Painting and more Archangel

Should be less shiny after varnishing.  . 

Let's start with what everyone is interested in: a WIP shot of a Destroyer.  While the exact timeline is lost in the misty depths of my less than airtight memory, this Destroyer may be the first Warmachine model I put paint on.  At worst it's one of the first three, and regardless it's been "in progress" for the better part of two and a half years.  If you're wondering why I haven't finished it off yet then you've probably never played Khador.  As the faction stands there's no compelling reason to take a Destroyer instead of Black Ivan, despite the latter costing an extra point, and I'd argue there's no reason to take a Destroyer to begin with outside of some wacky Harkevich Broadsides list.  But that's a tangent for a different day.  Taking up the 5th Border Legion scheme again after a significant break was somewhat uncomfortable as I'm sure this Destroyer will look a little off compared to the rest of my jacks, but it was a nice change of pace to play around with a different palette.  The jack itself is done but I still need to texture the base, then varnish, then paint the base and arcs, then final varnishing.  While it won't take long to do it's still time consuming with all the drying time required.  Fortunately there's still almost two weeks before the Paint the Target deadline which I'm determined to hit this month after slacking in October.  In a perfect world I would have painted up my still unassembled Nephilim Protector, which has begun to figure in AA musings, but I'm not convinced I'd be finished in time.  Plus it's nice to send a little bit of love back to the Motherland every now and again.

Nova Open Recap: Team

All for one and one for all and all that. 

Going into the Open the team tournament was a big question mark for me.  I didn't try to find a team before the event as conventional wisdom said it would be good to have some non-event time at a con.  With Iron Arena going, and a total lack of details before the Open began, I figured I could either get in Iron Arena games, nap, tour the con, or fill out someone's squad.  There was a bit of chatter about finding people on Thursday which grew in intensity through Friday and into Saturday.  I knew I could find a place to play if I wanted to, but the question of whether I wanted to or not was still undecided after the close of the morning's Steam Roller.  After three tournaments in a day and a half what I wanted most was to have a leisurely meal so I strolled over to the Bozzelli's that had spurned my breakfasty advances that morning to get a big, greasy meal that I could lord over like a dragon and its hoard.

Nova Open Recap: Tier

Tiers not as tasty as these. 

Going into the Open I had circled the Tier tournament as one I expected to do well in.  I've had a lot of success with Absylonia's tier list, which includes everything that I want (beasts and fury management) and gives some nice benefits (cheaper, faster beasts).  Aby is a pretty straight-forward caster, one of a small group (which might only include pVlad) that I feel comfortable playing competitively with no warmups or practice games.  My list was as such:

Absylonia, Terror of Everblight  +5 points
* Angelius  8 points
* Scythean  8 points
* 3x Shredder  2 points each
* Typhon  11 points

Shepherd  1 point
3x The Forsaken  2 points each

All the lessers get AD, all the heavies get to Advance Move, I get an extra Forsaken, what's not to like?  Oh, and all the heavies will have Reach.  The only real weakness is a lack of magic weapons/attacks, but that's common to many tier lists.  I would have liked another heavy, but the points just don't mesh at 35.  Enough rambling, on to the meat.

Summer Battle Tour Continues

Just look for the great big hammer. 

Thanks to a scheduling snafu that moved my family's Father's Day dinner to the week after Father's Day, I had the chance to travel to Games and Stuff for a 50 pointer.  GNS is the last of the stores in my extended gaming area to get crossed off my list and it made quite an impression.  It's a two story affair with the shop on the bottom and a big gaming room on top.  They posted a pic of the action this past weekend that showcases this humble author while also showing off the room, which is second only to Game Vault in terms of sheer playing space.  This upstairs space is apparently undergoing renovation but was still the nicest play space I've frequented so far.  I didn't have a lot of time to browse on the way out, so I concentrated my attention on the Warmahordes section and Legion stuff in particular.  They may not have had one of everything in the line on the wall, but it was close enough for me, and it looked like every other faction was represented just as well.  My only real complaint about the store is that it's quite a drive, but that's a small issue.  If you're in the area stop by and check it out.  Enough of the plugs, on with the show.

Revenge of Tournament Mode

The right way to prepare for a tournament. 

I keep my eyes open for tournaments in the DMV, and this weekend was full of them.  On Sunday Games & Stuff (which I'll get to one of these days) had a tournament going and on Saturday my local group was trying to put together an end of Olgunholt tournament.  Unfortunately that fell through because of the other tournament going on Saturday, a 50 point Steam Roller down at Game Vault, which was already on the calendar for a number of the locals.  We ended up sending five people down south to take the fight to Fredericksburg, the first expedition of the still coalescing Nova Nomads (of which more will undoubtedly be written later, when there's more to write about).  I met up with Danny, Hawk, and Ron in Falls Church, where we all piled in Hawk's car.  After a quick drive down and a stop at Sonic, we got to Game Vault and saw our fifth local, Austin, making his way in.  There were 15 players when we got started, so the TO filled in to even up the numbers.  Fortunately there was another willing organizer who took over the administrative duties (also the same guy whose Skorne I played at Dream Wizards about a month ago, but whose name I still can't manage to hang onto.  Third time is the charm).  I'd played a handful of games over the past week to reacquaint myself with Legion and fielded the following:

Return to painting Legion

Wonder twin powers activate! 

I've had my Shepherds on the painting table for a couple months now.  Since I'll be playing Legion this weekend I needed to resolve that situation.  With painting time at a premium this week, I girded my painting loins and got to work today.  They were mostly done already, just waiting for me to figure out how to paint Legion infantry.  The method I employed?  Get it painted.  Continuing my painting regression, I'm now aiming for "looks nice as a group on the table," which is an easy standard to hit.  This is a bit of an evolution of my outlook on the relation between gaming and painting.  Typically I paint each model as well as I can, or at least to a standard that each one looks good(ish) when viewed up close.  While this produces an army that looks good both together and individually, it does so very slowly.  Until recently I've looked down my nose at people who seemingly slather the paint on as fast as possible across all their models.  Surely they're missing the point by neglecting one of the pillars of wargaming.

Shock Troopers WIP #1, Tournament Musings

Preparing to take some objectives.

This month's Paint the Target is for a unit and while it's tempting to run with a thrown-away line Gdaybloke dropped on the post and do my second Mortar team, instead I'll take this opportunity to finally paint up some Shock Troopers.  I've been wanting to paint these models for a while, but always managed to talk myself out of it.  This time around it's no different, as the Shock Troopers have featured prominently in my list building of late, but I'm not letting that stop me.  I can always proxy them for the next week or two and I could (if things go well) get them done by Thursday and not miss any table time, but even at the worst I'll have them done by the 19th.  Why the 19th?  More on that in a minute.  Today I was focused on getting base coats and the preliminary wash done.  I managed that feat, though it was far more painful than anticipated.  Turns out painting a full unit of medium bases takes a lot longer than doing a single small based model.  Everything that needed a wash got that far, which is everything except what will end up black.  Next time I'll be satisfied if I get the green done, and after that it will be another session or two to finish.  It'll take some work, but I think I can get them done next week.

This "Week" in the Gnarls League, Part 5

Not this Death Race (thank Jebus).

As entertaining as the Gnarls league was, by the end of last week I was feeling a little crisp around the edges after all that gaming.  What better way to cap that off than with a tournament?  The format was simple: 25 points, single list, all rounds use the Overrun scenario.  Apparently this is a "Death Race" format.  Looking back on the tournament, the name is fitting.  With 27 minute death clocks (54 minutes total for the game at most) and a scenario that forces you to the center, things got hot and heavy with a quickness.  It was an entertaining setup.

Coming up with a 25 point list was more challenging than I expected.  After getting used to playing at 50 points, cutting my list in half required some tough compromises.  While I could manage to run a tier list at 25 points the resulting list (Typhon, Seraph, 3 Shredders, 2 Shepherds, 2 Forsaken) was too heavy on support pieces (which I count the Shredders as) and too light on heavy hitters.  (I think of Typhon as heavy support instead of a heavy hitter, so the list is all support and no hammer.)  My second try was a little better (2 Carnis, 3 Shredders, 2 Forsaken), but there were two big problems: first I had one Carnivean too many, second I had no Seraph (and therefore no Slipstream).  Slipstream is too versatile to leave behind, so I went back to the drawing board.  Leaving behind the tier list I've come to love so much, my third attempt was much better: 2 Scytheans, a Seraph, a Shredder, and a Forsaken.  With both Slipstream and Tenacity I felt better about this list, but finally decided to trade in the Shredder to upgrade a Scythean to a Carnivean.  My final list was thus:

This Week in the Gnarls League, Part 4

As you close readers will no doubt remember, I entered the last week of the Gnarls league tied for the lead.  Close readers that you are, you will also remember that when I'm involved in a game I often forget to take pictures.  Thus the obvious reason for the total lack of photos for this past week is that I was focused on rolling dice and pushing models around instead of taking pictures.  You'll have to use your imaginations.

My first game of the week was a mirror match against Mason.  I've played him a few times before and he's always managed to beat me, so this time around I was looking to even the ledger.  I took the same 50 point Aby list that I ran throughout the league (Aby, Typhon, Carni, Angelius, Seraph, Raek, 4 Shredders, Shepherd, 3 Forsakens).  Mason ran pVayl (his first time using her) with a Carni, full Raptors, Anyssa, Totem Hunter, the league Strider unit, a pair of Deathstalkers, and possibly Typhon and/or a Forsaken if he had room.  (I've played a lot of games since then so details are fuzzy, plus I didn't take notes or get pictures.  I'm fairly sure he had two heavies.)  We played King of the Hill, which played a role in making it a quickish game.  As usual Typhon took a number of blows to the chin and crumpled quickly.  I forgot about Rampager entirely and was reminded in a rude fashion when Mason ran my Carni into my Seraph (or perhaps Typhon), then popped feat to set up another alpha (beta?) strike in the next turn.  Fortunately for me that next strike never came.  Vayl has to play further up the field than she would otherwise to make use of her various spells and effects, which makes it very easy to hang her out to dry.  My Carnivean was close enough to get her into melee and the rest was history.  While pVayl is a wonderful toolbox, the options are a bit overwhelming and I have yet to come to grips with her, which looked to be the case with Mason as well.  The only way to learn is to get experience though.  Seeing your caster get eaten is never fun, but it's a lesson you're not likely to forget.

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.

This Week in the Gnarls League, Part 2

Against Jason.

Week two of the Gnarls league wraps up today, but for me it finished yesterday with my third game.  Let's start at the beginning.  The first game was Thursday against Jason, a regular Menoth player who I had not yet faced off against.  I ran a newish Absylonia list with Typhon, a Carnivean, a Seraph, four Shredders, and a pair of both Shepherds and Forsaken.  Jason used Amon with a horde of light jacks, 8 in all, with a pair of min choirs and some wracks.  The scenario was Hold the Line, one that I enjoy for its straight-forwardness.  As usual when facing a new caster/army, I read the cards and took note of abilities, then promptly forgot or underestimated them.  Synergy caught me with my pants not down, but off and in another room.  I lost Typhon and the Carni, both undamaged, on the same turn and that was about it.  I almost shot down Amon with the Seraph, then couldn't quite manage to get Aby in charge range of him.  This game was a fairly ugly case of learning by taking it in the face for me, but that knowledge would come in handy in the next game.

This Week in the Gnarls League, Part 1

Not these Gnarls.

The Gnarls League started this week and despite some scheduling difficulties (read: hockey on Thursday night) I managed to get my three games in for the week.  These seasonal leagues have intrigued me since I first heard about them.  The idea that some models are taken out and replaced with variations on them is a novel one.  This year's leagues take the novelty a step further by allying two factions (Legion pairs up with Mercs for the Gnarls)  and allowing them to field each others' seasonal model.  The Merc's model (grape shot cannon) doesn't do much for me, and a lot of the pairings are odd, but it's a good way to add in some variety without actually adding new pieces to the game which astute readers will remember is a plus for me.  Looks like I've finally encased my first picture in text, so on to the mini battle reports.