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.

Speed painting

We had a great game last night. Four players, hold the objective, hardcore. Toward the end when I was in the clear I started painting a miniature to demonstrate dry brushing to Dylan who was our Cryx player. I was originally just going to do the shoulders to demonstrate how it looks with steel and bronze, but Tom and Martin were using up their full seven minutes every turn, so I used four of those turns to completely speed paint the miniature. I am very happy with what is a 28 minute paint job. If I had access to it again I would clean it up a bit, but as is it is (IMHO) fine for the table.

Here is the photo. It is the Cryx Jack in the middle.

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.

Mk 2 thoughts and clour schemes

I have read through some of the posts other players have written (on the forums and on blogs) about the Mark 2 rules and am impressed by the level of thought that has gone into a lot of it; I'm not counting the people that are crying because their favourite, broken, MK 1 game killer has been tamed by the nerf bat.

My own experiences were mostly fun games against friends or friends of friends and there was never any upset or über competitiveness. I played a few tournament games, but that was not the norm for me, so my in depth understanding of the intricacies of Mk 1 are not as in depth as much of what I have been reading. The switch to Mk 2 for me has been easy; I had no favourite broken thing (except possibly Vilmon) to mourn.

After saying all that I will present my findings as I find them. I played on Thursday against Cryx and Mike took a bunch of stuff he never used to take, which is a good thing. I will list a few of my thoughts about various units:

Harrower:
I had never seen one fielded before and if it sucked before it doesn't now. It charged my Knights Exemplar unit and killed all of them with thresher. My Castigator took it out, but it was close.

Castigator:
I only bought it a week ago, so I had never used it before and was very happy with the results. The combustion attack with a 2" area attack wiped out almost a whole unit of mechanithralls in one go. When the necromancer chick (don't know her name) brought them back to life in the next turn, the Castigator did it again and this time killed the necromancer.

Revenger:
Still a solid light warjack. Dished up a Thresher and some of the Mechanithralls. I am happy with it and would use it again.

The Choir:
I think I like the way the choir works better now than before. I like the way the power works from each member of the choir rather than from the priest leading them. I think it means that one choir might be enough in future.

The Reclaimer:
Being able to give three focus to one Warjack is more useful than being able to spread them around. The soulstorm is also excellent, but I never got to test it out as i didn't realise he had it until it was too late.


Painting thoughts
How important is a colour scheme across the whole army? I ask because I tire of my blue and red scheme. I dropped the blue on my knights and I dropped the red on Feorra, but overall my army is blue and red. I mention this because I am contemplating painting my Avatar differently.

I managed to finish Vilmon and my Seneschal yeterday and got a lot done on the Reclaimer as well.

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.

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.

Mostly rpg

I had a great game with the guys on Saturday night. They were following a rumour of a wizard in the North to see if he was an escapee of the House of Rose. They did some gathering of information in seedy dock side bars and met a man that dealt in secrets. The man told them about a wizard living in a town called Lothair, a few days North of them. He also gave them a contact name in the town of a guy who knows more. So while there was little action there was plenty of role playing and investigation. I really enjoyed it.

My high school students were totally freaked out by yesterdays session of our fantasy game. I decided to base their latest escapade on a survival horror model. They have not played any horror, but they have watched enough movies and played enough computer games to get the genre.

I haven't done much painting lately. I am however building a small ruined fortification. I am about half way through it and look forward to putting it on the battlefield.

I have also accidentally designed a war game for my 4th grade class to play next week. Should be amusing.

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.

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'

Play the game as written

I have been a gamer for decades and have never found a gaming system that has completely satisfied me, but I have refrained (for a long while) from changing rules to suit my purposes. I used to do it all the time and over the years I learned why you shouldn't 'house rule'; read make shit up.

When you change something, you never know how that is going to affect the game down the road. It may have no effect, or at least no immediate effect, but for the most part, the rules are all interconnected.

Last night Martin and I played a 1000 point Flames of War battle and I slaughtered him. I won convincingly, mostly because we made up our own scenario on the fly, rather than following the approved ones from the rule book. The scenario we played, forced Martin to move forward while I waited in cover from which I could hammer him at my leisure.

It was still good fun though. My highlight was my command Stug IV being hit by three Sherman tanks and 2 PIATs and not even being scratched.