Another Batch of Axis

It'll be time for basing soon as I'm almost out of unpainted minis.

The (painting of the) Axis war machine continues, inching towards total domination of unpainted models.  This batch consists of:

• Snipers
• Spotters
• Brain Eaters
• Grenadier X
• Stefan
• Ludwig arms
• Flamm-Luther arms
• Wotan arm shields

I had another unfortunate Dust experience this week, akin to the previous one.  My Wednesday opened up unexpectedly so I headed out to roll some dice at Huzzah but found no other combatants.  The group there has taken a couple body blows over the past few months, but this was the first time I showed up in vain.  This saps my zeal for reinforcements as I don't want to sink money into a game that I may have no competition for, which is unfortunate on a couple levels.  With the recent release of Icarus there are a couple builds I want to try out with the new units, Brain Eaters among them, but said builds will require another couple boxes to manage which, despite Dust's reasonable pricing, is more than I'm willing to put towards something that might sit on the shelf.  While this is, in my mind, a reasonable response to faltering interest, it also reinforces the problem.  If less people show up to play because less people are showing up to play then even less people will show up to play.  Quite the spiral.  I'm not throwing in the towel yet, but with the Caps making the playoffs gaming time might be scarcer than it already is for the next few weeks, which could be the deathblow for Dust.

The last few posts here have been pretty down, so I'll end this one on an note of optimism.  I cut it pretty close without really meaning to, but I bought in on the Arena Rex Kickstarter just before it expired.  It's a gladiator skirmish game that looks fast to play while having a reaction system, like Dust, to keep everyone involved throughout the game.  The models are few at this point and mostly in progress, but what has been shown is gorgeous.  One of my Warmahordes locals bought in as well, so this won't be another Dreadball-esque solo leap of faith, and there's still the option on the AR site to kinda sorta get in on the Kickstarter via Paypal.  There are playtest rules in the works for "summer," which hopefully is in the near future.  In other news I'm still fighting the good fight against including flyers and dedicated anti-flyer tech in my Dark Angels army, but with EV fielding a pair of (unreasonably brutal) Heldrakes that time may be winding down.  I considered an Aegis Defense Line at Huzzah this week but balked at the $30 tag as I'd mentally figured $20 would do it.  High prices from GW shouldn't surprise me any more, but they still manage it every now and again.

First Timers: Dark Angels vs Chaos in 6th Edition

Most disturbing result on a search for "first timers"?  Could be.

Remember when I used to do battle reports here?  Neither do I, but it's going to happen anyway.  You.
may have noticed my gaming pendulum has swung back towards 40k lately and today was the maiden voyage of 6th edition.  This game has been a while in the making but the stars aligned properly so that EV and I could throw down, tabletop style

Dust Up: Supremacy Showdown

Not this kind.  Well, maybe a little.

Special Disclaimer: New ground is breaking in this very post.  Etna's Vassal and I doing something I've been thinking about for a long while, a double battle report.  This is different for me as I generally try to cover both sides, successfully or not, when I do a battle report, whereas this time it's (mostly) all from my side.  You can find EV's half of the story here. 

You'd never know it from this blog, but I've been playing a lot of Dust Warfare lately.  It took a decent amount of sniffing around and shuffling feet, but I'm now at the helm of a nearly complete collection of Axis forces, thanks in part to the Escalation league that's been running for the last month or two at Huzzah.  (Wednesday nights if you're a curious party.)  I've had a good time with Dust, which is quick and interactive, and am now starting to appreciate the depth of the system.  It's one of those easy to learn, hard to master things.  I've even settled (I think) on a scheme and approach, which should make a certain reader happy.  Once I get going on it of course.  The Huzzah league is wrapping up currently, with EV and I finishing up tied for first.  We hadn't played each other during the league since we get in a weekly game on Tuesdays, so there were no handy head-to-head tie breakers available.  The only way to determine a champion was to duke it out.

What's a battle report? Blood Angels vs Space Wolves

Like this, but not really. 

Spurred on by EV's recent battle report, I decided to get back on the horse and do one of my own.  It's only been...four months since my last full blown battle report.  Let's see if I remember how these things work.

I'm skipping the usual army listings in favor of a more abstract, descriptive approach.  I ran the mech/jumper hybrid list that I've settled on recently.  It has a pair of assault squads for troops, a Death Company filled Land Raider, a pair of Predators, a Vindicator, and a Multimelta Attack Bike.  Oh, and Mephiston.  I wanted to field some Scouts, since I haven't put them on the table in a decade, but got sucked into the TV last night instead of writing up an army list.  EV ran my list through Army Builder after our last game and came up 90 points short, so I took another Sanguinary Priest to fill the gap.  When I make up that Scout list I'll double check my math and see who was wrong, me or Army Builder.

Painting on the go, living the dream

Bad lighting?  No problem. 

This past Thursday we had a painting night at the FLGS.  While the participation rate was dramatically less than I anticipated that didn't stop me from getting some good work in.  You may recall eLylyth in a basic state from a while back.  Fast-forward to now and she's (probably) done after a rather casual night of painting.  I'm not entirely happy with the bow, and the armor as a whole could use a highlight to knock some of the blue down, but I'm pleased for two reasons.  1 - another model (close enough to) done.  2 - painting time was low and the results are still decent.  Considering I did all the actual work (anything after the initial basecoat and wash) at the FLGS with new/sub-prime lighting in a not entirely comfortable position while engaging in the usual gaming night gabbery, I think the results are fairly remarkable.

Shock Troopers finished, a small measure of redemption, Super Dungeon Explored

Waiting for an opportunity.  And varnish.  Mostly varnish. 

Details took longer than expected, as they always do, but I still got the Shock Troopers finished on schedule.  In retrospect I should have had a Bombardier handy to make sure my treatment of Man-o-War armor remained consistent as the Shock Troopers seem darker than the Bombardiers.  I guess I can call it diversity.  With the Shock Troopers complete I'm well above 50% painted (for Khador), which is very nice.  Once I get the Demo Corps done I'll be able to field a fully painted pButcher tier 4 list, which is always satisfying.

Turning the Tables: pButcher vs Xerxis

Google returns this for "Turning the tables."

Last week I returned to the warm embrace of the Motherland in my first post-Gnarls game.  While thinking through a list the night before I engaged in an activity that I usually detest: I planned my list based on what I assumed EV would field.  This started mostly with planning a counter to Bile Thralls (Widowmakers), who are a rock-hard counter to the WGI I would be running (since I finished Kovnik Joe recently and wanted to field him.)  My distaste for list-tailoring sent me off on various themes, notably an all (or almost all) Stealth list, but as I was packing in the Kayazy I came back to tailoring.  While I'm against planning for a particular opponent, it makes no sense to do something like an all Stealth list that focuses on negating shooting when you know your opponent is all but guaranteed to take a melee-heavy force with little to no shooting.  Practicing in undesirable conditions is one thing, but bringing that Stealth list against a list packed with Banes, Biles, and Mech Thralls is an exercise in masochism.  After iterating for a while, I came back to my starting point of putting Joe (and Torch, also recently finished) on the table and came up with the following:

Battle of the Buxom Babes: pLylyth vs eSkarre

Textbook definition of "buxom."

This is a report that's been in the hopper for a little while and is finally getting some love.  This is partly because I want to clear out the backlog (7 games and counting), and partly because EV told me I only do prompt reports of games I win.  While obviously untrue, I though I'd take a look back to last week (depending on when this gets posted) and the debut of playing Slipstream the right way with EV.  For this game I returned to pLylyth and went even heavier on the beasts (if that's possible) by dropping the infantry and adding some Shredders and a Deathstalker.  My list was thus:

Order of Activation is Important: pThagrosh vs pHaley

Not a bad song, even if you don't go in for light pop (I usually don't).

Having used it for all of three games (one of which hardly counts), I've been very happy with how my pLylyth list has worked.  The logical move for today's game (see usual caveat re: when this gets posted), then, is to change things up.  As such my lovely blind archer lady stepped aside for the big...thing that is pThagrosh.  My first choice to switch things up would have been the first lady of freeky deeky, Absylonia, and the tier 4 list I have concocted for her.  One small problem though: she's still in a blister (which is still inside a box).  It's been a little slow on the construction front around here.  With that avenue blocked off, I went in for the above-mentioned pThagrosh (the p stands for pimp, though that newcomer Kallus is messing up the sausage to bun ratio).  I figured I'd go ahead and bring out the Swordsmen while I was at it since they hadn't seen any table time either, and ended up with the following list:

The Littlest Battle Report: pLylyth vs eGaspy

Makes sense when you break it down.

As a way of easing back into doing battle reports before tackling the pile that's waiting for some love, today (or whenever this gets posted) I'm doing a bite-sized report.  The reasons for the length will soon be apparent, so let's start at the beginning.  Tuesday is now the day of gaming with EV, so I packed my stuff and made the short trip to his place.  Which faction I'd be playing was never really a question (want more Legion goodness), but I did debate for a bit about whether to bring pLylyth or pThagrosh.  In my first game with Legion and pLylyth (to be reported on in the future) things worked more or less exactly like I wanted them to, so I decided not to fix what wasn't broken.  While not 100% what I would ultimately like to run with her, I didn't have to do a whole lot of compromising to make a list out of the pieces I have.  What I fielded was thus:

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.

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? 

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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:

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:

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.