Thursday, March 31, 2011

Ignition Escalation League Week 2

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:

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

More Hardcore practice


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.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Battle Report: Fiona vs. Terminus - hardcore practice

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

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.

Friday, March 25, 2011

Ametheyst Rose Gun Mages!!!

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.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Risen Done!

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.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Epic Nemo

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

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.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Highborn Painting Update

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.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Baron Wrongeye

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).

Friday, March 11, 2011

Green stuff sculpting!

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.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Highborn Painting Update

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.



Monday, March 7, 2011

Bloody Barnabas

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

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.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Holt your horses

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!

Friday, March 4, 2011

Ignition Escalation League

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.