Becalmed on the hobby seas

A breeze sure would be nice.

Progress has been AWOL for the last week or two.  I'm not sure what the problem is exactly, I just know that the drive to sit and paint has waned to the point that I can barely bring myself to get the painting station set up, let alone do something with it.  Building the Ork Dread last week was a good time, yet the prospect of assembling yet more Ork Boys is less than thrilling.  What I'd like to do is put together an Honor Guard for the Blood Angels, but I still need to assemble some more bits for the load-out I have in mind.  There's also the matter of magnetizing, which is all but a must for something like an Honor Guard that has so many options.  Considering that I want to do each Honor Guard with unique heraldry, I'll need to come up with a way to have swappable arms that all share a single pair of shoulder pads which I have yet to figure out.  Lack of magnets is also a concern.

While I haven't gotten much done in terms of painting and modelling, I have been reading.  I just finished the third Horus Heresy book, Galaxy in Flames, the other day and was quite pleased with it.  This book is where the whole marine vs marine aspect of the series, which is the main thrust of it, gets rolling.  I had expected this to develop in the second book, and it did to a limited degree, but in the third book things really speed up.  I also picked up the Chaos Marine codex over the weekend and have started to dig into that as well.  I have a decent bit of Chaos marines in boxes here and there, but I don't plan on building an army in earnest any time soon, mostly because the units that catch my eye the most (Berserkers!) would lead to an army that plays much the same as the Blood Angels do.  What I'd really like to do is an army of recently turned Marines from various chapters.  One of the old Chaos codices had pictures of an army like this, perhaps an older incarnation of the Astral Claws, that were basically loyalist Marines with the aquillas painted over with big red Xs, but I haven't found that book again yet.

So what are my plans to break out of this funk?  I'm not too sure.  I still have Orks waiting for painting, so that's an option.  I also want to hammer away at some new lists, mostly for BAs but also taking another look at Grey Knights and maybe a Chaos list here and there.  In marginally related news, I got the dread blue screen of death on my computer this morning.  Hopefully I can get it resolved without too much hassle, but it's very possible that the funds I had earmarked for BA expansion and Trollbloods will be re-directed to getting my rig back in fighting shape.  Obviously I have access to other computers, but there's nothing like your own, especially when the main alternative is a Mac...

Dreadnaught Spotted

This guy dreads naught.

Being stuck in a painting quagmire where I just can't seem to make any headway, I decided to switch things up yesterday.  The result is the mostly completed Dread to the right.  There are still bits, bobs, and doodads to be applied, but the bulk of the work is done.  The kit was less intuitive to assemble than I anticipated, but years of modelling and Lego building have built the skills required to make diverse parts into a unified whole, even when the path to completion is not obvious.  I'm on the fence about adding in a boss pole/trophy rack.  It makes sense fluff-wise as the pilot of this contraption would want to make himself as flashy as possible, which would certainly include making his ride as tall as possible.  Adding a flimsy stick to the top of the model is not the most practical choice though, as it's tailor-made to bend and snap under any multitude of pressures.  I have some time to consider since the Dreads won't be making an appearance until the 750 point mark and since EV and I have yet to officially hit the 500 point line it's not a pressing matter.

Blood Angels vs. Plague Marines IV: Once More Into the Breach

Am I on the horse this time?

Battle Chronicler looks pretty, but was taking far too long, so I went back to the usual formula for this report to get it done.  I have tried a different layout, with embedded pictures instead of alternating pictures with blocks of text.  We'll see how it looks.

Last week I was determined to beat EV's Plague Marines.  I had a plan going in: shoot stuff.  Shoot it a lot.  I was hoping my Devs would take down a Daemon Prince, or at least give it a real good wounding, before it could hide in melee.  I knew EV would hide them behind his Rhinos, so I formulated a target priority for the Devs: Daemon Prince > Rhino > Plague Marine > Obliterator.  If the assault marines could create a hole in the Rhino screen then I could potentially send 8 missiles into a Prince, plus any remaining melta, which should accomplish my shooting goals.  I wanted to send something after the Obliterators as well.  Ideally this would be the Sanguinary Guard as they should breeze through a pair of Oblits, possible even two pair.  This would also keep the Guard away from the Princes and Plague Marines so they could come in later to clean squads up.  I also wanted to try Unleash Rage instead of Blood Lance on my Librarian and put him in an assault squad so he'd have more bodies around him for Unleash Rage.  I hoped the rerolls would counter the natural resilience of the Plague Marines so that an assault squad could finally kill one of them.  I made no changes to my list and planned around EV doing the same, which he did.  I won't reproduce them, but I will put in a handy link to the last battle report.  We alternated setting out terrain again and ended up with a table like this:

A little something for the wait

First things first, howdy to the folks who will (hopefully) be streaming in via the From the Warp blog network.  There should be other networks up and running, but a special recognition for the first.

A report of Friday's engagement with EV is forthcoming, but it's taking longer than anticipated.  I'm trying out Battle Chronicler, which is free so you should give it a look whether you're really interested or not.  Pretty as the finished product should be, it's also more time consuming than my usual photo + commentary.  I'm sure the program will be easier to use with practice, and it does look pretty, but in the end it'll be subject to the same time invested vs. results obtained scrutiny that anything else is.  Army lists are being written as well, with a bit more purpose than usual.  Without going into great detail or explicit spoilers, my poor Blood Angels are looking for a new way to skin a diseased cat.  I'm hoping to accomplish this with a modest reworking of my list, but if I'm expanding a bit then it's a good enough time to expand a decent bit.  Fortunately I have a large base of infantry already, so any new additions will be "sexy": Vanguard Vets, Honor Guard, Dreads, Preds.  Maybe even a certain flying transport...

With these changes in mind I stopped by a Lowe's and the FLGS.  Magnetizing has been on the to-do list for quite a while, and if I'm looking at Honor Guards and Vanguard Vets I'm going to look at magnets first.  I've seen the list at the Warstore and haven't made any sense of all the various measurements, so I took a look at drill bits first to see what was available.  There are some quite small ones, 1/32" (or 1mm if you're so inclined) and 1/16" looked promising at first glance.  When I compared those measurements to the ones at the Warstore, I see I'm on the small end of the spectrum and that I should be looking at 1/8" bits for best results.  Of course most of the magnets are out of stock, so I have some time to look around.  Perhaps Michael's will carry teeny magnets and save me shipping time.  After Lowe's I went by the FLGS with the intention of coming out with a Dreadnaught, Death Company, or perhaps a Dark Angels Veterans box.  What I found was nothing.  There was a BA battleforce box, but that was it for the boys in red.  This is probably a good thing because I can now dig through my bits to see what I need for what I intend, but it's an unhappy thing to head into a store full of purchasing intent only to be turned away by lack of stock.  At least this way I can see what sort of box a large Warstore order comes in.

What can you do with an hour? Or a Dethcopta?

Adjusting is the name of the game.

Had another game of Warhammer Quest on Tuesday.  This time our party was successful in spite of losing the Barbarian in the second room.  Quest remains a brutal game, but perhaps not unworkable.  Throughout the game I was considering house rules on the number of extra events via power dice.  Limiting it to one at a time was my first thought, but on reflection I think that might be a bit much.  Two at a time is intriguing as it allows for problems to compound on each other, potentially 3 events at a time if you get two extra events while dealing with the standard room event, while not overwhelming the party with 4+ events in a row.  I've had some horrific power rolls in these latest games, so 4+ is neither impossible nor terribly rare.  Since more events take longer to do, which leads to more power rolls and more potential extra events, once the ball starts rolling it soon becomes unwieldy.  Next time around I may start tweaking and seeing how it works.  NGF also asked a question that had me stumped.  We did the good gamer thing for dinner: ordered pizza.  Said pizza arrived when we still had (potentially) 5 rooms to go, so we hurried along to the finish to avoid mixing pizza and cardboard tiles/cards.  NGF remarked on the length of the game, around 2.5 hours including dicking around time.  This is pretty standard for gaming and I told him as much, and in return he asked if there was anything that took around an hour.  This is where I'm stumped.  I have a few ideas, mostly combat patrol/40k in 40 minutes and battlebox Warmahordes.  Neither of those options represents the parent game well, though battlebox games aren't far off, so I'd like to find something that's a better fit.  I want something that is based around minis, something that requires collecting and painting which will eliminate most boardgames.  I'd also like something that doesn't take a full-sized (6x4) table to play and something that requires little to no terrain.  Not too much to ask for, right?

In other news I saw a post about lots of orks on 3++ this morning, one that reminded me of another post I had seen on fester 40k a while ago.  I have 6 Dethcoptas, mostly in pieces, none of which is a lock to ever see the table.  At the same time I have a single rocket buggy, and a trak at that, which is featured in every ork list I've written.  Since these examples look so nice, and I have a surplus of coptas with a deficit of buggies, I'm thinking I'll convert up at least 3 of the coptas into buggies.  I would change them all over if the base Dethcopta model wasn't so nice, plus there's always the chance that FAQs and new editions will make the coptas more attractive than buggies.  I have 3 buggies already, two wheeled shootas and one trakked rokkit, so I may do two conversions with trakks and one with wheels to make two coherent squadrons.  Of course if I did all of the coptas I have I'd be maxed out on rokkit buggies, which would be nice.  Plus I can always get more copta models via AoBR, Ebay, or something similar.  They should be pretty cheap.  I also think I'm gonna take a pass on converting the AoBR boys.  They should only be about half of the Slugga boys and they aren't all the same model, just similar poses, so hopefully they blend in well enough and everything looks nice.

All About the Benjamins

There's been lots of news on the GW front of late, new materials and new prices.  I'm still undecided on a bile-filled rant about abusing your customers and a more moderate, everything-is-more-expensive approach.  The end result is likely to be less GW purchases, but considering I have the bulk of my two armies already this isn't much of a change.  My BA foundation is broad and solid in terms of infantry and I have more than a few vehicles, though none in great quantity beyond old Rhinos, so any additions are going to be small and specialized (hello Honor Guard/Vanguard Vets).  The orks are in much the same position.  I think I need one of the new bikers, a dread, a box of kans, and maybe some rokkit launchas to hit my 1750 list, so that's another small investment.  GKs didn't get an increase (yet), but having no non-HQ models and having yet to settle on a list means they're a possible future purchase, but not one that's just waiting it's turn in the money queue.  Of course I really should be working through my backlog and not adding new toys anyway, but we all know how well that goes in the hobby.  There's also other game systems to take into account.  These issues are a little closer to the front than usual because of the GW increase, but also because I just got my tax returns.  Considering I've painted a bunch of orks since the last time I got something new, I feel comfortable with growing some force, even if I haven't decided on which one yet.  If only Men-O-War or Iron Fang Pikemen were out in plastic so I didn't have to deal with all that metal then it'd be a harder choice, though I hear pictures of Bombardiers are in the leaked photos for Wrath so perhaps there is hope on the horizon.

Something neat I found

How Khadoran is this?

While looking through the Freebooter Miniatures gallery, I saw a model that would be a perfect fit for Khador.  Manhuntress was my first thought, but there'd be a bit of cutting and swapping to get axes in there.  Upon further gazing, I think Sorscha would be the right choice.  While there's less armor than usual for a warcaster, the overall feel fits.  The bustier, the hat, the polearm (which would need a hammer head on it, but that's minor), even the haughty look on the face works so well.  I may have to see what the US dollar to Euro conversion rate is like these days.  (Looks like ~1.5:1, which means this model would be about $15 without shipping.  Very intriguing...)  I think I've seen this model before, and probably in the same "Isn't this so Khadoran?" context, but I've never shied away from reinventing the wheel before.  If I played the Iron Kingdoms RPG, this model would be my first choice for a young, up-and-coming Sorscha.  Considering they also do a mini that could work as a young Gorman di Wulfe and story ideas just spring forth from the ether. Freebooter minis show up a decent bit on Jen Haley's site, and for good reason.  They're nice sculpts of hot ladies, two things close to any gamer's heart.  They even have a Lara Croft mini, though it's called something else.

New Look Khadoran Machine

So this one is a couple days later than it would have been had Blogger not had its issues.  Better late than never.

Cryx is a pain in the butt, something I had forgotten since I last faced them.  The casters, the troops, the jacks, and all so cheap.  Seeing them across the table is never a happy thing.  They do put up a good fight though, more so than the swans, so I approached the table with that in mind.  EV and I alternated placing terrain until we were both satisfied, creating a medium density that was roughly symmetrical.  We rolled No Man's Land for the scenario, another mosh pit type game.  EV won the roll to go first.  I detailed my list and general game plan in the "last" post.  His list, or my close approximation of it:

Good timing

Warrior Priesty.

While looking around for Warhammer Quest alternatives, I found quite a bit of stuff about Quest itself.  This morning, Quest content fairly jumped off the screen to slap me in the face.  It started over at Blood of Kittens with a post about how Quest has fallen off the face of the gaming earth like so many of the smaller GW games.  Then there's a link in that post to a sort of petition/protest/yelling until things happen sort of blog about bringing back Quest and a link to an actual online petition for the same reason.  I'm sure I'll find more examples in the coming days. 

On the home front, I got to thinking about Quest at work last night.  Since my previous Quest companion asked again about the game, I got to thinking about ways to draw him further along the path to gaming.  Painting the stuff for Quest seems like a good first step.  I'd like to get the stuff that gets used the most painted first, which means heroes and dungeon portals/gates/doors.  The portals are pretty boring, while the heroes are detailed enough to be a bad place to start learning to paint.  Moving past that, the cannon fodder type enemies are the next step.  While the vermin (giant rats, bats, giant spiders) are where I'll likely start, goblins have a special appeal.  I'm missing a couple pieces from my Quest set, a giant rat or two and a bow-armed goblin, so I already use some alternate goblin models.  Considering Quest is something like 15 years old now, the models that came with it haven't aged well.  Everything is a single piece with a single pose, there's no variety at all.

With these factors in mind, a box of goblins looks like a good place to start.  Goblins are straightforward models to assemble and paint, especially night goblins, and a single box would cover the 12 goblins Quest requires with plenty left over to spare.  I could walk my friend through the whole modelling process, starting with clipping bits off the sprue all the way through basing and varnishing.  With the spare goblins I could set him loose in the kit to build whatever looked nifty.  Unfettered kitbashing is one of my favorite parts of the hobby, but one that I engage in rarely.  I'm too stuck in the minis-as-game-pieces mindset to do this too much, which is a real shame, but I could shoehorn that desire into this project and scratch a couple itches at once.  If the goblin experiment worked out then there'd be orcs and minotaurs to expand to, plus the heroes.  The big sticking point here is redundancy.  I already have a Quest set and I have all the pieces (somewhere), so there's no real need to "replace" them.  If Quest was still around I could just make this a very elaborate and involved Christmas gift, but that's not the case anymore.  All of that is down the road though.  In the immediate future, I think I'll prime up some of the vermin if I can get hold of a day that isn't horribly humid and go from there.  I'm on the fence about basing them, but I may end up jumping off that fence later today and getting a pack of square bases.  I've seen a couple people's quest to paint all the Quest contents in my search for Quest related materials so I have a couple ideas for basing.  The usual sand/ballast approach won't work so well for a dungeon crawl, while painting tiles on the bases doesn't work so well either considering all the dungeon tiles are colored differently.  If I tackle this sort of project I'll probably end up doing the bases differently, maybe building some rubble or something onto them, but for now this is (potentially) about getting pieces finished and luring a friend into the paint and brush side of the hobby.

Surveying the field

Adventure games ahead.  And maybe danger.

While I see the little white and orange B across a number of gaming blogs that I frequent, I never thought that having Blogger go down for a day or two would disrupt my usual internetting half as much as it did.  I have a battle report and painting update on deck, but for now something topical.  When I wrote about Warhammer Quest a few posts ago, I managed to forget my feature of the game: no need for a GM.  This has less to do with solo play than playing as a pair.  Lone wolfing is just...creepy, but games like Warhammer Quest make it possible for two people to game without setting one up as the GM.  Obviously there are plenty of ways for two people to game, but I'm after methods for people not already in the hobby, or even just for something a little different.

It is was with this in mind that I cast about a bit more on the internets, looking for games similar to Warhammer Quest.  I found more than I expected.  Beyond Descent, which I already knew about, and HeroQuest, which is basically Warhammer Quest, the dungeon-tile-crawl genre is well represented.  Wizards makes a pair of games, and perhaps another is forthcoming, using D&D 4e as the base.  Castle Ravenloft and Wrath of Ashardalon look like what you'd expect from D&D the boardgame.  The pieces look to be of good quality, judging from the unboxing video, but the minis are a little underwhelming.  I think I've been spoiled by the new GW sets with all their bits and construction options.  Dwarf King's Hold from Mantic, like the WotC offerings, is what I expected from Mantic: a close clone of the GW counterpart, but with enough twists and reshapings to make it something different enough.  The internets say the dungeon tiles are flimsy though, a point which torpedoes the decent minis in the box.  Heading a little further afield you run into games like Runebound, Talisman, and others than fit a similar genre of adventure board games, but lack the tile and mini component that I'm looking for. 

Ultimately this is just an exercise in market research.  One of the great problems that I face as a gamer, and surely many others do, is a combination of a short attention span and a collecting compulsion.  Scattering your attention across multiple games saps you of not just money, but also time and other mundane concerns like storage space.  Much as I'd like to play every game out there, in the end you have to make your choices.

Yet more adventures in time-delay posting

Powerful in theory at least.

Pre-script:  Looks like Blogger is having a kitten, so this may show up later than intended.  Here's hoping this drops a minute after noon.

Post-pre-script:  Didn't work out after all.

The Khadoran Machine will be rolling forward onto the battlefield once again in a half hour or so.  I'm not sure what I'll be facing, either faction or caster, but I do know what I'm taking.  I wanted to do something different today, so I'm leaving the Winter Guard in the case.  This actually creates a hole in my list building because the Winter Guard is the only core infantry squad I have (no Pikemen or Kayazy yet), but that just gives me more room to try things out.  A few months ago I reinvented the wheel by "discovering" what seems to be an old classic: pimpin' pVald in a Doom Reaver limo.  Doomies can't be targeted by magic and pVlad has Windwall, so when you roll the two together you get a unit that can't be shot or spelled.  I plan to just shove this down EV's throat.  They should make a large hole wherever they end up, so I'm going to ignore the scenario as much as possible and just try to kill his caster.  I'm also loading up on jacks and Greylords, plus a Manhunter.  I wanted to take the Kodiak and Wardog this game, both pieces that I like but don't play as much as I should.  Unfortunately I couldn't figure out a way to get the Wardog in and still hit 35 points.  I blame my lack of Mechanics, Great Bears, and non-four point infantry choices in general.  The list I have is thus:

pVlad +5
Destroyer - 9
Juggernaut - 7
Kodiak - 8
Doom Reavers - 6
Doom Reaver UA - 2
Greylord Ternion - 4
Koldun Lord - 2
Manhuntress - 2
35 total

The basic idea is to have the limo lead the way with the jacks following behind.  When the range is right, I'm going to send the Doomies in under Signs and Portents while Vlad hangs back.  The second wave will be all the jacks and Vlad.  I'm going to load the Destroyer up on focus while approaching so it has a chance of hitting and damaging with it's bombard.  The Koldun will let the Juggy run on the approach or clear Disruption as needed.  When it's time for the second wave the Koldun will give the Destroyer a focus to slam with.  Combined with the Kodiak's combo throw and whatever destruction the Doomies cause, I hope to open a big enough hole to send in the Juggernaut, Vlad, or both to finish the job.

Now it's time to grab my case and get to it.

Shoota Boys Finished

Last batch of shootas, pre-varnish.

Does what it says in the title.  While the Nob isn't done, due to the assembly line snafu from last week, all the boys are finished and varnished.  I haven't decided yet if I want to base the squad, now that it's finished, or wait until the whole force is ready and do it in one shot, but I'm leaning towards doing a basing batch when I get the Nob and Mek done.  Coincidentally, those are the next two orks in line for the brush.  A Warmachine solo or caster may slot in before I keep the tide rolling, though I'm feeling very comfortable painting orks now so I may try to capitalize on that.  The slow grow project I'm doing with EV theoretically starts this month, so I don't have too long for a diversion, but even if I take a couple days to do something different I think I can finish in time.  I'm past halfway with this newest finished group, and most of the remaining orks are painted to some degree.  I'll probably end up painting over the existing layers, but then again I might find something useful.

You know, for details.

I feel the best about this batch.  While the extra layer of highlights meant they took more time than the previous groups, I think the results are well worth it.  This batch still painted up quickly in terms of time spent painting though those hours took longer to accumulate than some of the earlier batches.  I knocked out the blacks and whites this afternoon, plus red eyes and a few details.  I tried out a new Vallejo paint, Heavy Ochre.  It's a warm brown similar to Snakebite Leather.  The Heavy paints are Vallejo's version of the GW Foundation paints, and their Iyanden Darksun works beautifully.  The Heavy Ochre, not so much.  Brown is typically a strong pigment, so I figured that this one should cover anything on the first pass.  Turns out that this paint covers worse than most of the yellows I've used, let alone browns.  The color was too brown for what I wanted, namely basecoating assault marine helmets, and considering the poor performance it may start to gather dust in the paint bin.  Seeing this group after the washes from last time had plenty of time to dry, I think the Sepia wash may be darker than the Umber.  Devlan Mud looked a little darker going on, but I think the Sepia dried darker in the end.  Still love the Mud though.  On the further horizon I'm looking at converting 30+ AoBR orks for slugga boys, something I'm not really looking forward to.  I think I'd like doing five, maybe ten, but with a number the size of the one confronting me the prospect of cutting arms, repositioning them, and then green stuffing to make it look right is daunting.  Factor in that I've never really done much more than a weapon swap and the picture becomes grimmer still.  It will be a good chance to learn something new though, plus I'm sure I'll enjoy it while I'm doing it, but looking at it is not so fun.  It is a few weeks off though, and between now and then are dreads, kans, and bikers.  Hopefully I hit it at full speed.

Back to the...past

Remember this one?

No painting to speak of since the last time.  Instead I got in a bit of gaming.  I have a non-gaming friend who causes me to be locked in an eternal debate: whether or not to try and bring him into the hobby.  The benefits are obvious, while the drawbacks are less so, but in the end I decided to give it another shot over the weekend.  To that end, I pulled out an old gem: Warhammer Quest.  I've tried a toned-down version of Uncharted Seas with this guy before, who I'll go ahead and acronymize as NGF, with a modicum of success at the time, but no real retention afterwards.  I thought Warhammer Quest might work a little better as it's a familiar game type, being Diablo the board game in effect, plus the various little gribblies that need paint would be an easy introduction to painting should things get that far.

Green Tide rolls slowly on

The rest look like this guy.

The painting was good this afternoon.  I got a couple hours in and as a result the latest batch of Orks is almost finished.  I did the blues and metals today, copper and silver.  I tried out the Vallejo Sepia wash on the metals.  My first impression is that it's darker than the Umber wash, but that would be the opposite of what I anticipated.  I'll do a side by side test in the next batch.  One of the nice things about painting a horde of Orks is that you can play around with the painting style without worrying that differences will look weird.  A Blood Angel in maroon armor would stand out, whereas Orks in different colors and hues just adds to the character of the army.  I ended up doing an extra highlight of blue.  I felt bad about taking the extra time instead of leaving well enough alone, but I was having a good time painting blue Ork faces and that's the point of the whole process.  The extra time paid off, and this batch is the best thus far as a result.  I've probably put 5-6 hours into this group so far, and I should be done in another hour or two.  My pace for this batch looks like it should be around an hour per model, which seems like a good enough number.  All I have left to do is the blacks and whites, plus red for the eyes.  I'm considering a brown/leather for straps and boots, but that would break up the palette I've established in the other batches.  Then again, that could be a good color to use across both Evil Suns and Dethskulls, so perhaps it's worth pursuing.  If it doesn't work out then at least the offending Orks can hide in the masses.

Throwing it against the wall

Today's Theme: Vallejo Umber Wash.

I had a couple high-concept ideas for this post, Worthy Topics to address.  What I've ended up with is yet another wasted afternoon on the interwebs with nothing to show for it.  As such, I'm plunging in.  I may get to those ideas some time, but for now I'm doing what I know: painting rundown.  Once again I had somewhat more than modest plans for painting yesterday, plans which were scuttled.  I did manage to avoid a complete loss on the day though and got in about two hours worth of quality painting time.  I got the skin finished on the third batch of Shootas, along with an initial layer of blue.  About halfway through the batch I realized I had forgotten to add the Nob to the assembly line, so he's lagging behind the rest.  The Nob's skin is washed and ready for actual painting, so when I get to it I can just get going.  This snafu may turn out to be a blessing as I'll be able to spend a little extra time on the Nob without holding up the rest of the group.  Come to think of it, I may just lump him in with the Big Mek.  Then again I have some new plans for said Mek, but more on that later.

Khadoran Machine Breaks Cover

 EV and I changed it on Friday, breaking the stranglehold 40k has had lately and bringing out the Warmachine.  EV called out the Winter Guard in particular, so when I sat down to make a list a large chunk of the work was done already.  This was unfortunate as I had lots of ideas for non-WG lists, but there'll be another time for those.  The game saw the full-on, maxed-out Winter Guard unit for the first time, thanks to the new arrival of a pair of Rocketeers.  I wasn't very happy with my list as I felt like it put a lot of pressure on the WGI to perform since they were such a large part of the list.  Rough approximations of the two lists are as follows: