Xerxis and Reznik both die

Martin and I managed to get in one last game before my miniatures are packed away where I can't sneak them out again. We put 750 point armies on the table and decided to fight with no real objectives other than to smash each other.



I was handling the early game quite well. I tied up his left flank with three Vengers, while the real fight took place in the center.


My Strategy hinged around the Guardian which was a mistake. I forgot why the Guardian had been gathering dust for a year and a half, but I was quickly reminded; it's a piece of junk. It might be worthwhile in Mk2, but while 3 damaged systems can take out a jack, a heavy jack with an Arc node is just not worth fielding. Martin's heavy Infantry didn't quite fill in half the boxes on the Guardian's damage template, but because three systems were disabled, the jack was disabled.



Mid game I was losing and trying to consolidate. Vilmon, The Seneschal and my Paladin were dead, as was the Guardian and the Vengers were looking shaky. it was then that martin made his mistake. He left Xerxis exposed. Reznik branded him a heretic and the Redeemer fired missiles and killed him. Martin's beasts went wild and suddenly the advantage was mine.

I also made a mistake and left a charge lane open to the Ancestral guardian, who swooped in with Five soul tokens and cut Reznik to ribbons.

The fight now came down to Martin's Immortals against my Choir, Zealots and Avatar. The Avatar slowly chopped through the Immortals, who proved (true to their namesake) very hard to kill. Finally my Zealots got there and rained fire bombs down on the Immortals. End of Battle.

My strategy was not sound. I consolidated from the mid game setbacks well, but my victroy hinged on Martin leaving his boss in an unprotected position.

Get out of the way Vilmon

Tomorrow I play my last game of Warmachine for quite a while. Tuesday the miniatures and modeling gear get packed away for the big move and won't be available to me until October... bummer. So 500 pts Mk 1 vs Tom's Cygnar and Martin's Skorne. Do I think I have made the most competitive army? No. Am I happy with my choices? Very.

I love the fluff that goes with Menoth and in my fevered imagination I see a kind of rivalry between the Knights Exemplar and the Paladins of the Order of the Wall. So tomorrow's force is based around knights (only 2 models are not Knights) on the march to war with Vilmon tagging along to see what all the fuss is about.

Here is a crappy snap of the models I am using. Unfortunately the Vengers are nowhere near finished, but they are ok (except the bases) for the table.

4 corner hardcore match

Martin, Tom and I were set to play a small round robin tournament on Monday night with each of us playing both the others. However we got a fourth player (Dylan) and decided to play hardcore rules with all four of us on the same table at the corners. We put a castle ruin in the middle of the board as a way to earn victory points and went at it.



Tom headed for me, as did Dylan and i was lucky enough to charge Tom's Hunter with my Vengers and kill it. That made him cautious and he slowed down his advance. I withdrew from the fight happily, knowing that there was no forest between me and the cryx and a fight was inevitable.



The game now became Menoth vs. Cryx at one end and Menoth vs. Cygnar at the other.





I got the better of Dylan and managed to cast Brand of Heresy on Terminus and then charged my Castigator into him. It still took three hits, but I eventually eliminated the Lich Lord.

At the other end of the field Tom and Martin slugged it out and while they both did huge damage to each other, Martin's Avatar got the edge over Ol' Rowdy. When the turns were up, we counted up our victory points from each turn with a model within 3 inches of the ruin and then subtracted our lost VPs from it, giving us our final score.

Dylan was on -13, Tom on -9, martin on -5 and I had a grand total of 1. Yay me. Next time I probably would not want to do victory points that way.

Reasons to fail the May painting challenge

I hardly ever go in for the painting challenges on any of the many forums that do them, but last week I decided to do one on www.rpg.net

The reason I don't do painting challenges is that I don't finish what I put in my vow. However it's not that I lack inspiration to paint, it's just that I paint things other than what I said I would. So here are some of the guys who this weekend have derailed my vow to paint High Exemplar Gravus and the Covenant of Menoth, amoungst other things.

This dwarf is made by Rackham (for the game Confrontation which apparently has died again) and is a really great sculpt. You can imagine what he is about to do.



I just realised I forgot to finish the edge of his shield, but I think I will leave it alone.



This next guy is a Cleric made by Reaper. He seems like a fairly standard D&D cleric and I almost let that stop me from buying him. I'm glad I didn't







I have finally started to paint eyes. i told my wife that and she asked,
"What did you used to do?"
"I just left them blank," I said.
"Creepy"

I am pretty happy with how they turned out. I followed Dr Faust's painting clinic, which an excellent resource on many things painting.

Work is a time sink

I bought a few miniatures today, but I have had no time to do anything related to them for almost a week now. On the weekend I want to assemble the Covenant and convert my Bane Knight. We'll see how that pans out, seeing as how my wife is due to give birth any time now.

A good opponent makes for a good game

I played at one of the local game stores yesterday that I have never played any games at before and I have lived here for four years. I have been meaning to go along to Warmachine Friday for at least 18 months, but many things have gotten in the way.

I played a guy who used Epic Haley with a pretty balanced force. Ironclad, Thorn, Hunter, Lancer, Sword Knights and Stormguard; he also had some buff solos. I had a Castigator, a Guardian and a devout, aklong with TFG and attachment, Choir, Knights Exemplar, a Seneschal and Vilmon.

It was a good game that came right down to the wire in the end. In turn 4 he had a go at assassinating Severius, but I got lucky (The defensive strike of the Devout also helped) and he came out almost unscathed. I advanced the Guardian out of combat (took almost no damage from the free strikes) and killed the Stormguard that was screening Haley. I then Immolated her twice with boosted damage for a measly total of 10 damage. I was a bit miffed about my crap damage rolls; one good boosted roll could have outright killed her and two on average rolls definitely should have killed her. Luckily though my second Immolation had set her on fire and with an average roll I could kill her with the flames at the start of the next round.

It was the only really tense moment for me because the game was in the balance. If the flames went out then Severius would die from the Hunter and the Lancer, if they kept burning there was a good chance I could kill her. As Menoth would have it the flames kept burning and the damage killed her and i won the game.

The thing that made the game good though was my opponent. He played well, but he was fair and in no way overly competitive. There was hardly any stress despite the balls to the wall aspect of rounds three and four and it was fun. My other regular opponents are also good like this (I don't want to say that this is new for me) as well, but I never know what to expect when I play a stranger in a shop. the fact that he was well mannered and comported himself very honourably during the game allowed me to relax and exorcise the competitive jerk from my own self.

Severius vs. Epic Asphyxious

I played against Mike's Cryx again last night and was defeated. After my initial shock at how powerful Bile Thralls, Bane Knights and Death Knell are, I decided to post a Battle report.

Round 1
We both moved forward toward each other. I formed up properly around the Temple Flame Guard (TFG) and Mike seemed to be a bit muddled up as he dashed forward in a mob. We both put down buffs and that was about it.

Round 2
Cryx turn:

-The Satyxis raiders charged my Jack wall on the left side of the field. They hit and damaged the castigator and the Revenger, taking out the castigator's left arm; each time they damaged, they also did a point of feedback to Severius.

-Asphxyious cast death knell through his arc node and killed 7 of the TFG and the standard bearer and the officer. They were in shield wall and had protection of menoth, but it seemed to not matter at all. Makes me wonder if there is a use for stuff with shield wall now as there are so many ways around it.

-The Bane Knights moved up nearer the Raiders, while on the right flank the Mechanithralls moved up to totally get in the way and tie up my Seneschal and Dervish. The rest of his army advance a little and that was it.

Menoth turn:

-Upkept Vision on Severious and Eye of Menoth overall.

-I moved Severius up behind the devout and cast Ahes to Ashes, killing 4 Bane Knights.

-The Reclaimer handed two focus to the castigator, who then moved forward a used combustion to kill 6 of the Satyxis Raiders.

-The Revenger stabbed the last raider that opened a trample lane toward the Satyxis Sea Witch, which the Avatar then used very well.

-The Avatar squashed the remaining witches as he ran over the top of them toward the Sea Witch who also died. He had focus left so he made a sword attack and killed a Bane knight that happened to be there and then Activated Menoth's Gaze.

-The Seneschal ran around the edge of the Mechanithralls (surviving the free strikes) and killed the Necrosurgeon.

-The Knights Exemplar move forward to form an extra screen around Severius in case the Devout isn't enough.

Round 3
Cryx turn:

-Asphyxious used his feat and brought back to 'life' all the Bane Knights I had killed and a bunch of Raiders as well.

-The bile Thralls move forward and one of them purges, killing a couple of Mechanithralls and all of my Knights Exemplar. The rest of the bile thralls shot at Severius and the Devout. One of them did more damage to Severius. At the time I thought this was ridiculously overpowered, but that was mainly because it is the second time in a row the Knights exemplar have been wiped out by one attack, before they had done anything. maybe I will stop using them so much.

-The Detahripper then slammed into the devout, knocking Severius down and leaving him open to the Bane Knight that was out of the range of Menoth's Gaze.

-The Bane Knight killed Severious and so my jack heavy army was rendered useless.



I think there are two reasons I lost:

1. I underestimated my opponents. It was only the fourth or fifth time I had faced Cryx
and I didn't know their models well enough to combat them properly.

2. I didn't play Severius defensively enough. I directly used ashes to ashes (he was that close to the front line) rather than channeling it.

What have I learnt?

Severius is an excellent caster and if I had used the arc node I really think I would have won the game. I was slaughtering him and apart from a Seether and some solos, he really didn't have much left, whereas I still had four jacks. maybe even 5 if the Avatar could have survived all those Bane Knights. So I will use Severius again today and use him properly.

Castigator completed in time to castigate

I finished my Casty this afternoon and am pretty happy with the result, especially since I departed from a technique I have been using for a long time. The difference was that I didn't ink the non metallic colours. I know its not that huge a thing to do differently, but I always (on key miniatures) use ink to provide a level of shade. I still inked the metallics though because they look flat without it and I am not good enough to do NMM.



Here he is from the side view. The only thing I don't like about the job is the pose he is in. The look I was going for was the scrapper throwing caution to the wind and diving into melee, but instead I got something else that could be called where are my keys?



I also did a lot more on the base than I normally do and I am happy with it for a first attempt, but I think in future I want my cobbles or flagstones to look more 3D. I think I have to rethink how basing is done. I might dig up a youtube vid of that prolific Canadian (I think he is the Kamloopian or something) model making guy. He has heaps of shows about miniatures and how to do stuff and he does it in real time, which means that while you might have to wade through 45 minutes to see a technique fully exploited, you get to see how it is done.



Last I have a picture of Rez and his Casty. I think Rez looks pretty proud of the little fella all grown up.



Next on the agenda (I have another week off work) is my Exempar Seneschal and my Reclaimer.

High Executioner Reznik has an offer for you

Here is Reznik after I finished him (I think I posted photos of him then) and then finished him again. I have gone back to the old blue and red colour scheme that I departed from with the exemplars; I replaced the blue with black.




Here he is from the other side with his Eddie Izzard inspired scroll of doom.

Castigator

I am trying out the Mark II rules tomorrow night, so it seems like a good opportunity to get my Casti painted. So here 'he' is with most of his base colours on.



I am thinking of trying a new technique, which actually means, not doing something I normally do. If it works I will be happy to mention it. If it doesn't I will pretend I never didn't do it.

Rebasing

I went back over all my Menoth miniatures and fixed up their bases. For the most part they were just sanded and then painted brown; if they were lucky there may have been a little rock there as well. I decided to add a little bit of dried up looking grass to most of the bases to give them a better look. I am happy with the result.




I also bought the new Green Ronin game: Song of Ice and Fire Role Playing. I mentioned that I already played it using the free dowloadable version a while ago. I am glad I bought the book, because while I won't play the game in its entirety, i will definitely use the mechanics for other games I plan to run.

The ruined fortification

I managed to salvage the terrain feature I was working on, but in the process it came out a lot darker than I had intended.











I am still messing up my photos. Sometimes light is the issue and sometimes it's the camera settings. These ones are the best of a batch of about 50 or 60 taken at different stages today.

Setbacks

I finished the ruined section of castle that has been my project for a while and sprayed it with lacquer to keep it safe from greasy nerd fingers. Unfortunately the laquer has dried leavuing lots of white spots and has ruined the look that I was quite happy with. I have seen this before, but the lacqeur I've been using lately has never done this before. I wonder why it happened this time. In the back of my mind I think maybe I did'nt shake it enough before spraying. Anyway, here is a pic of one of the problem areas.



I also botched the lighting and focus on the photo. Normally I get at least one of them right.

Have at you!

I have finished the Knights Exemplar. I am happy with the simple scheme I have achieved; happier than I was with my finished Kreoss.



Now that I look at them I think I might do a few more bits of detail on them.

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.

I have Highlighted the Skin with Ice Blue again and the hair with Bonewhite.

I am going to try and get both the hair and the skin to be way whiter. I am toying with the idea of just going straight to Skull White on my next pass. That might even be enough. Jeez I'm lazy.



The background for this shot I quite like. I think I am going to use it for all my shots from now on.

I tried a wash with thinned down paint at this stage. I'm not sure I am happy with the results.

Just to mention the colours I am using. My paints are all Vallejo 'Game Color', although I do have some of the 'Model Color' range as well.

Over a white spray primer
for the skin: Ice Blue* as the base, with a wash of Electric Blue
The skin nodules are Magic Blue and I plan to highlight with Electric Blue
For the hair: Bonewhite with a very weak wash of Skin Wash**
For the loin cloth: Inner sections were done in Cobra Leather and the fur edging was done in
Charred Brown.

*The website lists this as Glacier Blue
** This is 'Game Ink'

Here is the base coloured Winter Troll. I was home sick from work today and all I could do was sit around, so I got a lot done.