So, how's that painting goal coming along?

Not as well as I would like. I obviously haven't posted in a long time - no excuse, really. So, did I get those Abyssals done? Yes. Yes, I did. And I have some photographic proof, actually.

So, what else have I been working on? Warmahordes, obviously.  My local meta took a big hit between the announcement of MK3 and its actual release, but we're back and playing.  I wanted to do 1 pt of Warmahordes per day, on average, which is a lot easier under the new MK3 point values, but I intend to break 700 if I can.  I'm behind, but here are the most recent.  (I did some other stuff, but unless I post pics, I won't count it.)

So, how many points is that, under the new rules?  The battleboxes all come out to 0 now, so I can't use that metric.  I plan on counting the casters as a flat 10 points, and everything else what the current point value is.  So, that's 40 for the trolls, plus 40 for Menoth and 39 for Cryx, if my pre-coffee math is correct.  So, 119 points, which is better than nothing, even if it is only 12 models.  Need to paint more, obviously.

So, I decided last night to basically clear off my painting table and work on only a couple of things at a time, finishing them completely rather than constantly swapping projects (faction and system ADD is a pain, but I'm trying to get it under control). To that end, the only things on my table right now are:

Cygnar battlebox - doing this for my FLGS

Norse Irish DBA army in 15mm

I hope to have both of those done this week, and then I will do something else. I am going to try and finish only one thing, and then replace it, because then I find that something sits on my desk, unfinished, for months. My goal for the rest of the year is, when I put something on my desk, it stays there until it is done, and I only can have 2* items on my desk at once.

* 2 is a fuzzy number here. Obviously, I have more than 2 items already listed. But I am mentally lumping a battlebox, unit, or DBA army as 1 item, so it's fine.

And yes - I have already selected what will be replacing both of those.  I just can't work on them until those get done.  I might expand it to 3 items on the desk, but, if so, that third will always be a terrain item, not a miniature, so I'm still keeping to that limit.  Gotta focus.  I'm well behind where I wanted to be, but summer is almost over, and I generally get most of my fall painting done in Sept and Oct.

Late night update, and a PSA

First up, the PSA.  When you pick up a paint bottle to shake it, it's probably a good idea to ensure that the bottle is actually completely closed before shaking it.  Doh!  Fortunately, it all landed on me, and not on the miniatures.

So, the Kraken is based.  I'm hoping that it dries enough for me to paint it tomorrow, but otherwise, it gets a quick coat on Thursday at some point.  Rengrave is not done, and I have four of the revenant crew still waiting to be finished.  I have a seether that might get done as well, and the withershadow did get moved along a bit.

I also started doing base markings.  I know that all of the blackbane's are done, as well as the bile thralls.  The ripjaws got done, as did the slayers, the sirens, and most of the scrap thralls.I'd be working on them now, but (1) I'm hungry; and (2) I've done a lot of painting today, so I am calling it a day before I do something stupid and mistake black primer for the clear coat or something.

Belated update.

Yeah, I was going to post pics yesterday.  Went down to the basement with the camera, turned on the TV for background noise for while I was painting, and yeah. . . .

So, here are the pics.  I have done a little bit of painting since my last pic update.  First up, the least important stuff: my Malifaux crew.  I don't plan on playing many games of Malifaux at AdeptiCon, but I did pay the cost for the league, and want to play at least a few games, to help increase my familiarity with the system.  I have enough for it, so I might as well play.

I had two of the metal gamin and the rail golem painted at the beginning of the month.  Now, the rail crew starter, the rail golem, the metal gamin, and Willie are all painted and based.  Reasonably happy with them, too.

But, on to the Warmachine stuff.  I've been planning on playing Cryx for several months now - I had more painted for it than any other faction, although that is not saying much.  These guys were done (earlier this year, Feb maybe?), but never based.  I had to take care of that, of course.

Full Biles and a Scarlock do not an army make.  I had a couple of chicken jacks done, but I needed more.  So, I painted a few.

That's two slayers, a reaper, a stalker, two ripjaws,a harrower, a leviathan, and deathjack.  That will do, right?


But I need more than that.  I should have some support models and solos as well.

Five scrap thralls, two warwitch sirens, and Mortenebra and her special little friend.  But wait, there's more!  They're not pictured here, but right now, pGaspy, pThags, and a necrotech are basically sitting in their basing materials.  The second nectrotech is almost ready for basing.  Terminus is based, and, while he is not done, he is completed to the 3-color standard required by AdeptiCon.  The Kraken is now at the 3-color standard, but I need to pick up something tonight at the store to finish up his base.

The sticking point is the Revenant crew and Rengrave.  More than half of the revenant crew are almost ready for basing, and would be done to the 3-color minimum.  Rengrave and four of the crew are a little farther back.  With any luck, I will get the crew mostly done tonight.  If I can get them mostly done, tomorrow won't be bad, and I might even get the Withershadow combine based and to 3-color standard.

I do need to carve out some time tomorrow to put arc markings on the bases, but that should take no more than an hour, and it is something I can do while paint dries.  I might even start on that tonight, since I have Blackbanes and some other things that need arc markings.

So, what gone done today?

Short answer, nothing.  I did not finish a single miniature today.

This could be bad.  After all, I have only 8 days, and a few measly hours until AdeptiCon. And, in a previous post, I had 39 figures to finish.  That's almost 5 figures per day, so I'm in trouble, right?

Not entirely.  I have a real problem working on only one miniature at a time.  So, today, I worked on the following:

Terminus
Mortenbra
Deryliss
2 Ripjaws
Harrower
Leviathan
Reaper
x2 Slayers
Deathjack
Kraken

Willie
2 Rail workers
Emberling
Kang

That's almost everything.  It's missing only the undead pirates and the solos, more or less.  Some of the  jacks are almost done - I think one of the slayers needs some minor touch-ups and detail work, and then basing.  The ripjaws are mostly done.  Willie is almost done.  The kraken is almost ready to be placed on its base, which means that I am almost down to detail work on it.

One of these days, I'm going to post a "What got done today?" and it will list a bunch of figs.  And then it will be on to the infantry - but as jacks get cleared off, I will be adding the infantry to the painting queue, so they will start to get finished quickly as well.

Morning report

The title makes me think that I should sing this or something:

But no, I'll just write it out instead.

Willie and Deryliss have both been primed.  Mortenebra is about 50% assembled - I still need to add the second row of spider legs and her arms.

The depressing thing is that I did a quick model count.  Here is what I really hope to get done before AdeptiCon:

Warmachine

Terminus
Mortenbra
Deryliss
2 Ripjaws
Stalker
Harrower
Leviathan
Reaper
x2 Slayers
Deathjack
Kraken
Rengrave
10 Revenant Crew
2 Warwitch Sirens
2 Necrotech
4 Scrap thralls

ETA - pThagrosh.  He needs painting too.

Malifaux

Willie
2 Rail workers
Mei Fang
Emberling
Kang

I don't think that I am forgetting anything here.  Now, if all of these were bare metal, I would weep with despair, and then look for a source of pep pills. Fortunately, most of these are pretty far along - only a couple of things are bare metal, and most are anywhere from 50-80% done.  I missed my painting challenge for March, but I am pretty sure that I will paint more than 5 points in April.

Anyway, I'll take a pic later (I have to for something else anyway), but I'm off to try and finish assembling that annoying master necrotech.

Progress, part II

No pics, but I just need to do the bases for a metal gamin and a rail crew for Malifaux.  Willie has been mostly assembled, and can be primed tomorrow.  On the Warmachine side, I got a lot of the base colors down on a Leviathan and a Harrower, and some of the Revenant crew.  Deryliss is assembled, and I have started on Morty.  I hope to prime both tomorrow.  If I get them early enough, I should get the Ripjaws assembled and primed as well.

Considering everything else I did today, it wound up being fairly productive, painting-wise.  Hopefully I get some things done tomorrow and Saturday.

Right under the wire

With something like 15 minutes to go during the month of February, I finished painting my unit of bile thralls.  I need to do their bases and seal them, but the hard part (the painting) is done.  On to the next unit!

Malifaux Rail Crew basing test, and a WIP Helljack

Quick post to prove that I am working, albeit slowly, on some of the stuff I need for Adepticon.  I'll post pics of some other stuff sometime this weekend - I have a Steamroller tourney tomorrow, so I have to get that stuff ready tonight, and then I am not sure how much painting time I will get tomorrow.  Anyway. . . .

First up, a metal gamin for Malifaux.  This was a quick color and base test, just to see if I liked it.  I think it will work.

Next, we have a WIP of a Helljack.  I like the way this is going.  It's a little on the time-intensive side, but not too bad, and I plan on doing most of my Helljacks in this manner, I think.

Obviously, I have only done the upper carapace.  The necrotite glow area is barely started, and I need to work more on the rest of the chassis, but you can get the general idea of how the jack is going to look.  I want to have him done by next weekend, so that I can move on to the rest of the jacks.

Quick pic

Finally got these guys finished and based.  The Revenant Crew are still a WIP, and my crabjacks need to be magnetized before priming, but I hope to get that done this weekend.

As if it needed to be said, yeah, I am going to be doing the yearly challenge.  It shows up on the PP forums (5 pts or 1 warcaster/lock per month), and then there is another challenge on Bartertown, where you earn points for everything finished during the year.  I'm hoping to do some non-PP figs, just to break the near-monotony of everything being from one manufacturer.

Adventures of the Ghost Fleet

So, my Terminus list (such as it is) has been just a general "I take Terminus, and some stuff from his tier list, and let's see what happens."  Tonight, I got to field a full unit of Blackbanes and two crabjacks, without resorting to proxies.  Yes, I lost, but it was fun, and it was darned close.

My T4 Terminus list went up against a T4 eVayl list:

eVayl
Angelius
Ravagore
Scythean
x2 Harriers

Full Legionnaires
Full Spawning Vessel
2 Spell Martyrs
1 Shepherd

The game was pretty straightforward - he did not want to be within 9" of Terminus, and I wanted him to be.  For a good chunk of the game, I had the upper hand - he came close to wiping out the Revenants, but could not seal the deal by killing the quartermaster.  He did some damage to Blackbanes, but I managed to bring the unit back to nearly full strength on the granted ability.  My feat did great - something like 7 or 8 souls on Terminus, which let me do a lot of damage on the following turn.

But, that huge cache of souls and focus let me get greedy, and Terminus wound up in an exposed position, and he managed to pile enough damage on him to kill him.  I made the first tough roll with the Lich Lord, but not the second. 

I like the Ghost Fleet list, but I definitely need some more practice with it.  And I need to start painting my figs, though I did work on putting some stuff together.  Now, it's off to read NQ 45, and read through some of the Urban Adventure for the IKRPG.

Another go with Terminus

Still playing around with Terminus, mainly because he is big and stompy and generally fairly tough.  Plus, who doesn't like a flying lich lord who lives to eat souls?  So, on this occasion, I tried out the Terminus tier list I have been running:

Terminus
3 Slayers
Skarlock Thrall

full Blackbanes
full Revenant Crew
Rengrave

My opponent was running a Gators list:

Bloody Barnabas
Blackhide Wrastler
Bull Snapper
Ironback Spitter

Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw

Full gatorman posse
Totem Hunter

He won the the roll, and chose to deploy first - gators toward the center, Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw guarding his left flank.  The totem hunter held the right, and named the Revenant Crew as prey.

I set up fairly quickly, with the jacks guarding Terminus, the Blackbanes on my left, and the Revenant crew mostly on the right, with the quartermaster tucked safely away.

He advanced fairly cautiously, but in almost complete safety, thanks to Swamp Pit.  Granted, shooting is not a big part of my Terminus list, but having it shut down completely is a little annoying.  I advanced, but not quite as cautiously. Terminus cast Malediction on himself, and camped the rest of the focus.

Next turn, the Totem Hunter zipped up, and leapt into the middle of the Revenant crew, killing precisely zero of them.  I think he hit one, but I made the tough roll.  That left the Totem hunter in a bad position.  More gator advancing into swamp pits, and Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw kept rolling up on the flank. 

On my turn, I killed the Totem hunter by piling a whole bunch of undead pirates on him.  Terminus moved up, feated, and started trying to kill things, hellfiring the gators and trying to hit Wrong-Eye with his breath weapon.  The gator warcaster lived, so I piled on attacks from Blackbanes (who advanced through an obstacle to get to him), but I could not seal the deal.

That was the turn where I lost the game, too.  I over-extended myself, in my zeal to kill Wrong-Eye (and remove both him and Snapjaw from the flank, making my life ever so much easier.)  Barnabas moved up, feated, and put a serious hurt on Terminus and a jack.  I could not recover in time, and while I tried to salvage it on my turn (by killing the Blackhide, and some other stuff), I could not risk the free strikes to get to Barnabas, nor kill enough to stop him from clearing a path to Terminus and killing him with the Ironback on the following turn.

The good thing about losing is that you get to learn from your mistakes. 

That's right.  I can't leave Terminus right in the front, low on focus and souls, and in range of a wrastler and Barnabus' feat.  Bad Idea (tm). 

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.

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. 

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.

Weekend acquisitions

So, I visited some friends over the weekend, and stopped by a game store that I have supported since it was run out of the guys house.  He had some Warmachine stuff on sale, and I picked up 2 blisters of Ghost Raiders (I think my box has arrived at the FLGS, so that would give me a full unit), and eGoreshade.  And an unopened tin of GF9 Merc dice.

So, the decision is - do I keep the dice, or trade (or sell) them?  I don't need more dice, but they are kind of nice, and I like the pirate logo.

More later tonight, and I hope to get some painting in later today.  With any luck, I might manage to lose a game tonight via Vassal as well.

See, I'm painting!

Managed to get a couple of things done tonight. First, I am almost done with my exchange fig. All that is left is the basing, and the sealing. Hope to get those done tomorrow.




And, I finished up this guy:



I've also worked on a bunch of other things, although I did not bother taking pics of them. For various and sundry reasons, I did not stick to only one faction for the month, although I am not yet certain whether this has hurt my painting or not. I haven't gotten to play much, although now that Vassal 4.2 is out, I might try and get in some games that way.

Anyway, the Bokur and the pistol wraith would fill the points requirement for the month, but I am going to try and finish some other figs - mainly infantry, actually. I have a minimum unit of Blackbane's Raiders on order - if they get here before the end of next week, I might manage to get them done as well, since they will be painted in the same way as the pistol wraith.

March pics

Proof that something got finished. These were mostly done before the month of March even began, so they were pretty low-hanging fruit, as it were. I hope to work on more infantry this month, if my real life actually allows me any time. (As I have typed this, I have been interrupted no less than three times).



So, a deathripper and a defiler join the ranks of the finished. Another 9 points and two models, against all I added in March. Still improving that 1:25 ratio, but not by much. This month should be better. I hope.

A pseduo-battle report

So, I got to play two games on Saturday, and I managed to win one of them.

The first game, I was trying out a eNemo list. I was light on jacks (only two - Thunderhead and Firefly), but has the Storm Strider, and lots of lightning goodness. My opponent was running Zherkova, some Doom Reavers, a couple warjacks and some widowmakers (and a couple other models - Greylords, maybe?)

The scenario was out of prime, and we were basically contesting the middle of the board. I made several key mistakes early on, and wound up almost losing on scenario alone - instead, I lost to a very well-done warcaster assassination, and the game was over before I took my third turn. I think, from army selection to end of game, it was less than 45 minutes - it certainly was under an hour.

Since we had time to kill, we each chose another list. He switched to eButcher, kept the Doom reavers, added Fenris, and made some other changes. I switched to Cryx, so I could try out Terminus, plus a couple slayers, a seether, some bane thralls, the revenant crew, and a bloat thrall. (Quick aside - I can usually recall my lists fairly well, but not always those of my opponents. I need to work on that, for real battle reports.)

Anyway, with both armies being comprised of incredibly aggressive casters, we met in the middle, and it was a virtual bloodbath. I drew first blood, and took out the doom reavers, and did some other damage, but it put things in grand position for eButcher's feat. He popped feat, charged up, and, by the time his turn was done, I had only a couple of the revenant crew remaining, plus two slayers (one fairly damaged), and the bloat thrall, and Terminus was down 9 points. Terminus was engaged, but only by Fenris, although he was less than 1/4" of being engaged by one of the Khador jacks. I chanced the free strike (which fortunately failed to do anything), and flew over my intervening models to get to eButcher. Terminus only got to melee with his giant sword o' death, but that was all it took (though it took multiple strikes to do so).

Both games were a lot of fun (for both of us), and I think I will use both lists again, albeit with some tweaking.

Stalker bonejack

How do I hate thee, Stalker bonejack! Let me count the ways. . . .

• One spindly little leg
• Another spindly little leg
• Balanced on three points, you are
• Oddly angled hips for the aforementioned legs, managing to almost, but not quite, clear the arms

Bah. It's glued together, but not on the base. I'll tackle that tomorrow, once I clean all the dried CA glue off my hand.

Riddle me this. ..

I haven't played my Cryx in something like 18 months. I certainly haven't bought any new figs for it - one of the reasons that I haven't played them is because I need to fill out some units, and buy some new ones, to make armies that are more than legal - getting slaughtered because the army is a 35-pt collection of random things is not fun on a routine basis.

Anyway, I was down in the basement tonight, thinking about what I was going to take with me to play over the holidays. I'm currently leaning toward pigs, gators, and trolls. I have thought about Retribution, or possibly even Legion. So why did I wind up spending the evening painting Cryx that I won't be using anytime soon?