Exiled Santabarbarians

Just a quick update - Vessel of Judgement Commission

2012-01-09T09:48:00.000-08:00

So I didn't get nearly as much painting over the holidays as I expected, but I managed to put my brush back to the model this weekend.

I haven't really done any highlighting on anything, and I've really only been focusing on the top piece. Hopefully I'll be able to crank that piece out and have it done in the next week. I doubt I'll finish the whole thing before the end of January purely because of how busy this month is, but I'd like to get it done soon so I can get back to assembling/painting my own models again :p

Vessel of Judgement Commission - Part 1

2011-12-13T10:36:00.001-08:00

So James, one of the guys at my LGS who plays Menoth, Retribution, and now also Khador, got a Vessel of Judgement and wanted me to paint it for him. He magnetized it up so that it wouldn't be such a pain to transport.

So here are all the pieces minus the priesty dude. I might have knocked his head off, so I'll have to go back and pin that so it can't happen again.

Now, with the magnetization, it should be easier to paint since I can just pull the people out of the way. It turns out that the magnets hold okay together, but not really strong enough to be able to move the base just by holding the top of the Vessel. To fix that and to keep the chains onto the buff dude, I put in some pins for this thing. I pinned the chains to the Vessel, and they'll also glue in to the buff dude. I put two little pins into the back wheel section so that the magnets holds the piece close, and the pins keep the pieces aligned. This way, a little sheering force won't knock the piece off. I also put in a big pin that runs from the bottom of the base, through the large wheel section to the pipes section. It's fairly snug, so now just holding the top of the Vessel can pick everything up.

As you can see, I have tile on the base, just done by using a lot of GS, some water, and a piece of screen. The rest of the base will hopefully be suitably deserty.

So when it's put together, it'll look something like this:

As for the actual painting, James wanted something like the studio paint scheme. Seeing as I've never actually painted anything Menoth before, and how large this model is, I opted for using the Army Painter Skeleton Bone Primer to get everything in the right shade. This is where I'm at so far after a thin layer of bleached bone on top of the primer (plus a couple washes on the base and buff dude).

It looks like the white color shouldn't be too hard to build up from this, which is nice. I'm going to try and finish a quick basecoat of the bleached bone all over the white sections of this model before busting out the metals on this bad boy.

SDE Denizens, Round 1

2011-12-08T08:29:00.001-08:00

I was able to get some more painting done last night and decided to crank out some denizens. These guys are brutal in the game, as long as you still have your egg clutch on the board I don't know why you would want to spawn kobolds unless you had no denizens left to spawn.

Charmeleon...err I mean a whelp.

Wyrmling

Hatchlings

My favorite model so far, the egg clutch spawning point

The entirety of my painted SDE set

I'm finding that I can keep to my painting goals fairly well. There were some gaps in the Whelp and the base of the Wyrmling that I would have liked to fill but I told myself this is a board game, get over it and paint them! So far the minis are quick and fun to paint so I don't see myself losing interest any time soon. Queue 3 months of silence about painting SDE...

SDE Paladin WIP

2011-12-07T07:58:00.001-08:00

I started working on my first SDE mini last night. I'm coming at these minis differently than usual. Basically the look of the overall set is more important than the individual minis. Meaning, I'd rather have a fully painted set than a few really stellar models. With that in mind I'm trying to keep the paint techniques and style simple. For example:

1) I'm only doing a basecoat and rough highlights. This will allow me to move quickly but I think it will also add to the pixelated 8-bit feel.

2) I'm not doing NMM but I'm not using metallic paints either. Metallic paints take a long time for me and I think they'll stand out oddly against the cartoony feel of the minis. In Legend of Zelda Link's sword doesn't shimmer and shine. It's a brown stick but you still know it's a sword. So my steels will be grey and my golds will be yellow but I think you'll still be able to tell that it's a sword, not a grey stick.

3) Paint the heroes, dip the mobs. Yes that's right this will be my first foray into dipping. I plan on painting the heroes, drakes, mini-bosses and boss by hand but all the kobolds are getting dipped. I just need to decide what color their skin will be so I can get that color primer for Christmas. At this point I'm thinking blue.

With all that said here's my Paladin. I'm calling him a WIP because there's some touchups I'd like to do (stray paint etc)but in the interest of getting everything painted I'm moving on.

Super Dungeon Explore Boxing

2011-12-01T08:42:00.001-08:00

There are plenty of Super Dungeon Explore unboxing videos and reviews out there so I thought I'd just do a boxing post in which we all admire the box that SDE comes in. Sounds like fun right!

Here is the box in all of its glory. The first thing I noticed about the box was how big and heavy it is. Quite the impressive product based on girth alone. If you squint you can see a fully grown man standing to the side of the box, engulfed in its shadow as the sheer awesomeness of SDE overshadows him. I have to say the cardboard is a little thin, if you run you hand across the box you can feel the corrugation. But in the less than 24 hours that I've had it the box has held up admirably.

Like many boxes this one has 4 sides. Here are some pictures of those sides (with bonus uncropped knees if you're into that sort of thing).

The box also has a back which details the contents of the box and gives a description of the game. For those of you who like to read the last page of a book first you may be tempted to skip right to the back of the box, but don't let that distract you from savoring the box in its entirety.

A unique feature of this box is that it opens to reveal objects stored inside of it. Here we can see what awaits us when we fold up the lid of the box:

So there you have it, a complete box review of Super Dungeon Explore. What's that you say? You want me to press on further into the labyrinth mysteries of this box? Well the people have spoken!

The first things that will greet you upon opening the box is the rulebook and two (count them two!) sheets of double sided counters:

After that we have the 5 double sided dungeon tiles and the adventure tracker:

And below that we have a plastic tray with dice, cards and a big ol' bag of minis:

And a short while later the Heroes are assembled:

And there you have it. My Super Dungeon Explore experiences to date.

Super Dungeon Explore Board

2011-11-28T14:04:00.001-08:00

Jon was kind enough to hook me up with some pink foam so I could make a Super Dungeon Explore board. This is my first time working with pink foam so many mistakes have been made so far. Hopefully it will be at least playable by the time we get together to give the game a spin, but this is what I have done at this point.

Janissa- Test Model

2011-11-05T14:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not a huge fan of Janissa's model, her head reminds me of a Jelly Bean. With that said I painted her up in a few hours to test my Trollblood scheme. It's quick and dirty and her skin is more grey in person but here she is.

Terminus Update!

2011-11-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

So I've gotten a bit more work done on Terminus. Now that he's finally attached to his base for real, I can actually put him in my case and play some games with him.

I also have been making a soul cage using my dremel (as shown to make cannons in the privateer insider here).

There are a few tricks that I'm still trying to work it out with how to make it all look good, but it's fun to figure out.

C&C always welcome.

Harlen Versh!

2011-10-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

So I've had a hard time finding Harlen Versh. He's just never in stock in most stores, much like epic Eiryss. However, Game Empire in Pasadena just got in a new shipment of privateer models, including Harlan Versh and the last blister of Kayazy that I needed. Granted, the only reason I knew about that was showing up for a 2-list character limited 50 pt Steamroller last weekend. Tournament went okay, but I made game-ending mistakes in my last 2 games, walking forward for no good reason and dieing and stuff. *shrug* I really have to get into practice with my Cryx again because I don't have the Merc collection to run what I want with the character restrictions.

Anyways, enough with the rambling. I managed to get Versh painted up in about 2 or 3 hours or so, which is pretty fast for me. I used the zenithal priming technique on him, and pretty happy with how it's helped.

I'm not too happy with the face, but I'm usually not, so that could be worse. This is after all the varnishing, but I'm not sure why he's still so shiny since I put on 2 coats of matte varnish after the gloss varnish. Hopefully it gets better as time goes on.

Finally, an update/scale picture on one of the Wraith Engines. Harlen Versh is going to have a hard time killing that monster of a model by himself.

I should hopefully have some good progress on Terminus to post later this week. I think I'm finally satisfied with his armor, so I just have to finish up everything on his lower body before gluing him to the base.

Yes, I'm "that guy"

2011-10-18T09:36:00.000-07:00

So it's been a while since I've updated. Been a bit busy, but I've still been painting up my Mercs and such, but just too lazy to take pictures. But this post isn't about Mercs, it's about Cryx. I've been trying to focus on Mercs, but it's hard to stay away from Cryx. So I randomly was checking out ebay for Wraith Engines after reading some of Zerosoul's thoughts on them over on Focus and Fury. Lo and behold, I found 2 for $53 each. So yeah, bought both and have assembled one. I'll be proxying the second until I decide if I really want it or not. If not, I can still sell it for cheap :p.

Anyways, here are pics of what I've got on my assembled Wraith Engine. He still needs some cleaning up and gap filling. This was probably the worst PP model I've ever dealt with in terms of the amount of cleanup and such I had to do. Probably another reason why I won't be assembling the second anytime soon.

So if I can get a decent paint job on this guy, he'll be partially incorporeal from where he's going through the "rocks". I'll probably try and put some other interesting stuff on the base as well, so who knows.

Thoughts on alternate wings for Terminus?

2011-09-30T09:52:00.001-07:00

So in order to look more like the art, I'm considering scratch building my own wings for Terminus, or buying a set and cutting out a lot of the inner material so that they look more tattered.

Here are some of the ones that I've found. Right now I'm leaning towards right now.

GW Winged Nightmare Wings

GW Dragon Wings (which are also similar to this set of "Demon Prince Wings" from Bitz Barn)

Or this set of GW Bloodthirster Wings

Any suggestions?

Terminus Again?

2011-09-27T09:18:00.001-07:00

So in case anybody didn't realize, I've done a Terminus conversion before, with this as the final product.

The work in progress pictures are on the PP forums as well as here on the blog, if I recall correctly. Anyways, at one point about a year ago, I had an accident and dropped a whole tray of my Cryx all over the tile floor. Everything got put back together, but Terminus was never the same. So when he lost a wing yet again, I decided that it was time to have another go at him. Especially since I feel so much more comfortable with my sculpting (plus how awesome RabidBunny's Terminus WIP is).

Now, the reason for all these conversions is that I really don't like the model in comparison to the art. So I'm going to use some of that art as the basis for this next conversion.

Here's a pic of Terminus from the Forces of Warmachine: Cryx book:

One of the reasons that I love this over the actual model is that it just looks so much more dynamic and active (and also happens to look less like he's about to drop a deuce). The other goal beyond making the model look closer to the art is to make it easier to work around him. When I've played Terminus in timed tournaments, I had a problem with catching other models on his wings while trying to move in close to him to take advantage of Sac Pawn.

Here are some pics of the general pose that I've got so far.

The big deviation from the art is that 1) I put the wrong leg forward (which is what I get for going off of memory), 2) gonna be casting a hellfire with his right hand, 3) no more pirate sleeves and 4) the reverse grip on the sword. It just doesn't make any sense to me why the one sword you have, you hold in the way that shortens your reach, strength, and stabbitiness. When you have two, sure, defense, whatever. Anyways, rants aside I managed to get a bit of sculpting done last night too.

I'll probably change the angle of the head (since I've already done that a half dozen times), but I'm really happy with how the armor plates have come out so far. I need to sculpt in the cloth details (which may have been smarter to do first, but whatevs), but that shouldn't be too bad I don't think. Just needs lots of tatters.

So that's where I'm at right now. Next on my plate is finishing sculpting the clothes on his lower half, then putting in chains and soul cages. After that, probably the head then the arms.

Ordinary Wizarding Levels

2011-08-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

I've got a baby due in October and I thought I would paint a model for her to keep in her room as she grows up. Just a little something so she knows her dad was thinking about her while she was cooking in the old womb. Anyway I decided on this sweet giant owl from CMON.

Parts

Assembled

Primed

Night One

Night Two

Night Three

Scale

I've still got a few areas to finish up/touch up but it's about 90% done. Next I need to get some snow on the base and figure out what I'm going to do as far as a display case.

Kayazy Progress

2011-08-22T00:23:00.001-07:00

So I didn't get to game this afternoon. Instead, I painted. Here's where the Kayazy stand right now.

by the way, I hate painting eyes & faces. Why can't all models be undead? :p

Anyways, there's still more work on the metals to do, and highlight the front, and highlight up all the cloaks to be like the underboss'. The fur will probably get another drybrush to differentiate it from the dirt, etc.

More Kayazy!

2011-08-19T09:56:00.000-07:00

I'm still working on the new cloak for 1 guy, but the rest are all done. (more pics here)

I'm still debating taking off the fur around this guy's hood cause he looks too much like an eskimo and not an assassin to me. We'll see though.

Anyways, I'll probably be working on the cloaked crusader for another day or two before everybody gets the primer.

Kayazy Assassins Conversion or Eskimo?

2011-08-17T16:00:00.001-07:00

Like many other warmachine players out there, I dislike the Kayazy Assassin sculpts (excluding the Underboss, which is quite boss). To fix it, I ordered some druid & kayazy heads to do a head swap.

I also wanted to try and make them fit with the underboss better, so I figured sculping some fur onto their cloaks and possibly hoods would be better. The lesson I've learned? Furry hoods = eskimos :p Lucky for me I only did the hood fur on one.

Also, the pose on this guy just kills me. I never knew there was such a flamboyant assassin. Anyways, I'll be sure to post more when I've got stuff done.

Things are always better with a little bit of grass

2011-08-10T13:14:00.000-07:00

So Rob Hawkins over at Privateer Press made some pretty cool little things on their terrain blog (Cryxian Bile Reservoir).

Now I'm not planning on doing that complicated of a terrain piece anytime soon. However, I think that there's a lot of little things that I can do to spruce up my bases. So I just wanted to show how my multijack looks now.

So I'll probably be going back and adding some tall grasses and maybe green goo to a bunch of my bases.

eEiryss WIP

2011-07-28T09:18:00.001-07:00

So I managed to get a hold of eEiryss for my Merc forces at The Realm (in Brea) the last time I got in a game against Blake & his trolls. However, I always thought she looked out of place sitting on a freaking wall/building thingy, and I remember seeing that somebody (GardenNinja painting studio maybe?) had sculpted that base into a tree stump (which looked awesome). So I decided to take some of what I've picked up on sculpting from CaptainSpud's tutorials over on Lost Hemisphere.

The only special thing I did was bend a paperclip to serve as a frame for all the GS instead of just throwing it all into a big ol' hole. After I had a frame, I put on a thin layer of GS and let that dry before I added more and sculpted into that stuff. Anyways, here's what I've got so far.

I'm really happy with the colors on the tree stump and on the cloak, so I'll actually share how I painted that.

The stump was actually really easy. I basecoated it in GW foundation Khemri Brown, then washed it all with Devlan Mud. The ringed portion I highlighted with Bleached Bone, then washed with Gryphonne Sepia. The bark was highlighted back up to Khemri Brown, and another lighter highlight was done by adding in a little Bleached Bone.

The cloak was done with 90:10 Foundation Mechrite Red:Chaos Black. Then I did the first highlight with plain Mechrite Red, with lots of water and matte medium mixed in (not real scientific there). These highlights were built up over a few layers just to try and make use of the transparency of the mixing medium. Then I did the same thing, but with a dab of Foundation Macharius Solar Orange added to the Mechrite Red, still using lots of matte medium & water. Then a final highlight was added in a few places just with Foundation Iyandan Darksun + Mechrite Red + Macharius Solar Orange.

Hope the paint recipes are at least mildly interesting. I also have pics of the sculpting before priming if anybody is interested.

Unboxing the Vessel of Judgement: Menoth Wheels it!

2011-07-27T19:39:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to snag the Protectorate of Menoth Battle Engine at Comic-Con and now you are lucky enough to see a blurry video of me unboxing it! The video quality isn't great but it adds to the mystique.

Painting eGaspy's Feat Turn

2011-07-16T20:15:00.000-07:00

I've had this conversion sitting on my desk for months now and I'm quite relieved to have finished it. It's supposed to be epic Asphyxious popping his feat and bringing some ghostly bane knights back. The conversion process was fun but I've never painted a Cryx model before and working with darker tones was a challenge. Not the best thing I've ever painted but hey, it's done.

McBaaaaaaaaaiiiiiin!

2011-07-12T09:01:00.001-07:00

So what with all the Merc fun I'd been having before Scaverous came out, I caved and bought yet another Merc caster (along with some second hand Kayazy who are going to be getting some head swaps).

I also touched up my Nomad so that it matches the scheme I've done on McBain. Mmmm.... Energizer reach attacks. I'm definitely looking forward to playing this list when I tire of Scaverous, Gorten, & Durgen (aka don't expect any McBaine bat reps too soon).

So here are some of my thoughts on it. First of all, he has a ton of little metal rivets and screws etc. I know that I should paint them all, but there are soooo many. Basically, I have to try and get better at doing all the little details. Some of the little details came out great though. I haven't actually done a good jewel/gemstone effect yet, but I think the goggles came out looking pretty good. Also, I'm fairly happy with how the glow effect has come out from all his vents and such. Finally, I'm very happy with how his skintone came out. I think I'm getting slightly better at this whole living model thing.

Overall, I'm just happy that I got something acceptable busted out in 2 nights for him. Scaverous still has a lot of detail work and clean up left to do.

Anyways, I'll be posting more thoughts and a meager attempt at a bat rep about my 2nd Scaverous game. Hopefully I get it done before my next one that I have tonight :p.

Telekinesis + Croe's is stupid... stupid good.

2011-07-06T09:07:00.001-07:00

Yah, I said it. So in case you didn't realize, I got my first game with Scaverous in last night. So here's the list that I played.

Points: 50/50
Lord Exhumator Scaverous (*5pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Malice (9pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bane Knights (Leader and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Croe's Cutthroats (Croe and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)
General Gerlak Slaughterborn (3pts)
Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist (2pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)
Warwitch Siren (2pts)

I didn't go with the whole excarnated bile thrall trick because I wanted a list that would punish both Hordes (via TK + Croe's to ruin beasts) and Warmachine (via Malice + WSC). That said, I totally forgot about Croe's + TK for assassination. At least I remembered in game.

Anyways, I faced off against an entirely ranged list: Siege, a Squire & 2 Defenders, ATGM & Cyclone, B13, Rangers, Jr Warcaster, Arlan, eEiryss, & Reinholdt.

Terrain didn't make too much of a difference as it was just 2 hills & 2 forests in opposite corners.

So I lost the die roll, but he went 2nd

My 1st turn I put Death Ward on the Bane Knights, put 1 arc node in a good position to TK anything in the middle of the board forward, while I hold the other one back. The Machine Wraith runs into the forest, an everything else just runs up (Gerlak in the middle, Bane Knights on the right flank, Croe's move to left flank on a hill across from eEiryss & ATGM). Tartarus stayed back in order to be able to curse where necessary, while the 2 sirens hung out near the arc nodes.

His turn , he moves up with a few things, shoots Gerlak with 2 Defenders to force the tough roll (which he freaking failed, gah). With the Black 13th, he knocks out my Machine Wraith that was in the forest doing nothing. Then he foxholes Siege & his foremost Defender while Jr. puts Arcane Shield onto Siege.

On my turn (top of round 2), I ran out my front arc node (power boostered) towards his front Defender, who was sitting at a comfortable DEF 16 vs. ranged and magic. 1 focus had gone to Malice for the boost, leaving me with 2 chances at a boosted TK onto his defender (9's to hit). Thankfully, the first one hit, and so I TK'ed his other Defender around and away a smidge. Then Scaverous scuttles back to safety >20" from anything in his army. Skarlock TK'ed Malice forward, and then I walked forward 4" (turns out I didn't need the 2nd TK) and dragged the Defender in, smacked him, and sent him back toward the Withershadow Combine. Since I didn't deal a whole lot of damage to the Defender with the Malice drag (6 or 8 pts I think), I then "charged" my Bane Knights. I charged the Defender with one Bane Knight in his back arc (in order to ensure that a crap roll by the combine didn't leave me with a mostly scrapped defender), and the other 9 just ran toward the Rangers/B13, spreading out to avoid getting capped by a good magestorm. 4 Bane Knights are about 1.5" shy of engaging the Rangers. A pretty good damage roll from the Bane Knight left that Defender to be short work for the Combine, who made me a pretty little Harrower. He tried his luck at shooting Rangers/B13, but was out of range with all the Bane Knights blocking his path. Croe's ran to engage eEiryss and/or hide in the forest by the Gun Mages. I got 2 engaging eEiryss and 2 blocking her immediate path towards Scaverous, so I was feeling much better with that taken care of.

For his second turn (bottom of round 2), he planned on taking out a majority of my army with Siege's feat. Long and short of it, he killed 2 Croe's (1 of the 2 engaging Eiryss, and 1 other in the forest), leaving me with Croe engaging Eiryss, and 3 others hanging out in the back of the forest. His cyclone & Jr. warcaster wrecked my front arc node, while Siege tried to put the hurt on Malice. He had some crap rolls there, so he only took out my Cortex and right arm. Still, enough to make Malice not too useful. Siege's ground pounder put killed off a bane knight and Admonia, but he missed on the rolls against the other 2 members of the Combine. The Rangers & B13 killed off a majority of the Bane knights, but some flubbed rolls left me with 1 alive. A magestrom right onto the Harrower's head left me with a cloud right in the center of the board (protecting Siege's overextended ass from a Tartarus charge).

For my third turn (top of round 3), I first surveyed what I had left: 4 Croe's (1 engaging Eiryss), an autonomous Harrower without a working gun, a badly damaged Malice, BL Tartarus, Maelevolous & Tremulus of the Combine, 2 WW sirens in good position to power booster or spray with a TK to help, a Skarlock, Gorman, and finally.... Scaverous + his feat. Not a whole lot left, but still plenty deadly. I was hoping that I'd have 1 Bane Knight survive, because then it would just be a matter of procuring Siege's back arc, and excarnating 3 bane knights into existence. My other option of the 15" charge with Scaverous wouldn't work either since Siege was out of range. This was the point that I realized that Croe's would get 4 dice on backstrike's against Siege, in addition to only needing 5's to hit if I landed an icy grip on him. It would need some good rolls to work out since he was sitting at a happy ARM 21, but definitely doable. So, time to get things started. I powerboostered my remaining arc node, who then ran up to say hello to Siege. Scaverous then has to walk forward a few inches to get that arc node back into his control area, but then pops feat and proceeds to TK Siege closer & turn him around, Icy Grip him to help everybody hit, and then drop feast onto his head to lower his ARM a smidge and dropping 2 pts of damage onto him. With my remaining focus, I TK Gorman and BLT further just in case I need a little extra. the 3 cutthroats who aren't engaged then shoot some large holes in Siege. They're at dice -9 for damage, but have 4 dice. Should do about 4 damage each with average, but I got above average. The first 2 nailed him for 12 damage, leaving him at 3 health, but the last one rolled crap. Thankfully, I still managed to do average damage with those 3 rolls. The combine tried and failed miserably to deal any damage at dice -7, but Siege was still sitting close to malice & a harrower. The power boostered harrower sealed the deal, but I think that I could have sealed the deal with Malice + BLT as well.

Overall, I think Scaverous is ludicrous. He will have some bad matchups in eLylyth & eCaine or severe anti-magic (possibly Kromac or, but who doesn't. Playing against ranged armies is going to be a challenge, but I think that a majority of the melee armies out there will be great matchups for him. My current setup is definitely good at assassination thanks to Scaverous' great enabling abilities, but he can also play mean attrition as well.

Last but not least, I was talking with people afterwards (including my opponent). Turns out, Scaverous is the first caster with TK who can also take Croe's Cutthroats. Cygnar (eHaley), Retribution (Rahn), and Circle (eKrueger) all haven't had access to them. It's just silly being able to give my guys 4 dice and +4 to hit with Scaverous + Croes. On the other hand, they're only POW 10's, so they'll often be at dice -5 or greater... but that's not really a great reason to allow these shenanigans. Maybe it's just because I've been playing a lot of Mercs recently, but damn does Cryx get some BS stuff sometimes.

Anyways, I'll probably keep playing this list (or some variation on it) for a few weeks until I get McBain & the Kayazy painted.

That fits on a medium base?

2011-06-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

Sooooo I might have caved and bought Scaverous as soon as I possibly could once I saw his rules. Telekinesis?... in Cryx?.... ewwwwwwwwww.

So yah, I nabbed him last Wednesday, and between finishing up Boomhowler's and reading all the fluff in Wrath, I got him assembled/converted ish. I'm holding off on gluing on his arms until I get them painted just because it's all so awkward. Most of the reason for the conversion that I'm working on is because 4 points have to be glued at once to get the studio pose. Plus I didn't really care for that pose, so yah.

Since I didn't want to have to sculpt new hands/a new armor plate on his scythe, I basically brass rodded the scythe, and drilled out the hand that was in the middle of the pole. That hand just got glued onto the arm. The other hand on the end I left where it was so that I wouldn't have to sculpt anything. To make that work though, I had to chop apart the forearm and flip that over. Put in some brass rods to be the new pistons, and there ya go. I gotta clean that part up some more tonight, but then I'll take some pics of it.

I also decided to not do my all metal paint scheme, but instead do something new. I blame all the Merc painting getting me to try new stuff. Anyways, here's the progress so far.

The only thing I'm not sure on is the red cloth that I normally do. It just feels like it clashes with the purple/brass dealio I have going on. Anyways, I may change that later.

I'll post up my thoughts on how he plays after I get a test run with him on Tuesday night.

Boomhowler & Co. Finished!

2011-06-20T08:01:00.000-07:00

Add another one in the bank. 79% painted mercs according to forwardkommander.

I'm really happy with how the skin turned out, and pretty happy with the color choice. The metals are so-so, but *shrug* roh wellz. Overall, definitely like them, plus glad to have them done.

Now I just have one more merc unit (Highshields, if I can't get a trade for them), one Khador unit (Kayazy + UA), and a few jacks & solos to finish up to have a fully painted merc force.

Merc Crazy

2011-06-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

So I've been going a little merc crazy recently. By that I mean that I haven't played Cryx since KingdomCon. While I am being hugely tempted to jump back into Cryx with all the Wrath releases coming up, I vow to stay strong until I have Scaverous painted. Then all hell will break loose. Seriously, that guy looks like off the chain fun.

But as to my merc craze, there was supposed to be a 35pt tourney at Thou Shalt Game last Saturday (June11th). With that in mind, I knew I wanted to play Durgen, cause I've been having so much fun with him recently. I also knew that Joe would be there, presumably bringing eLylyth. So my second list had to be able to deal with that, cause I knew she'd shoot Durgen dead. Ashlynn was a possiblity, but even then, all it would take would be one hit to kill her, while I wouldn't be able to bring most of my guns in that list to be able to shoot anything (ATGM excluded). So Gorten it was, but I didn't know what to put in the list until I started looking through my collection and Gorten's spell list. And that's where I found my 2nd list to Durgen.

Gorten w/Solid Ground upkept, throwing out Rock Wall as needed, with 4+ Tough Boomhowler's who can't be knocked down thanks to solid ground. So I got to painting like mad Friday night, and ended up with 10 Boomhowler's with most of their base colors in. I didn't get time to paint on Sunday, but here's a little preview of how they're coming along.

I really need to get my lightbox set back up :p

Anyways, the tourney didn't end up happening, but I did get in 2 games against Joe. The 1st was with Durgen vs. his Absylonia tier. I had first turn, and moved stuff up. 2nd Turn, he moved Absylonia up, on top of a hill w/ Tenacity so that she's DEF 19 against ranged/magic, but there was a Forsaken within 2" of her. He left her without any fury, so I figured this would probably be my best shot at it. I probably should have tried to consolidate and take the 1st strike, but hey, Durgen is batshit crazy, so why not. With all my deviation rerolls thanks to Dougal, I ended up getting 3 of Durgen's 4 AOE's on her, and took her down to 3 life with some relatively average rolls. My last shot was with an explosivo'd Gunner w/1 focus. 4 dice on the attack for a RAT 6 vs. DEF 19. Rolling a 12 is a 75% chance, plus maybe getting a favorable deviation if I missed. I missed. Bad deviation. Typhon was close enough to Durgen to end it, but I still had my Basher. Durgen tuned him up, and I'm like, I'll choose damage rolls, and use the jack marshall to boost the attack.... then he slammed at Typhon and ended up outside of Thor's command range. Missed his slam, so Typhon got slipstreamed out of combat and sprayed Durgen's face in.

The next game was Gorten vs. Joe's eLylyth tier. So the goal here was to use Boomhowler's with 4+ tough to block LOS to Gorten and the important squishy pieces of the army (like Thor)... but I was an idiot and forgot to do that my first turn as I moved up. Joe was kind enough to kill me fast, and then let me smush the boomhowler's together like I should and keep playing. It was a good time. Since he only had 1 Ravagore, I was able to just tough it out through a majority of the game with all those boomhowler's, protecting Gorten upfield so that I could pop his feat and smush eLylyth's dirty stealth ranged face in.

All in all, good day, and a good learning experience for playing with Mercs. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to nab Scaverous tonight... hopefully

All in all

Saxon Orrik

2011-06-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

Here's a Saxon I did for a painting exchange. Pretty quick but I'm happy with how he turned out.

Alexia & Risen

2011-06-10T11:04:00.001-07:00

So even though I already said the Risen were done, I changed my mind. Reason being, I like to play in any tournament that I can, and I want to be able to roll into a Hardcore tourney with them. That and it just felt weird seeing all that green metal :p.

Anyways, here they are. Alexia's face needs more work, and there are some places that I've got to go back and touch up on all the Risen/Thrall Warrior's green glow, but overall I'm happy with a lot of it.

Alexia & Risen:

Closeup of Alexia & a Warrior:

Anyways, there you have it. Another painted unit in the case.

Swamp Pits!

2011-06-09T16:33:00.000-07:00

So since I've been working on making my own terrain to play with recently (moreso as well due to AGR closing down), I actually went digging around my garage until I found some hardboard that I bought ages ago for a different project. This stuff is also called MDF (aka medium density fiberboard) and can be found relatively easily at your local hardware store. I think I paid 6 or 10 bucks for a 4'x8' sheet, so it's also pretty cheap.

Anyways, on to the pictures. I've been messing around with stuff, and then realized that Micah didn't really have any 5" AOE's for his gator army. So I set out to remedy that situation.

I started by cutting 2x 5" AOE's out of the MDF. I tried several different methods at first. What doesn't work? A dremel or a hobby knife. I would assume scissors, but I didn't even attempt that one :p So I busted out my buddy's jigsaw and eventually got 2 relatively nice circles done. Sand the top with an electric sander and bevel the edges with a dremel, and there ya go.

While you can just toss these down onto a table and play with them, they're not good enough. I tried texturing them 2 different ways.

Attempt #1:

The first try used plaster wrap (basically guaze coated in plaster - found at Michael's). So I cut it up into usable pieces, dipped into hot water, and ran with it.

So I put down some cork pieces to form a lip and then tried to get it the plaster wrap to be smooth.... It came out like crap.

I have used it to decent effect on some hills, but I was flocking those hills, so the screen showing through didn't matter there.

On to attempt #2:

After doing some browsing of the Terrain & Table Building section of PP's forums, and found this thread detailing a guy making his own board. So he was using a combination of PVA glue, wood filler, water, & toilet paper. I didn't have any wood filler on hand when I did this, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Still in the drying stage.

I let that dry overnight, and the next day after work, I got to painting it. Here's a crappy pic of the paint before all the varnish & stuff. I ended up putting a layer of Thraka Green wash onto the water on the right template before I put in the water, but forgot to do it on the other.

So then I sprayed both of them thoroughly with my Krylon acrylic gloss varnish stuff. I probably should have done several thin coats...but I was impatient and lazy/had to get to the lab.

Once I got home, I remembered that I still had the 2-part epoxy/water effect stuff. Can't remember what it's called right now, but maybe I'll remember to edit it in later :p.

So I brushed some matte varnish onto the swampy ground, but it seems like I need another layer since they're both pretty shiny still. Then again, swamps are wet.

And to model how these things actually play, here's my WIP Alexia standing in for some gators.

I'm happier with the first one then the second, but whatever. I tried to do a pond scum effect by dripping a gree wash onto the water effect while it was drying, but I guess right after you pour the water effect is too early. Just doesn't seem right. Anyways, I'll be packing these up to give to Micah this weekend at TSG hopefully, and he can throw on some of his little grass clumps and gators.

Minor Painting Update

2011-06-02T10:19:00.001-07:00

So I've been pretty busy since KingdomCon. In fact, I've only managed to get in 3 games in the past 6 weeks. I haven't managed too much painting either since I've been working on terrain and a gaming board, etc. Convenient timing I guess since AGR is now closed down. Anyways, I'll grab some pics of the terrain I'm working on and the board at some point as well.

Until then, I've also done some work on my Black Ogrun Boarding Party. Now, seeing the sculpts in the PP gallery, I've never liked them. I think it's just the skin tone, but they look like gorillas to me.

Thanks to Bartertown, I got them on the cheap (can't remember what I traded/paid for them, but it doesn't really matter). Sadly, I got 3 of the same sculpt, so I had to bust out the clippers and green stuff. I didn't do a whole lot because I'm honestly not that comfortable with sculpting, but you just have to try sometimes.

Excuse the crappy pics coming up. My lightbox isn't set up at the moment, and there's really not a lot of room for it at the moment. Anywas, I'm pretty happy with how the new bicep area of these guy's arms came out.

The guy on the left was my test scheme for the skin tone to decide if I liked it. Turns out... I do! So I continued painting and got all the skin tones, pants, and basing painted on them.

Next up, metals. After that, final details, like all the freaking nose and ear rings these guys have. In general, I'm actually kind of excited to play with these guys. Cheap to put on the field, got some decent wounds, and can lay down some damage with the right debuffs. I'm looking at playing them with pGaspy whenever I get tired of Durgen, Gorten, & Ashlynn.

WIP Warrior Priest

2011-05-28T08:53:00.000-07:00

Trying my hand at some more extensive NMM. The cloth and hammer are definitely unfinished and the rest of the model still has some touchups here and there, but I like the way it's turning out so far.

Reaper Mini

2011-05-15T09:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a Reaper mini I painted up for someone to use in their DnD campaign. This was my first Reaper mini and I really enjoyed painting it. I can understand why so many people paint them, they're cheap, good quality, and a lot of fun to paint. I think it's some kind of Ranger/Enchantress or something and the commissioner wanted them to have a bit of a Navajo flair.

After getting schooled at the Kingdom-Con painting competition I'm trying to improve my skills. Some things I need to work on with this mini:

1- Keep practicing NMM, this is like my 3rd or 4th time trying it and I have a long way to go.

2- The gloves are pretty flat, I think I just wanted to hurry up and finish it.

3- Keeping my lighting source straight. I think between the gems and the highlights there are like 3 different sources of light on the mini, I need to keep consistent throughout the mini.

4-Gems, I 've seen some beautiful gems painted on minis and I'd like to get my gems looking that good.

Avatar of Menoth- Mosque Style

2011-05-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

I've had this thing finished for about 9 months now but I held off on posting it because I was hoping to get it in the NQ player gallery and because I kept thinking I was going to go back and touch up the paintjob. I'm thinking neither of those are going to happen so here goes, my completed Avatar of Menoth conversion:

Quick painting post - wait, dirty dirty elves?

2011-04-29T21:28:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy past 2 weeks with research and stuff in the lab. As such, I haven't really sat down and thought about posting thoughts etc from KingdomCon. I'll try and force myself to write some stuff up this weekend though. I didn't give up thoughts of gaming completely though. Over the past few nights, I did manage to crank through 4 models for my buddy Josh. I'm fairly happy with them, especially considering I did each in a handful of hours (which is relatively fast for me). What I'm not happy with is my matte varnish. It's some stuff I got from Home Depot, but it really grayed out a lot on my Nyss, and repeated itself here. Not as bad as on the Nyss at least. Anyways, without further ado:

Garryth:

Mage Hunter Assassin:

Ghost Sniper:

Nayl: (his freaking sword broke while I was cleaning the mold lines)

And the whole group!

Now on to beating up on Josh to stop all his smack talking :p

Surprise Hit of Kingdom-Con

2011-04-21T13:55:00.000-07:00

Super Dungeon Explore!

Sorry I didn't get more video, I was too busy having a blast trying this game out. I learned the game in about 3 minutes and got to play for about 30. This game is going to be seriously awesome. Easy to teach people, accessible, cute minis that will draw girls to male gaming nerds resulting in breeding which will increase the overall population of geeks. What's not to love?

The game is basically a tabletop version of an 8 bit dungeon crawler like Gauntlet or Zelda. Each player controls one overpowered hero while another player runs the dungeon. Each hero and minion has special attacks (like Sparkle Burst, Backstab, Iron Halo and Rex Cuddle) so there's just the right amount of depth to keep you coming back for more. We were also told that there would be support for competitive party vs party play. The game is due out sometime in late summer 2011 and personally I can't wait. If you're interested in getting an early start head over to Soda Pop Miniature's web page and get the demo rules. I'm planning on running some demos at the LGS after Easter so expect some more updates about this game.

KingdomCon 50pt lists - fully painted

2011-04-12T03:09:00.001-07:00

I promised a fully painted army picture, and I'm delivering twice! First up is the Ashlynn list that I finished just in time for KingdomCon.

Next up is the final list that I have for Hardcore. I'm dropping the Necrosurgeon unit and Madelyn Corbeau because they're just too time consuming to try and deal with. In return, I get 2 more medium bases from Gerlak and my 3rd Brute Thrall.

Finally, here are some closeups of my Anastasia conversion.

I'll nab some pics of my Nyss Hunters after I get rid of the shiny on the original 6.

Anyways, C&C is always welcome

Circle for Kingdom-Con (Video)

2011-04-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

Yay for videos!

More Hardcore Practice! Terminus vs. Kromac w/ Pictures!

2011-04-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

Since I always want to play more games, and Micah and I haven't had a game in ages, I drove down to his place this morning before work in the lab for some more Hardcore practice. Handy since Micah hasn't had any practice with the short time limits. I forgot my 4'x4' foam boards, so we ended up playing on Micah's ~3'x4' table. We still managed to get the killbox marked on the table, so no biggie. Micah also took lots of great pictures which you'll get to enjoy instead of my crappy sketches.

After we threw down terrain, it looked something like this

We rolled for turns, and Micah won. Sadly, he didn't want first turn... :(. So I unwillingly deployed first. Before we get too far into this, here are the lists of what we played.

Points: 50
Lich Lord Terminus (*4pts)
* Reaper (7pts)
* Seether (9pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Brute Thrall (2pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Revenant Crew (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Captain Rengrave (2pts)
Darragh Wrathe (4pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan (2pts)

Points: 50
Kromac the Ravenous (*4pts)
* Argus (4pts)
* Feral Warpwolf (9pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
Druids of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
Tharn Wolfriders (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)
Wolves of Orboros (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
Druid Wilder (2pts)
Tharn Ravager White Mane (3pts)

I deployed the McThralls in the front row, w/ Biles & Necrosurgeon taking up the 2nd. Then Termy was right behind the front two rows in order to get as far forward as possible. Machine Wraiths & Jacks tok up the wings with Rev Crew & the Combine in the rear. The other assorted solos smunched in wherever they could fit.

Micah deployed his Wolves off to one side, with his Wolfriders & Whitemane on the other, while the Druids took the center to cover the advance for Kromac & his heavies.

With both armies deployed, they proceeded to run headlong at each other.

Turn 1:
Starting with Termy, the Reaper got a focus while the Seether just had the 1 he always gets. Then Termy casts malediction on himself, and "charges" at Kromac. Oh noes! He failed his charge! Everything else runs up. The Mcthralls form up in the front to take the charge, while the Rev Crew bunch up around Termy to be good Sac Pawn targets. Darragh moves up and casts Death ride to fix the spacings a bit, and get more Rev crew in front of Termy. Machine Wraiths end up camped out slightly less than a large base away from Terminus in order to prevent tramples and such. In short, everything runs.

Turn 2:
Micah runs up the Wolves into the forest on his left side, while moving up the Wolfriders and Whitemane on his right side. The Druids walk forward and pop smoke, while Kromac throws Wild Aggression onto the Stalker and Warpath on himself.

So round 1 ended looking like this

Turn 3:
I run stuff up some more, and try and cover any threat lanes to Termy. Not quite close enough to get a Bile onto the Druids or Wolves yet, so I hold off on the feat. Since I have the Seether out on the flank, I run him into melee with the Wolves to prevent them from charging and taking out a bunch of McThralls (and using up more of my time regenerating). He actually failed his command check, so I didn't even need to worry about them! Rengrave ghost shotted at a Druid, but missed. Everything else just tries to set up for next turn while minimizing the damage.

Turn 4:
Micah upkeeps Warpath and Wild Aggression while the Wolves keep quaking in fear of the big bad Seether. He starts by targetting a Machine Wraith with his magical spray, kills 1 McThrall and 2 Rev Crew while 1 McThrall toughs it out. This triggers a Warpath movement on the Stalker, which eyes the growing charge lane to Terminus hungrily. Druids kill the other Machine Wraith, the toughed McThrall, and not much else, but it was enough to get a line for the Stalker to charge Termy. The Stalker charges Termy for free, and warps for Strength. He's only able to get into Reach range of Termy, but that's okay. He's rolling at Dice-5 against Termy this turn, and with 4 fury, manages to put 16 damage onto Terminus. Micah finishes this turn with bare seconds to go without using his extension.

Lots of pics of this turn cause it looked way cool :p

Turn 5:
Time for me to retaliate. I allocate 2 focus to the Reaper so that it can help finish off the Pureblood, while Termy keeps 4 to wreck the Stalker. With Malediction upkept for free by the Combine, the Stalker is only a DEF 12, ARM 15 heavy to deal with. Termy takes it down to 5 life with 3 focus, and pops his feat to nab some souls/ARM this turn. The McThralls charge the Pureblood, and bring it down to 4 life. The biles then walk up, 2 purging on the druids (in order to not hit the Seether) and 1 purging onto a Druid (and nothing else). I still have a heavy sitting in front of a low-life Termy with mere seconds left, so I use my 3-min extension. The Rev Crew charge the Stalker and manage to finish it off thanks to Malediction. Rengrave aims and takes a pot shot at the Pureblood. With a 10, he actually hits it, but only manages 1 damage point. Darragh then activates and closes the hole in front of Termy thanks to Death Ride. Then my time runs out before I can activate the Seether and the Reaper.

Turn 6:
Micah beasts out with Kromac & drops Warpath. The pureblood walks away and dies to a free strike to make room for Kromac to leap. The Argus pushes Kromac forward 1" (although I don't think it was necessary), and then he walks up to the McThralls and leaps into Reach of Termy. 6 Fury and 1 failed Tough roll later, Termy's dead.

My thoughts:
Well, I lost again, but I think I learned a valuable lesson (well, I hope I'll remember it next time). The jacks are there to be much harder to remove than infantry, plus they resolve attacks against other heavies much faster. They shouldn't be on the flanks, but in the middle of the brick being a big pain in the ass.

Micah's thoughts:
Damn why is the Gorax sculpt so ugly. If the resculpt was out by now, I'd have that instead of the Argus/Wolves. Then my Stalker would have killed him on my 2nd turn!

and then I scurried of to the lab.

Nomad Finished!

2011-04-08T00:26:00.001-07:00

As promised, here are pics of the just finished Nomad. I don't usually like edge highlighting, but it just kind of happened. Turns out, I'm actually quite happy with it, and the model as a whole. The metals came out nicely too. I have to remember to get all the Highborn models sealed up before KingdomCon since they're higher quality than my Cryx are all painted too. :p

Anyways, the pictures:

Now, I'm down to Anastasia & 4 Nyss Hunters for my 50 pt Ashlynn list, and a Renegade for the 2 caster 50 pt tourney. At some point next week, I'll try and snag pics of the 3 of my fully painted 50 pt armies that I plan on playing next weekend.

Revenants

2011-04-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

So it took me about 4 days of painting, but I've got paint on the models. I'm not hugely happy with everything, mostly because the contrast is too low/highlights not bright enough. I may go back after KingdomCon and touch them up, but we'll see. Anyways, I'm really happy with how the undead skin has been coming out, especially on the quartermaster.

So here are some quick pics of them all.

This makes my Termy list fully painted at least. My Nomad is almost done, just needs to be highlighted up. The Renegade has a bit more than that, and my 4 Nyss Hunters are still sitting primed.

So much to paint, so little time.

Blog Design!

2011-04-06T15:26:00.001-07:00

Been messing around with the blog design. Suggestions/comments?

Ignition Escalation League Week 2

2011-03-31T16:16:00.000-07:00

As promised in an earlier post here is a battle report for this week's escalation league:

My List:

Bloody Barnabas

Blackhide Wrastler

Bull Snapper

Full Gatormen Posse

15 Points

My Spotlight Match:

I was the lucky one to get a bye this week which means I get the points for playing my spotlight match and can count 2 extra open play matches

My Open Play Matches:

My wife was sick on league night so I stayed home to take care of her. No open play matches recorded yet this week

The Bottom Line:

Sorry to have wasted your time. Here's another picture of a reptile:

More Hardcore practice

2011-03-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

So I got in another practice Hardcore game yesterday against Scott & his trolls. It was interesting for several reasons, mostly because it was a type of list that I'll be more likely to see in Hardcore.
My list was what I mentioned in the last post:

Points: 50 Lich Lord Terminus (*4pts) * Reaper (7pts) * Skarlock Thrall (2pts) Bile Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts) Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts) Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts) * 3 Brute Thrall (3pts) Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts) Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts) Soulhunters (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts) The Withershadow Combine (5pts) Darragh Wrathe (4pts) Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan (2pts) Saxon Orrik (2pts)

Scott played a beast heavy eDoomie list:

Points: 50
Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia (*6pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)

So Scott won the roll, and decided to take the side that had 2 walls (dammit Janissa being able to lay a 3rd.

1st Turn: Scott walks up his army behind the walls, putting the earthborn animus all over and Wild Aggression on the Earthborn.

2nd Turn: I run all my McThralls, Biles, etc. up. Soulhunters try and run around and get behind his little beasty brick.

3rd Turn: Scott puts Refuge onto his Bomber, throws twice to kill some McThralls, Biles and a Brute Thrall, but I toughed quite a bit. After throwing, gets a full advance back thanks to Refuge, where Janyssa drops down a wall so that he can't be dragged. The Earthborn runs up to be right behind the forest, while Mulg gets to the corner of the wall by the forest. More earthborn animus thrown about as well.

4th Turn: 1 focus to the reaper, who runs to engage the Earthborn while the Soulhunters run further up the flank. Darragh casts Deathride to give 1" to the standing McThralls & Biles while Saxon Orrik gives Pathfinder to the first group of McThralls. 3 McThralls try and charge, 2 at Mulg and 1 at the Earthborn, while the rest run to engage, give free strikes on a trample, etc. Everything else moves up. I position the 1 of the Brutes to try and stop tramples from both Mulg & the Earthborn (this here is probably the biggest screwup. If I had put both Brutes over here, I would have had a better shot at blocking the trample from one of them.). Mostly my army still just rolls forward.

5th Turn: After a bit of deliberation, Scott sets up his turn. Janissa uses Tectonic Shift to disengage the Bomber.

Side Rant: Every time I forget about this ability, and every time I realize that I hate AOE pushes like that, especially on a solo that already has a lot of utility. At least they have to pay Fury to use Repulsion on a warbeast. Anyways, back to the game.

At this point, the Bomber is free to throw 2 more 4" AOE's onto my lines right in front of Termy. Boosted blast damage on the Brute Thrall, and now he's free to trample in his other beasts. Doomie pops feat and puts Rush onto the Earthborn, who then tramples (takes 2 free strikes from my McThralls, but they don't take anything out) all the way up to Termy with his 15" free trample. I'm sitting at ARM 23 on Termy at this point, thinking no biggie, he can't take my weapon. Turns out, the Earthborn doesn't just steal the POW of a jack's weapon, so he's swinging at P+S 19 to my ARM 23. Also, Dire's are freaking Fury 5. Ugh. 3 swings later, Termy is at 6 life. The Axer puts Rush on Mulg, so he can go 15" or something, who then tramples up to Termy. Whiffs the first attack, 2nd attack swings and kills.... Rolled a 4 for Tough. Sad day.

Anyways, this was a fun game where I made a decent amount of Tough rolls. It was also good because this type of list is more like what I'll be seeing in the tournament. Sadly, I still lost. If I had better positioned my Brute Thralls, and put Darragh up in front of Termy, there would have been no way he could trample the 2 heavies up to Termy. Since this was a practice game, we weren't totally strict on the time. Every other turn but Scott's last one were all less than 7 minutes. I think he would have been hard-pressed to plan it out and get it done in his 7 minute turn & 3 minute extension. Roh well.

Lesson of the day: what you don't know (or forget about) will lose you the game.
Case in point: Tectonic Shift and the Earthborn at P+S 19.

Well, it was a good learning experience, and full of lessons to keep in mind for KingdomCon. After talking about the game & the list with Scott, Jason & Ray, I decided to change the list up a bit. The goal of the list is still the same: 1) Swarm the enemy with more than they can deal with in 7 minutes. Make them do all the hard work on their turn figuring out how to win, while I just try and deal with the targets that can give Termy a hard time, and prevent the Trample assassination. With that in mind, here's the new list:

Points: 50
Lich Lord Terminus (*4pts)
* Reaper (7pts)
* Seether (9pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Brute Thrall (2pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Revenant Crew (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Captain Rengrave (2pts)
Darragh Wrathe (4pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Machine Wraith (1pts)
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan (2pts)

2 heavies in this list provide a bit more oomph for the list, and are relatively harder to clear out. Rev Crew regenerate like McThralls, and Termy is about the only one who can make great use of them in my mind. The plus side is that I don't have to activate anybody to regenerate, just plop them down in my maintenance phase. Rengrave is there cause I've got Rev Crew, and the biles are back to a min unit because it's doubtful there's anybody else as crazy as I am. Machine Wraiths are there because it's going to be a warjack heavy environment, so they can be useful there in taking out the non-character jacks. In the event of facing a warbeast/character jack/ or cav heavy army, the Machine Wraiths will be sitting in the way in order to increase the threat range needed to get to Termy.

And that's the list.

Battle Report: Fiona vs. Terminus - hardcore practice

2011-03-27T11:45:00.001-07:00

So I'm trying to get used to 7 1/2 min turns for the softcore tournament at Kingdom Con in 2.5 weeks. I really just can't play fast enough with my Coven theme list, so I've been considering a few options. Since I've been playing the Coven a fair amount recently, I could run a jack heavy force with them, taking the DJ & Nightmare & a Stalker as the main assassination threats aside from my 2 nodes. My other thought is to run a Terminus list. Reason being, it may be a lot of models, but it's got a relatively straightforward plan that doesn't take much extra thought beyond order of operations for the turn. Additionally, since Hardcore is always using Killbox scenarios, it helps Termy out as well by preventing how far the enemy can run, while weakening the Coven since it forces them to be closer than I would generally like. Finally, it will give my opponent fits since tough rolls interrupt them a bit and can often force a change of plans in midgame. Basically, it gives them hell when they only get 7 1/2 minutes to work with. With all that in mind, I wanted to test whether or not I could run a Termy list in 7 1/2 minutes. On to the battle report!

The Lists!

His list was something like this:

Points: 50
Fiona the Black (*6pts)
* Mangler (8pts)
Alexia Ciannor & the Risen (Alexia and 9 Risen Grunts) (5pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
* Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer (2pts)
* * Mule (8pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 5 Grunts) (7pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Mr. Walls Sea Dog Crew Quartermaster (2pts)
Doc Killingsworth (2pts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios (3pts)
Lord Rockbottom (2pts)
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile (2pts)

My list was this:

Points: 50

Lich Lord Terminus (*4pts)
* Reaper (7pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Brute Thrall (2pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 2 Brute Thrall (2pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Soulhunters (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Darragh Wrathe (4pts)
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan (2pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)

So I lost the roll, and he wanted to go second. So there wasn't a whole lot of rough terrain on the board, just 2 walls in the middle on my side & 2 trenches on his side in the middle. The rough terrain was off center on each side, so I was just going to be barreling down the center of the board. Cause I'm boredish, I drew pics of the basic army setups.

1st Turn: I run everything forward, Termy casts Malediction on himself, "charges" at Mariner.

Darragh deathrides for another 1" of threat. Forget to give the Reaper a focus to run, so it's forced to walk and lag behind the army. Combine upkeep Malediction for Termy all game.

2nd Turn: Mule shoots at the closest Brute to him, miss & deviates backwards away from my army. Mariner shoots at Brute closest to him & kills.. ATGM kills a Mcthrall, not much else happens this turn.

3rd Turn: Front McThrall group runs to engage Alexia & Risen. Everybody else follows suit. Saxon tries to engage Eiryss, but is ~1" away. Reaper walks up since I forgot a focus for him again.

4th Turn: Mule blows up several biles and mcthralls. ATGM kill off some biles & mcthralls with arcane inferno. Mariner shoots & kills a soulhunter, Nyss kill a second SH. Risen kill some McThralls while Alexia puts some damage onto Darragh.. Eiryss & A&H kill Saxon. Fiona pops her feat (-1 dice to enemies on attack & dmg). Somewhere in there, the front necrosurgeon was killed.

5th Turn: Reaper gets 1 focus. Termy pops feat, charges toward a SeaDog, and lands closer to ATGM than Alexia is (so I can get soul tokens). Additionally, the only big threat to hurt him is the Mariner & Mule. The Mule can't get focus, so it's relatively safer to sit over on this side. The SeaDog toughs it, and I don't buy extra attacks, so no souls there. Biles activate, 3 left, 2 are KD. 1 walks to ATGM and purges, killing all, including UA. 1 stands and purges all over McThralls + Risen and Termy. 1 walks forward, stupidly in front of the other. He toughs, but dies to corrosion later. All Risen but 2 die this turn, but Alexia is too far away for anything to kill her with just one dice. Remaining McThralls just engage everything and give Termy sac pawn targets. 1 soulhunter (of 3 remaining) engages Nyss, can't hit their DEF 15 on 1 dice. Darragh gives -2 ARM to living enemy models in his cmd. Reaper charges and kills Eiryss. Terminus sits on 31 ARM.

6th Turn: Mule walks up and bounces off Termy's ARM 30. Mariner shoots and damages Darragh, but no Dismount. Alexia dismounts Darragh at the cost of her last 2 risen. Fiona hides a few inches behind Mariner. A&H run from the Reaper, Nyss (with MAT6) rolls 8's 2x to hit, and roll ridiculous damage to kill off the engaging Soulhunter.

7th Turn: Reaper gets 3 focus, leaving Termy with 10 or so. The Reaper charges and wrecks the Mule with some good rolls (really just wanting to remove the melee weapon to minimize the damage when Termy leaves. Darragh charges Alexia and kills her, hellfire's Doc in the back, but he toughs it. McThralls kills some Seadogs. Necrosurgeon returns 3 McThralls. Termy is .5" outside of charging Fiona, so he charges the Mariner. With 3 focus, he leaves it on 2 boxes (2 cortex). Rather than kill it and lower my ARM by 1, I just let it live since it can't hurt Termy and it's in his way for Fiona. Skarlock casts Ravager onto remaining Soulhunter, who charges Nyss and kills off 3 of them. Between the Berserk and 3 base attacks. Combine kill something with Darkfire attacks.

8th Turn: Mariner takes free strike and dies. Fiona charges Termy, rolls boxcars on damage to hit Termy for 4. Spends the rest of her focus and keeps bouncing off my ARM. At this point, we call it.

So, my thoughts on this game/my list. Overall, if I hadn't rolled Tough rolls on the bile thralls twice, I would have been stuck trying to clear out Alexia forever. I need to have more biles and protect them better. Second of all, I need to not let my McThralls get wasted without returning any via the necrosurgeon. Also, if I can remember to cast Ravager on Terminus any time he charges toward infantry, I'd be able to nab a lot more souls. Also, if he had his 4+ tough infantry out front feeding corpse tokens to Alexia, I would have been in a lot more trouble. If I had used Darragh to give Termy an extra 1" threat, I would have been able to get to Fiona a turn earlier with 10 focus and end the game sooner. So I'm thinking that I'll tweak my list in order to have more biles, and so that the front McThralls dieing will feed the 2nd McThrall unit. I also need to remember to give my Reaper a focus on the first turn so that he can not be so far behind. It was nice as a late game threat though, so I'll need to be careful to keep him alive as well.

With those thoughts in mind, I'll be testing this next time I play. Hopefully on Tuesday since I can't play at all next weekend.

Points: 50
Lich Lord Terminus (*4pts)
* Reaper (7pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bile Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
* 3 Brute Thrall (3pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
Soulhunters (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Darragh Wrathe (4pts)
Madelyn Corbeau, Ordic Courtesan (2pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)

The above is probably what I'll have my basic setup be, although things may have to change depending on what my opponent has. The reason I put the Brutes and min unit in back is to try and preserve them and feed them to be bigger from the front max unit of McThralls. That way I can hopefully make the best recycling possible. Soulhunters make a great reserve force, and although they steal souls from termy, they also can help finish off a caster if Termy can't seal the deal. They also make pretty good anti-infantry if all my biles do bite the bullet too soon.

The Soul Crushing 13th

2011-03-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

From time to time I get to thinking that I'm a halfway decent mini painter. Then get put in my place. This time it was a set of models that cut me back down to size...the dreaded black 13th. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on these guys, but even if I had I doubt the result would have been much better. These things are so tiny with so much detail, it's ridiculous. I know people whine about them a lot but some people still manage to give them incredible paint jobs (See Ghool on the PP modeling and Miniatures forum). Anyway, I managed to paint them which is an accomplishment and they taught me a valuable lesson about how much I can improve.

Ametheyst Rose Gun Mages!!!

2011-03-25T10:45:00.001-07:00

That's right, I finally finished them. Plus I also took pics of my Mule & Vanguard for my Highborn list. Now I'm down to painting up 4 Nyss Hunters (whenever the arms come in for the last pair), Anastasia diBray, and whatever 3rd jack that I decide to run. Probably a Nomad at this point.

Anyways, on to the pictures! My lighting was a bit off this morning, but I was in a rush. So this is what you get. :p

Amethyst Rose Gun Mages & The DUDE!

With their required Mule attachment

And better pics of the jacks

Overall, I'm pretty happy with most of this stuff. The jacks may need to take another wash over the metals, but I'm holding off just in case I'm just too used to my dark Cryx. The sculpting on the gun mages is okay. I realized that I didn't give anybody a forehead at all, so that's why some of them look off. *shrug* live and learn. Anyways, just a few more models until I have a fully painted 50 pt Merc army.

Risen Done!

2011-03-24T11:03:00.001-07:00

Well, I've been getting my ass worked off by my boss this week, so I haven't been able to put a lot of time into painting so far. However, I have finished off the Risen for Alexia since it was such a quick & dirty scheme.

The only thing I don't really like is the metal on the thrall warrior's sword. I may go back and try to add some kind of a glow or something to it. It probably needs a Devlan mud wash as well. Anyways, I think it just looks so odd because it's the only non green in there. I just want him to stick out a bit from the regular risen is all. Anyways, suggestions are always welcome.

Epic Nemo

2011-03-21T20:54:00.000-07:00

Here's an eNemo I painted as a commission. I'm pretty pleased with how he turned out, even though the front picture is a bit washed out. I started painting him around 6:30 and finished by 8:45 with a trip to the grocery store thrown in somewhere while a wash dried. So yeah, I'm happy with how my painting speed is progressing.

Alexia & the Risen

2011-03-21T08:12:00.001-07:00

With news of an epic Alexia coming out in June, I decided it was high time that I get the original Alexia & Risen. I saw a paintjob on the PP forums at one point, where all the risen were green and ghostly looking. With that in mind, and how little time I want to spend on painting Risen, I decided I'd copy that idea.

So here's my test Risen

The process is simple.

1) Spray in Army Painter Necrotic Flesh

2) Wash with Citadel Thraka Green

3) Heavy Drybrushing with GW Scorpion Green

4) Wash with Citadel Thraka Green

5) Light Drybrush with 50:50 GW Scorpion Green & Skull White.

Highborn Painting Update

2011-03-20T08:42:00.000-07:00

So I've been working on trying to get my Highborn list fully painted before KingdomCon in April. Progress has been slower than I would have liked, but progress is progress, right? Anyways, at this point, I'm down to just a few things left.

1) Amethyst Rose Gun Mages

2) Anastasia di'Bray

3) whatever jack I find to fill in the rest of these points.

The list so far is this: (un/partially painted)

Points: 44
Ashlynn d'Elyse -6
Vanguard +5
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (6) +6
Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer +2
Mule +8
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (10) +10
Horgenhold Forge Guard (10) +8
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt +4
Anastasia di Bray +2
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile +2
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord +2

So I'm fairly close to fully painted for this list. Almost all my solos are done (excluding Anastasia), my jacks that are for sure in the list so far are done, and I have a unit (Gun Mages) and a half (4 Nyss) left to paint. I'm trying to decide betweeen running a Buccaneer or 2nd Vanguard along with some other power solos like Eiryss. The alternative is to run a Nomad instead. Anyways, I'll worry about that later. Once I get the Gun Mages + Anastasia painted, I'll probably take the list for a test drive. So on to the interesting part, the painting update.

Holt's finally finished.

From the back

The lovely couple

Highborn Solos so far

So I really like how the army is looking so far. Hopefully soon I can get a fully painted army shot.

After I finish painting up these Mercs, I'll turn my eye back to Cryx, probably starting with painting up Satyxis Bloodwitches + UA, then converting and painting up my Black Ogrun.

Baron Wrongeye

2011-03-14T20:02:00.001-07:00

I wanted to pump up the bayou voodoo vibe Wrongeye has going on so I painted him like Baron Samedi. Any ideas for what to do to Snapjaw so he matches? Otherwise he'll just be a plain ol' gator (a huge chompy, plain ol' gator).

Green stuff sculpting!

2011-03-11T10:16:00.001-08:00

So in the hopes of at least having an interesting Highborn/Ashlynn army, I'm trying to add a little extra character to some of my models. Privateers get cool pirate ship bases, etc.

Anastasia is another good model ruleswise for Highborn, but I don't really care for the model. A little while ago, I saw a nice little conversion to her that made the model 10x better... maybe more. Anyways, he sculpted a robe/cloak onto her to make her look more skulking and ambushy. So after 3 tries (might have been more if I hadn't run out of GS), I got the following done.

After priming, she looks like this:

So it's not the best sculpting in the world, but I did learn a bit about trying to sculpt cloth.
1) Don't make it really thin unless it's going to be supported everywhere.
2) Larger is better. You'd rather have too much GS mixed up and have to trim off the robe than not have enough.
3) Get some kind of a reference to make the interesting creases and folds. Doing it blind is a recipe for disaster.
4) Finally, make sure you wait for the GS to harden up a bit before you try and shape it too much. I always try and work with it too soon. :p

Also, here's an update on what Holt is looking like.

I've laid in most of the colors for him, and basically finished his skin. I still have to put in the metals, some leathers, and pick out a lot of rivets and details before I'll do all the highlights on his clothing. At least I've got an idea of his color scheme though, which should match up fairly well with Aiyanna as well as the rest of the Highborn army.

Highborn Painting Update

2011-03-08T09:20:00.001-08:00

So while my 2nd min unit of Bloodgorgers is basically done, there's still a bit of detail work to be done on them that I just didn't feel like doing when some of my Highborn stuff came in. I finished Ashlynn up last night.

So I have to get Holt done soon as well. I'm working on sculpting a robe and a base for Anastasia. I also have my Vanguard and Mule in progress, so hopefully I can finish them by the end of the week.

Bloody Barnabas

2011-03-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

Since I'm all caught up on commissions I was able to work on my Blindwater Congregation. I'm quite excited to finally have this guy painted and ready to play since I've only been playing Calaban so far. What do you think suitably bloody and Barnabas-y?

Pookie the Smashinator

2011-03-07T08:13:00.000-08:00

I just finished painting a War Hog for a friend, it was a real hoot of a model to work on. When I was done I was informed that I had the honor of naming my creation so I give you Pookie the Smashinator.

Holt your horses

2011-03-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

I've seen a lot of amazing paint jobs on Holt and I must say that mine is nowhere near that awesome. It's a very cool model though and it was pretty quick to paint up, maybe 2 hours tops. Once I finish up basing the last 4 MHSF I can move on to a War Hog and then finally my own models for the escalation league. Bloody B here I come!

Ignition Escalation League

2011-03-04T08:20:00.001-08:00

My LGS owner and I are running our very first league. Huzzah! The main goal of the league is to get new players to build their armies up to 35 points, get some more exposure to the game and above all to have a good time. In order to accommodate different budgets we're trying to grow quite slow.

First week, 0 points (one warlock/warcaster and whatever you can spend their points on). Week 0 isn't really balanced or fair so there are no league points earned week 0, it's just for fun and a little starting bonus if you win. From there we go to 10 points (battlebox range) 15, 25 then on to 35. I figure this is a good chance to finish up a lot of Gator painting so here's what I'm thinking

Week 0 (0 points)- Bloody Barnabas and a Bull Snapper (It's all I can do) (-3 points)

Week 1 (10 points)-Add a Wrastler (6 points)

Week 2 (15 points)- Add an Ironback Spitter (14 points)

Week 3 (25 points)- Add a full Gatormen Posse (23 points)

Week 4 (35 points)- Add a Thrullg and Wrongeye and Snapjaw (35 points)

It gets off to a bit of a slow start, but I'm hoping Bloody B can carry the weight. Anyway I plan on updating every week with a shot of my army and how they fared in their battles. And since I rarely read posts without pictures, here's a little something for the effort.

Some Retribution

2011-02-19T16:54:00.000-08:00

I just finished painting up some commissioned Retribution models. Only 4 mage hunters and UA left! The client wanted this alt color scheme as well as snowy lava field basing.

Ashlynn Conversion, Final Update

2011-02-19T02:04:00.000-08:00

So I finished painting Ashlynn up. She's now the 3rd model where I got to use the new W&N Series 7 brushes from Micah. Damn is it nice to have some good brushes! Thanks again to Micah for getting me them. I really feel like I can step up my game with painting now. They make painting go so much faster since I have to touchup less. Anyways, here she is.

I also finally finished the Cephalyx Overlords. Not hugely happy with them as much, but they're done at least.

And here they are with their compatriots.

Dougal mcNaile Finished!

2011-02-15T09:15:00.000-08:00

So I may go back and do some touchup where the water effects got a little out of control, but everything is done other than that. I'm actually very happy with how he turned out. His eyes are still a little funky, but what do you expect for the first time you actually try real eyes :p. I'm very happy with his base, and his skin tone, and all the leathers. It just seemed to work really well to me. Anyways, on with what you want to see.

C&C welcome as always.

Angry Mutant Spitting Turtles

2011-02-14T15:35:00.000-08:00

I finished my Ironback Spitter this weekend which means that aside from some basing on my second Bull Snapper I'm all caught up painting gators. Never fear, as soon as I finish up a commission I'm working on and the latest PG orders ship there will be more gatory goodness for one and all. I don't absolutely hate the orange studio scheme on the Spitter but I wanted to try something different, hopefully being green doesn't make it blend in with the rest of the gators too much.

Gatorman Posse

2011-02-12T10:03:00.000-08:00

These guys finally have their bases finished so I can post some pictures. I'm mostly sticking to the "no new models until what I have is painted" rule with Blindwater so these guys got painted up pretty quickly. Luckily gators are pretty easy to paint.

Oh Snap!

2011-02-11T16:42:00.000-08:00

I finished my bull snapper. Since I have more than one this one is going to be distinguished by being on a muddy base whereas the other will be more swampy. Anyway here the little guy is, all ready for chomping.

Dougal McNaile wip

2011-02-11T08:33:00.001-08:00

Using Mercs with ranged weapons (Nyss & other Highborn Contract), it's easy to see how awesome Douglas McNaile is. I just got him 2 nights ago. He's a nice easy one piece model. I haven't really thought of any good conversion for him, but I do have a good idea for the base. I really liked the water effects that I used on my eSkarre base, so I wanted to make use of them again.

For water to actually work, I needed some kind of ship base. Yaaay Starbuck's!

On the edge beyond the railing, I'll have a small amount of water effects. Anyways, more to come after it's all painted.

Iron Lich Asphyxious Tactica

2011-02-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

So some people over on the PP forums were asking for a writeup on one of my favorite Cryxian characters. I know that D. Vader or Aldarrion were in the process of writing one, but it's been several months, so I figured I'd just jump right on the bandwagon.

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Iron Lich Asphyxious – aka pGaspy. Some people dislike the name Gaspy, but I find it to be funny myself. Asphyxious ~ asphyxiate -> gasping -> Gaspy!

This undead former druid sets the bar for the spell assassination that other casters/locks aspire to. This is due in part to his spell list and feat, but it is also backed up by some good defensive stats. For the most part, he wants to support his army via his buffs and debuff, unless he can make a hole to the enemy caster to spell assassinate them. Even if you lose his army, he can singlehandedly win you the game because he is so hard to put down. Spell assassination isn't all he's got, although having it around can really change the way your opponent can play. When you run the Iron Lich, your army will be trashing everything that it hits, which shows his biggest weakness (high DEF).

Stats

He’s not too slow at SPD 6, but he’s one of the relatively tougher casters at DEF 15 ARM 16. Combine this with his FOC 7 and you can just walk around the table at ARM 23. On the downside, he’s a medium base, so protecting him from ranged attacks is a necessity, whether you use the terrain on the table or bring in a bunch of medium based infantry to help. His MAT 6 would lead one to believe that he’s only mediocre in melee combat, but this is what you want your opponent to believe. This guy is actually a melee monster due to a combination of his feat and weapon.

Abilities

Terror, Undead, & Cull Soul. Nothing special to see here besides a typical undead Cryxian caster. Cull Soul rarely comes into play unless your opponent throws a bunch of infantry right in front of him.

Weapon - Soulsplitter

Like all casters, it has the ubiquitous magical weapon tag, so you can smack around incorporeal models, etc. What really makes it matter is two-fold. Most importantly, sustained attack. Once you hit the model once, every other attack against that model auto-hits. This makes up for the piddling MAT 6 that Gaspy carries around, meaning he will kill whatever he gets in melee with. The P+S 15 is nice, but deceptive like his low MAT since he can up his DMG output significantly via his feat and spell list. It’s also a reach weapon, so pGaspy has a 11” threat all by himself (more if you take a Reaper, or Madelyn Corbeau, or both).

Spells

Breath of Corruption (BoC) – RNG 8, POW 12 AOE 3” is nice, but what sells this is that it doesn’t do blast damage. The spell states that any model under the AOE takes a POW 12, so it’s great for clearing out infantry or for a multitude of other uses. It’s also good to remember that if you get an arc node within 4” of your target, the 3” AOE can’t miss. Sidenote is that it also leaves a cloud that deals 1 pt of dmg to models entering or ending their activation in it. Aside from spell assassination, it can be used

Hellfire – your typical magic missile attack. RNG 10 POW 14 can put the hurt onto key solos.

Parasite – A -3 ARM debuff to target model unit. Fairly common in Cryx.

Scything Touch – A +2 to DMG rolls for friendly model/unit, meaning it’s Merc friendly. It’s also great for the infantry that we have with multiple attacks (McThralls, Satyxis Raiders, Bloodgorgers, & Soulhunters come to mind).

Teleport – This is your safety net for when you get a bad roll on the attack or damage, or when you just need to get out of harm’s way quick. Also, since it’s a place effect, you won’t be taking damage from Harby’s/Old Witch’s feats or trigger anything off of advance.

Feat – Consuming Blight

This is the kicker. Gaspy is good with all of his other stuff, but this is what makes him great. POW 5 to all living enemy models in his control area? P’shaw! This is all about the focus. You can burn through Gaspy’s 7 focus with Spells or melee attacks, and then get it right back again. Having the ability to throw out 4x POW 12’s or POW 14’s in one turn is scary, especially when 2 of them can have boosts attached to them. On the other hand, you can use the first load of focus to set up your crazy assassination run (Scything Touch on Gaspy himself, Boosted Parasite onto the target) to get yourself a P+S 20 melee monster with sustained attack. Then pop your feat to keep buying auto-hitting attacks. Done & done.

Army Composition

Spell Assassination is the name of his game, and supporting his army until he can pull that off is generally the key. If you can't get the spell assassination, Gaspy still runs a mean support game, essentially giving +5 dmg to his army against specific targets. In general, he’s greedy with his focus because he really wants to be slinging spells or increasing his armor. You can try for attrition by bringing the right units, but that’s really only because of how attrition oriented McThralls & Banes can be. Gaspy doesn’t help his army hit more accurately, but what does get hit will be smashed into smithereens thanks to Parasite and/or Scything Touch. If you do lose your army, don’t lose hope. Gaspy’s decent SPD 6 & great spell list can enable you to outmaneuver your opponent. Keep in mind while playing though, that your medium base can be targeted over small based models or through models with stealth. If the enemy is packing ranged attacks, it’s best to keep him out of sight as much as possible.

So let's look at what he really likes to bring with him to the battlefield.

1) Arc Nodes, he wants them. With his spells and the threat of force that a single functioning arc node can be with him, you’re going to always want to have an arc node available. For me, it depends on the point size, but generally he will want at least 2 arc nodes (if you play conservatively with them) if not 3 (if you don’t).

2) Helljacks – while it’s always good to take a heavy, he doesn’t care about many of them that much since he wants to hold on to most of his focus. Best choices here are Deathjack, Seether, & Malice who can run unsupported from caster focus for the most part. I also really like taking a Reaper with him because it can open up those charge lanes for that arc node to run through. The Cankerworm is also practically a superfast heavy with Gaspy as well, so he's a great choice here (even if he is technically a light).

3) Units – Since Gaspy does nothing to help out the hitting capabilities of his army, it’s best to take things that just need help in the damage department. Bloodgorgers are the first thing that come to my mind since they have Gang to help them hit, but don’t always have a high enough power to drop jacks. McThralls can do well with him because of 2 attacks and great tarpitting capabilities, but I would always try and take the Brute Thralls as well, to block LOS to Gaspy and/or trample lanes. Either version of Banes can be a good choice too, depending on your meta. Satyxis Raiders can be great thanks to engaging those threatening shooters very quickly, combined with the extra damage output that Gaspy gives them.

4) Solos – Gaspy loves the Warwitch Sirens because now his arc nodes can run while he boosts the damage on his spells. The Skarlock can also be good to cycle Scything Touch between different units or to drop Scything Touch on Gaspy when needed. A necrotech is usually a good choice too since his medium base blocks LOS to Gaspy, plus he can fix up those busted arc nodes. Also, a bloat thrall shooting at a Parasited unit is always great. A Satyxis Raider Captain can be a great choice for solo hunting so that Gaspy doesn’t have to drop his focus as well.

5) Mercs – Gorman di Wulfe is great for dropping the cloud to block LOS to Gaspy, as well as having another source of a POW12 to everybody in the AOE 3. Add in Rust for taking down the armor of warjacks even further, and you can start scrapping Devestators and the Behemoth with ease. Saxon Orrik to give pathfind to your units is also great since Gaspy doesn’t have ghostwalk. Madelyn Corbeau can also be a great addition when you really want that melee assassination (much like any caster who wants the additional threat range). In general, he’s very Merc friendly with Scything Touch being friendly model/unit and Parasite going onto enemy model/unit. Units that I’d consider running with him would be Nyss Hunters & Boomhowler for their guns, but Steelheads probably wouldn’t be too bad either.

My army generally includes 2-3 nodes, a heavy, and then infantry & solos to taste.

Here is a sample 35 pt list of mine

Points: 35
Iron Lich Asphyxious (*6pts)
* Cankerworm (5pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Deathripper (4pts)
* Reaper (7pts)
* Skarlock Thrall (2pts)
Bloodgorgers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Satyxis Raiders (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
* Satyxis Raider Sea Witch (2pts)
General Gerlak Slaughterborn (3pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)

for 50 pts, I would max the Satyxis, add Saxon Orrik, Gorman diWulfe, a Warwitch Siren, a 2nd Necrotech & Scrap Thrall, and the Withershadow Combine.

How it tends to play out:

Infantry pulls the load, with Scything Touch support, cycled between units by the Skarlock. The Raiders play first strike while the Gorgers/Gerlak come up behind. With Scything Touch, Gorgers can become P+S 15 with Gang and even higher when Parasite's involved. The Cankerworm plays Solo/Support Hunter if there's something that just has to die. Otherwise he helps kill off enemy jacks. If the infantry kills it before he gets there, he can even upgrade his replicator (assuming it's better power, or a cool ranged weapon. The Reaper generally hangs back to help block LOS to Gaspy and provide a good countercharge (Reach + Sustained attack P+S 16 is awesome). On key turns, he can also pull enemy models out of position, so that you can kill them easier, or deal with them later. The feat is generally saved for those times when a spell assassination opens up, or when something presents itself as an awesome target for death (Behemoth in charge range of Asphyxious or somesuch).

Spell assassination isn't all there is to his game, but the threat of spell assassination can be a game-changer for your opponent. If you hold your feat + a node in reserve most of the game, your opponent will generally need to play a bit more conservatively with their caster (there are exceptions, as always). This may entail camping a few more focus, keeping farther back, and in general, not getting into the thick of things. While this may keep you from the spell assassination, it also leaves you a little more wiggle room while you slaughter their army with yours. If you do lose your army, don’t lose hope. Gaspy’s decent SPD 6 & great spell list can enable you to outmaneuver your opponent.

There are some tricks to a successful spell assassination though. First of all, arc nodes that are run behind your target will get the back-strike bonus (+2 to hit) when your caster activates and starts slinging spells. Second, BoC can be made to auto-hit (node within 4” of target) those high defense casters, giving you 2x boosted damage BoC’s, and 2 more BoC’s. Third, Hellfire has a 10” range, so those low DEF high ARM casters are going to have a harder time hiding from it. Basically, BoC for those high DEF casters and Hellfire for those high ARM casters.

Other Tricks (courtesy of Resurrection, Juckto, & 2liveis2die)

- Engage living enemy models with Banes before feat makes the feat dmg into an essential POW 7. If you cast parasite onto them, it's a POW 10, killing most singlewound infantry.

- Target your own McThralls with BoC in order to place the clouds exactly where you need them to deny charges or LOS. If you drop it onto Asphyxious (via node or Skarlock) or Gorman, they become untargetable by non-reach single wound infantry.

- Parasite on friendly models to give +1 arm to Gaspy. ARM 24 and effective 26 vs living, with Beyond death from Darragh Wrathe, is very nice. Scraps or even a Skarlock can be good targets.

In all, Gaspy is a great learning tool for how to play Cryx. Pretty forgiving and quite capable of handling things himself. He's not terribly picky what you take as long as you have some way to mitigate high defense troops.

Photo Dump!!!

2011-02-08T07:58:00.000-08:00

So what with all the games and such, I haven't actually taken pics of what I've painted recently. It helps that I painted a lot in the past 2 weeks in order to get fully painted for the 50 pt SR2011 at AGR last weekend. More on that later though.

I ended up getting both my eDenny and eGaspy lists fully painted (of sorts, some things need more details put in), but I only played my eGaspy list. Here's that list, fully painted! (sans Malice's magnetized parts)

Saxon Orrik was one of the models that I needed to finish painting for the tournament, and I'm actually very happy with how he came out. I realize that I need to actually finish his basing (find some sticks, maybe get some leaves or static grass from AGR), but the painting is all done I think.

At the tourney, Micah gave me my birthday present, a pair of W&N Series 7 brushes. Being considerably better than my old brushes, I had to try them out almost immediately. Here's the outcome of that work.

The face needs more work, but there's a lot that I'm happy with on this model. I like the way the robes came out (although they could probably stand to have brighter highlights), the corroded brass on the banister, that I actually painted an eye (not shown well here), and a pretty good attempt for my first attempt at waves and water.

Lastly, here is the rest of the stuff that I've painted recently, but haven't documented.

pDenny

Satyxis Raiders, Sea Witch, & Captain

The ever popular Cephalyx Drudges!

And since I had the lightbox set up, I wanted to take a better pic of some other casters that I have painted.

Next up, Ashlynn, Cephalyx Overlords, & Boomhowler & Co.

C&C always welcome.

First Camel Built

2011-02-03T12:18:00.001-08:00

I finished building my first Exemplar Camel Venger. Now to prime it and get to painting.

50 Points of Painted Circle

2011-01-31T18:46:00.000-08:00

Like Jon said there's a tournament coming up this weekend with a raffle for having a fully painted army. That's a good enough excuse to get me motivated to paint up some Circle. I just finished my druids and pulled out the rest of the list to get a picture in. The major theme of this list is cram everything I already had painted in and then fill out the points. So...there you go. Kind of beast heavy and not an ideal list but I'll lose even if I have the perfect list so I might as well just go out there and have fun being fully painted. Oh and for the record, group shots are hard to take.

Fully painted Raffle? I'm in!

2011-01-31T12:18:00.000-08:00

So for this Saturday's 50pt SR2011 at Adventurer's Guild, there's apparently a raffle for playing with a fully painted army. I'm planning on reverting back to playing eGaspy, cause he's so awesome. My 2 lists will probably be eDenny and eGaspy, but neither list is fully painted yet. The eGaspy list is closest to fully painted, only needing Saxon Orrik and eGaspy painted. Well, eGaspy needs to be repainted after I rebuilt him. I'd like to try some OSL on eGaspy as well, but I'll probably hold off on that till after the tourney in an attempt to get everything for my eDenny list painted, which needs a full unit of Satyxis Raiders + UA + Captain painted. I don't think I'll be able to get them done, but I'm definitely going to try.

Anyways, here is eGaspy at his good enough to play stage (aside from his head and the eye on Daemortus). After the tourney, I'll go back and do OSL and add more highlights to his robes.

In other news, I also got my ATGM UA in, so now I can run an Ashlynn list without borrowing 75% of it :p Since I don't care for the hats too much on them, plus I'm making them into Amethyst Rose Gun Mages, I decided to cut off their hats and sculpt some hair (a new experience for me). To start, here's the dude.

And here are closeups of all the hair (aside from ponytail chick, who needs touchup).

I tried to make the dude's hair long enough to look like the real dude. Other than that, everything else was just trying to cover up my hack and slash of the hats.

Hopping on the Calaband Wagon

2011-01-30T09:49:00.000-08:00

I was fortunate enough to find someone with a full Gatormen Posse who wanted to trade them. Since no gator is an island and all that I figured they'd need a fearless leader. Enter Calaban:

Ashlynn Update 2

2011-01-27T09:05:00.000-08:00

So after Micah mentioned that he got me some W&N brushes for my birthday, I told myself I would wait to start painting Ashlynn up until I could try them out. Sad to say, I couldn't wait to at least start painting her. So this is mostly just laying in the base colors on Ashlynn, along with a wash on the metals. I'm not ecstatic about all my sculpting, but it's mostly passable. Practice makes perfect and all.

So there's what I've got so far. All the offwhite cloth I'm going to highlight up to pure white, her hair will probably need to be redone with the yellow basecoat and highlighted up to almost a white. Silly blonde hair is much harder than black or brown hair. The long purple cloak will be highlighted up to purple, and then of course I have to shade and highlight her face. Anyways, just wanted to show the little progress that I've made.

Wolf Riders and a WIP Druid

2011-01-23T17:28:00.000-08:00

I finally polished off my min unit of wolf riders. I'm playing in a 50 point tournament the first weekend in February and there are special prizes for being fully painted. Given that I'm not going to win anything through solid play I figured I'd come up with a list that I can get painted pretty easily. I'll take a shot of the list once it's done but for now here's the wolf riders.

And here's a WIP druid. I still need to do final highlighting and details as well as the base but you get the general idea. I'm really hoping people's minds don't go straight to KISS.

Call in the Camelry

2011-01-22T17:47:00.000-08:00

I haven been the proud owner of a full unit of Exemplar Vengers for a while now. I think the Venger horses are some of the best 28mm horses out there, they really capture the fluid grace and strength of horses. So naturally I'm going to embark on a long and exhaustive conversion project to mount my vengers on camels. Yup, here's what I'm starting with 6 Imperial Roman Dromedarii from Warlord Games.

And here's what I accomplished before running out of glue. Not a big surprise, I've been milking the bottle for every last drop for over a month now.

The scale matches up closely enough, (the knight is a bit larger than the roman soldier). I've still got to glue on the shoulder pads and the hilt of the scimitar (which I may scale down a bit) and I might add the lance somewhere. Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for more Venger Camel insanity.

Ashlynn Update

2011-01-19T00:24:00.000-08:00

So after some suggestions from Cloud-Gatherer on the PP-forums, I made some alterations to Ashlynn's arms again to go for something that makes a bit more sense with her body's pose. The GS'ing for the joints isn't done yet, but I figured this way I can get some more input on whether it should be good or not. Anyways, I now present, Ashlynn with more oomph!

Ashlynn Conversion!

2011-01-18T08:21:00.000-08:00

Like 99% of all warmachine players, I don't care much for Ashlynn's sculpt. It just looks so plain and awkward. So I ordered a bunch of parts from Privateer's online store.

1) Katherine Laddermore's body

2) Ashlynn's arms

3) Journeyman Warcaster Alt Backpack

I didn't do any in progress shots of this conversion, I just have the assembled/sculpted product, but here's what I did:

1) Cut off Laddermore's shoulderpads/arms. This included cutting up some of the cloak on her left side.

2) Bend Ashlynn's arms to a more natural position. Doing this, the sword arm broke, so I had to pin and sculpt the elbow.

3) Clean up the shoulders and pin the arms to the body

4) Sculpt in the cloak and fill gaps

5) Glue on backpack

Anyways, here's what she looks like now:

A Rorsh is a Rorsh, of Coursh of Coursh

2011-01-16T14:19:00.000-08:00

Here's a Rorsh I painted as a commission. I was procrastinating on this project until I got to play against a Farrow list this weekend and had so much fun against them I decided Rorsh wasn't such a bad guy after all. Anyway here he is, pretty basic.

2011-01-16T10:58:00.001-08:00

Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since I had posted anything. I have been hard at work these past few weeks. I've painted quite a bit, although I don't have pics of everything yet, partly due to the fact that I stupidly bought satin finish spray to go over my gloss coat rather than a matte finish. Anyways, here are pics of some of my recently painted models. excuse the shininess :p

First up, a min unit of Nyss Hunters (I bought AGR's last blister of them, and apparently they're on backorder from Alliance....damn it all).

Next we have Rhuphert, who I got for my Ashlynn list, but will be great for when I start playing more Mercs. I'm fairly happy with him (aside from the shine) because of the freehand I did on his pipes. It's not amazing, but it's a decent/mediocre attempt at woodgrain.

Next we have the NQ Eiryss! I'm fairly happy with her, although I may go back and rehighlight her cloak up some more. We'll see. I'll probably only play her until I get around to buying epic Eiryss, but who knows.

Lastly, we have Durgen's warcaster attachment, Sir Reinholdt, extra shot extraordinaire

I'm tempted to keep his face shiny, but we'll see.

Anyways, next up on the picture block is the new pDenny sculpt (started painting), a full unit of Cephalyx Drudges (already painted), Cephalyx Overlords (started painting) and my Ashlynn conversion (in process).

Hopefully I'll also get around to doing a post about the 25pt Highlander tourney thingy that Micah ran down in Temecula yesterday.

Droooooids of Orboros

2011-01-08T16:29:00.000-08:00

After being on backorder for a while my Druids finally came in. I've had an idea brewing for them for a while. I'm not a very good sculptor but I think I managed well enough so you can tell what is supposed to be going on. So I wanted to make my druids like ceremonial dancers dressed as different animals or performing rituals. 3 of the druids will just have face paint but the other three are pictured below dressed as 3 animals of the plains: a buffalo, a vulture and a snake.

Mohsar and the Butcher Painted

2011-01-03T17:20:00.000-08:00

I finished painting my Mohsar. He's really small and fiddly so I'm not entirely pleased with how he turned out, but what can you do. I got tired of painting him so here he is.

I also picked up a commission to paint the Butcher. This was an interesting one because I've already painted him for myself in 5th Border Legion colors. I still enjoyed painting him even though it was the second time, I guess I just really like this guy.

Wolves and Wolds

2010-12-26T15:52:00.001-08:00

I finished painting my min unit of Wolves of Orboros and a Woldwarden to boot. I didn't do any converting on either of them and the Wolves are pretty heavily armored for my Native American theme. I stuck with the same color scheme so they'll fit into the rest of my army but that's about it.

For the Woldwarden I wanted to do sort of a terra cotta/red rock thing and while I think it could use a once over for more highlights and depth I'm fine with it for now.

Modifying Mohsar

2010-12-22T16:19:00.001-08:00

I finished sculpting a long headdress onto Mohsar so if it ever stops raining down here I'll prime him and get to work. Kromac is the only warlock I really play for Circle so I'm very excited to take Mohsar out for a spin. He seems tricksy and nuanced, which is a good challenge and something I'm looking forward to.

Here's a sneak peek of my side project in case I need a break from working on Circle stuff.

I wasn't a big fan of this model based on the pictures but in person it's pretty nice. Too bad I have to dump him out of my Viktorias crew to make room for Ronin. Actually not that bad because Ronin are freaking awesome.

Circle Stuff

2010-12-15T20:34:00.000-08:00

I finished painting my Tharn Whitemane and figured it would be a good time for a group shot. I didn't do any conversion work on this guy because Tharn don't need much to fit with my theme. My druids are back ordered but as soon as those come in I'll be embarking on a more ambitious project.

Gaming with Gorten

2010-12-10T12:25:00.001-08:00

So I've been playing my Searforge for the past 3 weeks or so and gotten in about 5 games with Gorten in preparation for T-Town Throwdown! aka the 35 pt SR2011 tourney Micah is organizing on Saturday. So I've only gotten in 3 games with the 35 pt list, all with no scenario (which is one of the places this list will shine), but I'm really liking the heavy armor and focus efficiency of the Dwarves. I've also gotten in 2 games with Gorten at 25 pts against David and his Cygnar. So I'll give a brief summary of our game last night. Definitely a fun one.

eStryker vs Gorten

To start, here were the lists:

Points: 25
Lord Commander Stryker (*6pts)
* Ironclad (7pts)
* Stormclad (10pts)
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts) (6pts)
Stormblade Infantry (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Captain Arlan Strangewayes (2pts)
Stormsmith Stormcaller (1pts)

Points: 25
Gorten Grundback (*7pts)
* Grundback Gunner (3pts)
* Grundback Gunner (3pts)
* Ghordson Basher (7pts)
* Ghordson Driller (6pts)
Horgenhold Forge Guard (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Thor Steinhammer (2pts)
* Grundback Blaster (3pts)

David won the dice roll, and deployed first. Stryker in the middle, Ironclad on the right with ATGM's, Stormclad on the left with Stormblades. I deployed with my extra 4" from the Searforge contract with my Forgeguard facing off against his ATGM and Ironclad along with Thor's Blaster, with Thor and Gorten hiding behind the Driller, 2 Gunners, and the Basher. For terrain, there were 2 4x6" forests in opposite right hand-corners just in front of standard deployment zones, 8" of linear obstacles slightly farther forward on the opposite side, and 2 3x5" trenches also diagonal to each other in the middle, to create a symmetrical board.

1st Turn: David runs up a majority of his army, and casts Deflection to protect them from the gunbunnies ranged attacks.

2nd Turn: I know that I need to be blocking lanes to get to Gorten from not just his Stormclad, but also from the ever popular eStryker SCUD missile. To block this, I make about an 8" wide jack wall with the Driller, 2x Gunners & the Basher, protecting them from the Stormclad charge with Gorten's Rock Wall. Gorten also dropped some focus for the no knockdown in his control area. Thor's pronto'd Blaster manage to get 1 out of 2 Gun Mages in his spray, but no real damage. Forgeguard just ran up and did their "come get me" thing.

3rd Turn: David was scared of the counterattack, so decided to use this turn to feat. He charged and nearly wrecked my Blaster with his Ironclad (leaving him on 1-3 boxes, I forget since he took 2 gunbunnies down to 1 and 3 boxes). His Stormclad charged to the side of my rock wall and took a Gunner down to a few boxes (whatever the other one didn't have). Then comes the interesting stuff. The Stormblades run across the map to get all up in my Driller's grill. Then Stryker walks forward, drops positive charge on the Ironclad, pops feat, and shoots/disrupts my Basher. The Stormblades use the 3" move to surround my Driller and get more of them in melee range. Only 4 of them actually had range to make an attack, but they were swinging at MAT 7, P+S 15 for 2 of them (thanks to their built in +2 from the leader) and P+S 15 for the other 2 (thanks to Positive Charge). No charge dice, but he still managed to take out a large chunk of my Driller. Then the Ironclad swings around the Basher (which has a disabled head at this point), and takes a swing on the Driller at dice+1 thanks to Positive Charge. My Driller survives with 5 boxes left, Right Arm and Cortex okay, but surround by Stormblades and an Ironclad. The Stormclad moves around the damaged gunner to take a swing on my Basher, but doesn't manage to take out any systems.

4th Turn: I measure my Control area and see that eStryker is sitting about 1" out of it. I decide not to upkeep either my no KD spell or the Rock Wall. It's time to retaliate with my feat turn and try to end things. First of all, I allocate 1 focus to my Gunner who is untouched. Thor then moves out of Gorten's way and tunes up the Basher's attack rolls (since he can't get focus, I better make sure he hits). The Gunner moves up and potshots at Stryker, dropping 5 dmg onto his stupid orange-haired, goggle eyed face. Gorten then throws Strength of Granite onto the Basher and walks around to get the range for his feat. He pulled everybody toward my table edge for a 4" (an extra 2" more than I needed for the Basher's range I think), then dropped a wall right behind Stryker. I hope you see where this is going, cause this is the whole reason that Gorten got the Basher instead of Thor. The Basher then activates (now disengaged from the Stormclad thanks to Gorten's feat) and successfully slams Stryker. Before I did my slam attack, I activated the Basher's flak field for the unboostable POW 12 against Stryker, dealing another 3 damage or something. The Slam attack only needed a 7 on 3 dice (thank you tune up) to hit, which it did. The dmg roll is at dice +1 for 4d6. He's down to 11 health left at this point, I need to roll a 10 to kill on 4 dice. Below average, gravy. Out comes an 8... Stryker lives with 2 life left. Well, I say to myself, all isn't lost. Nobody in my ctl can charge, Stryker is engaged, the Stormclad can't get to Gorten, and I can wreck his Ironclad easily enough with my Forgeguard (which they do). Maybe I'll survive this next turn.

5th Turn: David is left with 3 Stormblades near Gorten, a Stormclad which is out of range, ATGM kinda far back, as well as Arlan and a Stormsmith that are out of the fight. He was thinking that maybe Stryker should just risk the free strike until I reminded him how Gun Mages can push models. He starts there and ends up pushing the Basher 4" away with thanks to several missing from shooting into melee. Stryker now has an open line to Gorten (5.25" away), but can't charge. First he uses his stormblades to try and deal some damage, ending up laying down about 7 damage on Gorten. Stryker, who hoarded all his focus, then casts Velocity to get close enough to Gorten to lay the smack on. With 2 life, he can't risk overloading, even with just
one dice. This means that he's swinging at P+S15 vs. ARM 19. Not horrible odds for him, but if he rolls low, I win... He didn't roll low.

But it was definitely an exciting game. I didn't quite cover all my contingencies like I should have on my feat turn, but it was definitely a fun game.

Retribution of Commissions

2010-12-06T21:10:00.001-08:00

My LGS commissioned me to paint a retribution army for them. So far they've only got the battlebox but here's what I've finished. They wanted the bases to be a lava field after a heavy snow, so that's what I gave them. They also wanted it in the store colors (which you can see in the background) green, black and silver.

The heavy is a magnetized omni-jack but I just show the Phoenix variant here.

I also picked up a commission for a manhunter. The client didn't care too much about detail so I manged to crank this guy out over the course of two episodes of Merlin, or 1.5 hours.

More painted Merc goodness!

2010-12-06T08:25:00.001-08:00

In prep for running Mercs this weekend down in Temecula, I did a bit of painting work on some models this weekend. For the tourney, I'm borrowing Ashlynn, ATGM, a Mule, and either a Nomad or 2 buccaneers for my second list to a Gorten Searforge list. Since my buddy doesn't paint that often, I painted up his Ashlynn. The best part of it is that just by bending the arms at the elbow and putting them in a different position, Ashlynn looks much less awkward (aside from having a giiiiigantic head).

Also, due to the advice of the Merc forums, I'm adding in Rockbottom to my list. If nothing else, he's at least another gun. While I may not get to use his coins & most of his abilities, his rerolls for Thor could be very very helpful.

I am the Gorax, I speak for the trees.

2010-12-01T13:35:00.000-08:00

I'm going out on a limb here and trying something new, miniature sculpting. Like most of the world's population I'm not a fan of PP's Gorax sculpt. So my first foray into sculpting will be trying to scratch build a Gorax. Anyway, I started work on the head and here's what I have to show for myself.

I tried to think of something that would fit with my Native American circle and the only creatures I could find that would be at all Gorax like were Sasquatch and a Wendigo. Bigfoot would be pretty funny, but not exactly what I was going for. An Algonquin Wendigo is actually pretty much exactly like the Lord of the Feast. Emaciated, cannibalistic and one scary mofo. Luckily people have taken a lot of creative license with the Wendigo and turned it more into a yeti/bigfoot monster. So after some research I decided that's the direction I'd go, a Gorax loosely based on the PP monster with some of my own wendigo-like flair.

Speed-painted Forgeguard

2010-11-25T20:41:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. So I just wanted to throw in a quick update of my Searforge painting that I've done recently. To start, here's the Driller that I finished shortly after Brun & Lug.

Also, in preparation for T-Town Throwdown that Micah is organizing in December, I'm planning on actually running Mercs over my Cryx. With that in mind, I wanted to try and get as close to fully painted as possible, at least for one of my lists. Thinking to myself, Forgeguard are mostly just armor, they don't have nearly as many fiddly bits as those highshields do, I can just speed paint my way through them... ha ha, jokes on me. Plenty of fiddly little pieces and more color than I initially intended. Anyways, here's the result of my "speed-painting"... aka ~10-12 hours I put into them in my halfday off on Wednesday.

and a close-up of 3 guys

And in case you noticed, the Leader doesn't have a backpack. Either a mispack or forgotten part in that Bartertown trade. Anyways, I'll get to it in my next bitz order.

The final showing of the day is a new picture of all my fully painted Searforge:

Soon enough I'll be breaking out my snow for all of these bases.

Seamus and his Belles

2010-11-20T12:08:00.000-08:00

I finally finished Jon's Resurrectionist crew! Wyrd models are a lot of fun to paint and a very refreshing break but it still took me forever to get them done. But here they are, de-nastified Sybelle included.

T-Town Throwdown

2010-11-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

Good news everyone...by some clerical oversight my Press Gang application has been accepted! I’m very excited and honored to be a part of this program and I’ve already received great advice and help in getting the community in my area up and running.

My biggest challenge is that my lgs is recently renovated to accommodate gaming space, their stock is basically just the essentials and not a lot of people know that they are there and that they carry Warmachine and Hordes. I know there are gamers in the area and every time I meet one they tell me that they have a couple friends who also play. I’ve been running demo nights every Wednesday for about a month and have been able to introduce a few people to the game and meet some people who already play.

Unfortunately a regular gaming crowd is still eluding me. Well what better way to draw gamers out of the woodwork than the promise of prizes and bloodshed? Which is why on December 11^th I will be hosting my first tournament: T-Town Throwdown! Anyone in Southern California who can find Temecula on a map should try and come out and bring some friends.

The official announcement is as follows:

T-Town Throwdown

35 Point Steamroller 2011

Saturday, December 11th

Location:

Thou Shalt Game Entertainment
27314 Jefferson Ave #9
Temecula, CA 92590
(951) 296-2266

Check In Time -12:00 (Noon)
Start Time -12:30

- $5 entry fee

- Players preregistering here will receive a ticket valid for one reroll which may be used
once at any point in the tournament.

- Players must submit up to two lists at check in. If submitting two lists each list must have a different Warcaster/Warlock

- Timed play: 10 minute turns (one 5 minute extention) and 80 minute rounds
(please bring a timer or cell phone with a timer function)

As this is my first tournament I’ll be sure to document my triumphs and failures as I try to pull this thing off. And you lucky blog readers get a front row seat to the carnage!

Take a look at my quagmire...giggidy

2010-11-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

So Micah and I played in the doubles tournament at Adventurer's Guild on Saturday. It was random teams, so we didn't get to play on the same team :( On the plus side, Micah and his teammate won, so at least one of us got some pride. I also learned a bit about running against eLylyth and Ravagores and or running the Coven. There are times when getting b2b for stealth is a worse option than just spreading the hell out (in general, against things with lots of boostable AOE's like against Durgen or Ravagore spam). Roh well. Mistakes on my part + a few amazing rolls for Jason and that basically ends our team's shot at the tourney. Regardless, I had a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to more tournies going on.

At least I didn't leave empty handed though. The store owner gave 20% off all Warmahordes products to those of us in the tourney. So I decided that I should grab Wrongeye & Snapjaw before my wallet thought better of it. Being the crazy obsessed person that I am, I started assembling them on Sunday. Since they're so cool, I also decided that they needed better bases. Now that I'm almost out of green stuff, I've gotten something out of the bases that I'm happy with.

This first piece is my test base/40mm objective for Steamroller scenarios. I still need to finish the top of the tree to make it look like it was struck by lightning... not quite sure how I'm going to work that part out yet. The white "reeds" are toothbrush bristles, and everything else is GS. I'll be testing the water effects that I decide to use on this base before I throw them into my bases for Wrongeye & Snapjaw.

So here's my WIP of Snapjaw (aka CrocDooooooor!!!)

And here is my WIP of his master, Wrongeye. Oh how you have got to love the Voodoo gators. (can anybody tell what faction I'd pick up of Hordes if I had the money right now?)

I'm actually very happy with these bases, and especially with just how cool Wrongeye's bottle looks with very little effort. Lots of work left to do, but not a bad start or one day.

C&C and other ideas welcome.

Stryker update + Malifaux

2010-11-12T09:49:00.001-08:00

So I have pretty much finished Stryker from the Cygnar battlebox. He needs some detail work on the metals/goggles and cleanup in a few places I noticed from the pictures, but he's basically done. I really like how the color scheme has worked out (aside from the ghastly face I've painted, but whatever).

I'm not sure how I'll be going about the color scheme on the jacks, but I've laid down some good basecoats on them, so we'll see what I like from them. Maybe I'll post some pics for a bit of a vote. The Ironclad currently has some blue armor plates and some of the off-white armor plates, but the Lancer just has the offwhite. I'm still undecided so far, but we'll see if it changes as I go along (progress being slowed by my desire to get my Searforge painted).

Last weekend, Micah and I also got in a game of Malifaux, my Seamus box vs. his Lady J box. It was a lot of fun, getting a better idea on how the game works, as well as all the rules and special abilities that my crew has. I was reminded yet again why I love the undead factions as I found I could resurrect my Belles or create them after killing off enemy models. Sadly, I didn't get to do either due to Lady J, but whatever. So here's a pic of the battlefield towards the beginning.

This is a pic of Bete Noir owning up on Micah's gunslinging peeps. Twas fun.

You may notice the lack of a picture where Lady J takes all the hits from Seamus, Sybelle, and a Belle before opening a new hole in Seamus' face... I swear, the camera just wouldn't take a good pic, I promise.

You're as cooooold as ice!

2010-11-05T00:26:00.000-07:00

So I've recently come into another batch of Searforge models, and as such, rekindled my urge to paint/play them. First up, here's Brun Crugback and his bear Lug. I'm not entirely happy with Lug's fur, but I did him before Brun (who's polar bear skin I'm much happier with). Thoughts?

Next up, a Ghordson Basher and Driller. If I can ever get interested in painting units, I'll get the Highshields + UA and Forgeguard done too. I'm planning on holding off the rest of the snow until I have a large amount of models done (aka after I paint all my infantry).

On another note, I assembled/primed Phil's Deathjack for him, since he's too lazy to do it himself :p On the plus side, I magnetized the arms for transport/getting the fatass into b2b. Notice the 2 different arm poses.

Beastie Boy

2010-10-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

I just finished Kromac's beast form which means I'm all painted up and ready to go for November's tournament. While I still like the human form sculpt better the beast form was actually much easier as everything didn't seem so smooshed together.

I also painted some totem pole shifting stones for a laugh.

Warpwolf Stalker

2010-10-29T12:41:00.000-07:00

I finished my Stalker so now I have the trinity of wolves fully painted. Exciting stuff! Sorry if the picture is a little dark, he kept warping prowl right before the camera went off.

An Ogrun, a bear, a dwarf and a Satyxis walk into a bar...

2010-10-29T08:36:00.000-07:00

Not really, but I did get all my Searforge stuff in at AGR. Work is also continuing apace on the Deathjack for Phil, but no photos quite yet. Everything is on and pinned except for the fists of spiky doom. Anyways, on to the pictures.

First up is my blighted warmonger to Ogrun Bokur conversion. All I really did was sculpt some armor, switch his weapon hands, and add a shield (Troll Bouncer shield). I keep telling myself that I'm going to run him with Cryx, but never do. He'll make a nice addition to my Searforge though.

How bout that Great Rack? Well, here's Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast in all her primed glory. I bought some vallejo water effects that I'll use once she's painted in order to add waves around her epic base. Should be fun.

Next up is my first minion models.... Brun & Lug. Standard stuff. I've got some good rocks on their bases, and I'll be adding snow once they're all painted.

Finally, the model that got me into Searforge in the first place. The Basher!!! Seriously though. Freaking amazing. I went for a running pose, and it kinda looks like he's mid-stride. He doesn't look like he's barreling down the causeway though, which makes me a little sad. Oh well. This guy is pinned pretty damn well, so I won't need to worry about him falling apart at least.

C&C always welcome

Wolves Everywhere!

2010-10-27T15:43:00.000-07:00

Yup more Circle updates. I finished painting my Feral Warpwolf so only 1 more wolf to go. I'm not 100% satisfied with him but as I'm itching to move on to other projects it'll have to do.

I also assembled and reposed my Stalker. He's getting primed tonight and hopefully I'll be able to work on him a bit. I was planning on doing some extensive sculpting on this guy because I don't like the stock pose a whole lot. Then I saw the model in person and decided it was actually pretty good and would take a lot of work to repose. Instead I just tweaked him a little. I was going for a pose where he's sort of wading through enemies getting ready to swipe.

And here's pKaya again. I know I posted her already but I wanted a better picture.

Druid Wilder

2010-10-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

I painted up this Druid Wilder tonight and it was a really enjoyable experience. The model is fantastic, very easy to paint and characterful. She is part of a 25 point Kromac list I'm trying to get fully painted by November 16th for a team tournament Jon and I will be playing in. Only a Stalker and Beast Form Kromac to go!

Distracted? Me? Naaaaaaw

2010-10-26T07:45:00.000-07:00

I'm still just focusing on painting up my Cygnar battlebox and all my Searforge, right? Well, kinda, just not right now :p So I found a full unit of bloodgorgers, all 10 of them, for 60 bucks, including shipping, on bartertown. How could I resist that?...so I didn't. While they weren't really adequately protected in the shipping (thrown in a ziplock bag inside a paper postal bag), they're beefy guys and held their own, just not together. So I got them all glued back together and based, although I need to make a second sweep for mold lines before I prime them.

(6 0f 10 new Bloodgorgers)

I also did a bit of painting on a test model for my Satyxis. I figure with how much I've been playing them, it would only be right to throw the paint onto them. It's really only base colors for stuff right now, and I'm missing a lot of them, but I think I'm on to a nice color scheme for them though.

Lastly, Phil, a fellow Cryx player from AGR, has asked me to put together his Deathjack. I kinda feel like I owe him for him starting to bring all his buddies down to AGR which has let me get a lot of games in, plus he's a nice guy, so I figure this one's free. With that in mind, I decided to magnetize the arms as several people have been talking about in the Cryx Forums. So here's the start of my work there. The white filler there is Fimo, a sculpting clay that I got at Michael's a long time ago. Here's for hoping that it works out

Playground sand?

2010-10-21T11:14:00.001-07:00

Seriously. That ish makes great basing material and it's dirt cheap. Better you spend the 6 bucks at Home Depot than go steal it from a playground. No need to get arrested cause you're hanging around a kids' playground without a kid :p

So the pic above is an example of what my basing scheme will be for my small Cygnar force (although I reserve the right expand it in the future), in addition to showing the start of my work on Stryker. I'm really like the tan color for his cloak/robe thingy. Anyways, even though my 2 little tubs of GW basing material have lasted me for 4 years, I'm never buying them again. One last thing, if you're trying to do cobblestone or any kind of brickwork with GS, let it sit for at least 10 minutes before you start sculpting in it. My impatience always wins out, and now I have to go back and redo the GS on the medium base there.

Fur Pile

2010-10-20T20:13:00.000-07:00

I know I've put this model up here before but I reworked the fur on him and added some feathered arm bands. Here is almost ready to paint, there's still some green showing through so he'll need a little more priming. The pictures make it a bit hard to see details, but you get the idea.

New Models!

2010-10-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

So I finished Magnus the Traitor this weekend, and I'm actually fairly happy with it. He could use some more work, but if he does get it, it won't be for a while.

Also, I picked up the plastic Cygnar battlebox last night. Sadly they didn't have any of the Searforge stuff that I wanted. Good thing I still have plenty to work on :p I did manage to put together the model that sold me on the plastic Cygnar battlebox though. Although I don't care for him in the fluff, I love this model for Stryker.

Part of what I'm currently working on is painting what Searforge I do have. Here's a little update on my progress on my gunbunnies. They need touchup & detailwork in addition to snow on the base, but they're about done.