Bastardly Goal Accomplished!

So it's been 8 days since I finished my Bane Thralls, almost at 2 weeks since I started this goal... but! I have a fully painted 35 point list (with some proxies, but at least the proxies are painted, right?) So once again here is the list:

Army: pBastard 35 pts
Points: 35
Goreshade the Bastard (*6pts)
* Deathjack (12pts)
* Seether (9pts)
Bane Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)

So let's start with the star of the show, Goreshade and his little lady.



I'm not incredibly happy about either of their faces, but I know I need lots of work at faces. I'm just happy I can get my jacks to start looking good.

Since I'm talking about those jacks, here's my most recent one.



I was trying to go for a more corroded bronze/brass on this jack than on my Levi based on some stuff I saw on the PPforums, but I think I like how his came out better. Regardless, I like how this turned out for the most part.

So putting all those painted things together to get my battlegroup, you get something like this.




Next up, my Cryxian toolbox that I hate to leave at home, the Withershadow Combine.



I am fairly happy with how they turned out...granted, they were "painted" for at least 2 months, but not finished. Then I painted my Bane Thralls and really loved the red robes, so that carried over to here as well.

And to wrap it all up, here's a whole army shot!



Quite exciting to have this many painted models, personally. Looking back at this mad rush of painting, I painted 6 Bane Thralls, a Seether, and Goreshade basically from scratch, and did touchups on the Withershadow Combine and Deathwalker. Definitely time to slow down so as not to burn myself out. I have several models that I also started in this period as well. Keep your eyes open for 2 Machine Wraiths, 2 Stalkers, 4 Scrap Thralls, and a Necrotech sometime in the relatively near future.

pDenny and Siege dance a Tango

Well, they didn't really dance, but it was a fun game nonetheless. I even learned/was reminded of a few things either in this game or through thinking about it afterwards. Anyways, David and I had a good game full of proxies, botched rolls, and general splodiness. The game actually took place almost a week ago now, so the details are getting fuzzy, bear with me.

So the lists: @ 35 pts.

Siege
- Charger
- Defender
ATGM + UA
- Defender
Min Precursor Knights + UA (proxied by Sword Knights+UA)
Strangeways (proxied by GMCA)
Reinholdt (proxied by Gorman)

Deneghra1
- Nightwretch
- Nightwretch
- Leviathan
Max McThralls + 3 Brutes (brutes = empty bases)
Necrosurgeon + stitches
Withershadow Combine
Necrotech+Scrap (Necrotech = cankerworm base)
3 more Scrappies
2x Pistol Wraith

Deployment:
Terrain was setup, and I won the dice roll, choosing to go first. I set up my Levi+Denny to sit up on the hill, with my incorporeal/stealth models gunning for the house on the other side. David set up on the opposite side, hiding both defenders behind the hedge to get +4 defense.


Round 1:
My Cryx forces quickly advance, most things running their full speed.

David runs his precursors up toward the ruins, advances his charger, and hides in his foxhole. *cough* sissy *cough* aaaaanyways.



Round 2:
Between the two pistol wraiths and the 3 combine members, I was able to take his precursor knights down to the std bearer and one soldier from 8 models. Gaining soul tokens on each model thanks to their special rules. McThralls ran again as well. Scrap Thralls close in on Cygnaran forces as they sweep in from the flanks.

David's ATGM sweeps around the side of the hedge to help his defenders/Siege wipe out the thrall horde. Sadly, he does a good job of it.



Round 3:
My forces are now separated, and I'm not a fan of the large open space between those Defender's and me that I will have to cross. I decide to swing my forces on the hill over to the ruins in an attempt to gain some cover for a turn to close the gap. I also manage to wreck the charger with the boosted PW shots and maybe hellfires from the Combine. My first arc node was wrecked I think by a combo of Siege plus the charger last turn. This turn I tried to destroy the ATGM using Crippling Grasp + Venom, but it probably was not the best idea to risk my arc node here. Several (3+) ATGM models survive due to their def of 15, grr.

David's Defenders wreck my arc node and the Scrappies die to Siege as he backs away into a new foxhole...sissy again! lol. Twas the smart play tho. He saves his feat for the possiblity of destroying the Levi or Denny.



Round 4:
I move Denny forward, pop the feat, and try to nail him with the Leviathan...to no avail. Having no arc nodes, I concede due to the large empty space between his shooters and me... assination failed. :(



Things that I learned/was reminded of:
1) Make up your mind. When I switched Denny + the Levi from one flank to another, I left my McThralls hanging out to dry, just soaking up shots... not a good idea. If I had switched Denny and the Levi a turn earlier when the McThralls weren't in range of everything, it probably would not have mattered as much.
2) Threat Saturation. Cryx survives the ranged battle by relatively high defense and threat saturation. If they have to deal with several threats in one turn, they won't be able to get them all. The threats that survive will make those poor low arm ranged units pay.
3) Risk vs. Benefit. Is the risk of losing that piece of mine worth the chance of taking out that model/unit? If it's your last arc node and you're not gunning for the assassination/scenario victory, then the answer should be no.

Thoughts for David:
1) Make use of the runeshot that the ATGM officer grants that Defender. He coulda been sniping the whole game with a range of a bajillion. Or even critical brutal damage to tear apart all those hard armor cryx targets, lol.

2) Watch those threat ranges. I'm beginning to think that Shieldwall may not be all that it's cracked up to be, but I would have just advanced the precursors and shieldwalled them up the field, especially vs. the pow 10's and 12's that they were facing.

Overall:
*shrug* live and learn. T'was fun regardless. Plus two losses in a row instigate me to try harder for next time. Too bad for David that he reminded me of my lack of playing Goreshade after I lost. I didn't want to be a bastard and play the Bastard and risk frightening David off the game. Now that that's out, I have free reign to play the Bastard! Watch out for that fully painted list to show up here sometime in the next 2 weeks.

A preview of things to come

Two things: 1) I need to post pics/battle report of my game with David (Cygnar) from last week, quite a fun game. 2) I need to post up pics of my recently painted things here.

So, I've been hard at work painting things because I realized that I only have a handful of models that need a lot of paint left to qualify as fully painted. I also want to get good quality pics with the lightbox that I got off of ebay a few months ago. I also had to switch off of photobucket for hosting my photos since they started downsizing the picture quality. Now I'm trying to post pics up on flickr, which seems to be much nicer. For the moment, I don't have anything organized in galleries, but you can find pics of my recently (and some just recently photographed) models here.

And to finish off this post, I'll give a quick preview of what I've done recently.
1) My Leviathan, where I primed in black, then spraypainted on metal, followed mostly by inks/washes:


2) My Bane Thralls - I started painting my Bane Thralls after David mentioned that he hasn't seen me play Goreshade except once (which was the only time I've played with him). Since he's now getting to be almost a veteran, I don't feel too bad about pulling out "the Bastard" anymore. To do that, I need Bane Thralls (or Bane Knights proxied as Bane Thralls). So I started painted up my min unit that I bought for Goreshade. Here's a pic of the Leader, then the whole group.




Next up, I need to finish painting Goreshade, the Deathwalker, and the Seether, since they are the only unpainted things left in the 35 point list I've concocted.

Army: pBastard 35 pts
Points: 35
Goreshade the Bastard (*6pts)
* Deathjack (12pts)
* Seether (9pts)
Bane Thralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
Bane Lord Tartarus (4pts)

Anyways, there it all is. Enjoy.

eFeora vs. pDenny

So JollyAngus and I recently got in a game. It's been a while due to the holidays and busy work schedules and all. Anyways, I'm not going to give a step-by step detailed analysis, just a brief overview. So to start...the lists:

pDenny Pop’n’Drop - IronTwitch
Points: 35
Warwitch Deneghra (*5pts)
* Nightwretch (4pts)
* Nightwretch (4pts)
* Leviathan (9pts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 9 Grunts) (5pts)
* 3 Brute Thrall (3pts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls (2pts)
The Withershadow Combine (5pts)
3 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Necrotech & 1 Scrap Thrall (1pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)
Pistol Wraith (3pts)

eFeora fire and things? - JollyAngus
Points: 35
Feora, Protector of the Flame (*6pts)
* Devout (5pts)
* Redeemer (6pts)
* Repenter (4pts)
* Vanquisher (8pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Temple Flameguard (Leader and 5 Grunts) (4pts)
* Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard (2pts)
Paladin of the Order of the Wall (2pts)
Paladin of the Order of the Wall (2pts)
The Covenant of Menoth (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (2pts)

JollyAngus won the deployment, and elected to go first. Deployment is pictured below.

Round1:

JollyAngus casts Incite and moves his forces up, all the while protecting his forces from knockdown using the Covenant. The choir also sings no shooting at my jacks.

IronTwitch runs the Mcthrall/Necrosurgeon squad as far forward as possible to take advantage of the cover that the hedge provides. The combine and pistol wraiths run forward as well. The Leviathan and arc nodes try to position themselves for the next turn.

Round2:

Jolly Angus starts lobbing the AOEs and lighting crap on fire. I don't think a single fire effect expired, annoying considering I was trying my best to keep out of eFeora's control range. Luckily the fire didn't cripple the Combine or Leviathan. On my turn, I took some dmg from fire rolls on the Combine/Brute Thralls, but there weren't any devastating losses. This was my key attack turn, so I gave the Levi 3 focus, and got everything set to demolish the paladins, Vanquisher, and lay the hurt down on the TFG, but I forgot to pop my feat. Ugh. The dice rolling for this turn seemed to set a trend for the rest of the game, where the average was ~4 on 2 dice... lame. In all, nothing dies.

Round3:

JollyAngus only lost the shooting arm of his Vanquisher. He tramples the Vanquisher through the Combine, taking 3 freestrikes since he fails to kill any of them. They proceed to do diddly squat to him, so the Vanquisher comes to rest in Denny's face, hitting for 12 damage, but running out of focus since he needed to boost the attack and damage rolls. eFeora then pops her feat to get more focus, and give it to the Repenter, who moves to spray down the Combine, opening the way for the vassal to move 5" forward and get the Vanquisher to be just within the 5" range needed for an ancillary attack, which he still needs an 8 on 2 dice to make work. Lucky for him, the dice decided that 4 wasn't a good average anymore, and the Vanquisher finished off Denny to snag the W for Menoth.

Overall, still quite a fun game. Note to self, remember to pop feat on the turn that you're going for the assassination or army destruction. Roh well. Still a great night.