better positions. My 2^nd turn was based around unleashing my cavalry. I cast Bum Rush (A spell from Borka) and Freezer (an animus from my Winter troll) on them and then the Fell caller sang War Cry and off the Longriders (Cavalry) went.

The Longriders smashed into the Venators and carved them up. I killed half the unit with the charge which was probably to be expected, but I have never really had my cavalry do much before, so I was very pleased.

Mid Game

Martin responded well and there was a point where I thought he was going to tear me to pieces. His Titan and Cyclops and the Acuraii all charged the Longriders and by the end there was only one Longrider left.

Gudrun attacked the ancestral guardian that was accompanying the Acuraii and he was able to destroy it with one hit. From here the game got pretty messy before the end.

End game

Martin’s Titan came running in and smashed my Winter troll quite badly. Luckily my Dire Troll was able to see it and charged. Unfortunately it only hit once and did hardly any damage. It was at this point that the game was in the balance. It all hinged on the Titan. If I could get rid of it I could dictate how the rest of the game went. After much protracted struggling I was able to kill of the Cyclops and then possess it with the Feralgeist. As the Titan focused on the Dire Troll and killed it, the Winter Troll, Borka and the Cyclops went in and managed to kill the killer.

Marin was in a hard position now, but true to his Menoth roots he made a ballsy move. I had accidentally left a charge lane from Makeda to Borka. Makeda came screaming in and with flashing blades almost succeeded in killing Borka. Almost. In my turn all of my monsters focused on trying to see who could eat Makeda first. The Winter troll won. With Makeda dead Martin conceded.

It was a fun game and a good first go at Skorne for Martin. I look forward to playing him again.

Now it looks like I am teaching a potential new player tomorrow night. I’m interested to see how that turns out.

Cygnar smashed

Tom was visiting Martin from England last week and so he came along to the monthly war games night and as it happened he was drawn to play me. As it was only his sixth or seventh game I intended to be a bit instructional as we went along, but I think his background in other war games made him a little too untrusting to really listen.

I made a strong list based around Champions, the Stone Scribe and Madrak Ironhide. I am unfamiliar with Cygnar stuff but Tom had halberd guys, sword guys, Trenchers and four Jacks. I tried to give some advice, but he politely refused to heed my warnings about a few things and so I was able to beat him.

Tom didn't play poorly though and used his feat at the right time. I think the only thing he didn't do was prioritize threats appropriately. He focussed on the Totem Hunter (and eventually killed it) when he should have thrown his light Jacks in against the Champions. He also got really worried about the Longriders when he should have been focussed on the Trolls attacking the hill. I got the Champions into a great spot on the hill and with a Dire Troll and an Axer in Support I was able to throw him off and hold (the hill was the objective) the hill for the victory.

We both enjoyed the game and chatted for a while afterwards, which is a good indicator that no one felt miffed.

I am now looking forward to playing Martin this week. He has a bunch of new Menoth stuff that I haven't faced yet and I am interested to see what it can do.

Completed Winter troll

I Started highlighting in white and realised I liked the idea of white being more than a highlight, so I kept going. I am happy with the final product and he is ready in time for the game tonight.


I'm not sure about the base though.




I am thinking of maybe some snow on the base.