Wolves and Wolds

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

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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...

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!

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.