Go go Royal Blues...

There's been a slight change of plan in my quest for world domination via the Pink Horde. The battle cry of "axe to mouf" will be replaced, for the time being, by "eat electric death!"

I'm going to a gaming convention.

With airfare as cheap as it is, a very affordable convention pass, and a place to crash, it was a no-brainer for me to decide to attend TempleCon 2009. They've got 24-hour gaming! Did I mention it's in Rhode Island?

I've never been to the eastern seaboard, not sure how much I'll actually get to see. But it'll be a good chance to meet some of the East Coast Press Gangers and play in a fairly relaxed tournament format called Eternal War. And after reading this in the PP forums, I knew I wanted to go.

So we'll see. I've got three lists -- 500, 750 and 1000 (for Eternal War) and I will be fully painted since I'll be representing Boise. I'll have a model count ready by Jan. 1. As far as I'm concerned, everything I'm painting for TC needs to be finished by Feb. 3, as the plan is to fly out 5 February. I should return 9 February, catch my breath, run a Steam Roller 4 tourney on 15 February and start Call to Arms 2009 on 16 February. And run MonPoc.

The one silly thing I did with Christmas money? I bought another Thunderhead.

It's not a bad paint job. But from where I am now, it's not a good paint job either. The T-head did well for my against Circle yesterday, but the paint job pissed me off. So he'll be retired and I'll paint another one -- faster and prettier.

I might as hit 2009 running. I will have plenty of time to get the Trolls painted for the Invitational, and I might even learn how to win with the buggers.

Axe to mouf -- Revenge of Dangerfish!

So just how many Kriel Warriors is too many?

As it turns out, 28.

I needed to see if the 30 KW army would be effective at all. With 28, that got me close enough. And the answer is no, it is not effective.

Today's list was:

eMadrak

Bouncer (Smiley B)

Impaler (Smiley)

Fell Caller

Fell Caller (Juan Cinco)

KW (10) + UA, + Caber

KW (9) + Caber

KW (9) + Caber

Kriel Stone Bearer & Stone Scribes (6) + SS Elder

Champions

49 models, 748 points, 25 VPs.

I tried something new with prepping the Pink Horde for painting -- I added 30+ drops of FFW to GW Magenta ink. Covers really nicely over the gray. Doing the guide coat with Citadel black wash; I think these will go fast when they take their turn on the table. There is a very small chance I would need to bring a fully painted Menoth or Cygnar force to another con in February, but I need to see if 1) I can afford it and 2) I should go. I would like to go, they have an awesome tourney format, but we'll see. Airfare is pretty low. I just don't know that I could get everything painted. But anyway.

I won the roll (after we tied on 4s) and went first. KW1 with caber, SS Chronicler, Champs and Cinco, Smiley B and Smiley, eMadrak, KW3 behind, KSB and SS Elder, KW3 with UA and caber.

Here's how things went down, assuming I can read this chicken scratch I call handwriting.

Jen Turn 1

EVERYBODY RUNS.

Mike Turn 1

- Thorn advances

- Hunter shoots Smiley for 4 points

- Finn shoots KW3, gets 2 on strafe attack. Murders the untough leader but doesn't damage the two other KWs targeted.

- Black 13th moves, wants to do some of this Troll murder like Finn!

Ryan shoots, misses; Ryan shoots, misses. Lynch misses. Watts misses. KWs rejoice!

- Haley activates, arcs Chain Lightning onto Sm

iley. Rolls snakes, Squire re-roll, attack hits. Mike rolls 6 for additional arcs. Smiley, 16 points, no damage; Bouncer, 18 points, no damage. Champ B, 17 points, no damage; Champ A, 19 points, 2 dmg; Champ C, no dmg; Champ D, no dmg; Kithkar, no dmg.

- Thorn yo-yo out of Champ charge range.

- GMCA advances, long shot Smiley, 16 points, no dmg.

Jen Turn 2

- KW1 run

- Champs run

- Bouncer adv

- Smiley boosts hit on Hunter, no crit. Does 6 points of dmg

- KW2 advances. Caber gets into position. Tosses onto Finn for 4 points; kills SK and SK leader. UA pops mini feat (tough on 4s or better)

- KW3 runs from position in the rear

- eMadrak advances and hugs tree

- KSB activates Protective Aura.

Hey, tree hugging is for Circle, damn hippie!

Mike Turn 2

- Finn shoots into KW2, gets 2 strafe again. Initial target tough; strafe 1 dead, strafe 2 lives (didn't need tough!)

- Hunter shoots Bouncer, 8 points of damage

- Storm Blades charge Champs and do their standard bearer eat electric death thingie. Champ B takes 3 hits -- tough, tough, not tough! Champ A takes 6 points, not tough. SBs have no targets for charge attacks!

- JWC advances, Arcane Shield on SB.

- Rowdy falls short on Bouncer charge

- Thorn moves

- Haley + Squire move; chain lightning into KW1. Spell misses. Squire re-roll misses. 

- Thorn yo-yo to safety

- GMCA runs toward center of board

- Black 13th time... Lynch shoots first, KW tough; Watts hits KW tough on a 4; Ryan initial attack, no dmg, 2nd attack hits, no dmg. Time for 4" AOE. Gets 5 models for POW14: tough, tough, tough, tough, dead.

Orange dice indicate who was tough. Mike was displeased.

Jen Turn 3

KW1 were awfully close to where the SBs were. And had a fully loaded caber.

- Caber hops on hill with SB. Cinco does War Cry for +2 on attack; Prayer of Potency adds +2 for strength. Four SBs lined up for caber, all 4 die

- Impaler throws on Rowdy for 4 points of dmg

- Bouncer does no dmg to Rowdy

- Champs move in and finish off SB

- KW2 charge; Finn dies (not tough), SK lives, SK dies

Mike Turn 3

- GMCA shoots and misses non-Cinco Fell Caller

- Hunter misses Champ in melee, uses reserve tank to escape

- JWC throws Arcane Shield on SKs

- Rowdy smashes Bouncer. Night night, Smiley B

- Rhupert plays Heroic Call for SKs

- Thorn advances

- SK charge KW; 4 dead, 1 tough

- Black 13th moves again; Watts kills KW; Lynch murders piper; Ryan kills KW x2. 

- Haley activates, arcs Chain Lightning at KSB; 3 arcs. Three dead KSB

- Thorn yo-yo

Jen Turn 4

Too few Kriel Warriors now.

Extremely ineffective turn.

- Smiley frenzies, murders KSB. Gee, thanks.

- Champs attack Rowdy, only D manages 3 points

- KW1 run

- Fell Caller does reveille on knocked down KW3.

- KW3 run to find targets

- eMadrak feat

- Chronicler attacks Rowdy for no dmg

- Champ D attacks Rowdy, no dmg

Mike Turn 4

- Arcane Shield upkeep

- SK advance to non-Cinco FC, gain flanking bonus from Thorn. SK does 1 dmg on 1st attack, 4 on second; SK misses, 27 dmg, tough; SK does 25 points, KW dead. KW cmd check, 3 flee

- GMCA blaze round on eMadrak, misses with 13

- Thorn moves

- JWC shoots @ caber, misses!

- Hunter moves, shoots Champ C for 7 points

- Piper Heroic Call on SK

- Black 13th activates; Watts shoots Champ C, misses; Lynch shoots Caber, tough; Ryan shoots KW, tough; shoots again, no dmg, here comes POW14, 4" AOE - caber tough, KW tough, KW - dead. Pass cmd check w/5.

- Haley activates, arcs Chain Lightning on KSB2: KW tough, SSE tough, Smiley takes a point (why the hate??), eMadrak 4 points

- Thorn yo-yo

- Temporal Barrier

- Rowdy quake attack, knocks down 2 champs, Chronicler.

Game called due to time; Mike 8, Jen 4

The biggest problem was getting stuck behind my own models. I will run 2 units of KW and I'm investigating a second unit of Champ. Tweaked the list yet again, we'll see what I can come up with. In the meantime, sleep sounds good.

Axe to mouf -- a win!

I was able to get a rare game in today. Two, actually. Since OC Graham's party was Saturday night and I wasn't sure what time I'd wake up Sunday morning, I arranged for my shift to be covered. And the promptly arranged a game. Mike said he wanted to face Trolls, so we scheduled a 750.

Silly me, I didn't take notes during the fight. I took pictures, mostly after my turn. I kind of have an eye deer of what happened, but it's gotten fuzzy now. So I might just end up making up stuff and rely on Mike to pop in and tell me I'm full of shit. :)

This is the Stone Scribe Elder. To quote someone else, "he will rock you!" I rolled my eyes when the comment was made, but in all truth, this dude kicks ass. That's why he has a fancy base.

This was deployment for Game 1. From left to right, I had Champions, Fell Caller, Stone Scribe Chronicler, full Kriel Warriors with UA and Caber, Slag Troll, Impaler, Kriel Stone Bearer and Stone Scribes with Elder, Bouncer, eMadrak, Fell Caller 2 (aka Juan Cinco) and KW (9) with Caber.

Mike won the roll and advanced his Cygnar. In order for there to be axe to mouf (you never go axe to mouf!) I knew I had to run my Trolls the first turn, probably the second. And so run we did.

Mike's Cygnar advanced. He had a Defender to my left, Sword Knights with Thorn as back up, Ol' Rowdy up front, Strangeways, Bokur, old man Nemo and the Squire (eeeee kawaii!) and Long Gunners with UA. As a Cygnar player, I understand there are many times where the models that fight for the Thundar Chikin will be outnumbered. With my Trolls on the board, this was exaggerated even more since everything on my side was on a medium base. It was a metric fuck-ton of models.

But see how far they got after Turn 1? It helps when your mantra is "run, Trolls, run."

By bottom of Turn 2, I had Cygnar all up in my Troll grill. On my left, the Defender was sticking it to my Champs. They did some damage but not enough. My unit of KW didn't like the looks of Rowdy. Nothing like a caber to the facehole to make you have a nice sit down. I think the Pile Driver was the only successful caber throw I had in both games.

If you take a closer look at the photo, Nemo is on his back. That's because eMadrak, thanks to Far Strike, ricochetted his ax off the Bokur and into Nemo. The bad thing for Nemo was that he had no focus and a boosted POW 17 isn't something you can live through. He did, then I popped eMadrak's feat and Nemo expired.

The game was over too quickly and we agreed to play a second game. Little did we know it would be a brutal affair, rife with horrible dice rolls, the Fell Caller Who Wouldn't Die and Long Gunners who more than earned their points.

Changed a few things with deployment for Game 2. This time, Mike had Thorn to keep an eye on Nemo. Ol Rowdy was also in better position to dish out some pain. Long Gunners would prove a good match for the KWs on my right flank. Bastards.

Mike won the roll again and went first. Team Pinky ran Turn 1. I think this pic was from bottom Turn 2 because the Defender is all the way across the board and the SKs have begun their defense of the middle. I think that's a Fell Caller engaging the Defender. If you look toward the Long Gunners, you can see a faint pink smear from where they ventilated Smiley, my favorite Impaler. Note to self: 11-man CRA to the face -- twice! -- is hazardous to your health. A moment of silence for Smiley.

... ... ...

I could have had the KWs on the right flank swing to the right of the hill, but thought I might need them for screening further down the line. They seemed to be enjoying listening to the Fell Caller tell dirty jokes from atop the rock.

This is Mike's dead Bokur. Those are the dice I rolled on damage. I wish I could remember how the hell I killed him. Knew I should've taken notes. But he was very dead. Of that, I'm sure.

[edit] Mike reminded me it was a buffed up KW who killed him on the charge. I wish I could remember which model, because he'd get moved toward the front of the painting line. In any event, the KW was benefiting from Stone Strength and Potency and hit the Bokur with a POW 14 on the charge.[/edit]

This is where Rowdy turned Trolls into bitches. He did his Quakehammer knockdown thing and pasted the hell out of Slaggy. If only Slaggy's hands weren't oversized, he might have been able to get out the way. Smiley B was pissed about Smiley's death and was able to hang on for a few more turns. I like what the Slag Troll is capable of, but I'm seriously considering dropping him for another Impaler or even another Bouncer. We'll see.

An absence of Sword Knights and many fewer LGs. Juan Cinco ran into the Long Gunners and another KW ran with him to engage. Two LGs decided to take it for the team and moved out of melee with Juan, who pasted both of them. But that set up a 9-man CRA, which Cinco lived through a total of FIVE times. Hence, he was dubbed Cinco. And Juan Cinco is just funny.

Down to the last of the KWs in both squads. Fell Caller 1 would end up running around the tree to engage Nemo. When he was able to attack the following turn (Nemo didn't do enough to kill him), he put a hurtin on the old man. Chain lightning (eat electric death!) and ball lightning made short work of my KWs and damaged eMadrak as well. He wasn't able to transfer damage at this point and couldn't use one of his troops to eat the damage.

I was able to move Madrak to where he had a clear shot at the Squire, which was surrounded by the KW standard and piper (hit em with your flute, Greg!). I boosted the hit on the Squire, pasted it and ricochetted into Nemo -- again a boosted POW 17. eMadrak notched a hard-fought win.

The character jacks are definitely worth their points. Rowdy was able to knock Madrak down, which delay the assassination run. The Thorn yo-yo is very effective at keeping the lil fella out of the way. Having Strangeways and Junior cast every turn and get Nemo up to 10 focus with the Squire ... wow. Makes me sad I'm training with my Trolls for the next few months.

And I've learned to love Long Gunners again. The UA is a must for them; the ranking fire and the additional shooter on CRA is quite nice. We're both looking forward to the Sword Knight UA; that's the one that will make it painful for me to keep playing Trolls.

I learned a lot. Winning does help, but just going through the motions and seeing what the proper order of operations is with those guys is huge. When I play Amon, there's a definite rhythm with the way I do things.  I'm slowly getting there with Trolls. 

Now to get them painted...

Day 18

I've been a bad blogger and not posting things here. And I've been lazy about uploading photos from the camera. But when the crazy thing has a 4gb card, there is little incentive to upload. :P

I should be panicking at the prospect of 30 models between now and the 31st, especially since there will be several days where no painting will take place. For example, I will paint in the morning -- I've been setting my alarm for 8 -- and goof off on the computer and paint some more. More often than not, I end up on the PP forums >_< (modeling & miniatures, duh) and causing/getting into trouble in the Press Ganger areas.

So, there are 12 Knights Exemplar, 2 Seneschals, 1 eKreoss, 1 Blessing of Vengeance, Rhoven & the boys and 10 Knights Errant on the desk. Along with 10 Kriel Warriors and several blisters of product dying to be assembled. It turns out I have a surprising amount of Mercenaries. Privateers, Rhulics and a little of everything else.

Sitting here and looking at my sort of base coated Mariner and Freebooter, I think the Privateers will get Trollblood base with red; Rhulics are already Caterpillar yellow; Stannis and Steelheads and other Mercs will be Trollblood with some flavor of green -- whatever complements the Trollblood base.

I didn't count numbers on the blisters. I know I have better stock than the local Hobbytown, which is OK since I got a lot of it there for 50% off. I'm not going to guess how many points are unassembled, but it's pretty terrible. I think there are 4 or 5 casters in there, tons o jacks (thanks to the Great Cynar dip of 2007) and more troop models than I should have. I have a tiny bit of Circle, Skorne for nefarious reasons, a wee bit o' Khador and just enough Cryx where I should research which models I really want to play. I'm going for the pinchy ones with claws, since my theme there is "Rawk Lobstah!" The Khador, and there will be Khador, shall be painted bright pink like my Trolls. I will likely acquire the Epic Butcher this weekend since he's 50% off. Seeing Orsus in bright pink is funny in my world. And there's an idea for a list I'll steal, assuming the models won't cost an arm and a leg. Who am I kidding? I really shouldn't buy anything until I'm fully assembled.

The best part about all of this? I have rationalized it because I'm a Press Ganger now. No, I don't know how to explain the models I bought the 3 years before I became a PG. :P But I have bought a decent amount in the past 2 months...

Edit: There may be a bit of confusion about my new avatar and profile pic (probably not, but humor me). For whatever reason, December makes me think of otters -- mostly because there was member night at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and you could see the lil critters more easily. Back in December 2001, an otter named Roscoe died at the Aquarium. His face became one of the logos there and he's the namesake for my cheerful dog. Plus I found cute pics, so there ya go.

December Challenge- update

Someday I will finally get off my butt and post pictures of some sort, but as of today I have all of my Protectorate warcasters painted. I finished and sealed the Harbinger of Menoth this morning. Yesterday I finished and sealed a full unit of Flameguard Cleansers. So what is left? Vengers, Errants, 2 Seneschals, Gravus, and a unit of Daughters of the Flame. Twenty-five models in all. To be fair, the Seneschals and Gravus have been inked and are ready to bring back up. I threw a base coat on all of the Vengers, still have some spots to go and a lot of touch ups before I ink them. Errants have the base coat of Vallejo White Gold liquid metallic down, and the foundation red, and Daughters have a basic idea of what I think I want to do with them.

Progress seems a little slow, but I am getting there.

Pictures shhould be following. Eventually.

scott

Day... 13?

Stormguard are being counted in the "done" pile!

I'm not sure why I was insisting on painting mine blue; I like the knightly models with Cold Steel now that I've painted 2 units like that. There are plenty of folks who say it's lazy to paint with metallics and inks and washes. But you know what? It's 20 models done in 13 days. I am not going to complain about that in the least. And I'm fond of the way these SG look. Good thing I found a workable paint scheme since I have 20 of my own to paint ... some day.


Anyway, here's the Sarge. His weapon is large, when I first saw the model, I mocked it for looking very anime. But after using it to shoot the shit out of my opponent's models, it can look like that. It's big for a reason.

Didn't have the steadiest hands today, weather has gotten colder and my right wrist is killing me. The reason I posted the pic of the Sarge is because I used the wrong armor wash on him. I grabbed the bottle of P3 armor wash and thought, "hey, I haven't used this for awhile." As I'm watching it coat the surface of the Nexus Generator, I thought, "It's not working right!" Oh wait. Wrong wash. So as a result, the weapon isn't as clean as I would have preferred. I guess you could argue it's battle worn, but I think it's sloppy. C'est la vie. I still have time to touch up.

* * *

In other news, the Trolls got taken for a test drive yesterday. It wasn't the severe ass beating I took at the hands of Staggs, but it weren't pretty, either. It comes down to needing to run EVERYONE Turn 1. eMadrak and the Krielstones were out of the fight the whole game. I needed the buffs from the Elder (proxied him with the Kilt Lifter!) and I couldn't get him there. At least I learned something.

This was how I deployed. I need to bunch up my dudes and get them ready to run. I think I got hung up on the fact I'm using 40 medium based models...

Turn 2. Terrain aside, I needed all that stuff in the middle to be a lot closer to Scott's army. Out of the frame to the left, my Champs and one Fell Caller were taking on an Allegiant.

These are my new favorite dice. I am a sick enough person that I have 16 of the Skully dice. After forsaking me, the shiny, glittery pink dice stayed in the bag. These rolled pretty hot for me -- to the tune of 10 out of 25 tough checks. I kept count because I couldn't make one against Staggs to save my life. I had one Troll make 3 in a row. They also did well on attack rolls but need motivation for damage rolls. Between the dice, my Press Ganger coin and the fact I was wearing a pirate shirt maybe I should play Privateers. :P

Or I could just paint what I have and like it!

Finally catching up...

OK, so it took me a while to actually get here. I am a Warmachine Player, and I play primarily Protectorate, though I have been known to play any and all of the Mercenaries, have a sizeable Cygnar force and have been known to dabble in the Khador Realm.

I decided to take the December Challenge and vowed to paint:

Avatar
Harbinger of Menoth
Testament of Menoth
Hierarch Severius
5 Vengers
10 Knights Exemplar Errants
2 Seneschals
10 Flameguard Cleansers
6 Daughters of the Flame
Gravus (both models)
Sunburst Deliverer Crew

This has been more about finishing models than starting fresh. A lot of these have been base coated, the Cleansers have been inked, just not finished, and the Avatar and Harbinger have ended up being repaints.

As of today, I have finished the Avatar, Sunburst crew, Squire ( I know it wasn't on the list, but it was fast and easy and a break from the grind). Gravus, Severius, both Seneschals, and the Testament have been inked, and I finished the Testament this morning, along with eSeverius' base of acolytes.

Back to getting things done. I will post pictures when I am able.