Stumbling Out Of the Gate

Who leaves a triangle out where someone can trip on it?  

After my (minor) Herculean effort to get models together and primed I got to put them on the table last night.  My opponent was Justin, a buddy of EV's who is fairly new to our local Warmahordes group and the game in general.  Normally I'd pull out Zerkova or Rhyas for a relative newcomer, but having brought just the one list I didn't have any options.  When models started coming out this lack of diversity bit me square on the ass.  As you may have gathered from previous posts I was playing pKreoss.  Across the table was his natural predator: Ravyn with MHSF.  There wasn't a whole lot to do, and in retrospect I'm not sure I had any play other than running off into a corner and praying, but at least it was over quick.

As the night was wrapping up I heard that the Game Vault tournament I've been getting ready for was full, which was unfortunate as I hadn't claimed a spot since I wanted to make sure I had enough Menoth together to make a 35 point list.  There may also have been a bit of procrastination involved.  Regardless of who made what mistakes based on which shortcomings, I figured it wasn't meant to be.  Then I got a highlighted email today pointing out that someone had already signed me up, so the trip is back on.  I'm a little concerned about running into poor match-ups while bringing just one list, but this trip will be more about getting some reps in with a new faction and seeing if Game Vault has some of the bits I'm still looking for on the shelf.  Of course there's also a little place called Sonic, but that's a bonus.

Ready For Prime Time

The fruits of my labors.  

The title of this post is a little misleading, which I'll cover in a minute, but it was too good to not use.  With the "polar vortex" poised to freeze all of reality solid sometime today (Monday) I took a look at forecasts for today while watching the foosball yesterday to see if I'd be able to squeeze in some priming before the 9th circle of hell (which your classical education taught you was frozen) descends upon us all.  Turned out there was a window this afternoon, so last night I got to work building a Reckoner and pinning two heavies to bases, the final items on my pre-priming list.  As the picture above shows the work went well, and now I have a fully assembled and primed 35 point pKreoss army ready for a test run on Wednesday before their maiden competitive voyage this weekend.

The Crusade Takes Shape

Still working on that whole "regular update" thing.  The silver lining is that when I get around to posting I have a decent bit of progress to report.  I've made a reasonable dent in the pile, as you can see on the right, and there's even a bit more unshown progress in the form of a cleaned, ready for bases unit of Zealots.  The bases for the Zealots are in progress with the largest hurdle (greenstuff) done and curing at this moment.  I'll do ballast tomorrow and hopefully get the models on the (dry and finished) bases over the weekend.
Turning to the completed construction, the jack support is ready to go with the Choir and a pair of Vassals waiting for primer.  The Choir was more of a pain than anticipated.  The tabs and robes were all one big piece, so clipping and filing took a while.  Pinning was a pain as well, but for the Vassals I tried swapping my standard paper clips for the (relatively) new piano wire with pleasant results.  The drilling went much faster, with less worries about potentially drilling through a leg or ankle.  I didn't try bending the piano wire and greenstuffing it to the base like I do with the paper clips.  We'll see if this causes problems down the road, but the Vassals felt plenty secure even without dry glue.  As a bonus I did a bit of greenstuff on Kreoss' base to blend him in with the rest.

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.

Dust Regionals, Games And Stuff Style

If you like, I can save you some time: it didn't happen.

Want the fuller course?  I suppose I can oblige.  As with the Huzzah qualifier, I headed up to Games and Stuff on Sunday with little preparation, running late, no list, and only a general idea of what I wanted to play.  I nearly stuck the second Horten that arrived on Saturday in with the rest of my army, but my previous attempts to forge a dual plane list were unsatisfying so I left it at home.  The trip into the heart of darkness (aka Maryland) was uneventful and I found the new location with only one U turn.  Now GNS is in a strip mall with lots of obvious parking, food options, and a lack of the general unease for your bodily well being that I always got while walking from my car to the old location.  I arrived right on time, a minute or two before things were to kick off, paid my entry fee and rumbled into the gaming room where I found...the TO and the guy who won at Huzzah.  Without breaking my arm trying to twist it around to properly reach my back, I'd like to draw your attention to a bit of prophecy that I dropped in my Huzzah post a week back:

Dust Regionals, Huzzah Style

Not quite what I expected from a GIS for "gamer butts."

Round one of the Dust Regional Qualifiers was this weekend at one of my local stores Huzzah Hobbies.  They expanded at Huzzah last week and this was my first time there when the expansion was officially open.  The floor space doubled, in part to accommodate more and larger events, and it was just in time.  There was a Malifaux tournament going at the same time...and in the same room.  Things were close but there was still room for everyone.  To be fair we had one table in the expansion room, but it was an extra and didn't see use past the first round.  I don't think I mentioned my concerns on turnout previously, but it didn't matter as we had all the regulars including the folks that haven't been around for a while (but without EV, who is inaccessible on weekends).  Despite my nitpicking things went smooth and I never bumped butts with anyone behind me which is the highest praise I can give.

Nova Open Recap: Masters

After I failed to qualify for Masters (or the Championship, whatever you want to call it) after the Team tournament I threw caution to the wind and did the Deathrace tournament that started somewhat after midnight.  I'll do a tiny bit on it later, but for now the important bit is that I got into bed around 3.  After checking out and meeting up with NGF for breakfast (and to leave my non-gaming baggage with him) I made my way back to the Warmachine room trying to figure out how to make a list without knowing who my caster would be.

Nova Open Recap: Steam Roller

The lead-up to Saturday morning's SR event could have been better.  The tier tournament ran a little late (1:45 instead of midnight), it took me far too long to fall asleep, and the place I'd spotted for breakfast (Bozzelli's) didn't open until 10 on Saturdays.  Most places around the hotel were closed, so I soldiered on with nuts and trail mix before I got back to the tables.

It was eventually decided that this event was Divide & Conquer, which I was happy about.  There's lots of talk about picking complimentary lists, good/bad matchups, and getting "locked in" to a particular list on the podcasts I listen to, so I was eager to see how the format played out.  I've since tinkered with the existing lists instead of making new ones, as is my custom, so these may be slightly off, but this is what I ran:

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.

Nova Open Recap: Hardcore

Where I spent my long, long, loooooooong weekend. 

Starting at the beginning of the Open may not be the best idea as my recollection gets hazier the further back I go, but I am no more capable of reporting outside chronological order than I am setting up non-symmetrical terrain.  We all have crosses to bear in life.

To really start at the beginning, I arrived Thursday night.  There weren't any events scheduled and Iron Arena wasn't running yet, so it was pretty quiet.  There were a pair of games running when I poked my head in for the first time.  After taking a lap of the 40k hall and future vendor area I returned to the Warmahordes room and got in a friendly with James, who I hear is a PG in training over at Huzzah. A very relaxed start to the chaos that would follow.

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.

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:

Shock Troopers WIP #2

Closing in on the finish. 

More painting today, lots and lots of green and red.  Once again the time invested in the red was too much for the (visible) results.  I have a real problem in highlight red too subtly.  There's a layer or three of highlights there, but you'll be hard pressed to find them.  All I have left to do is blacks, metals, basing, and any details/touchups that pop up along the way.  That short(ish) list should only take one more painting session which will hopefully occur this week, and even more hopefully give me enough time to get those straggling Shepherds finished in case I go Legion for the tournament next weekend.  Assuming there's no hockey that day of course.

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.

Tournament Mode Redux

Path to improvement or plotting my own downfall?  

If you've read this blog over the last week or two it will be no surprise that today was my first trip to a non-local tournament.  (By non-local I mean not at my FLGS, even though the trip today was only about 30 minutes.)  I made the trip up the Beltway and into Purgatory Maryland, ending up at Dream Wizards for a 35 point Steam Roller.  While trawling the events forum on the PP site I see Dream Wizards come up a lot, so it was good to finally make the trip out to get a fix on where it is.  Turns out it's really not that much further than Huzzah Hobbies, though much of that is traffic-dependent.  Plus Huzzah isn't in Maryland.

As usual I over-thought my lists in the days preceding the tournament and ended up making some changes about 10 minutes before the first round.  Three lists were under consideration: pButcher tier 4 for armor-spamming zone-holding goodness, pIrusk for high DEF spam and general attrition grind, and eVlad for crazy assassinations and general entertainment.  The pButcher list was very appealing, but in the end I convinced myself I needed to be prepared for Incorporeal/only hurt by magic targets, and having just Lola to deal with those situations wasn't going to cut it.  The two lists I ran were:

The virtues of taking one to the face

"Learning opportunity" 

There has been a troubling trend around here lately: I've been winning too much.  Sounds like a good problem to have, no?  The downside of this trend is overconfidence.  I've been settling in, getting comfortable in my game, feeling a little invulnerable at times.  This is obviously a Bad Thing, and it's been even worse because I've been aware of it but powerless to do anything about it.  Fortunately for me I got the worst beating I've had in a long time on Thursday. How can this possibly be a good thing?  No one likes losing, much less being tabled, but I'm a firm advocate of learning by taking shots to the face.  No lesson is remembered as well as the one that stings for days afterwards, and despite what I've been thinking lately I still have plenty to learn about Warmahordes. 

Widowmakers WIP # 3

Less visible primer means success is close.

I'm starting to feel bad about all these smallish painting updates, but it's my blog and I'll spam all over it if I want to.  What I should probably feel bad about is the inevitable rambling at the end of the posts, but more on that later.  I got in some unexpected painting today, which let me finish off the greens and base coat the reds.  I took a couple stabs at blending the coats, but the results were less than expected.  The paint was probably too thick on reflection.  I'll keep tinkering with the technique and see if I can't find some path forward with it.  For tomorrow I hope to get the reds done, which shouldn't be hard, and also the browns, which will be more taxing.  Despite using two different shades of brown the various areas have all started to blend together, helped along by the liberal dosing of Devlan Mud they all got.  With all the abutting leathers I'll have plenty of opportunity to reclaim the various shades I intended.  After the leather this batch will be down to metals and details.  I also need to decide what I'm going to do with the armored bills on the back two grunt's hoods.

War Dog WIP #1

I know I've posted this before, but can't find it now. 

The title of this post is a little misleading.  This is my third crack at the War Dog now, so while this is the first WIP pic I'm presenting (I think), I've been "painting" this model for a couple years now.  The big problem has been my inspiration.  Sir No Longer Appearing In This Blog (NGF if you're good with acronyms) has a English bulldog with a unique coloring, a penchant for rubbing her ass all over everyone she meets, and a vicious stink emanating from all orifices.  She's adorable once you make peace with her many shortcomings.  Since the War Dog looks a lot like her (despite the model being male) I committed to painting the model to match the dog.

This was a mistake.

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:

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: