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.

Stripping

Miniatures, that is. I have had a unit of Gun Mages soaking in PineSol for so long that I had pretty much forgotten about them. I found them tonight when I was looking for my other Devout.* (Yes, I was putting off painting Circle - I still worked on the unit of Druids, and my Feral now just needs some greenstuff work before priming.) Anyway, they had been in there that the bases had gotten pretty soft - no big deal, but I may have to replace those.

But some of the paint still won't come off. I'm wondering what kind of paint is was - an enamel, perhaps? It would not be the first time that I have gotten used figs that were coated in an oil-based paint. I got most of it off - they are soaking in water now to get any lingering PineSol off them, and I'll see if they are clean enough for priming tomorrow.

I did not get everything done tonight that I wanted too - I kept breaking away to watch commercials. I could generally listen to the game and figure out what was going on without watching it, but I wound up paying more attention to the commercials anyway. Hopefully I won't have as many distractions tomorrow night.

* Mainly because I was writing a wish list, and I had a Menoth army that I was theory-machining. It mainly invovles stuff where I have the cards, but not the models. I may proxy it a few times before buying everything, because Fire of Salvation is a pricey model.

Battle report from Saturday

OKay, I haven't done any sort of documentation on my battles before. And, I did not bother to take along a camera to record what I was certain would be another couple of losses - albeit fun ones. So, no pics, sorry. These battles were all under the Journeyman league rules.

Game #1

I got in a straight-up battlebox game - Gorten v. pKreoss. The board was basically symmetrical, with a small hill in the middle, two houses on opposite corners, and walls on the other two. First turn, we both advance - he starts casting Defender's Ward, and I put up Strength of Granite and Solid Ground.

I score the first damage, when the gunbunnies open up on his two light jacks, but neither is crippled by the exchange. He counters by setting one of the gunbunnies on fire, which winds up burning for the rest of the game, but never doing any damage. I feat, move his jacks around, and the driller destroyers the Crusader, while the gunbunnies finish off the Repenter. He uses the arc node on his Revenger to light another gunbunny with Immolation, but doing little else to it. For reasons of time (other players had arrived, and he wanted to play them too), he decided to call it - pKreoss and a badly damaged revenger against three gunbunnies and a driller, with my turn coming up, and in a mangled metal game, meant that I needed to roll really badly not to win the game as soon as I went.

Game #2

Same terrain set up as before. This time, it was a 15-pt Gorten versus a 15-pt Legion list. He was running the Legion battlepack, plus the Strider Deathstalker. With 15 pts, I was able to take the Gorten battlebox, plus Thor, and a minimum unit of the High Shield Gun Corps. (Gotta love the fact that the Gorten box is only 8 pts.)

Again, we both advance, and I always seem to forget how fast some of the Legion stuff can be. He did forget to use the advance deploy on the Deathstalker, fortunately for me. I use the same spells as before, although in retrospect, I probably could have dropped the Solid Ground.

First blood went to me, as the gunbunnies took out two of the shredders. Unfortunately, I did not put up Rock Wall, and on the next turn, pLylyth feats, putting Parasite on the Driller, and putting some hurt on Gorten. The remaining Shredders take to chewing up my High Shields (who, foolishly, forgot to use Shield Wall), and putting the stop to the gunbunnies. A Carnivean comes out of nowhere, and it's helly and good-bye, Mr. Driller. The Deathstalker comes up the flank, and Thor is dead, with more damage on Gorten.

It's not looking good for my stunty little caster at this point. Looking at the board, if I cannot win on my next turn, I am dead, because a Carnivean is going to eat Gorten (which is how my last game against Legion ended, actually.) I keep all the focus on myself, move up, and feat, dragging everything toward my table edge. Unfortunately, while this moves the Carnivean past me (and facing the wrong way, so I at least won't eat a charge next turn), it does not bring pLylyth into base with me. But she is in range of the gun, so I boost to hit and damage, but not quite killing her. Close, so close. But one gunbunny is not in melee with anything, so I take the aiming bonus, and score a lucky hit, killing her. Luck had a lot to do with the victory there - it was a "go big, or go home" moment, and, if the dice had not gone my way, I probably would have lost on my next turn.

Game #3

Different table, with the houses being replaced with stone columns, and a large hill with some obstructing terrain on it in the center. I was running the same list as before; hew was running the Skorne battlepack, plus a minimum unit of Beast Handlers and a Void Spirit. Now, think back to my list, and think about how few offensive spells and magic weapons I have. If you think that Void Spirit is going to be a problem for me, you have that right.

Both of us spent the first couple of turns moving up, with me casting my upkeeps and him sweeping around with that pesky Void Spirit. I scored first blood, putting some hurt on one of the Cyclops, but nothing that could not be healed. And, in exchange for the small amount of damage I put on the Cyclops, I wound up with a Void Spirit in the middle of the High Shield Corps, where it killed one outright, and another with Eruption of Ash. The Cyclops shut down the gunbunnies, and the Gladiator pretty much crushes one, and finishes off another.

I feat, move some things around, and try to kill stuff in return, but without much luck, thanks to pMorghul's feat. Thor manages to kill the Void Spirit, mainly by firing his spray into melee, and frankly, killing one of my own High Shield is worth the Void Spirit. But the turn ends with me well down on forces, and pMorghul mostly unhurt.

I don't recall the exact sequence of events for the next couple of turns, but the end result was that the driller was wounded, but not gone, and the gladiator had slammed Gorten out of the killbox, but naturally followed up. So Gorten starts out in base with the gladiator, and out of the killbox. Thor tunes up the Driller, and it kills off the one Cyclops that pMorghul can use for transfers. Gorten moves around the Gladiator, and back into the killbox, triggering a free strike, but putting him in a position where he can take two shots at pMorghul. Both are boosted, both hit, both damage rolls are boosted, and with no beast that can take damage, pMorghul dies.

It should be noted that the Skorne player, by all rights, should have been able to crush Gorten with the gladiator. Too many 3d6 damage rolls that failed to break 7, and I think there was at least one triple 1's for damage. On average rolls from my opponent, I would have lost. And, without some lucky rolls on my part, he would have won.

Well, that was stupid of me.

Got in a small game at the FLGS today. I was running Irusk, some Winter Guard + Joe, and a couple of jacks, against the Menoth battlebox, a min choir, knights, and a paladin. It did not go well. Part of it was simply bad luck - you would expect that 2d6-7, repeated 6 times, would have half the rolls do nothing, and the other half do a fairly minimum amount of damage. Instead, 5 of the 6 did nothing, and I don't think they even rolled as high as a 6.

Of course, messing up the order of activation, and charging a menoth jack seemed like a good idea - until I wanted to shoot the other jack (which I had also inadvertently engaged). I did quite a bit of damage there, shooting my own jack in the back. Oh well - you live, you lose, you learn.

Haven't done too much painting the last few days. Both units of Winter Guard (normal and rifles) are now assembled and primed, and some have paint. The raek is primed, and once I sit down with some green stuff, I should finish up the nephilim, the seraph, and the farrow slaughterhousers.

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.

Progress report

Well, I did not get as much time in the basement as I had hoped, nor was it terribly productive. Still, I started laying down the base colors for the Menoth battlebox, did some detail work on the Cygnar 'jacks, base skin tone on the Argus models, and put together a couple of models.

Inventory day (part 2)

So, per iBodger, here is the final tally:

Collection Name: Omnibus
Models: 601
1 Adeptis Rahn
1 Agonizer
1 Alten Ashley, Monster Hunter
2 Ancestral Guardian
1 Aptimus Marketh
2 Gun Mage Leader
10 Gun Mage Grunt
1 Arcanist
2 Argus
1 Iron Lich Asphyxious
1 Baldur the Stonecleaver
1 Bane Thrall Leader
5 Bane Thrall Grunt
1 Basilisk Drake
1 Basilisk Krea
1 Bile Thrall Leader
5 Bile Thrall Grunt
2 Blackhide Wrastler
1 Bloat Thrall
1 Bloodgorger Leader
9 Bloodgorger Grunt
1 Bloodrunner Master Tormentor
1 Bloody Barnabas
2 Bog Trog Leader
14 Bog Trog Grunt
1 Bronzeback Titan
1 Bull Snapper
1 The Butcher of Khardov
1 Lieutenant Allister Caine
1 Calaban the Grave Walker
1 Captain Gunnbjorn
1 Carnivean
1 Cataphract Arcuarii Leader
5 Cataphract Arcuarii Grunt
1 Cataphract Cetrati Leader
5 Cataphract Cetrati Grunt
1 Classic Charger
1 Charger
1 Chimera
1 Choir of Menoth Leader
5 Choir of Menoth Grunt
1 Croak Hunter
1 Classic Crusader
4 Cyclops Savage
1 Cyclops Shaman
1 Dawnguard Invictor Leader
9 Dawnguard Invictor Grunt
1 Dawnlord Vyros
2 Classic Deathripper
1 Defender
1 Classic Defiler
1 Warwitch Deneghra
1 Classic Destroyer
2 Devout
1 Dire Troll Blitzer
2 Dire Troll Mauler
1 Dire Troll Mauler Extreme
1 Discordia
1 Dr. Arkadius
1 Stoneward
5 Woldstalker
1 Druid Wilder
1 Druid of Orboros Leader
5 Druid of Orboros Grunt
1 Durgen Madhammer
1 Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
1 Extoller Soulward
1 Farrow Bone Grinder Leader
5 Farrow Bone Grinder Grunt
2 Farrow Brigand Leader
18 Farrow Brigand Grunt
1 Fell Caller Hero
1 Feora, Priestess of the Flame
1 Feral Warpwolf
1 Firefly
1 Garryth, Blade of Retribution
2 Gatorman Leader
8 Gatorman Grunt
1 General Gerlak Slaughterborn
1 Ghordson Basher
2 Ghordson Driller
1 Ghost Sniper
1 Gorgon
1 Greygore Boomhowler
5 Boomhowler Trollkin
1 Grim Angus
1 Grissel Bloodsong, Fell Caller
2 Grundback Blaster
3 Grundback Gunner
1 Gudrun the Wanderer
2 Gun Boar
1 Gun Mage Captain Adept
1 Hakaar the Destroyer
1 Houseguard Halberdier Officer
1 Houseguard Halberdier Standard Bearer
1 Captain Victoria Haley
1 Captain Victoria Haley (variant)
1 Hoarluk Doomshaper, Shaman of the Gnarls
1 Hoarluk Doomshaper, Rage of Dhunia
1 House Shyeel Artificer
3 House Shyeel Battle Mage Leader
15 House Shyeel Battle Mage Grunt
3 House Shyeel Magister
1 Houseguard Halberdier Leader
9 Houseguard Halberdier Grunt
1 Houseguard Rifleman Leader
9 Houseguard Rifleman Grunt
1 Immortal Leader
9 Immortal Grunt
1 Ironback Spitter
1 Ironclad
1 Janissa Stonetide
1 Journeyman Warcaster
1 Classic Juggernaut
1 Kaya the Wildborne
1 Knights Exemplar Leader
5 Knights Exemplar Grunt
1 Knights Exemplar Seneschal
2 High Exemplar Kreoss
1 Krielstone Bearer
5 Krielstone Grunt
1 Lancer
1 Lich Lord Terminus
1 Lord Carver, BMMD, Esq. III
2 Lord Tyrant Hexeris
1 Lord of the Feast
1 Lylyth, Herald of Everblight
1 Machine Wraith
1 Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain
1 Madrak Ironhide, World Ender
1 Mage Hunter Assassin
1 Mage Hunter Strike Force Leader
9 Mage Hunter Strike Force Grunt
1 Magnus the Traitor
1 Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane
2 Archdomina Makeda
1 Mangler
1 Manticore
1 Mechanithrall Leader
5 Mechanithrall Grunt
1 Mohsar the Desertwalker
1 Molik Karn
1 Master Tormentor Morghoul
1 Lord Assassin Morghoul
1 Morvahna the Autumnblade
1 Mulg the Ancient
1 Narn, Mage Hunter of Ios
1 Necrotech
1 Ogrun Assault Corps Leader
4 Ogrun Assault Corps Grunt
1 Ogrun Bokur
2 Paingiver Leader
10 Paingiver Grunt
1 Bloodrunner Leader
5 Bloodrunner Grunt
1 Phoenix
1 Pistol Wraith
1 Praetorian Karax Leader
9 Praetorian Karax Grunt
2 Praetorian Swordsman Leader
18 Praetorian Swordsman Grunt
1 Pyg Burrower Leader
8 Pyg Burrower Grunt
2 Pyg Bushwacker Leader
14 Pyg Bushwacker Grunt
1 Pyre Troll
1 Classic Reaper
1 The High Reclaimer
1 Renegade
1 Classic Repenter
1 Revenant Leader
9 Revenant Grunt
2 Classic Revenger
1 Houseguard Rifleman Officer
1 Houseguard Rifleman Standard Bearer
1 Runebearer
1 Saxon Orrik
4 Scrap Thrall
1 Scrapjack
1 Seether
3 Shifting Stones
4 Shredder
1 Skarlock Thrall
1 Pirate Queen Skarre
1 Slag Troll
2 Classic Slayer
1 Kommander Sorscha
1 Soulhunter Leader
4 Soulhunter Grunt
1 Squire
1 Stalker
1 Stone Keeper
1 Stone Scribe Elder
1 Stormblade Officer
1 Stormblade Standard Bearer
1 Stormblade Storm Gunner
2 Stormblade Leader
12 Stormblade Grunt
1 Stormguard Leader
7 Stormguard Grunt
3 Stormsmith Stormcaller
1 Commander Coleman Stryker (plastic)
1 Supreme Aptimus Zaal
1 Kovaas
1 Swamp Gobber Leader
1 Swamp Gobber Grunt
1 Swamp Troll
1 Talon
2 Temple Flameguard Leader
10 Temple Flameguard Grunt
1 Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight
1 Thor Steinhammer
1 Thumper Leader
2 Thumper Grunt
1 Thunderhead
2 Titan Cannoneer
2 Titan Gladiator
1 Totem Hunter
1 Trencher Chain Gun Gunner
1 Trencher Chain Gun Crewman
1 Trencher Leader
5 Trencher Grunt
2 Troll Axer
1 Troll Bouncer
3 Troll Impaler
1 Trollkin Champion Leader
4 Trollkin Champion Grunt
1 Fennblade Leader
9 Fennblade Grunt
1 Trollkin Scattergunner Leader
9 Trollkin Scattergunner Grunt
1 Tyrant Commander
1 Tyrant Standard Bearer
1 Tyrant Xerxis
1 Vayl, Disciple of Everblight
1 Venator Catapult Leader
2 Venator Catapult Grunt
1 Venator Officer
1 Venator Standard Bearer
1 Venator Leader
9 Venator Grunt
1 Viktor Pendrake
1 Vladimir, The Dark Prince
1 Vladimir Tzepeschi (variant)
1 Void Seer Mordikaar
2 War Hog
1 Winter Troll
1 Witch Coven - Helleana
1 Witch Coven - Morgaen
1 Witch Coven - Selene
1 Egregore
1 Wold Guardian
1 Woldwarden
1 Woldwatcher
1 Woldwyrd
1 Wolf of Orboros Leader
5 Wolf of Orboros Grunt
3 Wrack
1 Wroughthammer Rockram
1 Zevanna Agha, Old Witch of Khador

Yep, 601 figures. On a faction basis, it breaks down as follows:

Cryx - 69 models
Circle - 35 models
Cygnar - 64 models
Legion - 8 models
Khador - 8 models
Skorne - 117 models
Menoth - 38 models
Trollbloods - 85 models
Retribution - 79 models
Minions - 71 models
Mercenaries - 27 models

The sad thing is that 4 of them are painted. Yep, 4. There are more that are "done," but I am not counting them, since they are headed for the strip bath later on this week. There are perhaps 50 or 60 more that are very close to being finished - a few evenings of dedicated work would finish the unit of Immortals, a minimum unit of Gatormen, a couple of Cryx jacks, Hakar, and so forth. And, for the record, although not everything is assembled and primed, most of it is, and most models even have some color on them. (Yes, I am grasping at straws here. . . cut me some slack, right?)

Anyway, in addition to the inventory, and the priming of the two models earlier, I got the backpacks onto a full unit (plus command) of Houseguard riflemen, and they got primed as well. Not the most productive day, but certainly not something to be ashamed of, either.