Green Again

So after not playing for so long, I had my ass handed to me Wednesday. Actually, we called it a draw after playing for way too long, but It was the other guy's second time playing ever so...yeah, I suck. First time against Cryx though. Re-learned some, and learned some new things though.

• Iron Flesh + Winterguard is every bit as good as you'd think it is.
• The Butcher isn't THAT fragile. Go kick some ass.
  
• Widowmakers are a very high priority target. Use that to my advantage.
  
• Mortar continues failing me. I'll give it a few more games.
• Don't blow all 3 rockets first chance something gets in range. Especially since they didn't hit anything anyway. Wait to spring that trap.
  

Basically if I hadn't played like an idiot, that game would have been a piece of cake. On the feat turn Goreshade got slammed with the Destroyer's gun, with 7 damage points remaining. My 4 man Winterguard CRA needed a 6 to hit, and I rolled a 5. Against Goreshade's armor of 17, it would have been 3d6-1 to damage, and >3d6-8 would win. Damn. Well, at least I'm back in it now.
~Max

Blogging: The Return

So, wow, I haven't posted in a long time. If I was better at time management maybe I could handle engineering courses, girlfriend, friends, family, video games, Warmachine, following European soccer, online forums, proper hygiene, and blog. But I don't, so I end up juggling those. Having said that, I am going to head to Oroboro for my first game in a good long while this Wednesday. It should be pretty amazing. Week after that I'll try my hardest to make it, but it could go either way. Next quarter I have no school on Thursday, which will be very convenient for my tabletop interests. :)

Some happenings I did not blog: I have expanded my force to 500 points. It now includes Widowmakers, 6 Winterguard, and a Winterguard Rocketeer. I have gotten to use them in one game now, and the Winterguard are really a great unit for my level of play. I've been told there's some new players at the LGS, so I'll e able to regain any lost tactics without getting wiped. I'll throw up a quick summary when I get home from that.

~Max

A Little Variety

So I went to check out my other LGS, Genesis Games and Gizmos, and was pleasantly surprised with people actually playing WM/Hordes there! I played a great 400 point game which enabled me to field all of my forces. I also decided to try something new and use the Butcher.

Faction: Khador
Army Points: 390/400

Butcher of Khardov
-Destroyer
-Juggernaut
Manhunter
Greylord Ternion
Winterguard Mortar Crew

Faction: Circle Orboros
Army Points: 389/400

Baldur the Stonecleaver
Pureblood Warpwolf
Woldwarden
Druids of Orboros

I ended up winning, but honestly, the game came down to dice rolls: my Circle opponent charged the Butcher with Baldur, and was 1 point short of killing him. The next turn, the Butcher easily did the job with 6 focus. The game was great fun, and a learning experience for both of us. Here's some highlights from the game:

• Circle can do a great job of shutting out my warjacks (neither got to field their melee weapons!) He put up some great defensive spells, and I was unable to charge, and definitely would have gotten a fierce counter-charge if I had tried.
  
• Scattering mortars aren't all that bad (3 druids in one shot, ouch).
• The Butcher's Howl can be useful, and his melee power is amazing (He did the 24+4d6 charge, wiping out the Woldwarden), but his support leaves something to be desired, and he is hard to hide.
  
• Be more aggressive with Greylords and Manhunter! I was a bit shy to commit either of these units into combat, but I charged the Butcher first chance I got. It worked (barely!), but it is definitely not the best way to go. Oh, and don't forget to cast Blizzard on friendlies all the time, but after their activation.
• When each side has 2 or more scattering, low RAT weapons, it gets to be a paint figuring it out :P

Anyways the game was great fun, and I'm glad I now have two LGS to play at, especially considering my university schedule will probably keep me from being a super regular player.

~Max

Let it Snow

Yes, it is too early for Christmas, but the title is in reference to me finally trying out using baking powder as snow for basing, and frost on the Ice Axe and Frostfang. It works out great - the granules are much smaller than real snow, so look suited for the miniatures. Obviously I'm not full on basing the models yet - the plan is rubble > static grass > snow. On casters, jacks and solos I'll probably throw in rock + flock moss in there as well.

Wednesday was a day that brought glorious victory to the Khadoran Empire! Philodox took pictures, so you'll probably find the complete battle report soon somewhere in the PA forums. The battle was a three way duel between the soulless Everblight fiends of the Far North, the brutal Menoth Protectorate, and the ever vigilant Khadoran Northern border patrol. Anyway, Sorscha performed miraculously. Kreoss was wounded by a well placed Bombard, and then executed promptly with a Handcannon shot from the Kommander herself. Afterwards, as things began to look grim with the Juggernaut out of commission, Sorscha zoomed across the board, froze, and subsequently destroyed the unfortunately separated Lylyth.

Impressed with her performance I went ahead and picked up the Butcher. Honestly it was between that and a Circle Warpack, but I have too many unpainted models, and not enough money and time. I will wait for a better opportunity when I have more free time, probably next summer.

As for the Butcher I decided to try out priming him white, and I'm a little undecided on the result. First of all, the model seemed to prime much better than with black, and lighter colors become so much easier. Second, I was hoping to get a brighter Blood Red armor with the white undercoat, but the resulting red turned out WAY too bright, at least the way it looks now. I want him to stand out but not too much, so I'll keep plugging away and see what comes out.

Some other new stuff, I finished one Greylord Ternion and now I will paint the rest at the same time as I have figured out the scheme. I think it's pretty effective and I'll post photos when the entire squad is complete. As for the Butcher I will probably make slow and careful progress on him as I'm working on the rest of the stuff, as I want to field a fully painted army as soon as I can.

Finally I have begun coloring the front arc of the model bases Red Gore, as it looks pretty neat and gives the army a little sense of unity. I can always repaint it black if it doesn't look good after basing.

~Max

Mortar Crewman

I sat down to figure out a color scheme for the basic Winterguard soldiers in my army and ended up starting and finishing the Mortar Crew Crewman in one sitting. Don't feel like taking and putting up pictures right now, but will when I have free time. Will have to work on a Greylord next. His shiny bits are a bit too...shiny, but I have a feeling the matte sealant will take care of then nicely.

~Max

Edit: Here we go.

First Wednesday Night

Went down to my FLGS tonight and had a wonderful time, battling Philodox from PA forums (thanks man!). I'll get the gist of the battle down, but we didn't really keep track of turns or anything.

Me: Khador
Kommander Sorscha
-Destroyer
-Juggernaut
Winterguard Mortar Crew
Manhunter
Total: 349 points

Him: Legion of Everblight
Lylyth
-Carnivean
-Seraph
-Shredder
-Shredder
-Shredder
-Shredder
Total: 358 points

We started off on a standard 4'x4' table, put down terrain, he won initiative and chose to go second. I put my 'jacks and Sorscha on my right, and Mortar and Manhunter on the left. He grouped his stuff mostly together in the center, with Seraph on my left.

First couple turns went by somewhat uneventfully, with my mortar and bombard scattering a lot, and hitting on Shredder for a few points. His Seraph took off to kill my Mortar, and his troops swung to my right, so the Manhunter carefully tried to cross the table diagonally. (At this point it should be noted that he forgot about his power to see through Stealth, and I did not know about it).

As my caster and jacks and his warlock and beasts closed, he used his Carnivean's breath to damage my Juggernaut, just barely reaching with the 8" spray template. This of course filled me with glee - I proceeded to cast Boundless charge on my Juggernaut, and give him the max amount of focus. When the dust settled after 3 or so attacks total, the Carnivean was destroyed (as well as frozen from a crit, for good measure).

About 7" away on the other side of a small rock formation, my Destroyer was facing 4 Shredders, one somewhat hurt. Figuring "Hey, I can take care of the little buggers" I stepped into melee. One round later, the Destroyer had lost movement and Bombard systems, and had only three (3!) boxes left undamaged (One hull, one cortex, one right arm). At this point Sorscha had to step in and freeze the little guys, but it was too late. I definitely learned to respect Shredders.

During all this the Seraph walked over to my Mortar crew, vaporized them, and returned to where the Shredders were, but it took him a long time, being outside Lylyth's control zone. By the time he got there the Shredders expired, thanks only to Sorscha's feat (Which ironically also stopped them from frenzying and killing each other.), and he easily finished off the Destroyer.

While Sorscha was busy exterminating Light Warbeasts, the Juggernaut and the Manhunter were chasing Lylyth away from the action. She fired her bow damaging the 'jack's tough defense, and was finally backed into a corner, facing a free strike from the Manhunter if she were to continue retreating. She dealt out quite a bit of damage in melee, actually disabling movement on the Juggernaut and filling in a lot of boxes, but at this point Sorscha had met up with the melee group, catching Lylyth from behind, and the combined force of the three models finally brought the Herald od Everblight to her knees. (It is also worth mentioning that Sorscha was sneaking up on Lylyth just as much as she was running away from the fast-approaching Seraph)

I really enjoyed the battle, and my opponent said he did as well, so we agreed on having another match soon. We both forgot a couple rules, but it was a learning experience, and I don’t think we missed anything game breaking.

We did a 3 player free-for-all after this game with another Khador player who wielded simply The Butcher, a Marauder, and a Behemoth (!), but unfortunately Philodox had to leave before the game was over. Before he actually reached me and the other Khador player (With the exception of a vicious Seraph spray that took down the better part of the Marauder) Sorscha had already been gutted by the Butcher, and my Juggernaut destroyed. I won’t really do a detailed report as all I did was advance my jacks and caster towards the other Khadoran, shoot a couple times, pop the feat and use tempest, and get my guys killed in melee. That Behemoth is crazy, in melee AND ranged!

Here's my overall experience with each of my units:

Sorscha was a lot of fun to play.

Wind Rush did wonders for her defense and helped her gain a significant edge in mobility, especially for its low cost.

Fog of War made little difference in the game against Legion, and helped a little against the Behemoth’s Bombards, but it was worth the 1 focus of upkeep, until I got into melee range.

I was very pleased with the effectiveness of Tempest, I just need to work on my timing with it.

Last but not least for the spells, boundless charge was a key part in the Juggernaut’s performance – that extra 2” goes a long way with Khadoran ‘jacks.

The impression I got with Sorscha herself was that she is a great caster, but should not be brought to bear as a direct weapon. Against Legion she danced on the outskirts of the battle, buffing and directing the ‘jacks, and that’s definitely where she appeared to be best. Not until the end did I risk charging her into combat, and I don’t think I would ever consider putting her 1 on 1 against another caster with no support.

The Juggernaut performed wonderfully, earning back its point cost and then some in the course of a single great round, and even though I got careless with him in the second game, he is definitely here to stay in my army list. Loading it with 3 focus and giving up spells is definitely a possibility I will have to consider often.

The Destroyer gets a lot of praise, but he felt a little bit middle of the road for me. With the low RAT I needed to get lucky on the scatters, even thought I boosted the attack roll almost every time. His melee skill is definitely strong, but was weak this game due to my poor choices, and my opponent’s excellent ones (See above: Shredders). I think I can get better at using this guy over a few more games.

The Manhunter turned out to be kind of a scarecrow this game. Not to say that he isn’t powerful in close combat, but his greatest asset was threatening the enemy with his skills rather than using them. I look forward to him taking a few more swings at stuff in future games – I was careful to avoid combat until he reached Lylyth, but next time I’ll take the chance to prey on something earlier.

The Mortar Team is sharing the MVP on my team with the Juggernaut. To be specific, I never actually directly hit anything with the mortar. Nor did I do more than a couple points of damage. But the fact is that a 25 point unit caused an 80 point warbeast to go hunt it down for at least 3 rounds is nothing to sneeze at. At 20” and 16 POW, that is a long range, intensely annoying nuisance to deal with. I expect that when facing units of warriors, the mortar will really shine.

Well, hope you’ve enjoyed the battle report and the unit by unit breakdown.

Next game I am looking forward to field a unit of Greylord Ternion in place of the Mortar and Manhunter to see how I feel about them. I was tempted to pick up the Butcher today for some Warcaster variety, but I still feel like I could learn more about Sorscha, and I have enough models to paint for now.

Oh, and right before my games, for the price of $4.84, I picked up a pack of 25 hard plastic card covers (With a red trim for Khador no less! My opponent got white for his Legion as well.) and a fine tipped dry-erase marker. Surprisingly this made my gaming experience a lot more enjoyable.

~Max

Manhunter

My first solo is done! Here's some pics of a fast and easy paint job I did on my Manhunter. I dedicated what I thought would be a reasonable amount of time and effort for the model.

Fixed the minor details on and sealed my Juggernaut, so I will be going to tomorrow's game night at Oroboro with half the models painted! I hope people will be willing to play 350, when I played my battlebox game it seemed like it was large enough already, haha.

~Max

Kommander Sorscha

Allright, well my Sorscha model is complete sans basing, and making the little front 180 markers neater. I'm debating whether to use matte varnish on the model, as I have no idea how it affect the color/gloss of the paint, and I want her armor to be red and shiny, not just red, heh.




















If you're wondering whether there's a system to the progress box on the right, yes, there is. Here's the breakdown:
5% - Model trimmed and assembled (may be not fully assembled if that's the preference for painting).
10% - Model undercoated.
50%~60% - Main colors on model completed. Minor shading and highlighting and no detail or error fixing done yet.
80%~89% - Minor touch ups remaining.
90% - Painting completed, basing remains.
If the model is a 100% complete there will be no percentage next to the name. I may do little head shots where Div currently resides of complete minis.


Comments on painting or this blog in general always appreciated!
~Max

PS: Sorry for the crappy layout, but the post creation utility is not very image friendly.

First Blood!

So yes, I played my first ever Warmachine game at PAX this weekend, and it was great. The depth and complexity of the gameplay were instantly seen upon actually playing and, most importantly, I think I had more fun in the battlebox game than any 1000 point 40k game I've played, but I digress.

My opponent had actually not brought his Menoth force to the con, but he said he'd been eyeing Trollbloods for a while, so bought em and we played as soon as the glue was dry (everyone else was playing league games, so, yeah.)

We followed setup rules, and I won the initiative roll, choosing to deploy and have my turn second, which didn't end up making much difference. Initially I wanted to keep some distance from him to utilize my Destroyer's Bombard, but then I got slammed by a couple of his spear crits, so that was definitely a bad decision.

My 'jacks shrugged off a lot of damage, and the worst of it was a disabled open fist on the (I'm the) Juggernaut (bitch!). His trolls took quite a beating from me, but were resilient as hell.

We traded some blows, I was a bit too forward with Sorscha which resulted in her getting some damage, while he kept Madrak towards the back. Finally, I popped her feat and got his warlock, one Impaler, and the Axer frozen! (Yup, I remembered the new LOS rule). I rushed in with the 'jacks and Sorcha, killed his Axer, and did an enormous amount of damage against his warlock, killing him.

We thought the game was over, but then he read the rule about skipping a damage source on Madrak, and after a failed last attack by Sorcha (Damn you regeneration!), he was still alive.

I thought next turn would be uneventful, as he only had one Impaler able to activate. The Impaler threw his spear at my Juggernaut, rolled a crit, slammed him on top of Sorcha and the other Impaler.

And so, Kommander Sorscha was crushed by 9 tons of iron.
The game was a back and forth, and definitely had an exciting climax, so thanks to my opponent, Piratey. Unfortunately I won't get to play him until next PAX, but then he'll have an expanded Trollbloods force, or his Menoth army, but similarly I will have a larger force and some experience, so the battle shall be epic. After this awesome gameplay experience I am definitely coming down when my LGS finishes moving so I can play more games.

~Max

362 Days!

And so, the great PAX '07 has come to an end. I won't be putting up any of my own pictures because I lost the damn camera. Go me.

I played an awesome Battlebox game against a brand new pack of Trollbloods, and lost, but it was glorious, especially for a first game. Battle report to follow!

~Max

38 Hours!

PAX is drawing ever closer and unfortunately due to busy real life stuff, neither Sorscha nor the Juggernaut is at 100%. I will have some time to paint tomorrow morning, after that it's Pre-PAX dinner, night of sleep, and PAX!!! Can you tell I'm a little excited?

Also, I visited my other local hobby store Orboro Games, and was greatly pleased - the guy there was very friendly and cool, played lots of WM/Hordes himself, and it seemed like they had the biggest WM/Hordes following than other stores. IE, last Call to Arms league had 20 players in total. Speaking of which I will not be participating in this season, but the next one, because I want practice in playing the game, I don't want to blow a lot of money on miniatures all at once, and I want to field a decently painted army to league games.

The only bad thing is they are closing down and relocating next week, but moving only about 10 minutes away, to a much better location, but I can put up with that. Gives me more time to paaaaint!

Another unfortunate thing is Khador seems to be the most popular faction in Western Washington. Now, with only four (five for Mercs?) factions this isn't too bad of a thing, but I do enjoy being different :P Well, I'll just accomplish that with my paint scheme, army lists, and maybe a Skorne army someday. But not for a loooong time.

~Max

Lady In Red

So I sat myself down and worked on Sorscha a lot more today, and oh boy, I need lots of practice with flesh and faces and eyes. It looked better before the really really good lens zoom (click them for better resolution)...

The Frostfang is off again, but it came off during painting, so I kept it off - I'll pin it eventually.
But anyway here's some pics of the other work in progress stuff, and pretty much what will be my 350 point force.


Planned forces after I'm done painting these:

Army: Khador 'Jack Heavy
Army Points: 500/500

Kommander Sorscha Kratikoff
-Kodiak
-Juggernaut
Man-o-War Kovnik
-Destroyer
Manhunter
Winterguard Mortar Crew

Since I have never actually played, (not until PAX anyway, whoohoo, so soon) my decisions are pretty much based off the following:
1. Aesthetics
2. High amount of warjacks
3. Reasonable leadership/support of said warjacks

Juggernaut is still under construction, but I'm trying to do several models at a time as it keeps me motivated and helps keep the army theme together. Speaking of which, Sorscha's scheme stands out from the 'jacks, but I can't decide if it's too much or not. I guess I'll find out when more are done!

~Max

Your Reinforcements Have Arrived!

So said the box from The WarStore that came today. And indeed, my Manhunter and Winter Guard Mortar Crew blisters are here!

I've got my hands full, with PAX only 5 days away. I won't be able to field a fully painted army at the standard I have set for myself, but I want to at least have a warjack and Sorcha completely done.

Speaking of, with some clever trimming and gluing I have reattached her Frostfang, and dare I say it looks better than ever before. I've started base coloring the model and working on the face, the latter of which is grueling. I haven't painted faces for two years, and I have NEVER painted them well, so it's proving to be a bit tough. Got some Red Ink to glaze her pretty Blood Red Armor, and will try to make a lot of progress on her tomorrow.

I promise pictures in the future will be better, as I finally got a hold of a DSLR. Of course a paint quality increase is not guaranteed :P

~Max

Juggernaut - WIP

Finally got the paint scheme down as I've been painting, and now there's just some stuff left to fix, to improve, etc. I'll probably base when I've done all the current models I'm working on. Anyways, progress is progress.

Project Fortnight

So, in finding out my LGS doesn't have as well scheduled game nights as I thought, and that my friend won't be able to start the game till September, I am going to try and put together a 350 pt force before PAX on the 24th.

Here's the planned list:

Faction: Khador
Army Points: 349/350
Victory Points: 15

Kommander Sorscha Kratikoff
Destroyer
Juggernaut
Manhunter
Winterguard Mortar Crew

The progress log for the models is right in the upper corner and updated frequently. I'll post a pic of the Juggernaut when it's done, and then start doing WIP of other models. I have plans of what models I want up to 500 points as I picked up the Khador Faction Deck to check out all the units, but I've gotta focus on being battle-ready for PAX right now.

~Max

PS: Do leave me a comment with any advice on the list/playing in general, or hell, if you're just reading this.

Hello? Who's there?

Hey! This blog is intended as my personal dumping ground for thoughts, rants, ideas, photos, etc. related to tabletop wargaming, Warmachine and Hordes in particular. I got the idea from Clawshrimpy's blog, which is essentially the same thing, except he'll probably take it more seriously, and he's got more stuff to show off.

So read it if it fancies you, I'll make somewhat regular updates and post pictures of WIP and finished models.

If you're reading this you've most likely come from Penny Arcade Forums, so, uh, hi.

I have just recently (read: a couple weeks ago) discovered WM/Hordes, and well, I'm in love. I have purchased Warmachine Prime: Remix and a Khador Battlegroup, and I'm working on it right now. I love that all the races in both games are interesting and unique, and the models are top notch. Also because I really, really can't stand Games Workshop.

I picked Khador because I'm Russian and have a softspot for Soviet/Czarist inspired fantasy stuff, as well as because the models are badass, and the warjacks really are walking tanks.

In a bit of misfortune, my dear Kommander Sorscha has broken the head of her Frostfang, so I'll be trying to find a tiny drill bit and getting a pin vise now. At least these models deserve it, heh. Let me know if you have any tips.

~Max