Change of Pace

A little vacation from the Motherland.

After yesterday's musings about Orks, today I grabbed a handful and got to painting.  It's not often that I can start and finish a mini in a single day, let alone a group of them, but that's more or less what happened here.  I drop that qualifier in because the batch had been started already, but keeping with my usual style I re-painted just about every bit.  While I know that Orks are a motley bunch and having them be different colors would be thematic, I still like having a consistent shade through bunches, if not the whole army.  Speaking of coherency the Evil Sunz portion of the army isn't speaking to me at the moment, despite what I painted today.  Somehow having the single color (blue) on the Deathskull part works for me more than the dual color (red/yellow) of the Sunz.  My concept for the army would work just fine as a strictly Deathskull force and if I didn't already have most of a squad of Evil Sunz done (not to mention other partially painted bits) then I'd probably switch over to just blue.  Perhaps pulling all the boyz out as a group will make the different colors more appealing.  If I've lost you in this reminiscing, do check the tag cloud on the right sidebar.  I've covered this Orky speculation before, but it's been quite a while.

Year in Review

The year what was.

First things first, I've picked up a couple new followers recently, so howdy to the new folks.  Hope you enjoy the ride.

With the new year on the horizon, and since I see them popping up across the interwebs, I thought I'd take a look at what I've done this year.  Starting with models built would be appropriate, but I'm not entirely sure what was done this year and what was done in years past, so let's just skip ahead to painting.

Bombs away

Gogo Ice Axe.

Quick one here before hockey.  Finished up the latest batch today.  It took longer than I expected, but in the end all the little rivets and tiny highlights pay off.  Of course forgetting details like the Ice Axe and the Bombardiers leader's head until the very end didn't help on the time front, but they're done now which is what matters.  The axe in particular was a bit of an experiment.  I wanted to get a sort of blue glow effect, so once I realized I had forgotten it I went back over the regular silver color with the light blue (not sure what it is, akin to GW Ice Blue) and started filling in at the "base" of the axe with the idea that the "glow," and the ice itself, was coming from the center of the axe and would get fainter as it got closer to the edges.  Straight blue went in the middle with progressively more VGC Silver mixed in as I moved out.  It didn't turn out quite like I wanted, but it doesn't look half bad either.  Next time I might try a blue base and put the silver on top of it, or perhaps use a blue wash over a silver base.  Because time is an issue, have a photo dump for the finish.

A hint of things to come

Family portrait.

I've let the battle reports pile up to the point that there are no less than four waiting for some love.  Some will be shorter than others, but it's a troubling collection no matter how long they turn out to be.  I'll start chipping away at the stack and hopefully get caught up by the new year. 

In the meantime, I have a little nugget here from one of the upcoming reports.  I played against...Steve? (horrible with names) a couple weeks ago at the FLGS.  It was his first game under mk 2, and first in a couple years.  It was also my first mirror match against a fellow Khador player.  The exact goings-on will have to wait for the actual report, but one of the things that came up during the game (Steve was very nice and chatty) was a Black Ivan comparison.  He did a so-called "Full Metal Ivan" conversion, using the old metal Destroyer as the base.  I've seen a couple of these across the interwebs, but this was the first I'd seen in person.  The plastic jacks are bigger than the old metal ones in my experience, and I expected the same results in this comparison.  Imagine my surprise when the two Ivans were more or less the same size.  My plastic Ivan is wider due to how I posed him, but height-wise there isn't much difference.  Plastic Ivan is a shade taller, but you'd have to do some looking to notice the difference and I don't think you'd be able to tell if they weren't sitting right next to each other.

In other teaser notes I had my first game of Hordes today facing off against EV's Skorne.  I thought it would take some time to get used to how Fury works, but turns out it was pretty natural.  Looks like Hordes is, or at least can be, exactly what I hoped it would be: a game of beasts with some infantry support.  Looks like this week won't work for gaming at the FLGS, but next week I'll be faced with a tough decision: fight for the Motherland or spread Everblight's influence? 

Painting and developments

Quick pictures are bad pictures.

A belated painting update.  On Friday I got the reds done and touched up the areas that will be black and little metal bits, which is all that now remains.  Aside from basing of course.  This time around I tried to be more liberal with the shading on the red, which was challenging since I wanted these models to fit in with the rest of the army that has less-shaded reds.  I've been wanting to do a darker red for a while now, but I'm basically locked-in to the bright red for the Motherland (not to mention my Blood Angels).  With Paint the Target due on Wednesday, and a game with EV tomorrow, it looks like Wednesday morning will be "get the Juggy done ASAP" time.  I don't anticipate any problems finishing on time, but stuff has a way of cropping up when you don't expect it.

In other news, my not-quite local FLGS had a Legion deck when I stopped by today (along with eVayl), so the Legion train is ready to hit the table.  Color schemes are still giving me fits though.  I think I want to go with blue and orange, but I'm faltering on how to put them together.  Blue skin with orange armor/scales?  Considering I want to do a very pale blue, more of a white shaded with blue than an actual blue, I'm not sold on orange working.  Going monochrome is an option, using orange as a spot color, but that seems like it would get monotonous with little delay.  Hopefully inspiration strikes at some point or I may be doing speculative paint jobs on some poor Shredders.

In other other news, no luck on little winter trees at Micheal's today.  I think I may have been early as it looked like they were just starting to set up the Christmas clearance stuff.  Perhaps a return will prove more fruitful.

Green machine

Marching onward.

 Got some good painting in yesterday.  Though I didn't think I had much time, I sat down at the table to get in some work and ended up finishing off the green.  This is an obvious coup since  the models are mostly green, putting them into one or two more sessions and done category.  For good measure I even got in a coat of red, though I think I'll be going back and doing the plates on top of the Bombardier's hands in red as well.  In an unexpected turn, the Bombardiers were easier/more fun to paint than the Juggernaut was.  Lots of large, flat planes aren't so engaging as it turns out.  Freehand might be a game-time decision, so to speak, depending on how long I have after finishing the model and before the Paint the Target deadline.  I'm not worried about finishing on time, but if I start throwing extra decoration in there then deadlines will be more of a factor.  Considering that this Juggernaut is likely to end up as a placeholder/ringer for extreme builds I won't feel bad if it doesn't get all the extra nifty touches.

Edge highlighting action shot!

In unexpected Christmas news, I got a whole rack of stuff from EV this morning.  In addition to actual Christmas no less!  I got a Totem Hunter and Swamp Gobbers from EV (I got him Primal mk 2 and Archduke Runewood).  The extra bits are Legion.  A lot of Legion.  pLylyth, pThagrosh, a pair of Carniveans, a Seraph, eight Shredders, two Forsaken, and full (or almost full) units of Swordsmen and Archers.  All assembled and primed, though some have taken dings in storage and transport and will require minor repairs.  Quite the solid base to start from.  EV wanted a pair of Venoms in return, which I'm more than happy to provide.  Now I'm trying to keep myself from heading off to the FLGS to get a Legion deck, under the ruse of going to get lunch of course, then going over the Hordes rules again ahead of trying out the new beasties tonight.  It would be far more prudent to put in a Warstore order for the Venoms and add on the deck and some other bits (UAs for the units, any extra models to bring them up to full, Absylonia, solos for taste), but where's the fun in that?  The biggest hurdle I see thus far, aside from painting and learning a new faction (plus deciding on a scheme), is storage.  The Seraph is too spread out to fit in the big Battlefoam slots, and I imagine there are plenty of others that will be in the same boat.  Battlefoam makes a Legion beast tray, which is one solution, though I'd hate to start getting alternate trays for a bag that isn't even a month old yet.  There's also the pistol case I got about a year ago that doesn't have a role yet.  That would be more of a stop-gap, but it should hold plenty of infantry and the pluck foam, if thick enough, would accommodate enough beasts to do the job for a while.  The problem then is either I'm carrying a case and a bag, or I lose all the extra storage of the Battlefoam bag and have to carry the case plus another, different bag.  Life is tough sometimes, but I'll persevere.  Now for lunch.  And maybe cards.

Back to the painting table

A good start.

As the title says, today I got back to painting.  Despite my plans to get some Greylords painted I stuck (more or less) with what I had already pulled out of my bag.  After a bit of a marathon session I got base colors down on the Bombardiers and Juggernaut, plus a healthy dose of Tamiya Smoke and Devlan Mud slathered around.  The jack swap happened for a pair of reason.  No Destroyer has hit the table since I got Black Ivan, who is well worth the extra point over a base Destroyer, but I want to give the Ivan/Destroyer/Harkevich setup that I brought to the tournament, even if I never used it.  Of course I'd also like to use the Bombardiers in that list, but I can take them out with less disruption than losing the Destroyer.  The Juggy sees plenty of table time, so I'd like to get it painted sooner than later, especially when the alternative is painting the Destroyer with its noted-above lack of play time.  The Bombardiers took a lot longer than I was expecting, but hopefully things will go quicker now that I have the foundation established.  The green is going to be murder on them though.  Ideally I'll get the Juggy finished for Paint the Target, though I suppose I can fall back on the wreck markers if need be.  There should be a decent amount of painting time available this week, and once I get the green finished things should wrap up quick. 

Tournament Mode: the Debut

Tournament time.

A cluster of eager combatants. Pedestrian tables turned into exact playing surfaces with themed terrain. Handouts: a sheet for game results and army lists, another for event feedback. Packets of rules and scenarios. The gentle rumble of conversation and laughter. Trays of (somewhat) painted minis. The appraising looks drawn by the assembled armies. The atmosphere when I arrived to my first Warmahordes tournament was everything I thought it would be.

As I alluded to in my last post, I went in a new direction with my lists the night before the tournament.  I had settled into a single jack, infantry heavy, Iron Flesh caster approach, but following a successful game with Strakhov on Thursday night I went with a list very similar to the one I used that night:

The night before

Not the best pic ever, but better than nothing.

Today was a fairly productive day in hobby terms.  I managed to get the wreck markers done, start to finish with a coat of varnish at the end.  It feels a little odd to have finished painting more wreck markers (2) than jacks (1).  Hopefully they don't see the table, but should the worst happen then at least I'll leave a good looking corpse behind.

Work was sloooooooooooooooow tonight which is bad for business but good for hammering out lists.  Irusk lost an arm last night as I was taking him out of my bag, what should have been a harmless trip that reinforced the benefits of pinning.  I've cooled on pIrusk over the last couple days, for no discernible reason, so tonight's explosion of lists isn't so surprising.  Nor is the fact that the lists I'm most taken with at this moment feature casters I'm not so familiar with (not that I'm well versed with pIrusk).  While I may be setting myself up for failure, I hope I'm also lining up a good time for tomorrow.

Lack of Forward Progress

In direct contrast to conventional wisdom, hobby progress has ground to a halt in this last week or two before this Saturday's tournament.  Judging by every hobby blog ever, I should be knee deep in painting as I race to finish my list in time to get it to the table.  Instead I haven't done any painting since finishing Irusk and the Winter Guard attachments last week.  I've settled on options to paint if the mood strikes today or tomorrow (Destroyer, Bombardiers), but the real problem here is that the stuff I want to paint (Greylords, War Dog, Juggernaut) are all likely to find spots in my tournament lists, and I'm not going to put all that time and effort in to a model only to rub it off over the course of a day.  It's a bit of a Mexican stand-off.  The good news is I'll be able to dig in to these options next week.  The bad news is I won't be getting at them when I'd like to (now) because I can't finish them by Saturday, and thus I'll be fielding a less than fully painted force.  While I'm used to putting down a bunch of grey primered minis, it was something I had hoped to avoid, or at least minimize.  Perhaps for next time.

Ahoy IABN. Also, podcasts.

Can an iPod be retro?

The Iron Agenda Blogging Network feed is live, so a hearty "Come on in, the water's fine" to all the traffic that (hopefully) finds it way here from there. 


The Iron Agenda wasn't the first Warmahordes podcast I listened to, but it was the first one that got added to my regular rotation.  It hit all the things I wanted: general news, tactics, combos. and it did all of that with good sound quality and engaging hosts.  Sadly the show stopped about a year ago and I have yet to find a suitable replacement.  The Iron Agenda is still the standard I measure Warmahordes podcasts by, and they've all come up short thus far.  Despite constant disappointment I'm still on the hunt, and I can try and save you some time and effort by sharing my (admittedly biased) thoughts on a great swathe of the Warmahordes podcasts that are going at the moment.

Victory

A finished group.

 At long last, it's been a good 24 hours in my neck of the woods.  First up, the IABN machinery should be running.  Again, this will be a shot across the bow type thing.  I have a podcast post in mind for when I'm sure everything is working.

Next up, you can already see my handiwork from yesterday.  The current, though I should now say past, batch is finished (except varnishing and snow).  I got out of bed determined to get a good day of painting in and ended up getting the whole thing done, which was a pleasant surprise.  Once I sat down to do it, there wasn't really much left.  Leather, rivets/medals/doohickeys, touch-ups, basing, and it was over before I knew it.

Stymied

Open works, insert wrench.

Motivation has been a problem around here lately.  Despite intending to finish up (at least some of) the current batch of painting these past two days, no paint brushes have been raised.  Hopefully tomorrow is the day all that changes.  All has not been lost in hobby land though.  The Black Friday arrivals got pushed through the machine yesterday so I could get them primed today, then hit all the spots that got missed tomorrow, all so they'd be good and dry for Thursday.  Of course I didn't take weather into account, so when I got up this morning and checked the humidity (98%...) plans got scrapped in a hurry.  And of course the forecast for tomorrow is the same.  The silver lining here is that I have a bunch of minis ready for priming whenever the weather breaks, but the obvious downside is that either I won't be getting to try out the Kayazys this week or I'll have to put my "prime before table time" maxim on hold for a couple days.

Actual Progress

Le group.

While it wasn't much, I did get some painting done today.  It's been about a week and a half since I last held a brush so I wanted to get back into the habit.  Turns out you can get real rusty with even this short of a break.  I did some poor work on the black, but at least it's done, plus I got a wash on the leather and did some hair.  I also black lined the anvil on the flag which helps just as much as it did on Ivan.  It's not my best work ever, and I managed to mess up some of the red while I was doing it, but the results were worth the effort.  Black lining has been pushed by every good painter since before I got started in the hobby, but now that I'm finally trying it I see what they've been going on about.  The only issue is that it's a fiddly thing to do, and I'm not always the steadiest hand at the painting table.  Plus it takes a while.  The sacrifices we make for our hobbies...

Christmas in November

That's a lot of box.

Looks like it's been almost a week since my last post.  That's no good.  In my defense I've been cultivating a chest-bursting alien life form since the weekend, but I think my diligent schedule of removing said alien squirt by thick yellow squirt through my nose is finally paying off.  I lost a beautiful weekend here that would have been perfect for varnishing, and there has been no painting done of any sort in more than a week.  Hobby progress has ground to a full stop.  I did (finally) make a banner for the site though, and spread my spore into further corners of the interwebs, so my convalescence hasn't been a total loss.  [In vital, if unrelated, news, my infirmity was not serious enough to keep away from Verizon center to see Dale Hunter's return to the Caps, this time as the head coach.  Since I'm not down any limbs I'll also be there tonight to (hopefully) see the Caps get their first win for Hunter against the hated Penguins tonight.  But this is a gaming blog...]  Fate has conspired against me getting any games in today, either against EV or at the FLGS, but Fate didn't give me a complete shafting.

Assassins, Quandries, and Schedules

So ugly, yet so beautiful.

With the (relatively) mammoth Black Friday order placed and on it's way, I was feeling like I buckled and heaped more work on an already high pile.  While it's true that the list is longer than ever, I've actually made some decent progress over the last couple months.  I dug through my email to find past Warstore orders under the assumption that I'd placed half a dozen, with a model count nearing triple digits, and had painted perhaps a ten of the pieces.  Turns out I've only done two other orders and everything from them is primed (except a omnijack kit waiting for me to work up to magnetizing it), and there's even something completed (Ivan).  After finding this out I didn't feel nearly as bad about dropping two units (Kayazy, Mechanics) and a handful of solos (Yuri, Manhunter, Gorman, Sylys) into the painting queue.  I'm not sure how I managed to avoid the Kayazy for this long.  Now that they're on the way I either have my nose buried in the Khador book or inches from iBodger as I cobble together list after list to take advantage of them.  Stealth, Gang, Parry, base DEF 14 (16 in melee), and a mini-feat that lets them walk through other models?  Yes please.  I love the idea of just running them into melee, where they're safer than just hanging out, and then using the mini-feat to walk back into my opponent's second/third wave/caster.  Because the WGI Deathstar does so much, I hate to just run them into melee to tie something down because that keeps them from shooting and spraying.  The Kayazy can quite happily run to engage, then just walk away in future turns to let my second wave pour in.  Roughly a week away from arrival, they've already altered my (tentative) pIrusk tournament list, and the general list building implications are staggering.  Why does such a fun unit have such fugly models?

A slightly tardy post

Haste makes poor pictures.

Painting was yesterday, but pictures had to wait until today.  Despite it taking about three times as long as it should have, I got the reds done yesterday.  The problem is I keep painting the same spots over and over.  I start with Heavy Red, then a wash, the Red Gore, then Blood Red, all of it over the same area.  This isn't by design, I just keep doing it despite my intentions.  The results are good enough, so I guess in the end it works out, it just takes far too long.  At least I'm getting the hang of highlighting red without making it too orange.  I also got a base on the browns, which means that every bit of the model is now the color it will end up being, albeit after much washing, shading, and highlighting.  I had thought this batch would be finished the next session, but that was before I spent the whole time doing red.  Hopefully they'll still be finished the next time I sit down to paint, though getting all the basing done might be a stretch.

Caution: Flying Paint

I need to work on lighting for these setups.

In anticipation of only 2-3 days of painting this week, I put some work in today when I had the opportunity.  Painting inside to outside, I got going on the flesh.  About halfway through I realized I had missed an inside-ier part: the eyes.  Me and eyes don't always get along too well, but this time they didn't put up much of a fight and I got them all right the first time.  After finishing the skin I rolled into the green.  Highlighting went better on this batch, perhaps because I did it in two steps instead of one.  Whatever the cause, I didn't end up with the too-bright areas that have cropped up previously.  I considered the reds as a finale, but instead went with the metals.  The Tamiya Smoke I got from EV worked quick and well on Ivan, so I used it again here.  The finish is a bit slick, akin to a varnished area, so it might be fun going back on the officer's blunderbuss to do the wood bits, but it should work out well enough.

A Post About Nothing

They don't look too Khadoran, but neither do the real ones...

The mega battle report takes up the whole front page when I load the blog and I don't like it.  The answer?  Another (shorter) post. 

In a fit of inspiration I remembered that hidden away somewhere deep in the recesses of my collection was a box of Vespero's Vendettas that I might be able to use as stand-in Kayazys so I could give the unit a shot.  Ten seemed like a reasonable number to come in a box, and even six should be easy enough to come by.  After rooting around for a bit I came up with three assassins and Vespero himself.  Looks like I'll have to wait until I can get the actual models.  Of course the actual models are...unfortunate.  Still, Kayazys seem like a good fit with Irusk (Battle Lust), Strakhov(feat), and any caster with Iron Flesh(tarpit), so I'm curious how they'll work on the table.  A full unit with the Underboss and some support solos are the core of the impending Warstore order, to be joined by other bits and bobs depending on what the Black Friday sale has to offer.  The Holiday bundles at the Privateer store looked interesting at first glance, but all they have to offer is a PP tape measure, dice, and tokens.  I had hoped for some sort of discount, and much as I'd like a gaming tape measure I'll have to be content with whatever the Home Depot has on offer.  Hopefully I can find one with a sturdy, durable lock.

On the hobby front, Black Ivan has arc markings and a coat of varnish.  I'm going to try a new snow basing method: mixing the snow and glue into a paste.  With any luck this will give me mounds of snow instead of the thin covering of the current method, glue then snow.  Irusk and the WGI ephemera got a base black coat on the appropriate areas, so everything on them from here on should be finished work. 

The (new) battle of Marathon: pButcher vs eGaspy

Lace 'em up Forrest, this is gonna be a long one.

The game that is usually on Thursday got moved up to today (Tuesday) to accommodate my occasionally wonky schedule.  During the list building phase of last night, I decided it was more than time to try out the Shock Troopers.  After trying a few different combinations, the only thing I came up with that accounted for the slow, slow, sloooooooooooooooow nature of the Shock Troopers was more Men-o-War.  Since I'd be embracing the slow slowness, Orsus seemed appropriate.  Plus I think of him as part MoW anyway.  Shield Walled, Iron Fleshed Shock Troopers should form a nice, solid wall that is hard to get through and blocks off whatever is behind it, which is a great idea until you want to attack from behind it.  The answer?  Bombardiers.  Tough and slow, they fit the nascent theme of the list and could bomb away from behind the wall thanks to Arcing Fire.  I toyed with a MoW Kovnik, but in the end I didn't have the points.  Jacks were easy as my list building has calcified to an extent.  Once I settled on Orsus, I knew I'd be taking a Juggernaut and a Kodiak.  I couldn't manage an entirely MoW and jack list, so I had to venture into the small bases.  My Ternion hasn't seen any table time in a shamefully long time, plus I wanted to get some reps in with the Iron Flesh + cloud combo, so in they went.  They'd also add some infantry clearing and accuracy boosting in a pinch.  The Great Bears rounded things out because...well, why not?  My final list was thus:

Diversions and more freehand adventures

Biscuity tastiness.

Despite having very little left to do on him when I stopped painting yesterday, after today's session Black Ivan is still not finished.  Granted I just have to clean up the lip on the base and do arc markings (plus snow and varnish of course), but I still came up well short of my anticipated finishing line.  I do have an excuse though, a couple of them, and I think they're robust.

Since I realized that Thanksgiving is a week from today I thought it was well past time for me to get some cooking practice in.  We don't really cook in my family, so when I took on the bread portion of the Thanksgiving menu this year I knew I'd have my work cut out for me.  Having squandered weeks and months already I got cracking this morning.  I found a recipe for Cheddar Biscuits and gave it a whirl.  Simple recipe, few ingredients, just my speed.  It took me longer to dig out all the various bowls, cups, spoons, and pans that it did to actually make the biscuits.  The results?  Tasty.  But this is a gaming blog and not a cooking blog, so on with the show.

More Black Ivan and a freehand adventure

Almost finished.

Had a real good morning at the painting table today.  My theory that Black Ivan would paint up quick is working out.  I more or less finished him today, basing and one particular bit of touch up aside.  I stuck to edge highlighting for the most part and just worked through the colors.  I started with the black, mixing Ultramarine Blue into the Chaos Black in varying degrees.  I wanted to keep all my highlights a bit sparse, but the black in particular to avoid brightening it up too much.  I probably undershot it again, but at least Ivan looks plenty black.  The red got the usual treatment, less the wash.  The fist in particular was nice to work on with its crisp edges and flat planes.  I tried using a light grey to mix in with the olive green (WWII German Army Green or something like that, from the Vallejo Model Color range) for highlighting this time and the result was good enough.  The spare highlighting probably had a bigger hand in it than the color choice, but regardless of why it happened I managed to highlight the green without hating the result this time, so that's a win.  The rivets were fun, but worth it in the end.  They make the model pop a bit more.  Schedule permitting Ivan will be finished (snow and varnish aside) tomorrow, but certainly by Friday.  I'd like to plow on into the Bombardiers, but since my last game with them (report on the way, it's a long one) I'm a bit more reluctant to take them out of action for painting.  I should really be working on the pIrusk list anyway which means WGI UA/WA and Greylords, plus the man himself, all of which I'm loathe to lose from the table.  The sooner I start them the sooner I finish though.

"Terrain," a Plan, and morning progress

Raw materials.

Since my FLGS doesn't do terrain, you have to port it in with you when you go there to game.  While I have a fairly nice setup for Uncharted Seas, a blue base isn't going to work for Warmahordes and the islands are comically undersized for 28mm.  I have plenty of foam and hardboard left over from those islands, but making up new hills and things will take a bit of time.  Since I want to have "terrain" for Thursday I needed a quicker route.  Carrying a minis case and bag of books, dice, etc. as I am, I'm not too keen on adding another box on top of it for terrain, so space saving factored into my plans.  The answer was quick and easy: felt "terrain".  The idea is simple and one you're all no doubt familiar with, cutting out felt shapes to stand in as hills and forests.  There's no 3d element of course, but since Warmahordes runs on standardized shapes and volumes determined by base size it will work well enough.  It's also a quick, cheap, and easy solution that I can roll up and stuff into a bag.  While I intend to get on some real terrain, this will be a good place holder.  As a slight change from the Uncharted Seas setup, I put weights in the bottom cloth to try and hold it in place on the table.  Because fabric comes short of 48" on the bolt, and because the tables at the FLGS are wider than 48", the cloth won't quite be  4' x 4'.  This isn't an entirely bad thing though as there should (hopefully) be less shifting of the cloth due to foot traffic and overhang.  We'll see how it turns out.

New Caster Throwdown: Strakhov vs eCaine

Wrong game, right feel.

Over the past couple weeks my collection, at least the part ready for the table, has expanded and there are lots of pieces that have yet to see the table.  While some of these (Shock Troopers) are relatively new and require some jockeying to find space in my case, there is one piece in particular that has been on the shelf for what feels like an eternity: Strakhov.  I got Strakhov when I went down to Fredericksburg for an Uncharted Seas tournament more than a year ago.  Poor guy sat in the blister for most of that time until I got him painted for a recent Paint the Target.  That was more than a month ago.  I've been hesitant to play Strakhov because I didn't have the pieces to play the kind of fast assassination game Strakhov seems made for, namely Great Bears and a Spriggan/Beast 09.  Fast-forward to now and I've just finished priming the Great Bears, Torch who lacks reach but is Strakhov's jack, eEiryss, and Aiyana & Holt (with Valachev).  If these pieces can't combine to make an assassination list then I have a problem in a logic bank.  With that in mind I got to bodging a list together last night.  At first I made a list that was full of everything I haven't played yet, but I just couldn't get Shock Troopers to play right with Strakhov in my head, plus I came up a bit short on 35 points, so I took out the Shock Troopers and put in some other stuff to come up with the following list: 

It was in my backyard the whole time

dingdingding

I'm throwing a list at the top of this post.  Why?  I do what I want, that's why. 


Things I Wanted to Find at the FLGS

• Sizable group of opponents playing a variety of factions
• Tournaments / Leagues
• People approximately as normal as I am (low bar here)
• Yuri and/or a Manhunter

I got three of four, and the missing one I can order from any model merchant.  Turns out that there was, in fact, a good-sized community hiding in (more or less) plain sight, right under my nose.  While there's a Foodmachine event on Saturday that I can't make, there's another tournament in December that should mesh well with my schedule.  I'm one very pleased gamer just now.

As if that weren't enough, I got (another) game in tonight as well.  Played against Menoth for the first time.  While I didn't want to bring out the full-on douchehammer for my entry to a new group, when I saw my opponent bringing out the Avatar I didn't feel too bad about fielding the WGI Deathstar.  I ran an infantry-heavy pIrusk list (is there any other kind of Irusk list?), notably including Torch and the Great Bears.  These last two first saw the table this morning against EV (details to come later) and did little more than catch bullets.  Tonight Torch ate a light and almost finished off a heavy as well, while the Great Bears completed the most glorious charge I've had the pleasure of executing.  With Battle Lust, under pIrusk's feat, they combo charged the (untouched) Avatar and eFeora, who was dallying about the front lines in a most careless manner.  One and a half Great Bears later, the Avatar was a smouldering wreck.  Facing the rest of the Bears' attacks, Feora picked discretion over valor.  Can't say I disagree.  The oddest part of the whole game?  I was playing against my boss's grandson.  Small, small world.

Now to bed so my subconscious can work on tournament lists. 

It's a small effing world

Games are popping up all over.

It's amazing what you can find at random on the internet.  A few days ago I linked to a Strakhov/Butcher battle report.  As I'm killing time today I head back to that blog, click around a bit to the blog of the opponent, and discover the blogger there is my local PG.

I have a local PG?

Turns out that my occasionally maligned FLGS has a Foodmachine tournament this Saturday.  Naturally I'm working in the morning and have a Caps game that night, but the point is there appears to be a community in my immediate area.  Much as I enjoy my weekly game with EV I'm keen to face some different approaches to the game lest my own tactics evolve in response to one opponent.  Looks like I may have found what I'm looking for. 

It doesn't end there though.  Poking around on the PP events forums showed another Foodmachine tournament, this time on Sunday, in Maryland.  So that's two tournaments this weekend after a nigh-total lack of events (outside the ~2 hour drive down to Fredericksburg) every other time I've looked.  But it gets crazier still.  One of the responders on the thread about this Maryland tournament was the guest on a recent Lost Hemisphere podcast and looks to be based out of DC.

Apparently the DMV has more to offer than I thought.  Now to work on venturing forth from my hobbit hole...

One step closer

This is a much worse picture than I thought.

Got the Manhuntress painted up today.  While I didn't go from primer to finished today, it was close enough to call it that.  The fur bits, of which there are plenty I will admit, are the only parts that didn't see a complete reworking.  I'm not 100% pleased with the green as the highlighting is a bit garish to my eye, especially in the bosoms.  This is the same problem I had with the Winter Guard, so it looks like time has not solved this issue.  I've been mixing in Bleached Bone to lighten the green, which has worked for every other color I've tried it with, but perhaps this particular green just doesn't work in that way.  Back to the drawing board I suppose.  Green aside, I'm pleased with how she turned out.  I wanted to give her blue eyes, but they didn't pop in the way I hoped, so I went with blue eye shadow (I think that's what you'd call it.  The upper lid color.  I won't claim to know anything about makeup terminology) and brown eyes, which I think worked out.  I was on the fence about taking more pictures, but with how poorly this one turned out I'll definitely be setting up the lightbox when I'm done with the snow and varnishing.  The first coat of gloss is drying now.  Hopefully I'll get the snow done tonight after the Caps game, then finish varnishing tomorrow so she'll be done done and ready for Thursday.

I read a Strakhov/pButcher battle report yesterday that made me extra eager to run a pButcher theme list.  Somehow I glazed over the t4 effect (AD on melee jacks), but seeing it in action in this report made me realize just how potent that benefit is.  Khador jacks are slow slow slow (even if there are plenty of tricks to speed them up some), so having them an extra 6" forward is quite a boon.  With that bonus, the general turn 1 fun run puts them on the center line, aka all up in your opponent's grill.  With +2 SPD for Men-o-War on the first turn, the army can get up the field with a quickness.  I like the list from the report, though the min MoW units do trouble me a bit.  Not much you can do about it at 35 points though.  I could run a version of it, with a Widowmaker Marksman instead of Yuri and Bombardiers instead of Demo Corp, if I had another Manhunter.  This doesn't mean I don't lust after Yuri and another Manhunter though, and a unit of Demo Corp would round out my MoW collection nicely.  I think this is the list I'd aim for to have fully painted if I had all the pieces.  Perhaps I'll remedy that situation later this month if the Warstore does a nice Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale.  If I can somehow crank out some combination of the rest of the WGI (with Joe), a MoW unit, the Widowmakers, and a jack or two then I might not feel so bad about adding more to the pile.

Ashes in the mouth: pButcher vs pDeneghra

Click for inspiration.

Hot on the heels of messing up my plan to keep things simple, I went back to the well this week resolved, again, to keep my plans simple.  My list was mostly unchanged from last week except that I swapped out the Bombardiers (and Rocketeer) for the Doomies + UA.  After the WGI melee fiasco I was content to let them do their thing: receive Iron Flesh, be annoying to hit, shoot things up real nice.  The Doomies were penciled in for Storm Blade duty.  While I'd have to rely on the so-called "expected value" to kill ARM 20 with a P+S 12 (13?) Weaponmaster attack, thanks to cleave Berserk I'd hopefully get plenty of swings at hitting the average.  Losing the Bombardiers' templates would make hunting Eiryss and the Gun Mages a little trickier, but frankly Eiryss hasn't been much of a problem and the Gun Mages should fold to a volley of sprays or perhaps a nice Trample.  Stryker would bear watching, but most casters do, and having learned my lesson about War Dog positioning last game I was determined not to get caught out by the same brain fart again.  If I was going to lose by making stupid mistakes, at least they'd be new ones.

The now standard hold you over while I do a battle report post

Pinning all over the place.

Not entirely standard, despite the title, as I've gotten a lot done over the past few days.  Starting with things not pictured, I did a better job of priming Black Ivan.  The high spots were fine, but the undercarriage needed some work.  Black Ivan is now significantly blacker in his hard to reach crevices.  Talking with EV today about Ivan made me think about how quick he should paint up.  He'll be mostly black (shocker) and most of the rest will be metal, with just a few bits of green and red to tie him in with the rest of the army.  I may take a run at getting him painted quickly, but quickly is a relative term around here and I have lots of ideas for this month's Paint the Target.  More on that in a bit.  I also put down a Dullcote on the WGI, Doomies, pButcher, Strakhov, and Harkevich.  This was a bit of a rushed job as I got called away to keep an eye on a sick puppy (my model for the War Dog that you've seen here and there), so there are still lots of shiny parts on the models, but it's nothing another coat won't fix.

Expect the Unexpected: pButcher vs eStryker

You already know what their chief weapons are.

The lead-up to today's game begins last night.  (Bad form to start with the parenthesis so soon, but it happens.  Standard time caveat applies: today is relative to when I'm writing [Thursday] and not necessarily when this gets posted, which might be a few days.)  Wednesday night is the traditional "I need to figure out what I'm playing tomorrow" time, when I become enamored with some particular combination that can pull of some wacky trick that needs just the right situation and even then may not work right.  This is when I come up with half-baked Harkevich lists that are based around having a Marauder knock something over.  These are great flights of fancy that never realize their potential.  Last night I decided to go the other way and build a list that was no trickery and all ass-kickery.  The poster boy for this approach is good ole' Orsus, who has been waiting patiently for a shot at the table since he's been painted, and no sane man denies the Butcher his desires.  After some wrangling I came up with the following list:

I blame EV for this one

Cast-iron bitch to assemble.

With EV's birthday coming up in the near future, I went out to do something about it.  I had a few ideas (Wrath, Black 13th, Bane Thrall UA, Primal mk. 2) and took a tour of the game stores in the area to see what I could find.  Good news is I found stuff.  Bad news is the stuff is for me.  Good news is I have a Warstore order in to remedy this situation.  Bad news is there's more stuff for me in said order.  This flies in the face of my resolution to not add to the pile of unpainted/unassembled models until I've taken a significant chunk out of what I have on hand, but I can't very well go to a game store and leave empty handed, can I?  We all have to do our parts to support local game stores so that we can still have local game stores.  It was for America.  Yeah, that's the ticket...

Another quick one

Not as hard to pin as I expected.

After reading a recent 3++ post about Hordes, a thought got stuck in my craw.  The idea that warlocks need more beasts than warcasters need jacks made me wonder if my desire to run jack heavy might not be better suited to Hordes.  When I first started looking at Warmachine, well before I started playing, the jacks didn't do much for me.  They all looked basically the same, and while I can appreciate the subtle differences between Khadoran and Cygnaran jacks now the point still stands.  There's no way you're going to mistake a Circle beast for a Legion one though.  Looks aside, once I got into the game I wanted to run a handful of jacks, at least three, but sadly the game just doesn't support it.  Granted I could run Karchev or some crazy pButcher list with a ton of Kodiaks and Berserkers, but the system just doesn't encourage running more than two jacks per caster, and even that's pushing it for some.  So perhaps Hordes is the key, where the beasts power the locks instead of the other way around.  With all this in mind I sat down for some pinning and got pMadrak assembled.  I wanted to put a beast together, but they're going to take some real work to get together and my pinning skills, while getting better, still need lots of work.  Perhaps I'll get Madrak up there based and primed, plus splash some paint around, while I'm on a between-paint-the-target-goals hiatus.  Maybe I'll get the beasts together and start work on the battle group.  More likely Madrak will sit and wait for a while before getting any love while I continue to plug away at Khador troops.  Whatever the future holds at least I finally cracked Primal and the Trollbloods box that have been waiting for attention since they arrived at my door.

In other news, there's a battle report in the works.  It might get finished tonight or it might get done sometime over the weekend.  In the meantime, ratchet up your anticipation.

Productive morning

Currently in the drying booth (aka the bathroom[aka my office])

First coat of varnish on the Doomies.  Snowed the Doomies and WGI.  Second coat of varnish of the lot.  All the remains is the Dullcote and they'll be done done.  In celebration I may bring along the plastic Sorscha and/or Kreoss and/or some Menoth jack and/or the plastic Juggernaut to put together before I ambush NGF with Devestators.  Again.

Return of the cleave age

Just snow and varnish to go.

I hoped my painting mojo from yesterday would return, but such was not the case.  Determined to finish the Doomies, I pushed on and got all the paint applied.  All that's left is a couple coats of varnish and the snow for the bases.  Thinking of basing, I find it odd that I can date these models by how I based them.  No bit of slate for a rock, no green stuff filler between the tab and the slot, sand instead of ballast.  The funny/sad thing is that the sand took a brushing better than any basing I've done since.  It stuck around despite drybrushing and being flooded with paint.  Only a few bits flaked off, and those were mostly bits glued to other bits instead of the base.  The various severed heads gave me a bit of trouble, but overall this batch of minis was the best time I've had painting in quite a while (possibly ever).  The best part?  I can have my cleavetastic madmen back on the table this week if my varnish/base/varnish plan for tomorrow goes well.

How did I not title this post when I posted it?

Group shot looks better than the individual for once.

My painting mojo was in full swing this morning, right up until I had to stop.  I'm a painting nomad in that my paints are rarely at home, and when they are it's because I'm in transit to another painting locale.  This is by design and has worked well right up until today.  A new furnace was installed here last week, and today there's a follow-up visit to fix up some of the loose ends.  Someone has to be here to let the guy in, and that someone is me.  This isn't a problem, nor a surprise, but it did cause some unexpected problems today.  As you can see, I got some good progress in on the Doomies.  They'd probably be finished today if I hadn't had to break off early to wait for the furnace guy.  I got the greens and reds done, plus (most of) the bandages on the limbs.  I was having a good old time on the reds when my hurry-home-so-I-can-wait timer went off, so the front rank of the above picture got the TLC highlight treatment, while the back rank got a much quicker pass.  I have a bad feeling that when I get back to the models and compare the two batches there won't be much difference.  The good news hidden in there is that I was reminded that I'm trying to strike a balance between detailed painting and getting things done quickly.  The other silver lining is that, barring a catastrophe, I should have them finished next time I sit down, which is hopefully tomorrow.  If I can manage all that, I might even have them available for Thursday.  I have missed my bloody, crazy Doomie safety blanket these past few weeks.

There can be only one

Mostly as a place to link the pic from, but since the Caps are the last undefeated team in the league I think a little celebration is in order.

Is there such a thing as a "quick" post?

The group, it progresses.

Though my previous estimate of completing the Doomies in another two sessions is probably off, I did get in some decent work today.  As you can hopefully tell by looking at them, I got the skin done.  Less noticeable is the leather bits, which also got finished.  To round out the day I did a coat of Red Gore to firm up the red which had gotten rather dark after the wash.  While I have a firm idea of what color is going where, the firmness is most squishy when it comes to the trophy heads.  Like all good maniacs, the Doomies have taken plenty of trophies and display them on their belts, or in your face in the case of the leader.  Pending a good, close examination to see if any are Skorne heads, Ogruns, anything other than human, I'm thinking of doing some sort of wash or unusual (for me) shading on the heads to show that they're not fresh.  Having never done decaying/putrefying skin before, I'm not sure where to start.  My current inclination is a green wash, though purple seems like a good idea too. 

Individual shots show details better.

Because I need another paragraph to put in the second picture, I'll continue.  Tomorrow is D-Day for NGF.  I'll be bringing a box of Devastators and my handy modelling box, which has all my tools and materials for assembling minis, when I pay him a visit tomorrow.  My natural inclination when assembling is to save the one I'm most excited about until the end so I can get all my learning out of the way before I care about a stray cut here or there.  Since I want to set the hook firmly on the first strike with NGF, I'm considering going the opposite route.  As much as I want to give him the full treatment on cleaning, basing, posing, all the modelling goodness, I think the better tactic will be to just have him open the box and see what catches his fancy.  My big bag of marine kits may stay at home to avoid option overload, as staring at 30-40 sprues might be a bit much.  In the meantime I have to actually go get that box of marines.  And go make that money to get marines with.

More boots approach

One of these things is not like the others.

Due to some schedule swaps, I had a larger than usual amount of hobby time available yesterday.  As such I packed up quite the laundry list of potential modelling projects:

• The 2 player box, save the Destroyer chassis which is now Black Ivan
• Old Witch + Scrapjack
• Aiyana & Holt
• eIrusk
• Trollblood starter box

I also had my usual huge stack of books for flipping.  (As a side note, I want an all-inclusive Warmachine app that lets me flip through full entries for all the stuff in the game.  I realize this won't happen because it would invalidate the Forces books, plus all the cards, and basically give someone the whole of the game (minus the rules) in the one place, but isn't that what that program that rhymes with Smarmy Guilder does already?  iBodger is great and all, but sometimes I want to see the exact wording of a feat while on the crapper, in the car, at work, or elsewhere when my books aren't handy:)  While I didn't get as much out of that time as I hoped I would, I did make some progress, as you can see on the left.

Camoflague is not neccesarily on the card: Harkevich vs eStryker

Peek-a-boo dog is playing with you.

Gaming got moved up a couple days to accommodate the arrival of a new furnace here on Thursday, so EV and I had a shorter gap than usual between matches.  I ran the same list as last time, except in this game I only fielded what was in my list and made sure to double check what I had on the table against what I had on my phone.  Because EV generally has his army, cards, dice, various ephemera, and the table ready to go when I arrive I don't get around to making a copy of his list for later use until he's taking his first turn.  Such was the case today, and it avoided another math issue when we found that he was a couple points over.  Fortunately a) we figured this out before the game was over, and b) it was during his first movement phase and thus easily corrected.  His list was as follows:

Pre-battle quickness

Getting closer.

Got a bit of painting in yesterday.  It's funny how my intention was to run the Doomies through the Paint-o-tron as quick as possible (while not having them look like crap) so I could get them back on the table with as little delay as possible.  Turns out that, like most of my painting projects, the Doomies have been on the painting table for about two weeks and have had a grand total of two sessions put in, totaling perhaps four hours.  This is not a recipe for a quick finish.  To compound matters, this week is not looking good for painting sessions.  The silver lining there is that it'll probably on be another two, maybe three sessions before the squad is finished.  Of course that doesn't factor in varnishing which is a matter largely out of my control, but the models have to be finished before they can be sealed.

I don't like math part two (the ripple effect)

I made an oopsie.

Chances are good that if you're reading this post you've read the last one, wherein I detail the latest tabletop clash between EV and myself.  If you aren't familiar with that post I'm curious how you got here.  More to the point you should go and read up so you'll have the context for this post.

While shamelessly promoting my blog over on the PP boards, one of the replies I caught concerned Kovnik Joe and his (lack of a) place in my list.  My first thought was "Of course he was in the list, who fields Winter Guard without Joe?"  Upon further review, it looks like I do.  At least in theory.  Turns out Joe wasn't in the list since I was intending to use the WGI as a support squad instead of a central component.  This is a bit unusual for me, especially since I first ran them with an Iron Flesh caster, but I wanted to try something new with them.  When I told EV of my error he pointed out that Joe didn't affect the game much and it probably would have turned out the same regardless of whether he was on the table or not.  This was my initial reaction as well.  I forgot to activate Joe until I had started moving the Winter Guard once, the unit ran once, and they remained unactivated when the game ended in turn four, so he only boosted attack rolls once (which was really gravy since it was a 5-6 piece CRA that he was boosting).  Tough is nice and all, but Joe is there to boost attack rolls.  Granted the boosted attack did hit, and I did make a Tough roll for one of the Guardsman, but ultimately Joe didn't do a whole lot.  That was my line of thinking, but since I worked this morning and didn't have a whole lot to do I had plenty of time to think about the game.

Afternoon of the Wolf: Harkevich vs Siege

Feel the power.

Part of my painting zeal of earlier this week was the result of my desire to try out some of my new models.  A fully painted (except for a Dullcote) Harkevich was eager to see the table, while newly constructed non-proxy Black Ivan and some Bombardiers had cherries in need of popping.  I took a couple swings at a Harkevich list, probably a dozen or so before I was finally satisfied.  I toyed with Ivan and a Destroyer, but I didn't have enough Focus to Broadsides every turn.  Yet I had too much Focus to just shoot two boosted Bombards since Ivan boosts attacks for free while in control range of Harkevich.  Once I paired Ivan with a more focus hungry melee jack like a Juggernaut or Kodiak, things started looking better.  The Devestator also came to mind, but after Crippling Grasp shut it down last game I looked to the cheaper options.  When mixed with some Winter Guard and a smattering of solos I was pretty satisfied.  A little too satisfied in the end, or perhaps too little satisfied, as I ended up with three versions of the same list.  The choice of a tier list, a list with Greylords, and a list with a Koldun but no Ternion was too close to call, so I sought an unbiased opinion.  Before we got down to business I labeled the three lists and gave EV a choice of A, B, or C.  He picked A, the Koldun but no Ternion list, which is:

I should really put a title on this post

The madness begins to take shape.

Productivity was up in all sectors today, hobby progress included.  I kicked things off by getting a start on the Doomies.  Nothing much yet, just roughing in colors as has become my habit of late.  For the first time in a long while, possibly ever, I took a single look at these models and knew what colors would go where.  Is it possible I'm just getting more comfortable with my scheme for the army?  Is it possible that these particular models are better suited to my scheme than others that I've painted?  Is it really possible that I'm dipping a third time into a reference that no one is likely to get?  Whatever the cause, knowing what I'm going to do before I do it (in a painting context) is such a pleasant experience that I'll have to do it again.  Ordinarily I'd describe what it is I plan to do, but with any luck I'll have the Doomies to a point that the scheme is evident via pictures in the near future.

The clomp of approaching boots

A whole stack of high POW AoEs, coming soon to a table near you.

Breaking Bad is a hell of a show, one that I've watched since it started a couple years back.  It's the most compelling show on TV now, for me at least, and one I look forward to each week.  This week's episode was the season finale (which I thought was the series finale for a couple weeks, but that's not especially relevant) which was the culmination of a story arc that's been going for at least two seasons.  To describe things in a somewhat cheeky manner, this season ended with a bang, and now I'm curious to see where they take the show next season.  I tell you all this so that when I say I had it on in the background while finishing up these Bombardiers you'll have an appreciation of everything that statement implies.  My entertainment sacrifice, though swap might be more accurate, has revealed a few things about this kit to me that I'll pass along to you.