Feat of Service: Spell Draft Trial Run

A couple notes before I get into what I'm here to do.  First, there will (eventually) be a Journeyman league wrap-up post.  Second, this will be one of those posts where I assume whoever is reading it knows what I'm talking about.  Normally I try to make posts as accessible as possible, for gamers and people who somehow stumble down this particular alley unaware of what they're getting into, but that's not feasible here.  Finally, chances are good I'll be dropping links into this post later, so if you want more information...check back later?  Apologies in advance if you have to break out your gold miner kit to sift for new things.

Nope, not even close.

My local gaming group, the Nova Nomads, is marching from semi-organized rabble to Legitimate Grouping of Peoples.  Part of the reason for this is to help us do bigger and better things, the first of which is coming up soon and has a suitably imposing name: the First Annual Feat of Service to Benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, Presented by the Nova Nomads.  This is a book release style day of open gaming with wacky achievements for zany tabletop heroics, but with the twist of using a customized caster/lock.  Without going into a ton of detail, which can be found  here (to be updated soon), you pick a faction to play, select a caster/lock (independent of faction, so you can play a Circle warlock in Cryx) from a big list (this time around it's anything found in the free version of War Room), wipe out the spell list, build part of your list, pick a new list of spells via drafting, then finish your list off.  If you're thinking it sounds like a Who's the Boss/Spell Draft mashup then you've got the idea.

Since the fine details are still getting ironed out, we did a trial run last Wednesday.  This is how it went
down, plus my plans and thoughts going in.  I picked Khador as my faction for a couple reasons.  Foremost is my blog's name has Khador in the title, which is extra incentive to support the Motherland.  I feel bad about not playing Khador more, so when the chance arises I try to jump on it.  My Khador is mostly painted, and to a higher standard than my Legion.  One of the common knocks on Khador is they don't have a lot of synergies.  This is considered a Bad Thing, but in this case it's quite helpful.  If all, or most of, my pieces are effective by themselves then they have the potential to be even more effective if I can get the right spells to help them out.

Dat chassis.

Picking a caster "chassis" was the hardest part of the process by far.  My first move was towards a high Focus/Fury stat.  In particular I liked the idea of pVayl because of her Fury 8, ability to make arc nodes (which I covet as a Khador player), existing wintry theme, suite of abilities (see: Dark Sentinel), and broadly useful if unspectacular feat.  I wanted to really dig around for something good and not just settle on my first impulse, so I set pVayl aside and kept moving through the list.  All the possibilities soon became overwhelming even when I limited the list to Focus 7 and 8 casters.  I needed a different approach, which I found, but first some background.

Very nice, very not my work.

A large part of this event is converting a model for your caster.  My first purchase for Warmachine, even before the initial Khador bundle I got from EV, was a MoW Kovnik.  I'd found Battlecollege and done just enough reading to be dangerous to myself.  The idea of MoWs appealed to me, the Kovnik sounded like a neat piece, and my FLGS had one on the shelf.  When I got the Khador seed from EV it included a painted Kovnik.  I wasn't comfortable with pinning metal models at the time, despite years and years in the hobby, so the Kovnik I bought got stuffed away in a box where it sits to this day, waiting for some love.  What better time to love on the poor Kovnik than this event where I can polish it up real nice and use it as something else?

Armed with this new criteria (medium base caster) the list was more manageable.  Many of the options were appealing, especially pGaspy and pThags, but in the end I narrowed the field to two, pGrissel and Bloody Barnabas.  Baranabas drew my eye because of his innate abilities: three initials (with Crit: Consume and Blood Boon no less), Unyielding, Counter-Charge(!), and a lesser version of pKreoss' feat.  My idea for him was pretty simple and probably predictable.  I've always loved Doom Reavers, and Barnabas is a pretty bad man/gator, so the two fit together with ease

As I thought about it more I didn't think Barnabas would offer the sort of support I wanted to really make Khador infantry a nightmare, so I turned to pGrissel who had that support already baked in.  With her Fell Calls she could speed up the slow Demo Corps I wanted to use or let Doom Reavers make an extra attack.  Her feat is a couple other feats put together and looks to be brutal with Khadoran infantry.  Her personal ass-kicking ability isn't as impressive, but her basic defensive stats are respectable and since the idea was to run her as a support caster they're not as important.  Fury 6 is a little underwhelming but not a deal breaker.  I also had a couple ideas for conversion themes (opera/black metal singer) that would work with her abilities and avoid the Blender of Death With Skulls and Spikes and Nastiness that I expect to see lots of.

With a chassis selected I proceeded on to making part of my army list.  The event is a 35 pointer but you build your list in two steps, 25 points before the draft and 10 after.  I already had some pieces in mind, and 25 points doesn't go far, so it was pretty easy to come up with this:

Spriggan
Doom Reavers + UA
Max Demo Corps
Widowmakers

Doom Reavers are the ultimate self-contained package.  Widowmakers also do their thing without support.  I wanted some MoWs to screen my caster and echo the Kovnik starting point.  Normally I'd pick Black Ivan for my jack since he's relatively versatile, but character jacks are banned so I went with the Spriggan as the all-rounder.

All this was preparation for Wednesday's spell draft.  The other draftees were Ron (volt_ron), Brendon (Plarzoid), and Chris (no blog, feel shame).  I would be passing my undrafted cards to Brendon, who was running pVlad with Legion, which meant I wanted to consider what I'd be giving him to pick from when making my own selection.  What I was looking for in particular were broad buffs that would work on the Doomies (S&P, Eye of Menoth, Fog of War), a melee-specific buff (Fury, Battle Lust), and a debuff (Parasite, Crippling Grasp).  Jack/battlegroup buffs weren't high on my list because Khador, and caster-only buffs were down on the list since I wanted to do the support thing.  Keeping these parameters in mind, I got my first batch of spells:

There will be a theme...

Abuse
Malice
Parasite
Skyborne
Snipe
Sure Foot
Warpath
Wind Rush

The number of orgasmic sounds I made while looking through the cards was probably a bit high, and in retrospect unwarranted, but it was hard to contain myself when confronted with all these signature spells.  I discounted Abuse, Malice, and Snipe quickly since they didn't do what I wanted.  Wind Rush is a familiar favorite that would boost Grissel's DEF to troublesome levels, and Skyborne would also do that with some different utility.  Sure Foot almost got picked, but I decided the footprint would be too small to be effective for lots of infantry.  In the end it came down to Parasite and War Path.  You're probably thinking Parasite is the obvious choice since I listed it as a primary target, but I went with War Path because I couldn't let Brendon take it while playing pVlad in Legion.  Thus my first choice wasn't even for me but instead against someone else.  The round ended, cards were passed, and my second group was this:

Many choices.

Banishing Ward
Deadeye
Flesh Eater
Ghost Walk
Psychic Vampire
Razor Wind
Ritual Sacrifice

Lots of good stuff to pick from.  I discounted Flesh Eater, Psychic Vampire, and Razor Wind quickly.  Deadeye is super sexy for someone but not for what I wanted to run, and since I had already picked against someone in the first round I wanted to get something I'd use in the second.  Banishing Ward would be nice but limited as the Doomies are already protected from spells.  Ghost Walk would also be nice, especially for the Demo Corps.  In the end I couldn't pass up Ritual Sacrifice.  It would help mitigate Grissel's low(ish) Fury 6 and meh melee stats while also allowing me to (potentially) run multiple jacks or sling any juicy spells I came across.  Round three brought:

HURRRRR, we're gonna go fast and turn left!

Backlash
Energizer
Mobility
Mutagenesis
Obliteration
Tornado

Quality had already started to decline, but at least that made it easier to trim the choices.  Backlash, Obliteration, and Tornado were out quick.  Energizer and Mobility both give some welcome speed buffs, but since I already had Warpath I didn't want to double down on battlegroup spells I was unlikely to get much use out of.  Mobility would have been nice for the Demo Corps, but the DEF boost would be mostly wasted as the bump from 11 to 13 isn't that significant.  It was around here that I lost track of what my concept was (support caster), either willfully because I hadn't seen what I wanted and didn't think I would or unwittingly as I kept drawing stuff that would have been great for Barnabas.  I ended up with Mutagenesis because it's fun and potentially very useful when combined with Ritual Sacrifice to load up on Focus before (hopefully) teleporting in for the kill.  Moving on to round four:

Your draft may vary.

Arcane Shield
Boundless Charge
Fail Safe
Stoneskin
Snipe

More easy choices.  Snipe was from the same mold as Deadeye, though it could have been dirty fun with Widowmakers.  Fail Safe didn't appeal because it's just for jacks.  Stoneskin was potentially neat but speed debuffs that you apply to your own troops are always a bitter pill.  Boundless Charge is nice, but I get enough of it when I play Khadoran casters.  Arcane Shield was the clear winner for me as I could put it on a jack, the Demo Corps, or my caster and get good use out of it.

Round five we got back our initial group of cards, albeit picked over.  Abuse and Malice were still there, along with Sure Foot and Skyborne.  I took Skyborne because I wanted it the first time around.
Round six brought Razor Wind, Flesh Eater, and Banishing Ward.  I didn't want the first two when I saw them earlier, so Banishing Ward it was.  Round seven was Backlash and Tornado, of which I took Backlash.  Round eight I got Stoneskin.  My final list, of which I would get to pick Focus/Fury-1 (which is five for the math challenged) was:

Arcane Shield *

I don't know either.  Needed filler.

Backlash
Banishing Ward
Mutagenesis *
Ritual Sacrifice *
Skyborne *
Stoneskin
Warpath *

The ones I picked have the asterisks.  I ended up with none of what I wanted going in (broad buff, melee buff, debuff), which was partially my own doing.  Intentionally or not, I ended up with a list that would have suited Barnabas pretty well.  The clear winners for me are Ritual Sacrifice and Arcane Shield.  I could take a cheap unit like Mechanics or WGI strictly for bodies to sacrifice.  Arcane Shield is a great buff that would work well on anything except maybe the Widowmakers.  Skyborne gives some extra DEF even if I never use the MAT boost or Flying.  Warpath could be useful at times, as could Mutagenesis.

Things didn't turn out like I hoped they would, so I haven't fleshed out the list yet.  One path I wanted to pursue before doing the draft was double Doomies, which is as viable now as it was then.  To that I could add some Greylords or min WGI, but I don't know that I like double Doomies as much as I thought I might.  I'd also look at WGI as an offensive unit, which means Joe, and Mechanics for sacrificing.  Or I could add a Kodiak and Mechanics to make better use of Warpath.  There's also the option of redrafting, either this coming Wednesday when the general draft happens or the morning of the event, June 7th at Huzzah Hobbies.

Soon?

Looking back on the process now it's tempting to scrap Grissel and go with Barnabas instead.  Hoping for Eye of Menoth or S&P is a bad plan as I'd have to get them in the first round to come away with one.  I haven't dug deep into the list of available spells to see how likely getting a melee buff is, but I'm guessing it's not much better than S&P, though the chances of having it passed along to you are much higher.  It seems like there are a lot of things that would benefit a super solo caster, either as caster-only buffs or things that work well for anyone.  I'm trying to avoid over-"correcting" (unlike some hockey teams I could name following the 2010 playoffs...) based on what I got in this draft, so I'm skeptical of my own line of reasoning here.  That said, Barnabas has a lot going for him and would require less sculpting than trying to put a tuxedo around a MoW like I'd want to do for an opera singer. Counter-Charge on a warcaster seems like a thing that would be fun.  I could also take another, closer look at the small based casters, though that would mean far more work to figure out bits for a model.  I have until this Wednesday at the very least to decide.

Regardless of the outcome the draft was a good time.  Holding so many possibilities in your hand is dizzying, and trying to balance taking things for yourself against denying things to your future opponents makes for some tough choices.  I don't do a whole lot of conversion, especially in metal and outside of GW games, so that aspect of the event will be something different and a good chance to learn some new modelling techniques.  Best of all is the opportunity to support a good cause by gaming, which is a win for everyone involved.

Disclaimer: we are not this attractive.

Speaking for the group, we encourage everyone that can come to come.  There is a substantial time investment in getting a converted model together, so don't be fooled by the event still being over a month away.  I've scattered links to the event pages on the Nomads site, but I'll do so again here to keep them all together (caster rules, spell draft rules).  Please note that at the time of posting these are still in minor flux and likely to change, mostly in style and presentation but there could be minor tweaks in more substantial areas.  If you and/or your group are interested but think this isn't for you let me assure you that it is for you (and everyone).  You can bug me about details (I think I have contact info somewhere around here), or do the same to any of the people I've linked to, or on the Nomads site.

Tournament Mode: Soft to the Core

A different kind of softcore. 

This will be lackluster when compared with my other tournament recaps.  Hardcore timing does not encourage in-game photography.

Yesterday there was a Softcore event at my FLGS.  Perhaps you've seen murmurings about it on this very blog?  There was a good turn out, 14 in all I think, with a decent spread of factions.  There was uncertainty as to the turn out, in terms of both numbers and geography.  There was only one non-regular contender. of whom I'll speak in a bit, with the rest being part of the cast you'd likely see on any given Thursday at Game Parlor.  While I always like playing against different people, in a way it was nice to face familiar opponents as it removed one variable from the equation while testing a new(ish) list and format.  The previous post is about the list I ran and my rationale behind it, so if you've stumbled across this post and want some context just hop back one.  This post will wait until you get back, it's patient.

This Week in the Gnarls League, Part 3

vs Danny, part one.

Last week I was in a three-way tie for first in league, and on Monday I got in the first game of this week against one of the people I was tied with: Danny and his Cryx.  My first few trips to the FLGS for Thursday night Warmahordes I played against new or inexperienced players (which seems to apply to 50-60% of the regulars), including what was one of the first handful of games Danny played.  A nice guy who's eager to learn, I've kept an eye on Danny since then to see how he develops.  This game was the first since that initial game months ago and was a good opportunity to see first-hand how Danny has progressed (after a trip to Templecon no less).  We played at 50 points and I fielded the same Aby list I played last week (Typhon, Carni, Seraph, Angelius, Raek, 4 Shredders, 2 Forsakens, and a Shepherd).  I was concerned about facing 50 points worth of Cryx infantry, but fortunately the reality was slightly different as Danny fielded eSkarre with the Deathjack, Defiler, max Bane Thralls with UA and Tartarus, max Satyxis with UA and their solo, Darragh Wrathe, two Pistol Wraiths, and Saxon Orrik.  Our scenario was Whirling Gauntlet, which proved to be interesting.

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:

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.

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.

Good news, bad news

Good news first: I've joined the 21st century and am posting from my new iPhone. The tiny keyboard is a bit of a pain, but it's nice to have the capability. The bad news is that between the phone and the newly constructed computer I've spent an awful lot of money lately. This is a sort of blessing in disguise though as I can put the hard clamps on hobby purchases until I make some good progress. A pair of lists, first projects that are on hold while my wallet recovers.

Blood Angels expansions
Ork expansions
Pretty much any additions to any GW armies
New systems, not that any were on the horizon

And a much shorter list of things that might still get funding:

Wrath
New Khador bits, especially Harkevich, Black Ivan, and Torch
Trollbloods, once I get the starter box finished

While the lists split neatly between GW and PP, this is a coincidence. I will admit to a recent resurgence of PP interest though. EV and I will be throwing down tomorrow so we'll see what that does in terms of interest. I've already made a half dozen lists with iBodger so the ideas are flowing, though I think I'll be returning to a previous theme. No links or pics this time as posting from the phone is already tedious.

We are experiencing technical difficulties

All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead.

My computer is somewhere between ill and terminal, so posting will be a bit of an issue.  You'll just have to patiently wait for a painting update, disappointing as it is, until I get things back up and functional.  With the prospect of a significant outlay of funds looming, hobby expenditures have been put on hold.  On the plus side, my Trollblood package is supposed to be here tomorrow (though a check of the shipping tracker tells me it might be waiting for me right now) so I'll have something new to work on.  On the minus, time working on models is time not getting my computer fixed.  The arrival is also too early if I want to do something like get nice bases for the new army (perhaps the Broken Wasteland set from Dragon Forge), though I could always let the models sit for a minute while the bases came.  Of course the aforementioned computer issues put a stop to contemplating scenic bases real quick.

In news from a happier time, I got the Trollblood book and read it over the weekend.  Plenty of nifty stuff in there that I'm sure I'll get into later, but in short I like the fluff and the crunchy bits are intriguing as well.  It seems like Trollbloods can crank melee stats through the roof compared to Khador, but perhaps that's more of a Hordes vs. Warmachine thing.  Speaking of the boys in red, over at Lost Hemisphere they have this picture from Lock & Load that looks suspiciously like plastic Bombardiers.  While it is compelling evidence of the existence of both plastic Men-O-War in general, and Bombardiers in particular, I remain skeptical until I have them in hand.  I've also been poking around the PP Khador forums a bit and have seen lots of interesting news coming out of Wrath, though I'll have to wait to find out myself as the FLGS found their distributor on backorder before the thing even came out.  Considering the amount of time I'll likely be investing in getting my computer back up and working again, a little delay might be a good thing.

Not that kind of progress

One of the few non-PP Trollblood pics.

Irony struck in the DMV the past few days.  I got lots of painting done, probably as much as I have in my entire time hobbying.  Unfortunately that painting was with a roller as I helped a friend paint a room.  So still no hobby progress, even though painting happened.  In slightly happier news, I put in the Trollblood order just now.  I'm thinking about hitting the FLGS before work today and picking up the Trollblood book to have something to read while I wait for the box.  I've been eying the Trollbloods for quite a while, more or less since I picked up Warmachine in the first place.  The beasts are what does it for me, at least some of them.  I'm not such a fan of the elemental trolls, but the "regular" troll beasts are very nice.  The Bouncer and the Mauler are at the top of the list, along with the Earthborn.  Of course I plan to take my time and paint these big beasties up nice before expanding any, so there's plenty of time to examine books and whatnot.  First and foremost will be picking a color scheme.  Green and blue would be my first choices, but green is a bit traditional and the studio scheme is blue.  Yellow is a possibility, but I don't know that I want to paint that much yellow.  At this stage the tartans aren't that intimidating, though I'm sure that will change as I get into them.  Learning Hordes should be interesting as I know the basic idea of the rules, but Fury is a lot different than Focus and it'll be good to know in what ways they differ.  One day actual hobby progress will occur, and on that day I'll have a camera handy.  Perhaps that day will be next time...

Late Is Better Than Never

Ready to hand out +1 BS.

Having sorted my computer and priming situation I have time for the post I would have done earlier.  First up are the pics from yesterday.  On left is the new Devastator sergeant.  I did some minor reposing on the arms so that they don't jumble into each other.  Now that I've primed the batch I notice the mold line still on the auspex.  I knew it was there during the build and did the best I could on it, but I see now that I missed a whole bunch.  In my defense the whole perimeter of the auspex is fine detail, so going to town on the mold line would take most of that detail with it.  I'll see what I can do about it when the primer is dry, but I may well just call it a design feature.  I hope the basing will turn out better on this group.  I put far less water in the glue mix than I usually do.  It seemed pretty solid yesterday, but I still got some ballast coming off on my fingers when I took the minis off the priming stick and set them down to dry.  I gave a couple models another layer of glue on top of the rocks and ballast.  The ballast didn't shift around as usual, but I noticed it had still moved when priming.  Two layers of glue and a layer of primer should be enough to hold the basing material in place, but I've thought the same about a single layer of glue with primer before and been proven wrong.  If the double glue works out then that'll be my new approach, though I'll need to add a step where I patch the holes that appear.  Anything that keeps that ballast on the base better.

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.

He's not heavy, he's my cruiser

The humidity broke overnight, down now to a manageable 65% from 90% last night.  It was the kind of gross night where every surface is wet even though it hasn't rained.  Thankfully that's done now and it looks like the humidity will burn off as the day progresses. Implementing my plan to get my heavies varnished, at least partially, before heading out for today's showdown, I got up early-ish to put on the first coat.  I had left the ships outside to dry, in the sun for extra drying speed.  When I went out to shift them a bit so they didn't stick to the box, I rethought my positioning, reasoning that leaving resin models in direct sunlight might not be the best idea ever.  So I brought them inside, stuck them in the bathroom, and turned the fan on.  They'll dry some more while I go get breakfast, then I'll flip them and hit the bottoms.  Hopefully the tops are dry enough by then that they won't stick to the box when I flip them.  In the meantime, I took a super high quality shot while they were in the bathroom.  Pic after the break.