Painting Update

I haven't been able to play as much as I'd like recently, but I've still gotten in some games with Damiano + Pirates, which has been fun, as well as Bart + Galleon.  Basically, Galleon is a monster.  Anyways, this is just a quick painting update before I get back into doing work today.

First is a merc painting update.  Here are some of the farthest along models in my Trencher Commandos group, who I'm very happy with.  I think they'[re turning into my best painted unit, along with my Boomhowler & Company.

   

Next up is a quick Cryx model.  I loaned Jason a fair amount of my Cryx a while back in return for borrowing his Cygnar models before I decided that I wanted to own the Bad Seeds tier.  I just got some of those back, and played a game of proxies of Gaspy3 + Kraken, where my lovely Wraith Engine played the Kraken.  So it's been such a long time, I figured I should drop some paint onto this bad boy.  Plus I'm testing out a new paint scheme, because there's nothing like having a new paint scheme after you're mostly painted with an army :p  Anyways, still a work in progress, but I'm liking how it's looking.

 

So for the commandos, I'm really happy with how the leather and skin tones are working out, and I'm trying to punch up all my highlights in general since my models often look so dark.  Hopefully that pans out.  With the Wraith Engine, I think it'll be a nice change-up from my normal Cryx just because of all the colors on it: purple armor plating, red cloth, green goo everywhere, and then the metals.  Hopefully I can finish it up soon and plop it back onto the table with my pGaspy list.

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

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.

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.

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.

Fully painted Raffle? I'm in!

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.

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.

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.

Playground sand?

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.

New Models!

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.

Cryx vs. Cygnar - goodbye Field Test

So I managed to get a game in with David, a newly recruited player, on Sunday afternoon. Little did we know that this would be the last game that we would play with the Field Test rules. So here are our lists:
David (Cygnar)
pStryker
Charger
Lancer
Ironclad
GMCA
ATGM
Sword Knights (6)

Me - Irontwitch (Cryx)
pGaspy
Ripper
Ripper
Canker
Seether
Skarlock
Mcthralls (10)
Necrosurgeon UA
Gorman di Wulfe

Turn 1: (Cryx)
Run everything up, taking care to keep Gaspy out of LOS. The Cankerworm, Deathripper, and McThralls headed for his Sword Knights, while the Seether went up the right flank. Gaspy, the Skarlock, and a deathripper took up the middle, with Gorman laying down cover. The cankerworm took advantage of his extra move to get closer to those tasty sword knights.

Turn 1: Cygnar
Full advance with all units. The Sword Knights and GMCA advancing towards the cankerworm, while the Ironclad and ATGM advanced toward the Seether. The Lancer was in a somewhat middling position, not yet commited to either flank, but not in range of anything in the middle either.


Turn 2: Cryx
The ripper with the mcthralls runs up and nodes a Breath of Corruption onto the Sword Knights, killing 2. The cankerworm then charges and eats up 3 more, leaving one Sword Knight to mourn his brethren. The canker then uses his extra move to get into B2B with the GMCA to try and force some freestrikes. The Seether moves slightly forward, as do Gaspy and the deathripper with him. The skarlock shifts flanks and heads towards the Mcthralls, giving them Scything Touch.

Turn 2: Cygnar
GMCA advances and shoots the seether with the shot that pushes d3". They hit him and knocks him back 3", but no crit KD. Ironclad advances 4" to stay out of the seether's charge range. The Lancer moves to get LOS on the McThralls and the Necrosurgeon. Stryker arcs 2 3" AOE spells, the first taking out 3 McThralls, opening up LOS to the Necrosurgeon. The next one directly hits the necrosurgeon, who pawns it off to a stitch thrall. One Stitch thrall died that turn, in addition to killing off two more McThralls. The GMCA somehow makes it out alive, but I can't remember how. He runs off to go hide with Stryker and the Lone Sword Knight.

Turn 3: Cryx
The necrosurgeon pops out 5 McThralls, and they advance in front of the cankerworm. The canker moves forward a little as well. Gaspy's Deathripper moves up towards the GMCA to be in range for a little parasitic action. Then Gaspy moves forward, arcs parasite onto the GMCA, and pops his feat...killing the whole unit and replenishing his focus for another Breath of Corruption to try and block LOS and maybe do some damage. Then he teleports back out of harms way.

Turn 3: Cygnar
Once again, Stryker arced an AOE onto the Mcthralls, this time killing off the surgeon, leaving only 6 McThralls behind. The lancer then activates and charges the Mcthralls, killing all but two. The Lone Sword Knight also helped with that. Stryker and the Charger kept backing up as well to avoid getting charged. The Ironclad charged the deathripper this turn too I think.

Turn 4: Cryx
Between the McThralls and Cankerworm, the Sword knight and Lancer were both destroyed. The Seether charged the Ironclad as well, dealing quite a bit of damage, but not boxing him.
Not much else happened as David conceded soon after this point, but I gave him a few hopefully helpful tips about choosing targets when you deploy your forces and trying to get the charge rather than being charged.

Anyways, something else to note is the cool new terrain pieces that I made. I'm actually quite happy with them considering that the total time spent on them is about 90 minutes, not counting drying time. The idea was taken from some modular terrain pieces that Yeti's Yell posted about on the terrain building portion of the PPforums.