Sunday, November 25, 2012

Terminus, take two

Another day, another test spin with Terminus.  This time, I tried Terminus at the FLGS, where I got to play against eThags and some shredder spam.  I was running:

Terminus
3 Slayers
Skarlock Thrall

full Blackbanes
full Revenant Crew
Rengrave

Kenny was running eThags and 19 shredders.  19 shredders!

He won the rolls, and basically ran as many toward me as he could, with eThags shedding fury in the process.  I advanced a tad more cautiously - 19 shredders is an awful lot of beasts, especially on feat turn. (As an odd note, this is the second time in a row using Terminus where his feat did basically no good - stupid soulless Legion beasts.)

eThags and the shredder rush slows down a little bit - a full run will put them at charge range, and he really, really, really wants to get the charge off.  The skarlock and Terminus immolate a few shredders, with an assist from Rengrave.  Lot of pirates and Blackbanes run up, and basically turn themselves into undead tough speedbumps.

The shredder rush begins in earnest, though a ridiculous number of my undead make their tough rolls.  One lucky pirate made something like three tough rolls in a row, as eThags tried to kill him.  Obviously, this is a turn when eThags pops feat, and, at the end, I am down almost all of the Blackbanes (lost incorporeal when making free strikes, and totally worth it), and more than half of the revenant crew.  On my turn, I get back my revenant crew, and decide to just go for the assassination, since eThags is within charge range.

Terminus charges over 5 shredders (man, do I love flight!), and, thanks to his big honking sword of death, combined with Malediction, drops the blighted ogrun with focus to spare.

This one could have gone very badly for me.  Kenny concentrated a bit too much on the undead, and I made a lot more tough rolls than I had any right to make.  And, to be honest, if Terminus had failed to kill eThags, it would not have mattered what else I did that turn - eThags would have eaten my giant undead killing machine.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Relic Knights update, AdeptiCon too

So, despite my initial misgivings, I went in on the Relic Knights kickstarter.  The kickstarter ended a while ago, but they finally have the full pledge manager up, and I put in my pledge.  I had made more than I had expected for some of my old gaming stuff, so I went in for more than I probably really needed to have in order to play the game.

The final tally is going to be the Black Diamond, Speed Circuit and Noh sets, plus a couple of the extra bells and whistles.  I thought about picking the Paladins or Corsairs, but went with Noh as a third choice because they have fewer figs. I think the total is only about 70 figs or so anyway, but for some reason, 70 seemed more reasonable than 75 or 80. 

In other news, I managed to register for AdeptiCon next year.  I registered for a couple of Warmachine events, and the Malifaux Gaslight league.  AdepticCon requires everything to be painted to at least 3 color standard, and fully based.  I have 155 days to get everything done.  I think that, since the Hardcore is 1 army list only, I will not be using my Minions - Carver can fare very poorly against Lylyth lists, and Barnabas, while it counters Lylyth pretty well, is too pillow-fisted to deal with Gargossals and certain heavies.  So, I have to choose another faction, make an army or two, test them and paint them.  Plenty of time.

And paint some Malifaux figs as well.  Hopefully, my painting queue is kept to 100 figs or less.  But I have a hard deadline, and I intend to make it.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

That did not go well

Hooray, another Vassal batrep - because I am too lazy to go paint right now*.

Got in another Vassal game last night against Clexis again.  We went with battleboxes, mainly to keep the game short.  pDenny versus pKaya, and it wound up being a short game.

pKaya has some nice movement shenanigans available to her, and a really high Def.  pDenny has a lot of arc nodes, and an ungodly feat.  But it was an ugly game - I just could not hit the broad side of barn, even on the turn when I popped pDenny's feat.  You would think that, with boosted dice, I could hit a 9 at least half the time, right?  Naah.

I called it, when it got down to a crippled Slayer (with left arm remaining), a crippled Deathripper (movement left, nothing else), a crippled Defiler (just movement), and pDenny, versus a wounded (but not badly) pKaya, an Argus, and the Feral.  We tried a couple of theorymachining, just to see if I could survive another turn and win, and pretty much any victory condition for me relied on dice rolls that were much less likely than a horse winning the Kentucky Derby after dropping dead in the starting gate.

Fun game, as always.  I can't say that I learned much from it - I think my dice (well, Vassal dice) just were not on my side last night, and there is only so much you can do about that.  I did not bank on a lot of luck for anything that I was doing, just getting average dice rolls, and, for the most part, they were not forthcoming. 

I"m not blaming dice, per se, but when you have a couple of turns of "OKay, I have Focus 7, need to hit a 16 with the arced venom, I need 9s.  I boost, miss.  Buy another one, boosting.  Miss.  Okay then."  there is only so much you can do.  I got outplayed for part of it, and, I think, on average rolls, I still would have lost, but it would have been a much closer game.  As it was, he had me cold, and we both knew it.






* Actually, this is not true.  But I registered for AdeptiCon yesterday, and I want to spend a day or two thinking about army lists before I jump into a painting project, so I am not doing much painting until then. 

Monday, November 12, 2012

Terminus the beatstick

Great scott!  I forgot what a beatstick Terminus is!

I played a game on Vassal last night against one of my local players.  Clexis (as he is named on the forums) has been trouncing me on a fairly regular basis with his Skorne, but he is thinking about branching out to Circle when we start our next journeyman league.  So, he was trying some Circle, and I was testing an idea that I had for Terminus.  No scenario, just a straight-up bloodbath, and we both wound up running tier lists.

He had:
pBaldur
Megalith
Woldwarden
Woldwyrd

Druid Stoneward & Woldstalkers (x2)
Sentry Stone and Mannikins
Shifting Stones (x2), one with Stone Keeper

I was running:
Terminus
3 Slayers
Skarlock Thrall

full Blackbanes
full Revenant Crew
Rengrave

The board was pretty empty - enough terrain, but not too much. A couple of forests (as though pBaldur cannot make his own), some obstacles, etc.  I won the roll, and elected to go first.  I made a wall of slayers, dropped Terminus behind them, and flanked with Blackbanes on one side, and most of the Revenants on the other.  The quartermaster and the Skarlock stayed by Terminus, and Rengrave hung close by.

pBaldur took the middle, flanked with the two units of Stonewards.  The contructs were as far forward as possible, as were the shifting and sentry stones.  (Quick note - his army made Terminus' feat basically useless.  Only four living models.  $(*$&$ constructs.)

I spent my first turn basically running everything forward, except Terminus, who cast Malediction on himself and charged, but could not quite get close enough to target one of my Slayers.  Clexis advanced his stuff, though not nearly as recklessly.

It was getting late, so I did not take notes on this, but basically, there were a couple of turns where I would advance through the forests that Clexis kept spamming with pBaldur, and he was picking off Blackbanes and Revenant crew left and right.  I would get the revenant  crew back, and I was making enough tough rolls with Blackbanes that my losses were only a couple of models per turn.  Plus, the Vassal dice roller hated him.

Eventually, he gacks a slayer, and has put some serious hurt on another one.  And left pBaldur within 9" of Terminus.  Terminus flies over everything, and basically pounds pBaldur into the ground.  pBaldur only had 2 fury on him when Terminus charge, and the first attack did a whopping 18 damage.  (The dice loved me last night.  Buy lottery tickets now.  Or prepare for the end of the world, as you choose.)  It took a few hits, but once Terminus based pBaldur and starting slicing, average dice would have ended it.

It was a good game - heck, a great game.  We were talking on Skype, so there was some trash talk going on, and some random complaints about Legion, which is odd, because neither of us were playing Legion.

I need to get in more games via Vassal, and choose something for AdeptiCon.  I'd really like to go to a tourney and actually have a fully painted force.  I could not quite swing it for GenCon, but I got passably close; if I start working on painting an army again, maybe I could make it happen this time.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Playing hooky

I should be running.  I should be writing for NaNoWriMo.  I should be painting. (Please note - things like laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc did not even come close to making the list.)  Instead, I am playing hooky from those things, and trying to input my collection into Forward Kommander.

So, at the moment, here are the following stats:

Cygnar: 3 models, 33% painted
Cryx 17 models, 52% painted
Protectorate 0 models
Khador 1 model, 0% painted
Retribution 5 models, 0% painted
Mercenaries 13 models, 23% painted

Circle 9 models, 66% painted
Legion 14 models, 42% painted
Trollbloods 24 models 12% painted
Skorne 21 models, 4% painted
Minions 1 model, 100% painted

Total models is just over 100, so I have barely begun.  This is going to be a good weekend project.  Or longer.

ETA - just found a little quirk in FK.  Had it open on two machines (took the laptop down to the basement.)  Managed to delete everything that I had entered, more or less.  I'm thinking that I will just build an Excel spreadsheet instead.  Much easier in the long run.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Curse you, NaNoWriMo!

Okay, so I haven't said anything here in a few days.  I blame NaNoWriMo for that - I'm behind on my word count, and trying to get caught back up and ahead.  Pity the words here won't count.

So, for my October painting, in the "Tale of Warmahordes 2012" challenge, I finished this:

Woldwarden (9 pts).



I noticed a couple of slight touch-ups that I need to do, but really, I could base and seal it today.

I had a stalker that was almost completely finished on the 30th, and then, when looking at something else for reference, came across a pic of someone else's stalker model. With the legs attached differently. Instead of confirming that mine were correct, I tossed into the pine-sol. The good news is that (1) I had it assembled correctly, and (2) it's still assembled, but now I have to repaint it.

According to the Google docs file that is keeping track of such things,  I have painted 95 pts for the year, and used one of my "Get Out of Painting Free" cards to date.  I wanted to gain it back last month, but failed. 

I should get some painting time in today, once I get at least 2000 words written.  As I said, I am behind, and trying to catch up and get ahead, since the end of the month gets crazy, what with the whole ritual of turkey sacrificing and scooping the innards out of some innocent gourds.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Why, oh why?

So, I used to keep track of my collection via ibodger.  Well, that's gone now, and so I am currently doing a complete inventory of everything I have and putting it into Forward Kommander, since I do not have any device which will run the War Room app.

Unfortunately, I am not seeing a way to display and save my collection from Forward Kommander, which is what I really want to do.  I want to make a giant list again, and have it somewhere, so that people can ask me to bring specific models, and so that I know what I have at a fairly quick glance.

Maybe I should do some more poking around before I inventory the next hundred models or so.

Friday, November 2, 2012

A random thought on terrain

About this time last year, I posted about some mountains that I had built.  I got some nice comments on it, and at least one was along the lines of "I don't think I could do that."

And, today, I was reading through a thread on a zeppelin docking tower on the forums. It's a truly impressive piece, and obviously took a lot of time, but what struck me was the number of comments along the line (again) of "I could never build that."

theproffet (who built it) said in one of his posts, "Im trying to encourge people to build there own stuff, not just quit and feel sorry for them self. this defenetly isn't my first building and the only way you learn i by doing."

The reason this really jumped out at me is because, just the other day, I picked up a copy of "Great Model Railroads, 2013."  My son really loves trains, and I am currently in the process of getting ready to tear down his existing layout (a simple 4' x 8') and make a new, considerably bigger one.  So, it's mainly an ideas book, looking through to see what other people have done.  At the very end, on the last page, is a quick viewpoint article.

It's titled "You, too, can build a great model railroad," and the main thrust of the article is exactly this defeatist attitude that I have been seeing.  The author states that it's not rooted in the belief that the speaker does not currently possess the skills, but rather, that they never will. 

I build (and have built) a lot of terrain over the years.  What stops me from building things like the zeppelin tower is primarily a lack of desire and time.  I am reasonably confident that, if I wanted to build something like that, I could do so.  But it would not be my first try at building something, and frankly, I don't think my first attempt at houses were exceptional; except perhaps in the sense that, with a small amount of effort, they were easily reclassed as "ruins".  Or possibly, "garbage."

My first attempts at painting were bad.  Very bad.  Random blobs of red and blue and yellow and orange and purple, all on the same miniature bad.  I have improved somewhat since then.  Not as much as I would like, but enough that I am no longer ashamed to have my stuff on the table.  Now I just need to work on my speed, and see if I can work on the backlog before I pick up a bunch of stuff come spring.