Trying New Things

Now with captions.  

Today's post is being produced entirely on my fancy new iPad.  We'll see how it works out.  So far no photo captioning or placement.  Not a great first impression.  Update: a few more steps, but looks workable.

After a longer than expected hiatus I again sat down at the painting table.  My ambition was only to knock the rust off, but I got some decent work in anyway.  Now I have a batch of Reiksguard with finished skin and armor, plus a start on red and white details.  There are some green details to be done and mouths to be finished, but that shouldn't take long.  Along the way I did a bad thing by changing how I did armor, so now I wonder if the knights and horses will match up.  Worst case scenario I redo the horse armor, which wouldn't be horrible, but I hope to not have to make that call.  With some luck I'll have the riders finished this weekend and shields soon after.  If the armor matches up then I'll just have to glue and varnish to have a painted, fieldable, and finished unit, which will be a nice little milestone.

Tomorrow is Foodmachine, my first "tournament" in a couple months.  It's a one or two list event, so I can pick a partner for the eVayl list I've been playing over the past few months.  Foodmachine isn't the best testing environment with the rampant and encouraged cheating, but it'll still be timed turns which will be a good exercise in speedier decision making.  I'm leaning towards Aby as a partner since her tier is like a well-worn jacket for me, but I love the idea of pairing prime and epic Vayl.  Also under consideration is eLylyth so I can east into running her in a "competitive" environment.  I have almost no practice with her though, maybe a half dozen games at most, and I don't really want to be the guy who brings a pair of big time tournament lists to a lighthearted charity event.  I don't have to decide for 12.5 hours or so, which is plenty of time to change and make up my mind a few times over.

One Foot at a Time

My most recent construction project.  

Been a while, eh?  You may have noticed that I tend to post when I've painted something.  Since I haven't sat down to paint in far too long, I also haven't sat down to blog in a while either.  That doesn't mean I've been idle, just occupied with things that aren't painting.  There's plenty of non-wargaming things that have taken up my attention (EV got married for one, hockey season for two, NHL14 for three), and there's been plenty of boxes being opened and models assembled as well.

I'm still working on eVayl and getting more comfortable with her and her tier list.  After 8-10 games played, a couple videos watched, and the much debated decision to kill my own mans for a turn one Shredder, things are starting to come together.  The Legionnaires are putting in more work (outside of simply feeding the pot) and I'm getting more lessers on the table in general, though people are starting to target the pot sooner as a result.  In recent games I've sent the Angels further up the table on turn one to make use of the tier SPD boost.  While this has cost me an Angel early on, which isn't so good, it also gets the Angels involved much earlier and puts some heat on my opponent from the very beginning.  This is true of the list in general as I've been running the Ravagores in turn one as well, plus trying to charge Vayl for the extra movement, all with an eye towards dictating the line of engagement instead of getting bottled up on my half of the table.  Vayl doesn't feel nearly as survivable in her epic form so it's been a learning process, but I hope I'm turning the corner on it.

Finally, there's the outstanding matter of the Empire.  The train has ground completely to a halt after a hard opening charge.  With EV due back from his honeymoon sometime soon, and our usual Tuesday game to resume after that, it looks like my grand plan to have a painted (starter) force ready to go is going to come up short.  I've been sniffing around it of late, notably to finally get a handle on Reiksguard schemes, so hopefully I get back on the horse soon.

More Randomness

A whole posse of gatormans.  

If I've learned just one thing about creating things it's to go with what feels right.  While I should be working on Empire or Infinity I felt like putting together gators today.  By going with what felt right I got a unit (plus a solo) assembled that had been sitting in a box for far too long.  The alternative was to tell myself I should be doing something else, dicker around with the phone/tv/whatever, and make little to no hobby progress on anything.  I think I made the right call.  Now if I can roll into assembling the lingering Hex Hunters I can try out the Bethayne ideas that made me order these things in the first place.

Things Still Happen Here

Au revoir MP85.  

I wanted to start this post with hobby news, but that just isn't working.  Today I blog with a heavy heart because a tiny ball of French-Canadian exuberance is moving from swampy DC to sunny CA.  Sports games are also numbers games sometimes, and the crunch is rarely harsher than when the season is about to begin.  I could go on for quite a while, but ultimately this is a hobby blog and I probably shouldn't indulge in hockey talk when I haven't had hobby talk in quite a while.  I has a hockey sad, but the show must go on.

Judging by the lack of posting for the last two weeks, you might think there hasn't been much happening.  You'd be right for the most part, but there has been some action going on.  Unfortunately there are no pictures of said action because pictures aren't appropriate.  There was a lot of reading, be it forums or rules, leading up to jumping in on Infinity.  After far too much effort I laid hands on a Military Orders starter box, a grunt, and a handful of Knights.  I've done a modest amount of modelling with much more on deck for tomorrow so I can have a squad more or less ready for Tuesday. Lack of fluff is starting to become an issue now as I start considering schemes.  I'd like to read more than just the blurbs on the Infinity site, and play a couple games as well, before I commit to a particular Knightly Order (and therefore paint scheme).  Painting issues aside, I'm looking forward to getting some reps in with my chosen faction.  In Empire news I built some Archers and got basing underway on painted and unpainted Spearmen.  The painting muse has been on vacation lately, and since Empire is mostly a painting project at this point that means there hasn't been much progress there.  Still need to finish reading the WFB rules as well.

There's less smoke but more fire on the Warmahordes front.  After girding my loins for competitive Khador play previously, I got to thinking about the best way to help my fellow gamers prepare for tournament play.  The Motherland hasn't had the best showing on the big stages over the past year or two for whatever reason.  One possible reason: Legion takes all their places.  It turns out I have a bag full of Legion, stocked with the vast majority of what the Internet tells me are the best choices.  [The only big hole I have are Raptors which I can probably borrow from a local (or build my Uhlans and use them as proxies)].  With this in mind I started assembling eVayl and the non-Shredder lessers so I could run the now-standard tier 4 list.  My first time out with it didn't go so well, but I did learn the pMadrak can be tough to kill.  I learned a lot from the game, which felt like it hadn't happened in forever, and I have some ideas for next time.  Once I get the Knights together I'll be looking to the lingering Gatormen and Hex Hunters, plus digging around while hoping that I have another Legion heavy kit hiding somewhere.  

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.