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.