September paint log

Painting for this month was slow. This is due to spending a bit more time out of the house at weekends, (things like having to shop for new computer parts, actually celebrating my birthday and seeing family). But I did manage to finish up a fair amount of minis.

My quest to try and paint all of my Menoth before the end of of October will now undoubtedly fail. There are two one day events coming up that will take up a bit of time. The first is a WarmaHordes tier list only day coming up in the first weekend.. Everyone will choose two casters/warlocks and both lists have to be Tier two and above. As a result, I have hastily changed my painting priorities and brought out some of my Skorne minis. The Void Spirits, Feralgeist and Cyclopses will enable me to have a fully painted Mordikaar Tier 4 list. I now want to paint a Catapult, Flayer Cannon and Tyrant Vorkesh (the last two I've just gotten from bought) in readiness for Saturday. There is no painting restriction on this event, but recently I've made it a point to play with a fully painted force these days. The second one dayer I will be using my Gators, all of which are fully painted so I don’t have to rush anything.

Hopefully I can go back and paint up as much of my Menoth as I can before I take a break from all aspects of gaming in November.

So, here’s what I've finished and how they were at the beginning of the month, a grand total of 22 models finished:

Feralgeist, Void Spirit unassembled à finished and based

Cyclops Shaman, Reclaimer assembled bare metal à finished and based

Agonizer, Reclaimer, 2 x Void Spirits, Zealots (max) undercoated àfinished and based

Basilisk Krea, 2 x Cyclops Savage, Mordikaar nearly finished à finished and based

Selected totals for start and end of the month:

BEFORE:

	Total	Painted	%	To go
Menoth	186	140	75.26882	46
Minions	57	40	70.17544	17
Skorne	92	58	63.04348	34
Total	522	332	63.60513	190

AFTER

	Total	Painted	%	To go
Menoth	186	152	81.72043	34
Minions	57	41	71.92982	16
Skorne	95	67	70.52632	28
Total	525	354	67.42857	171

Priority for October, as mentioned above, is finishing Tyrant Vorkesh and my artillery pieces. After that I will try and forge ahead with my Menoth. I also bought myself a Sagorat heavy infantry to add to my Space monkey force, so that will be sneaking itself onto my paint table.

The madness in planning.

I’ve mostly been a game by game guy. But, as a previous post last (Post Slow Grow plans) month and what I’m going to write here will suggest, it looks like that I’m starting to think about the future a lot more. However, I find that bad (in this context, bad usually has something to do with going over my monthly minis budget) things have a better chance of happening when I think. As in the above mentioned post, I said that the plan was to take Skorne to tournaments in the summer and then go back to the Protectorate, with a smattering of Infinity and Malifaux along the way. The plan is under threat of becoming undone because I was hit by the idea of taking PoM instead of Skorne to this year’s tourneys. The reason I originally wanted to take Skorne was that they are not far away from being a completely painted army. Nearly two thirds are painted and based while out of the rest pretty much most of them just require finishing touches and basing. But if I took PoM, I could use these tourneys as an incentive to paint this force as it has long been overdue.

In other news, my eyes are beginning to wander again. Going into the Slow Grow, I was toying with the idea of starting a Coven army. I still might at some point, but not yet. At least I hope not yet. It is taking every ounce off my will to try and put this out of my mind. I can tell you that I am succeeding at the moment because I have found something else to obsess over. However, a new faction is not something I need at the moment or at any point in the near to medium future. What I do need is the tabletop gaming equivalent of a cold shower. I have more than enough factions to get my head around. Warcasters and Warlocks I have yet to buy in order to command my forces, units and beasts and jacks to further bolster my lines, and of course, those models that I already exist in my collections that have not quite seen the light of day yet. But other factions/models (especially my new obsession) just look like too much fun to use.

Post Slow Grow plans

While we are at the halfway stage of our league with two rounds and a one-day tourney to go, I am already thinking about what’s going to happen afterwards. After the tourney there will be a few months until The UK Masters and the European Team Championships. I plan to take the Mordikaar army I used at the end of 2011 to these tourneys. I would also take the time to see if I can get a handle on either Hexeris. My Skorne would not take much effort to be completely ready for play as most of what I would intend to use is fully painted.

But lately I have been looking back at my Menoth collection as a result of Bloody Barnabas and Maelok’s feats being quite similar to a couple of Menoth feats. I had fun taking a pKreoss all exemplar force to the Darksphere event back in November. It turned out that I wasn’t as rusty with my first ever caster as I first thought I would be as I broke ‘The Streak’ and could have helped myself to another win on scenario (and maybe out-attritioned a heavy Khador army in the last game). I know the last half of the previous sentence suggests that I’m dreaming, but looking back through the pics I took (and that day’s second opponent acknowledging that I would have won if he had been less brave) I think that a move back to Menoth might not be a bad thing. So with Barny’s feat mirroring pKreoss and Calaban using tricks from eSevvy, I see that Maelok’s feat pretty much mirrors the Testament’s. Now ToM is a caster I do not have in my collection. I have used the Prime version of Silent Bob quite a bit and he definitely features in my fave 5 (which can change from day to day). However, I have been reading up on ToM recently and am seriously using this guy to make my return to the church. His short range soul collecting ability is not what I’m used to with Mordikaar and Hollow, but not allowing the enemy to do the same makes up for that. I love Revive which is something I have with Mordi and Maelok when I choose to use him. But with his low Focus stat, I’ll be looking to take the Avatar of Menoth (generates own Focus) and the new Sanctifier (collects souls) when it’s available, both jacks are fairly self-sufficient. Then I’ll see how many Zealots I can fit in; I currently have two max units and the Bearer with an eye on a third unit.

Alternatively, I can pay a bit more attention to my Retribution (have a bit more practise with Ossyan) as I’m just not feeling my Troll (sorry Grissel) force at the moment. Or just go mad and begin those Witch Coven or Gorten lists I’ve had my eye on. Thankfully my feelings for the latter two (armies I have yet to start anyway) have lessened recently now that I’ve got a bit more (6% or so) patience with a paintbrush. Wanting to finish painting up lists or even whole armies in my collection will hopefully curb my spending over the coming months (yeah right, I want those Venator Slingers, It’s about time I bought Molik, I’ll say yes to another unit of Errants, etc).

Of course, this is all to do with PP games. What about finally messing around with my ever-growing Outcasts crew? OR my Combined Army and Yu Jing forces?

We’ll see how it goes. I’ll never be good at proper planning, will I?

Minion paint progress

The clubs Slow Grow league has been a very useful aid to painting my Minions force. Pretty much all of it has been painted already for the previous rounds. So far, over the last month and a bit, I have completed:
Bloody Barnabas
Calaban the Grave Walker
Blackhide Wrastler
Ironback Spitter
Bull Snapper
Gatorman Posse (max) x 2
Farrow Bone Grinders (max) (not in pic)
Croak Hunter
Feralgeist
Wrongeye and Snapjaw

Still on my to do list:

Maelok the Dreadbound
Starting a second Croak Hunter
Putting the finishing touches to my Bog Trogs (max)
Finishing off a Bone Swarm

There are other Minion bits and pieces that I’d like to work on afterwards:

Totem Hunter
Thrullg
Victor Pendrake
Alten Ashley
Ordering the missing arm for my second Bull Snapper.
Starting on my second Ironback Spitter (although this really is not priority, at all)
Swamp Gobbers
Brun Cragback and Lug

My friend, the one who got me into miniatures in the first place, is currently painting up my second Blackhide Wrastler for me. He is a good painter and I’m hoping to keep his interest up by letting him throw some paint on things like Brun and Lug and or the Totem Hunter. I might maybe give him license to do my Yu Jing force if he has any patience for it. I don’t think that he’ll start throwing dice around and pick up wargaming, but it would be nice to see him producing some good minis (he entered his Eldar Avatar for Golden Demon 96).
Once I have finished off my minions (or at least when the Slow Grow League has finished) I’ll move back to painting the rest of my Skorne (63.73% done) in readiness for the Masters (if I can snap up a ticket) and ETC. And after that I may make an effort to make my Menoth army look presentable (11.56% done).

A touch of freshening up.

During the last week at the club, I took the time to watch one game of Malifaux and one game of Infinity being played out. I have been meaning to get into these games for quite a while (I bought my Combined Army starter for Infinity more than a year and a half ago), but just never had the inclination to do so. So I have dug out my Malifaux and Infinity models and will now definitely get to using them.


Please note that this has nothing to do with a 20 game losing streak for Hordes/Warmachine (maybe only slightly, VERY slightly).I have been playing the game week in week out for a long time, ever since I gave up 40k and would just like to mix it up a bit. Other players do it, so why can’t I. Anyway, it would be good to get to know the other club members who don’t play PP games.

First off, (hopefully) next Tuesday I’ll be exercising my Viktoria crew. This crew consists of the boxset (both Viktorias, Johan Taelor and Bishop) plus Hamelin (not the Master version). At the same time I did purchase the Somer Teeth Jones box, Leveticus and the Desolation Engine. I glued these all together on Sunday and will hope to splash a bit of paint on them this week so they at least look a bit presentable. It was refreshing to see a game that doesn’t need annoying dice.
Once that’s done, I’ll begin work on my Combined Army starter and other bits so that I can get a game in the following Tuesday. Maybe some time after this I'll get to work on my Yu Jing starter. I really liked the way actions met counter-actions.

I think I will be looking to spend a bit of time with each game over the next few months, but Hordes/Warmachine will still be my primary choice (I haven’t spent all that effort painting most of my Skorne army for nothing).

Xerxis vs Thyra 06 Sep

How did it go last night? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s been a while since I’ve played Nat (the Iron Cross one day event the club held). Back then, I had forgotten much of my Menoth knowledge which meant that a lot of elves died that day. Last night I was pretty certain that I could handle what Nat put on the table, the only unknowns being Thyra (who looks like she has a very decent set of spells) and Nicia (a Daughter with Reach?). I think that the new Menoth bits from Wrath might just tempt me back before the year is out. A couple of the jacks look totally sweet. I’ll have to get myself a copy and have a read.

So, Nat fielded:

Thyra, Flame of Sorrow

* Templar

* Vanquisher

* Hierophant

Daughters of the Flame

Daughters of the Flame – this unit was proxyed by Choir models.

Exemplar Errants (max)

* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer

Knights Exemplar

Exemplar Errant Seneschal

Knight Exemplar Seneschal

Nicia, Tear of Vengeance – This model was proxyed by pFeora

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

Vassal Mechanik

Vassal of Menoth

Against:

Tyrant Xerxis

* Bronzeback Titan

* Titan Gladiator

* Aptimus Marketh

Cataphract Arcuarii (max)

Cataphract Cetrati (max)

Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)

Praetorian Swordsmen (max)

* Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard

Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew – this unit was proxyed by Malifaux Gremlins.

Tyrant Commander & Standard Bearer – this unit was proxyed by Wrongeye and Alten Ashley.

I won the roll off and let Nat go first. Nat set up quite wide with Daughters on both flanks and the Errant, Knights, jacks and others in the middle. I didn’t quite brick up but I did keep my swordsmen at the back of my line.

Turn 1 - I’ll start off by saying that Daughters running in the first turn damages any hope anyone may have. I also forgot they can move so quickly. It was safe to say that these ladies were going to outflank. The rest of Nat’s force advanced slowly with the Vanquisher cracking off a shot hoping for some good deviation. I put both Battle Plans available to me to good use to get my heavy troops to get further up the field ahead of my Swordsmen and beasts.

Turn 2 - This turn saw the Daughters slow down a bit keeping me on my toes. The rest of the Menites saw no hurry in getting to my lines with the Errants getting some crossbow action (which failed) and the Vanquisher getting his lucky deviation this turn (there was no damage, but five of my Cetratii were set on fire). This fire claimed first blood in my maintenance phase as it just wouldn’t go out. The Cetratii got in a charge on the Errants and dispatched a few. The Arcuarii turned their attention to the Knights and Knights Senny in front of them. Three of the Knights fell but the Senny was made of sterner stuff and stayed behind his wall. I thought it would be a good idea for the Tyrant Commander to charge Nicia with his high MAT, but sadly he must have fumbled at the last second.

Turn 3 - The remaining Errants piled in and added minimal damage to Cetratii while the Templar finished half of the same unit. The Knights looked for revenge and claimed a couple of Skorne lives with their buffed P+S. The Daughters on both sides came a little closer. The TyCo and his Standard were bought down by the Daughters that surrounded them. The Vanquisher launched another shot this time into the remaining Arcuarii and set them both on fire. My Cetratii suffered as a result of the fire still burning them with a few points here and there. The Bronzeback charged the Knights and was more that a match for their buffed armour taking out three. A few more Errants died in the existing combat with my Cetratii. The Swordsmen (with Fury on them) decided it was action time. One of the charged the Daughters (one can only hope of hitting them) a couple got a charge on some errant Errants (hehe) and the Knight Seneschal. Failed to hit the Daughter, killed the Senny and then an Errant. This was all well and good going around and killing stuff, but I forgot that the Senny has a handy ability called Restoration. He jumps back up with one point if you kill any Menites in his command area, which is what I did with the Errant. I should have remembered this and did it the other way around. No doubt this would bite me on the bum next turn. Meanwhile my Gladiator charged the Daughters that had now made their way behind my line but only had the reach to kill one.

Turn 4 – A suitably beefed up Knight (now P+S 16!) put 11 points of damage on the Bronzeback which was fair enough as he probably wasn’t going to live much longer. The Knight Senny proceeded to kill another Swordsman while his fellow Senny failed to even damage another. The Vanquisher took another shot which killed Marketh and set fire to a Swordsman this time. The Daughters and Nicia to my left sailed through the two Skorne in front of them while the Daughters to my right danced past the Gladiator. Thankfully Xerxis had cast Inhospitable Ground the previous turn, meaning they couldn’t reach my warlock. The Bronzeback took down the final Knight while the Cetratii finished off the Errants while putting some damage on the Templar. The Swordsmen had a mixed turn with one failing to hit the Errant Senny and another putting a whopping TWO points of damage on the Vanquisher. The imminent threat of the Daughters behind my line took the attention of the Beast handlers (who had no chance of hitting anyway), the Gladiator (who was out of Xerxis’ control at the beginning of the turn so couldn’t be forced) and Xerxis himself who clubbed two of them to death.

Turn 5 – The Templar hit back and killed a Cetratii and the Vanquisher killed his attacker. The Errant Senny also killed his opponent. The left-most unit of Daughters decided to put the beat down on the Swamp Gobbers but failed to kill them both. The other unit of Daughters ganged up on Xerxis and took nearly half of his health. My turn was already looking desperate so the Beast handlers enraged both beasts who killed three Daughters and the Vanquisher between them. The Cetratii finished off the Errant Senny and put a few scratches on the Templar. Lastly Xerxis clubbed a couple more Daughters to death.

Turn 6 – With nothing else to do really except conclude the game, Nat ran everything he could at Xerxis (which was the remaining Daughters, Nicia and Thyra herself) and won the game.

Well that was fun. The streak goes on, 17 loses on the bounce.

What did I learn though? My current force has trouble with high DEF units/solo/casters. Even with about nearly half of the army with MAT 7 and above, taking on 12 Daughters, Nicia and Thyra with DEF 15+ is a very tricky prospect. Add the fact that I had no way to buff anything thing apart from Fury (which wouldn’t have mattered against the Menoth ladies).

What did I already know? I should have seen the fact that I would have forgotten something simple like the Knight Senny having Restoration. I didn’t use my beast effectively again.

Any saving graces? Inhospitable Ground and Nat forgetting that Daughters with Nicia have Vengeance. Without either/both of these the Daughters would have been on me far, far quicker. If we played to a time limit, I think I may have done enough to earn a draw. There was an almost equal amount of loses on each side. But as no-one was kicking us off the table we played until the end.

I don’t need to say it but this was another great and exciting game.

WIP - Praetorian Swordsmen

Another painting post?


Well, I’ve finished my Cetrati by pinning their weapon hands to their bodies (at least I hope I did – we will know when I pull them out of the case and throw them onto the tabletop tonight). I also pinned Xerxis various appendages while I was at it (again we’ll know if I got it right tonight). Next on the agenda – a maximum unit of Praetorian Swordsmen with UA. I’ve already seen from forums and other blogs that these guys have quite a bit of detail on them. They weren’t wrong.

 

These guys are testing my patience. When I started this unit, I had quite a bit of impetus after finishing Xerxis and 12 heavy troops. As I always say, I have very little patience for painting but I ploughed ahead as I set myself an extremely unrealistic goal of finishing them by the time I play my next game (I started at some point on Sunday afternoon and have a game against Nat and his Menoth tonight). All the same, I’m somewhat happy with the progress I’m making and will hope to have them tabletop ready by next Tuesday.

I will be keeping with the theme of green and gold with some red bits here and there (not red, gold and gree-ee-een), and dark blue/purple skin.

This is a scheme that I want to carry over to the next unit (maximum Immortals and Ancestral Guardian) but am not quite sure how to do so yet. I have base coated an Immortal (sorry, I forgot to take a pic) in Astronomican Grey. I am quite taken by this and prefer it to the PP studio’s black scheme. I had this colour in mind for a while and only confirmed my choice after searching the web for alternate schemes. I saw Immortals in jade, terracotta and a kind of sandstone which all looked really great. The big choice for me is whether I add green armour plates and gold trimming to these models. But that should really be a decision for when I finish my pesky Swordsmen.

.. and we're back.

So after a long and eventful while, I am back to post again. I think it would be too much work now for me to post up various battle reports, despite keeping a photographic trail of my gaming misery. I may post a selection of pics of certain points in games where things actually went my way. I might actually make a new post titled ‘How to have a caster/lock killed’.

Today’s post, however, will about me and my least favourite aspect of the hobby: painting. I have recently caught the painting bug and have put my head down and got on with it. I think it’s to with buying a new paintbrush. There has been a bit of discussion about various brushes on the Cross Gaming Club forums and I thought I would investigate. As soon as I started to use my new Windsor and Newton Series 7, I found out that I’m just as bad as ever. This is not to say that the new brush doesn’t work in my hand, no sir. What I’m experiencing might be the painting equivalent of the placebo effect. I have now tricked my brain into thinking I’m either slightly better or slightly more patience (I’m leaning towards the latter).

So, what have I done? This:

I have finished up a unit of Cataphract Arcuarii for my Skorne force. They took up a fair amount of time (which has been made even longer due to doing a lot of proof reading for an article my wife is writing. But I’m happy they are done. I had actually started off with Lord Tyrant Xerxis, the head of my army (and number one bad man).

I have followed this scheme with my Cetrati

You can see that there will be a lot of Dark Angel Green at the centre of my army. This is because a) for PP games I don’t like sticking with the studio colour schemes and more importantly b) I have no more Dark Angels to paint. Because I have become disillusioned with the direction GW appear to be going, I have sold pretty much all of my 40k and fantasy minis. I have the last of my minis on sale now on eBay and hope to be shot of them next week. It hasn’t been easy getting to grips with the idea of selling over 13,000 of Dark Angels, nearly 7000 points of Necrons about (I never got around to actually adding it up after the new book release) 4000 points of Dwarfs and quite a lot of Daemons and Warriors of Chaos. No, it’s been heart-wrenching at times. I have kept a few minis that I really like (both C’tan gods, a Terminator Chaplain for examples). But I can tell you that I have a lot more space now, which the wife appreciates.

Fancy a double?

After the success of CGC’s Iron Cross mini tourney, it was decided to carry on the fun with a doubles league. So six teams were assembled with a nice spread of factions (meaning less Khador for this event). We will be playing each other team twice (home and away) using the Kill Box scenario, and each player bring 25 points to the table.

I didn’t want to use Menoth as, as I have said before, they are on indefinite leave. Also no-one else uses Retribution at the moment and my Trollblood force is not big enough yet. So that left Skorne. While I don’t have a varied and flexible force yet, I can still field different looking forces. Having said that, I did go and buy Xerxis purposefully for this league. He just looks mean and plays mean too!
So I teamed with Oli, our resident Press Ganger to bring ultimate subjugation to our enemies. First off, we came up against the combo of Vish (Cryx) and Nick (Four Star Syndicate). We set up like thus:

Then we begun the mentalness. Vish pulled off some crazy manoeuvres while Nick steadily pushed forward with his shooty jacks. This was something Oli and I mirrored with Oli speeding his force forward and me moving my Xerxis brick slowly and surely. Once Nick had me in his sights, he took a shot at Xerxis and promptly knocked him out of the Kill Box scoring a point for Team S.P.E.C.T.R.E.. Some more mentalness…

happened and eMorghoul press forward and killed some stuff but not his intended target. Unfortunately, he would die soon after despite a ridiculously high Def. Xerxis took some more punishment, but laughed at everyone as he survived with a single point of damage. Vish’s caster decided to hide and Nick’s Magnus remained behind his lines making it a difficult task for Oli and I to take either of them. The Skorne were staring at the prospect of losing. The final turn proved to be quite tricky and demanded everything to go as planned (the planning took some time as well). This involved a Titan Gladiator picking up Nick’s Nomad (I think it was a nomad) and throwing it at Magnus and hopefully pushing the Merc caster out of the Kill Box and earning a draw. The was executed, but the flying jack deviated away from Magnus.

C’est la Vie! This was a great game and I cannot wait for the return leg for which we’ll be ready. You’ll probably have noticed a lack of quality (and diminished amount) of pics in this batrep. That’s because so much happened in the game that I wasn’t prepared for. It’s also the reason for highlights as opposed to a lengthy report. But I promise something a little better for next week against the Trolls. Just to make up for it, here’s a pic of the totally awesome cake celebrating four years of Cross Gaming Club. Happy Birthday!!!

At last...!

I have been incredibly lazy and neglected this blog. Time to give some news, so here goes:


• I played my first few games of Hordes this year starting with a couple of demo games using my Trolls against Bill (with the Great Oli overseeing the whole thing) and a cracking game with my Skorne against Jaden and his Legion. These game were a lot of fun (which game isn’t?), especially getting used to Fury rather than Focus. The game against Jaden taught me a bit more about my Trolls than my Trolls did. For this I took maximum units of Cetrati and Arcuraii which was a lot of medium bases tripping over each other. I saw the kind of headache that I could experience with fielding a similar or larger number of medium based Trolls.
• I bought my ticket for the European Team Championships at Maelstrom Games in early July. I am so excited about this event. Hearing about last years tourney made sure that I bought my ticket very early. My team mates have appointed me as team captain of CGC’s second team. Now with my win ratio, I can’t promise that I’ll lead from the front or even inspire, but I hope that we can all go up to Mansfield and have a great weekend.
• For the first time ever, I bought a mini (two actually) because my wife liked the look of them. Some wives turn their noses up at tabletop gaming and just ignore it. But after giving her a demo game (which incidentally took a long, long time – she should stick to art history), she started to look at the type of minis I have from various factions. Nothing really appealed to her so I showed her some Maelstroms’ website and let her browse. While I was doing to washing up I hear a squeal of delight. “Oh look! A polar bear! I want it!” (this is true word for word). Of course the bear in question is Lug and his friend, the Lesser Warlock Brun Cragback. After looking at Battle College, I thought that this would be a nice addition to my Troll force as they could do with a heavy beast (I could have done with an Earthborn or a Blitzer personally). Brun is a mean little bugger and his bear is pretty good himself.
• CGC had a little one mini tourney – Iron Cross. 12 players, 4 games, 9 minute turns but only 1 wooden spoon (erm…). This was an immensely fun day and hope to take part in something similar later in the year.
• I took some advice concerning dice.

There was some news highlights which will hopefully see me kicking my own arse and putting up some more entries. The next (while it’s still fresh in my mind) is me vs Lewis from 22/03/11.

New directions

I am completely silly, as I have started thinking about a couple of distractions in my exploration through the entire Menoth army and their Tier lists. I have the beginnings of a Retribution force and a Skorne force. I definitely wanted to start the Skorne force as I wanted a Hordes army. But the Retribution force should have been a pipe dream. But it isn’t.


So now I have:
Army: New Direction!
Type: Skirmish (1 caster, 35pts)
Points: 15
Master Tormentor Morghoul (*7pts)
* Cyclopse Savage (5pts)
* Cyclopse Savage (5pts)
* Razorworm (4pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)

Army: Other Direction!
Type: Skirmish (1 caster, 35pts)
Points: 21
Adeptis Rahn Shyeel (*6pts)
* Hydra (9pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
Stormfall Archers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (5pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Ghost Sniper (2pts)

I know what I want to add to the Retribution (well, what is the most common sense for the ‘caster) to make a 35 point list, but I’m not completely sure about the same for Skorne. I really like the look and sound of Immortals, but the unit I really want is a unit of Ferox. I played against them last November at Tanelorn and was just amazed that they were so nifty. I was left chasing shadows all game. My Errants looked so foolish and there wasn’t much they could do about it. But I should probably play it safe and get some Praetorian Swordsmen and some Paingivers for the ‘beasts. And see where I go from there.

As for the Retribution, I know what I want to add. I want to add a unit of Mage Hunters accompanied by Magister to benefit from Rahn’s feat. To help with survivability, I think I should add a unit of Halberdiers and UA. I would drop the Ghost Hunter at this stage to make room for the UA. I think from what I’ve checked on various forums that this would be a decent 35 point list.

This may take some time to do as I promised the wife I’ll be a LOT more sensible when it comes to buying minis. But this is quite ok as it will give me more time to fully explore my Menoth future.

Stupid compulsive tendencies!

I have done something a bit wrong. It’s going to hurt me very a lot. As I was purchasing some Flameguard Cleansers, a Reclaimer, an Allegiant and a couple of Redeemers (for the small campaign that's just starting at the club), I had a quick peek to see if the Skorne book was out yet. It wasn’t ( I looked on the 10th but the book was due for release on the 11th) and I had a quick look over at the Retribution stuff. I’ve been intrigued since they first came into the Warmachine world. Maelstrom Games only had the hard back book, and as I’m not a fan of hard backs I looked away. It wasn’t until I realised that I keep meaning to get some templates when I buy things, that I went back to Maelstrom and looked. They were out of stock, so I looked at Wayland Games, who did have some. As I placed my order, but before I paid, I had a look at the Retribution stuff. And they had copies of the soft back version. So I ordered one. I said I wasn’t going to start my second force until the Skorne book was released as I wanted a Hordes army. I’m still going to get a Skorne force (Mildred the Razorworm will need some company at some point), but that plan has been pushed back a little as I’m really discovering all that the Tiered Menoth lists have to offer. Then maybe after I was happy with my Skorne force I would go back to Warmachine for a third army, which in all likelihood would have been Retribution. But now I’ve shaken my own plans. I don’t know what I’m doing now. I should probably shake some sense into myself and simply just read the book when it arrives and stick to the original plan.

Yet another slippery slope.

Thanks to Grand Master Vish (and the Fury-ous Five?!? (sorry about that)), I am now going to start a Skorne force for Hordes. I have said in previous posts that I was probably going to do this towards the end of the year as the Forces of Hordes: Skorne will be available. I was going to divert my Menoth's Might budget that month and get the battle box and begin from there. But due to special circumstances, Vish left to go up north and got everyone a little surprise, my plans have been accelerated. Vish kindly left me a Razorworm to kick things off. I do love the look and the idea of her (I’ve decided she’s going to be called Mildred), but I’m just afraid that my paint job will ruin her somehow. One of the reasons I was a bit afraid of starting a Hordes force with loads of beasts was that my lack of patience in the painting department. No patience leads to rushed job. Rushed job leads to thick paint. Thick paint leads to crap looking models. I have never been able to blend colours or highlight properly, and I’m probably not going to start anytime soon. The only time where I have spent hours on one model was The Deceiver and that was with only two colours. I started him of with Red Gore and slowly added more and more Burnished Gold with each layer. I think he looks alright and fairly god-like.


But still, I’ll sit down tonight (as long as the wife hasn’t planned anything) and look through the play test rules for Skorne and see how it goes from there.



Thanks again Vish.

My Menoth future

I am quite happy with my Menoth force currently and I have a fairly solid plan of what I wish to add in the future. At least I did until the forces of Menoth book came out. I’ve looked at it, especially the tiered lists for each warcaster, and found myself changing my mind.
I think I will continue with next months plan and get both the Temple Flameguard and new Exemplar Errant unit attachments along with a Castigator. But after that, I was looking at either getting the Exemplar Bastions or Cinerators. Instead, I might get another unit of Zealots due to my purchase of Vindictus and the High Reclaimer this month. They both seem to work best with plenty of infantry (Vindictus especially because of his feat).
I may also look to get another unit of Exemplar Errants. I have found them to be quite useful and will look to be even more useful with their new unit attachment and Seneschal. I do like the idea of an all Exemplar force led by Kreoss.
Before MKII, I was thinking about pairing a Castigator with a unit of Flameguard Cleansers as they could be used as ‘holy hand grenades’ which is seemed just as much fun as Zealots’ grenades all deviating wildly (I do find it fun in a way that is full of character).
I also wanted to get a few Mercenary solos, which I have done by ‘hiring’ Gorman di Wulfe, Doc Killingsworth, Rhupert Carvolo and (when he arrives) Orin Midwinter. I would love to hide Gorman amongst the Zealots. In my last game, I got the Zealots to charge a heavy warjack, and they actually gave it quite a bit of pain. With Gorman in tow, they can take advantage of his Black Oil grenade and let fly with plenty of firebomb goodness. I haven’t had the chance to use Rhupert yet, but I am aware of what he can do. But I am now a little disappointed with Killingsworth under MKII. Under MKI, he would have been a great solo to follow my warcaster around and grant Tough and have the opportunity to heal d6 points of damage. Now it seems that he can only provide these services to Faction models. So he may have to wait until I get the urge to start a Mercenary force or I might just sell him on.
In the far future (or at least before the end of the year), I would really like to start a Skorne force for Hordes. I want something that would be a complete contrast from Menoth, and maybe Skorne will fit in with that. I do like the big Titan warbeasts. Also, they are red and gold which are the same colour as my Menoth (I don't like the idea of Menoth White which is in all the fluff). Additionally, red and gold(en yellow) is the colour of my Praetorian Imperial guard. Maybe I can do my Dwarf throng in red and gold. Why don't I repaint my Necrons red and... no! Forget it! They were hard enough to paint as it was hard enough - one sprayed coat of Boltgun Metal, one cup of tea, one sprayed coat of Devlan Mud wash, another cup of tea, and then find something else to do until I can be bothered to do the details.
Distractions aside, I’ve come up against Hordes armies a few times before and enjoyed the look of them. I remember playing a game against Skorne last year and just almost soiled myself when I saw what I was up against. But I really should put this plan to the back of my mind. As I have several other gaming interests all on the go.

London Riots

Sunday, November 1st - Tanelorn Wargames Club, Wanstead.

Woke up bright and early for my first Warmachine/Hordes tourney (not counting Charing Cross Crush which was squeezed into half an evening). Living some way aways from Wanstead, I had plenty of time during the bus/DLR/Tube ride to psych myself up for my first win. I stepped out at Wanstead Tube a little early so I decided to walk to the venue. After what seemed like a minute, a very light shower turned into a heavy shower. All my good thoughts went down the drain at that point, not a good sign. I arrived at the venue very much soaked. Everything I wore was totally drenched. Thankfully my t-shirt was only about 20 percent wet. And this was only 0940 in the morning. I had to spend the rest of the day playing with wet feet. With all the greeting and rules laid out by Tanelorn's John Snape, we got down to the gaming.

The day was pretty hectic and I didn't take any notes (also have a shit memory) so there won't be much detail.

The rules stated that we had to pick a 450 point list without a Warcaster/Warlock. Instead, we had to take three warcasters/warlocks and rolled ramdomly for each game.
My list consisted of:
Feora, Kreoss and Severius
Crusader, Devout and Revenger
Exemplar Seneschal
Zealots (full strength plus Monolith Bearer) and Exemplars Errant (x7).

My tactics throughout the day was for the Errants to try and outflank whenever possible, while the warjacks, caster and Seneschal would advance behind the Zealots. I stuck to this plan pretty rigidly for most of the day, which was good as it meant that I didn't listen to the voice that wanted to live dangerously.

My first game was against a guy called Jay and his Skorne.
This was a pretty frustrating game as Jay for the most part used a spell (I forget what it was called) on his troops which meant that when if my attacks against them missed, they could move for free without backstrike. I could hardly scratch anything. Jay bided his time and certainly made his move on Feora. Loss!

Next up was against a guy called Jon and his Asphixious-led Cryx.
This was bad. No good memories from this game at all. All my 'jacks were taken out by two units of Drudgers (?) with the scary ability Headbutt. This left Severius particularly vulnerable when surrouned by these aforementioned units. Loss!

Following this, was a game against Richard and his Legion.
This was a fun game against a fun player. My Revenger got chewed apart my two Shredders in an extremely slow manner and didn't really hit back hard enough. Seneschal took a Hydra down to a single point only to be smooshed by the said beast when it was fully healed. Feora went in to show how it was really done but was then let down by her troops when they couldn't stop her from dying. Loss!

Last game of the day was against another Jon (who beat me in three turns the week before last) and another Asphixious-led Cryx force.
Jon's Zombie pirates threw me off-guard. My Zealots were pretty much taken apart. Seneschal made good progress on a Leviathan leaving it only able to attack with it's tusks. Time was called before Asphixious could take advantage of his good position and kill Feora. Draw!

Still no win! I had a lot of fun but still no win. Overall, I wasn't generally happy with my gameplay. My Zealots proved why you shouldn't leave home without them. At times they caused quite a bit of damage to the enemy, and thankfully not much to themselves this time. I don't think I used my Errants as best I could. They were victims of hit and run attacks by Richard's Legion, torn apart by Jon's (last game) Cryx and left dumbfounded by Jay's Skorne. Special mention goes to the Seneschal. He had Feora's Ignite on him for three of the games and was pretty dangerous. Causing 4d6+13 damage on his first hit, 3d6+13 on his second and then 2d6+13 on his chain attack, he dealt a fair bit of death. Feora also proved to be a combat machine with Engine of Destruction. I didn't utilise my 'jacks much all day, I was pretty conservative with them. But the worst performer out of the lot was Kreoss! He never deigned to show his face even once.

This day left me pretty much exhausted. This seemed to be a fairly laid back tourney, so I would have to pull myself together if I want to attend something a bit bigger. But thats something to think about in 2010 as I'm going to go back to 40k and play with my equally unlucky Necrons.