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.

Post-mortem, Round 2

Continuing in the same vein. 

Round 2

Opponent: Chuck Ocenasek, playing Cygnar

Army: eHaley
Stormwall
Old Rowdy
Squire

Archduke Runewood
Black 13th
Precursor Knights
Stormblades

His army is a little off - I didn't take note of it, and I think there is a UA that I am missing, or something.

My army: Thornfall

Sturm & Drang
x2 Road Hogs
x3 War Hogs
Targ

4 Bone Grinders
6 Brigands
Slaughterhousers


We had to have two lists, but we did not have to play both.  We were also told that two rounds would have reinforcements.  Since this one did not, I chose my pigs.  (I wanted to try out the reinforcements in my other list, so I left it for then.)


Scenario: Restoration.


Since he had a Stormwall, he had to predeploy it.  I won the roll again, and had him place his whole army, before placing mine.  We did forget to start the clock for deployment, but time was not an issue at all in this game.


First round, he advances, and lays down covering fire.  I advance as well.  While we are both looking to score points, we have also both come to the conclusion that caster kill is how this one is likely to end.


Round two, he advances, shoots a lot of things, really hurts one of the war hogs.  I retaliate by charging the stormwall with two of them.  I don't tear it apart - I should have, but I did not double check my cards, and forgot to aggression dial one of them, and the extra damage would have really helped.  I think I popped feat, mainly to prevent the Stormwall and Old Rowdy from getting a load of focus and beating the tar out of my poor war hogs.

Next turn, the Black 13th come up and do a number on the brigands, though some survive.  Stormblades come up and unload on the road hogs, and I think the precursor knights ran up to base the road hogs and slow them down a bit.  eHaley pops feat.


Having your order of activation forced on you stinks.  And, having to chose between moving and attacking just rubs some salt in the wound.  Astonishingly, I manage to still do some damage this turn - Targ can give ancillary attack, and I manage to do some damage to the stormblades and the precursor knights.  Rowdy gets hurt, and (IIRC), I manage to cripple the hammer. 


His next turn hurts me, but the damage on Rowdy and on the Stormwall has been adding up, and I weather the storm.  On my turn, my remaining warhog scraps Old Rowdy.  And here is where I lose the game.

Put simply, I got greedy.  I really wanted to finish killing the Stormwall.  I should have waited a turn - I had the better position on the board, and it was nearly dead.  Old Rowdy was down.  The precursor knights were almost wiped from the board, and the Stormblades were gone.  The squire is no threat, and I can deal with Black 13th and eHaley over the next turn or two.

S&D, under the Drang aspect, charges up and starts laying the smackdown on the Stormwall.  It takes a couple of swings, but I drop it.  (Yay - another angle, from early next turn)

Unfortunately, this leave S&D out in the (relative) open, with no fury on him.  Between the Black 13th, the Journeyman, and eHaley, they manage to kill him.  Barely.

So - officially, this was a loss.  But, I claimed moral victory, for having dropped the Stormwall.  And, unfortunately, after the tourney was over, we found out that Chuck had accidentally been running the Stormwall incorrectly, and so was DQ'ed.  I'm still calling this a loss, however - I lost it fair and square, and really, hanging my warlock out there was a pretty stupid move.

So, what did I learn from this one?

First, collosals aren't as scary as they first seemed.  I have faced three now, and while they are tough, I won one of the games against them, lost one (though I took out half the collosal in the process), and could have won this one, if I had not gotten too greedy at the end. 

Second - getting greedy cost me the game.  I could see victory, and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Again, my fault, not his. 

So, the second game was a lot of fun, and it turned out to be a great game, with lots of good natured trash talking, and some happy BSing once the game was done. 

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.

Stormwall Colossal

The current PP insider shows an exploded view of the Cygnar Stormwall colossal. I had two thoughts on seeing it:

First, it's darned kewl. Lots of nifty little bits, and 3 separate little markers, which I think are for one of its special abilities or an attack. It also does not look to be any more complicated to assemble than a thunderhead.

Second - 'jacks leave wrecks, warbeasts wander off. Fair enough. Battle engines do not leave wreck markers. (Huh?) Colossals apparently do - there is mention of a 120mm card wreck marker.

ETA - it's up on the gallery page as well.

It's almost like Christmas

Provided either I bought the stuff for me, or Santa followed my wishlist, instead of getting me more socks. Either way, I got this today:



Now, I confess, that I did expect the box to be at least a little bit bigger. Fortunately, it was full, with no need for filler. Look at all that blistered and boxed goodness.



Once separated by type, my Khador collection gained a gun carriage, a min unit of winterguard, a max unit of winterguard rifles, Irusk, Kovnik Joe, a unit of mechanics and the variant manhunter.



My Cygnar was not neglected - I picked up a hunter. Kraye needs at least another, but it's a start.



Lord Carver gained some friends - a razorback crew and a unit of slaughterhousers.



And, Everblight gained Typhon, eThag, a blister of harriers, a seraph, a min unit of striders, a nephilim soldier, a raek, Absylonia, a scythean, a blister of stingers, and the Nyss sorceress.



I have more happy news, but I'll put it in its own post later tonight. For now, it's off for some painting time - or maybe assembly and priming.

Random progress update

Some nights, lots of things get done, and I can sit back, pop open a frosty beverage of my choice, and bask in the warm glow of Having Gotten Something Done. Last night was not such a night. Yes, Lord Carver is finally assembled (been putting that off), and even primed as of this morning. And I did a lot of painting in the hour or so that I was in the basement. But it was just hard to tell, mainly because of what I was working on. See, in addition to some Cygnar stuff (detail work on some jacks), and some more base work on my Menoth battlebox, I spent time working on my orks.

I have a lot of orks. As in, I might be able to field not one, but two, Green Tide formations from the Apocalypse books. So, doing the pants on fifteen Orks, and then boots on another twenty just gets lost in the noise, so to speak. I can honestly say that, on most nights when I work on my orks, I feel this way, simply because I could generally mix whatever I worked on back into the Shelf of Orks, and, ten minutes later, not be certain which orks had actually been painted that evening.

I know that it is progress, but man, that carousel of progress sure does seem stuck sometimes.

No pics, but. . . .

I also finished a squire. I think it brings my total painted Warmahordes collection to 20, out of 620. It means, among other things, that my total painted forces are now at 3%. (Hah! 3.2% - even more impressive.)

Meh. A deal is all but certain for my IG army - I'll "lose" 60-odd infantry, about 15 vehicles, some heavy weapon teams, and some other odds and ends. On the plus side, it means that my Warmahordes will gain another 60 models or so, and I will have a playable 35-pt army for every faction in the game. If I took some of everything, and someone wanted to play Retribution, I could say "Yeah, I got that" and loan out a 35-pt army. Skorne? No problem. Trollbloods? Easy. (That has to be worth something on my PG app, right?)

But until the figs arrive (and I am not ordering them until I have the cash for the IG in hand), I can't do that for Khador or Everblight. (Technically, I can't do all four contracts, but I know that I can do it for Searforge, and I am close, if not there, for Four Star and Highborn. Need me some pirates for Talion though.) It does look as though I will accomplish my goal of having a 50-pt army for every faction before the end of the year.

One step forward. . . .

And about nine steps back. Last night, I got Targ and Lord Ossyan assembled (and just primed them a few minutes ago), and got some pretty significant work done on a Squire, a Firefly, a Grenadier, the Storm Strider, a magnetized Cygnar heavy, a Gun Boar, a dozen or so Ork boyz, and probably another five or ten models. Sounds good, until I mention that I also am in the process of getting rid of my IG army for 40k - and will be using the cash to buy some Khador and Legion models.

So, yeah - the IG that hasn't been included in my model count for years is going away, and I will have playable (albeit bad) 35-pt armies for every faction. (I have Rhulic for my Mercs - although I want to have pirates and a magnus force before the end of the year as well, because I am silly that way.)

I'm not making foolish choices for my Khador or Legion - solid beasts, and decent units, but I am going for some variety, and will be working on synergy down the road.

Tonight, I plan on getting more stuff painted (the squire is actually almost done, and I think the Grenadier is close), and taking pics of some (also uncounted) miniatures that I am offering someone. It won't be quite as large as what I will get for the IG tanks, but it should let me pick up a unit and a couple of solos/casters. I've been thinking that my Cryx really need Blackbane's Raiders, just because they look cool, and my Menoth still needs a book, which means I really should get a second Ghost Sniper for my Retribution (because 2 Ghost Snipers can kill the book in one turn). . . .

Cygnar progress

This might be kind of wasted, since if I chose Cygnar for the Journeyman league, then I am just cheating myself out of painting points, but I do want to get some things done, and I really like the Fort Falk scheme for Cygnar. So, here is some proof of progress - a couple of them are getting close to being done, though I won't finish anything until the weekend.

I know, I know - I was working on Gators last time. I'm still working on them, but I have gotten a little annoyed with how the feathers and the bones on the unit leader keep turning out, and until those are done, I won't be wrapping up the unit. Soon, I hope - we'll see how my current attempt turns out tomorrow.

Comparison

So, over on Pokeminiatures, Felix has put up a whole bunch of stuff that he has done so far his year. The sad part is that, even broken up into chunks, any chunk is more than he has done this year.

But, today I did get a Grenadier assembled, which is something. And the bottom half of a Storm Strider, though I haven't done the basing for it yet.

And I did paint about half of a room, which is a real pain with a 0 or 00 brush, let me tell you. I need to start work on the second coat in an hour or so - but I can only paint half the room at a time, without taking apart all the furniture, then moving it down at least one, possibly two flights of stairs. Instead of being an afternoon project, I probably won't be done until tomorrow night, and the room won't be put back together until Tuesday night.

FLGS update

Sorry, still nothing concrete on whether or not we will be able to start getting Warmahordes into the FLGS, but it is at least looking promising. And, yesterday, we had six players, so plenty of battle box games going on. We're going to start up the Journeyman league later on this month, and it sounds like everyone wants to play.

Definitely gave me some incentive to work on some painting last night, and right now, I am assembling my Storm Strider. (I wound up typing part of this post while trying to hold the legs in place as the glue dried.) I won't be using it for a while, although if no one takes Cygnar for the league, I might have to do it just as excuse to play the thing.

Pics from the PG app

Realized that I never did post these. Poor quality, but should be good enough, right? I really need to invest in a lightbox or something.

Anyway, I have been working on some other figs - a unit of gun mages is currently soaking in Pine Sol to get them ready for repainting, a Squire, magnetized Cygnar heavy and a Firefly are coming along, and I should be about ready to finish the basing on those poor Gators.

And the count goes up again

Stopped over at Black Sun Games this morning, and then headed over to Games Plus after. At Black Sun, I picked up a Grenadier and Kraye (both had MK I cards, but that's not a big deal, as I have spare MK II), so my current count is 609. (I think - the touch is recharging, so I cannot check my collection list).

At Games Plus, while I did not get in a game, that was by choice, since I planning on painting anyway. I got some base colors down on some Retribution myrmidons, a bit of work on some gators, a little work done on an Agonizer, and maybe a couple of other things. I was planning on working on one of the battle engines too, but just didn't have the time. Next time we are in town, I have to make sure that I have an army of three.

In the meantime, I am consider a Kraye army, and possibly the new eHaley theme force - anything that lets me use multiple battle engines (with tokens at the start!) can't be all bad, can it?

Now I have to put them together. . .

Got back from Scout camp, and I find that a package has arrived for me. I may not have gotten to GenCon, but at least I did get a Storm Strider and a AFG as compensation. Sure, they weren't new releases, but they are new to me.

Now I want to make sure that I get them together before next Saturday at the FLGS. A couple of battle engines should make a splash. I might try and get them together and take them to work on for the next 40k night too.

The miniature turnstile

So, in the process of cleaning out the basement a few weeks ago, I came across some old Clan War figs that I had picked up at one point. I still have something like 4 copies of the box set, mainly because they came with 60 metal figs, so I have the core of a lot of armies out there, if I ever get around to playing the game again. But I also had some Naga - not much, but enough that it would get an army started.

The Naga have been sitting in a box, still in blisters, through a couple of moves, by my reckoning, and I had to face the fact that I may never get around to doing anything with them. So, I posted notices in a couple of places, and sold them off.

And took the money, and ordered an Arcantic Force Generator (aka Space Cricket) and a Storm Strider. The smart thing would have been to add a like amount (in dollar terms) to Legion and Khador, but meh, I wanted me some battle engines.

Too bad the internet has spoiled me - I ordered them, and I want them NOW! dangit.

No pics, but they are done.

OKay, technically, not quite done. I need to finish up the bases, and then seal them, but my Khador and Cygnar battleboxes are done. Finished. Painted. Completely. Not as well as I would like, but well enough for hardcore standards, and, more importantly, well enough for me to snap some pics of tomorrow and put in an application. With any luck, my area of Michigan will have a press ganger soon. Well, soon-ish, since it is con season and all.

I think tomorrow I will start on a couple of the Hordes warpacks. Probably trolls and either Everblight or Circle. Nothing against Skorne, but I would have to fix two of the savages, or assemble two savages (yes, I have four of them - my Skorne army is unpainted, but unbound material nonetheless), and then get my gladiator back together. Fixing a couple damaged figs doesn't seem as easy as putting either a warpwolf or a carnivean together, although that may be famous last words.

Oh yeah - getting those 5 models finished (the entire Cygnar group plus Sorscha) will bring my total number of painted models to 14. Only 588 to go. (But see another post about that.)

Battleboxes are almost done

They're almost there. Close, so close. With any luck, and a bit of work, tomorrow night, I can wrap these up, with everything done except for the clear coat. The Khador jacks are already done, of course, but the Cygnar jacks are down to detail work and touchups, and both casters are actually pretty close to being done to tabletop standard. It's not my best work, but they're not something I'm planning on stripping down as soon as possible either.

While the batteries charge. . .

The batteries in the camera need to be recharged, so no pics until later tonight, but I actually finished some models yesterday!

Yes, it's true. It's also not too impressive - I finally finished off the unit of Shifting Stones that have been 75% done or so for oh, I don't know, two years? But, they are finally done, based, and sealed. I go from four completed models to seven, which is a huge improvement, in terms of raw numbers, but weighed against the unpainted? A scratch.

I still have 595 models to go.

On the plus side, I might actually get my two Khador jacks done tonight, and possibly my Defender and Lancer as well. Even if I don't, I will be taking pics of them and posting them, just because. I really, really want to start knocking at least battlebox armies out of the way, and not just for ulterior motives.

WIP & Color test

Just posting to prove that I haven't been lounging in the basement, goofing off and ignoring the piles of unpainted metal. (Sure, others have more, but I just view that as a challenge. Besides, even though Bartertown is currently down, I still collect new figs faster than I paint them. So, these are all WIPs or color tests, since each one is basically the beginning of a new army. (Heck, who am I kidding - I have four (4!) figures painted. Everything could be a color test for a new army.)

Anyway, first up is Khador.



As you may guess, my Khador will be loosely modelled after WW II Soviet forces - it fits thematically, and, since I have a bunch of Strelkovy sitting around for Flames of War, I had the paints too. This is the whitewash winter scheme - the whitewash had a tendency to wear off, especially around the edges, which is what I am going for here.

Next up is Cygnar.



The Cygnar is based off one of the alternate color schemes in one of the later MK I expansions, Escalation. This one is Fort Falk, which I prefer to the normal Cygnar blue. I might do my Magnus figs in the deeper blue that got mentioned somewhere in the fluff, however. (For the record - my Menoth will probably be in the Sanguine Escutcheon color scheme. Not far enough along on anything for it to be worth a pic though.)

Here we have my attempt to match Tonka yellow:



It's a little closer than it looks in the photo, but it's not quite what I want just yet. Unfortunately, I am not sure I wrote down all the steps, so I need to do a couple armor plates on another Rhulic jack soon, just to see if I am correct.

Last, but not least - I decided that I might strip my partially painted Retribution figs, and go back to square one.



It's simple, it's easy, and I think it will work well when I finally buy and paint my battle cricket. . . .I mean, Arcane Force Generator.

Painting update

No pics, because I just didn't take any tonight, but I am still getting some painting done. Well, not done. More like, I go down to the basement, and basically putter around for an hour or so, and pretend that somehow, through some sort of osmotic process, the paint will magically move from the bottles onto the miniatures.

That's not entirely true, but it certainly feels like it. I have been listening to some various Warmachine podcasts when I am down there, for some sort of incentive, but I keep breaking to look up something in the book, or read the card(s) while they are talking about a particular figure or strategy. But there is progress.

Tonight, I managed to get more done on my Juggernaut and Destroyer, did the basing for my Defender, prepped the base on the Charger, did some detail work on the Lancer, some work on a unit of Shifting Stones. . . I did more, but I don't recall on what. I am still trying to paint almost every day, and I want to finish up some battleboxes as soon as possible. I just paint slowly, in addition to being easily distracted by shiny objects.