Ruin Commission w/ Hand Sculpted warpwolf/flag cape

  I finished it.  I've had this model... two months maybe.  Painting it took awhile, but with the holiday weekend I was able to burn through the cape pretty quickly.  That being said, the cape was easily one of the most frustrating things I've ever had the pleasure of working with.  I don't know if PP's stuff is better than Greenstuff or not.  I haven't actually greenstuffed an item this large before.  I need to now, but once PP's Greystuff hits about 45 minutes to an hour, it's pretty much stuck in place, but at the same token, will sag if you're trying to get it to support itself.

  I painted the warjack, pretty much sealed it and then began working the cape.  I did the flag part first, then ran the warpwolf on top with all the lessons I'd learned from the cape.  I initially rolled the cape too thin, so it was difficult to keep in place.  The wolf I may have gotten too thick, but it worked out.  I've got WIP pictures after the final product.  Let's hit the high point first, shall we?

 Note:  After posting all of these nice pics I realized I forgot to glue the medals back on after gluing the chain on from the cape.  This first picture, I went and got for the medals, but everything else, they're still missing.

  So the WIP.  I started with repositioning most of the model, getting a far more aggressive stance in place.  I modded the right hand to get a looser grip on the axe/mace so I could swing it out farther from the model like he was getting momentum going.  Then I airbrushed red, highlighted, moved to white, did all the metals, touched up minor details and one-off colors and moved onto the cape.

  I rolled out PP's greystuff, let it dry a little bit and then cut the holes into it, dragging fringes out with the tool and giving an edge.  I then let it dry for a total of 45 minutes.  This was too much time, and I really struggled to get good bends into the "fabric".  The issue though is that any less time and the sculpting material doesn't support itself.  What ended up working for me though was blue painters tape.  It sticks to the sculpt, but doesn't remove paint or change the texture.  So, using the tape, I supported the cape as I wanted, taping it to a box or whatever I need to get the angles and let it dry for the night.

  Then we moved onto the Wolf. I rolled out a basic outline, considerably thicker than the cape had been.  I used the tool (The GW standard Greenstuff tool) to drag out the edges for hairs and then drag all through the pelt for the fur itself.  At first it's pretty daunting, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly.  It's literally just dragging the tip through the clay, almost as it you're edging with a brush.

  Keep your tool wet.  Once it starts drying, it starts literally dragging material and tearing rather than just indenting so much.  The smooth motion is what you want for hte fur.

  I laid the wolf pelt over the cape and did the bluetape trick again.

  The chain you see I put in the cape by folding the narrow end of the cape over the chain and glueing it in place to secure the chain, then wrapping a small strap of material around the joint.  That got me to this point.

  Today, I finished a few minor details on Ruin, and then painted the cape.

  Altogether, this landed me this guy.

  I'm super pleased with how this has turned out, and I think it's probably my best work actually.  Between the sculpting skills, the airbrush, and the hand painted detail, I'm really excited to see how he turned out and I hope I've met the customer's expectations.  Leave any comments, critiques or outright insults and enjoy!

50pts pButcher (Khador) vs. eDoomy (Trollbloods)

Another weekend rolls around, and I get 2 more games in. This one, and an eMadrak vs. Stryker2 (mirror match, you know?). My opponent had 2 lists, and I have no idea what the other one was, but in my brilliance, I decided I wanted to try the eDoomy brick again without looking at his list at all.

eDoomy
*Mt. King
*Mulg
*Earthborn
Janissa
Min KSB
Sons of Bragg

vs. pButcher. Cool right?

pButcher
*War Dog
*Behemoth
Men of War Demolition Corp
Widowmakers
Kayazy Assassins w/ Underboss
Kayazy Eliminators
Kayazy Eliminators
pEiryss
Doom Reavers w/ UA
Ayaina & Holt

Pretty awesome huh? DEF17 tarpit against everyone's favorite RAT/MAT5 colossal. This is gonna be awesome. So he wins the rolloff, puts the widowmakers on the far left knowing that I'm going to be pushing right to take advantage of the woods I have there (Earthborn animus is great stuff in the forest). The MoW are center with Behemoth and Butcher and the Kayazy go to the right to head directly towards me.

I brick up, slightly to the right. The sons are to the left, more to his center, and everything else is behind eDoomy and his beast line, with the King on the left. Mulg and EBDT are to the right, again, closer to the woods.

He drops the doom reavers, and it's game on. Behemoth gets one to the regular cortex, and everything runs with the exception of butcher, who puts Iron Flesh on the Kayazy. This is the point where I realize I might be in serious trouble.

I also remember to start taking pics.



Mt. King moves up with Mulg, riling for the appropriate number of fury, and the EBDT moves up and puts his animus on one of them. Doomy puts Refuge on the EBDT, Wild Agression on the King, and the EBDT animus (Transmute) onthe King as well (for free), and dumps 2 fury to the stone. The Sons move up, do a 4+ tough, Janissa pops a wall, and the stone moves up and drops aura, getting everyone.



Butcher upkeeps Iron Flesh, and allocates 3 to the Behemoth sub-cortex. Kayazy push forward, and the Doomreavers run to engage me, which bothers me not at all. Widowmakers pump 4 auto-damage shots into the King, who drops 2 whelps, and a unit of Eliminators goes wide on a flank. Everyone else runs forward, except Behemoth who walks forward and is a hair out of range of the King.



Pull in fury, upkeep both WA and refuge. Mt. King twists and sweeps the three doomreavers engaging him, and hits all three, but 1 toughs. He then uses Killshot and sprays the rest of the unit, hitting all three, but only one failing tough. The UA and one doomy are KD though.

The Earthborn charges off after the Kayazy eliminators on the flank, but fails to engage either one of them. He's in the woods, but he has no LOS to anything else in the Khador army.

Mulg shuffles over next to the King, and kills the remaining Doom reavers. The Sons of Bragg move up. Doomy drops the EBDT animus on the King and Mulg both, dumps all but one to the stone. Janissa does her stuff. The two whelps run to stand in the way of things and be annoying.



Kayazy are terribly annoying. Acrobatics, parry, all of it? One AOE wielding beast, and this would have been a mute issue. War Wagon, Bomber, something. Nothing. Butcher upkeeps Iron Flesh again, and puts 3 on the Behemoth again. Subcortex.

The Eliminators on my right charge right past the Earthborn, and engage Doomy, but completely whuff their damage rolls, only doing like, 8 boxes to him. The Widowmakers shoot 4 shots into my double-sword Son of Bragg. I think the Men of War smash the whelps, just getting them with reach, and the Kayazy run to engage the Mt. King. Nothing big, just swallowing him up. Behemoth fires some shots, doing moderate damage, but nothing crazy. The Doomreavers stand up and run away.



Kayazy in melee are DEF16, against melee, not ranged. Add in Iron Flesh, and they are DEF19. I'm in some serious trouble. Doomy upkeeps everything and pulls in fury. The sons of bragg start with Fervor, and Wrathar misses his melee attack, and Tor walks up and sprays 7 of theses dudes. At RAT8, he hits.... 1. Because he wasn't trying for melee attacks, and he ignores Melee penalties, he only needed 9s. I got 1.

Doomy boosts to hit and swings at a Kayazy engaging him, and misses of course. He keeps the rest for transfers, but feats. The Mt. King twists, sweeps, and even with everything boosted, I need 14s to hit. I get 2 of them. With Killshot, I miss everything. Mulg twists and tries to clear off eDoomy, but simply can't, and even boosting to hit, I think he kills just 1.

The EBDT, however, is the hero today. Standing on a forest template, with +2 SPD there from Transmute, +3 SPD from Doomy's feat, +3 for the trample I'm about to do for free (also feat) and base SPD5, the EBDT tramples 13'' into the Men of War, and kills two, goads, and kills 1 more, the Refuges 10'' back into the woods. It was hilarious. I was really happy with the Earthborn.

Janissa drops a wall, trying to stop as many Kayazy from reaching doomy as possible, but it's pretty much pointless. Stone pops Aura, and I call it a day.



Butcher puts 3 focus on Behemoth sub cortex, drops Iron Flesh, and feats (Extra Dice damage for everyone), and puts Fury (+3 Damage) on the Kayazy.

Behemoth cranks some damage into the King, and the Kayazy attack him, and kill him in pretty short order. The Widowmakers make Widows of the Daughters-in-Law of Bragg. A couple of Kayazy get the charge on EBDT with the Doom Reaver that's left, and murder him, and two more get past Mulg, and between them and the sidestepping Eliminators, kill eDoomy. Janissa got hit in there too and toughed, but none of that mattered by the time Doomy died.

Also, note that Mulg is not dead, he's simply setting to the side because there wasn't room for him under the King's giant arm. The blue base is there to denote his presence.



Thoughts on the game:

There's two ways I could have won this.
1. I didn't realize how far my EBDT was going to get. At that point, I was pretty sure I was done for, and I just wanted to see what the Earthborn could do, especially since he failed me in the last Doomy brick game. What I SHOULD have done was trample behind the first Man of War, instead of in front to engage 2 of them at once. Kill the one dude, goad, and spend the next 4 fury trying to kill Butcher. I would have had... 3 fury to do it with? He was ARM20 (including the 2 focus I see in the pic), with a POW8 weapon to be adapted by the Earthborn. PS would have been Dice even. Would have needed 8s to hit, and have to do 20 damage in 3 rolls. Average rolls would get me the damage, but the chances of me missing one of those attacks were pretty high. If I could have gotten Wild Agression on him, it'd of been a done deal, but don't think I had the range on that.

2. Looking back, I screwed up running Mulg hot. I ran him to 5 fury, and left it that way. The way my Opponent eliminated stuff was weird because he never worried about the stone first, even though I think he had ways to reach it (fricking Kayazy). If he'd of dropped the stone first, he'd of had a much easier time killing things. The other thing he did that was weird was kill the Mt. King first. The Mt. King was the only beast I did Not run full fury on, and was therefore the only beast I could have transfered to. When the King died, Doomy had like, 6 fury to transfer with, but no where to go with it, and only a handful of attacks to make it through. If Doomy could have transfered to either the EBDT (I doubt I'd of left him low on fury) or Mulg (More possible), he could have survived, and Mulg was easily in range of killing Butcher. Now, who's to say that if I had left Mulg open a bit, if he wouldn't have focused on killing Mulg. Quite possible, but I think he would have struggled considerably with it at ARM21, and not many Kayazy attacks left.

3. My last turn, I didn't get the EBDT animus on ANYTHING. At the very least, I should have got it on Doomy himself for some extra ARM, but I didn't.

4. Overall, good game, and there were definitely some ways I could have won that if I'd of had my head on straight. My opponent played a great game, and the eliminators way out on the flanks was annoying as heck. There just wasn't enough of my models to deal with all the avenues of attack he had, but that's what his list is for, and he played it awesome. Great game, and I'm looking forward to the next one!

50pts eSorscha (Khador) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods). My wife is starting to counter list me.

  It's essentially meta-gaming, but by meta, I mean the two of us, and four out of four of our last games have been me playing eMadrak. She stepped it up a notch and picked up Valachev and eSorscha. Both are incredibly nifty in conjunction with the Nyss. The Epic incarnation of Sorscha is actually remarkably similar to her Prime version. Boundless Charge is still in, and so is Freezing Grip. This time around though, she's got the tools to do work herself. Shatterstorm is out there like a unit-wide Explosivo, and Cyclone exists to spirit her into combat, and move away, or vice versa. Kind of a Khador version of eCaine's Gatecrasher, but better in a few respects. On top of that, she's got Harlan Versh's multifire gun that can get up to ROF4. Her feat is reminiscent of Siege as well, in that anything that breaks ARM is doubled. At Dice minus 3, and you roll a 9, you're doing 12 damage. Against my trolls, that's terrifying. She also gains Iron Flesh, which, combined with the Nyss makes for a DEF18 tarpit... That's a unit 10 models higher than eCaine's DEF. It's messed up.

Valachev is Khador's ranking officer. In short, he puts the Nyss in Faction. This isn't huge for eSorscha so much, but Valachev does so much for the Nyss that it's irrelevant. For starters, he gives them a 3'' Zephyr movement (Like the Woldstalkers from Circle) that ignores free strikes, and then they can activate as normal. On the Nyss, when I'm trying to tie them up with Fenns, that's really annoying.

My wife also proxied out her Juggernaut for Behemoth. I'd actually never read his stats. POW12 AP fists? Seriously? You people keep thinking your hunters are good. POW6 AP is horrendous.

So, her list, expanding to 50pts:

eSorscha
*Sylys
*Destroyer (Bonded)
*Behemoth (proxied by the Juggernaut)
Max Nyss w/ Valachev
Max Men of War
Ayaina & Holt
eEiryss
Harlan Versh
Manhunter

A few pointers. Really, our list building consists of "Here's everything you own that's Khador. Fill with Mercs.". The Men of War have about been replaced. I think I'll see Boomies in their stead next game, unless she replaces her beloved Destroyer. The Destroyer, incidentally, is bonded because she reasoned she can already put 6 focus on the Behemoth, she'd like to have the ability to put 4 on the Destroyer, and she was also pretty sure the Destroyer would see Melee before Behemoth would.

I'm probably going to try to grab her the Great Bears, Behemoth, or a unit of WGI in the near future. Any pointers in that direction are much appreciated. Behemoth seems like a really good idea, but what's a good jack for the Sorschas, and secondly, Strakhov? Sorscha first though.

My list remains much the same. I'm loving eMadrak. I'm enjoying playing dangerous halfway up the board with Grim Salvation, the Stone and whatever else I can get. I like the damage he can put out, I like the resiliency of his army, it's fun. My original plan to carry me from 35 to 50 pts was to get an assembled battle wagon on the table, but the more I looked at it, the more I decided that it needed painted in separate pieces and not altogether. The other thing for the last 6 pts would be the Sons of Bragg, which are primed, and have some base colors laid down on them (including an ugly orange that's the rust layer before I put metals down). So no battlewagon, but I did have a completed Janissa that I've been itching to try, so I made it work.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Stormtroll
*Impaler
*Slag troll
Fennblades w/UA
Champions
Sons of Bragg
Kriel Stone Bearer
Kithkar
Janissa
Fell Caller

We rolled off, and I desperately wanted to get first, so I could choose second. Jessica has consistently enjoyed deploying in response to my initial setup, and every bloody time (except once), the Nyss go across from the Fenns. I used to put the Fenns in the woods on my left because of their native pathfinder, but the Nyss don't need the extra concealment. She put the Nyss against the Champions once when I put them in the woods, and she won't do that again. So, by losing the rolloff, I know that I'm facing DEF18 Nyss with MAT6 Fenns.

Woohoo.

So, Champions to my left. Beasts in the center to take advantage of the ruin (cover) in front of them, Madrak, and the Fenns on my right. Next to the Fenns are my super new Sons of Bragg, my answer to the Nyss if the Fenns can't finish them. Behind all this is the Fell Caller, Janissa, Moses, the KSBs (hoping to camp in the ruins) and the Kithkar (My backup answer to the Nyss).



My wife deploys the Nyss exactly as expected, on the right to counter my Fenns, with Valachev. The Men of War head to the opposite side, hoping to deal with the Champions, but without getting into the woods. Everything else goes center. Remember, the Juggernaut is Behemoth.




I'm off. I activate Moses first (the Runebearer) and give Madrak a cheaper spell. The Champions sprint (Imagine John Candy with two weapons and running) a whopping 10''. The Fenns move 12'' up the right side, spacing out so hopefully I won't get Shatterstormed to death by the Nyss. The Kithkar filters in behind. The 3 beasts run forward, riling for a total of 2, plus the 3 fury they used to run. Madrak drops Warpath (Kill enemy model in control range, give beast free 3'' movement out of activation) for 1 fury, dumps the rest to the stone and charges the Behemoth, or something. Fell Caller, Sons of Bragg all move up. KSB runs, pops aura behind Madrak for a whopping 7'' radius circle of +2 ARM, and Janissa moves up to plant a wall in front of them all.






ACTION SHOT!!!



My wife opens the ball with a focus on each jack, and running the Men of War. The Nyss run forward as well, spreading out, and not pushing too far ahead. She's kind of figured out the range on mini-feating Fennblade charges (13'' w/ reach). The two jacks forge forward, not terribly far either (14'' guns. I'll come soon enough), and Eiryss hangs out in the woods. The Manhunter sprints for the ruins on the right, Harlan joins Eiryss, Sylys moves up and Sorscha activates. She puts Iron Flesh on the Nyss, and keeps whats left. 2, I think. I think she actually allocated a few more focus to her jacks than 1, but decided not to shoot on the chances that she'd kill one Fenn, and no more than that. She's decided that if she's not going to kill more than 3 Fenns, it's not worth triggering Vengeance, and she's pretty happy with how far they are from the Nyss atm. So she marxed a few focus I think, but it works.



ACTION SHOT!!! Sunday was an enjoyable evening, the two of us painting.



So, here we go. Madrak pulls in fury, upkeeps Warpath. The Fell caller puts War Cry (+2 MAT) and moves towards the Champions because I'm expecting to need Pathfinder on them soon. The Champions push forward, maybe 4 inches. I'm trying to goad my wife into charging them. Moses puts cheaper spells on Madrak. Madrak shuffles forward, puts the Impaler's animus on the Impaler, throws Blood Fury to the Champions, and puts his last fury on the Stone. The Impaler moves up near the Champions, and boosts a spear throw into the center MoW so that A) I know how far they are away (11.5'') and B) maybe crit slam so I can KD him, and the one behind him and shut them down for a turn essentially. I don't get the Crit, and boosted damage on an ARM21 Khadorian leaves him with 1 box.

The Stormtroll runs for the Fenns. I'm fully expecting to shoot some Fenns in the back and bring in some Cygnaran electro-leap tech for these DEF18 Fenns. The Slag runs forward as well, trying to get into a position to put damage into Behemoth, who scares me. AP 12 fists will hurt everything in my army.

KSB move up, pop aura and shelter all of the Champions, Madrak, Impaler, Slag, Fell Caller and a couple of Fenns. Janissa moves up and drops a wall. Again. The Sons of Bragg run up to shelter behind the wall a little (outside of Grim Salvation), and get within the Aura. They also do their Call of Defiance (Boomhowler tough).

The Fenns charge, and minifeat. Three go for the charge. One hits the Manhunter, two more go for Nyss. One gets the melee range, and all the others run, one going to bug the Behemoth and Destroyer. The one that hits the Manhunter actually connects and murders her, making my wife unhappy. "This is my favorite painted model, and I have yet to use her. You bought her for me, and then you kill her, every game."

The Fenn that goes after the Nyss misses, needing a 10 (Fell Call) to hit. The Kithkar runs up behind the Fenns, and that's it for me.






Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh on the Nyss, dangit. My wife puts 4 focus on behemoth (3 to the sub cortex) and 2 on the Destroyer. Harlan opens the ball, moves up... and breathes the sweet smell of Purgation. Boosted attack AND damage rolls on my Champions... He hits, all four times, but whuffs a few of the damage rolls, leaving my guy at 1 box. A solid trade, pretty similar to what I did to her MoW.

Now that she's measured range with Harlan, she shuffles the MoW forward, toeing into threat range against the Champions.

The Nyss Zephyr away thanks to Valachev, and then charge right back in at three Fenns, and completely annihilate them all, except one. I actually remembered Set Defense that they have, and she only got one attack at this one, needing an 8, and she missed. The Nyss passed their CMD check, last turn incidentally, from the Terror on the Fenn's minifeat.

Holt stands, aims, and misses the Fenn engaging her jacks. He aims, shoots again, and kills him this time. Ayaina stealths them both. The Destroyer aims, does not boost to hit and puts a shot into my Impaler, and does four or five damage. The Behemoth aims, misses. Deviation goes nowhere good. Second shot, she boosts to hit and boosts damage and takes me down another 8 boxes. I have all 3 aspects still, but the spirit is 1 away from being out.

She then debates what to do with Eiryss, but reads the Sniper line. With a frustratingly annoying, but undeniably cute smirk, she shoots my Impaler and does 1 damage to the spirit, and shuts down his fury mechanic.

Sorscha hangs out.



Fury comes back in. Madrak drops Warpath (everything is pretty much outside his control), but upkeeps Blood Fury on the Champions. The Fenns Vengeance forward, and a few get reach, but miss everything. DEF18, yo.

So. Is it feat turn? Probably not. I really don't have Control for most of my units. So the Champions charge. Well, 2, specifically. One goes after Eiryss, and one goes after the center MoW. The others run. The one that charged Eiryss misses the first attack, but hits on the second and smushes her. The second charge hits, kill, and is just BARELY out of melee with either of the dudes on either side. I was just barely in charge range with them.

Moses does a cheap spell on Madrak. Madrak heals the Impaler for 1, far strikes the Slag, and the Impaler both. The Impaler boosts a hit at the Destroyer, but fails to crit, and doesn't do any serious damage, if any, though he boosted it. He's at 2 fury. My slag aims, with Far Strike, and throws at Behemoth. Boost damage, and roll 6, on four dice (Erosion)... No damage. Buy second shoot, shoot, hit, boost damage and do 4 boxes to the 2 I think. Terrible.

The Fell caller runs, because he's way out range to help the Fenns, who need him way more than the Champs. The Fenns charge/run, including one at Valachev (friggin Zephyr), and everybody misses at MAT6. The Kithkar walks in, and misses, swinging over the wall. This is brutal. Granted, I needed boxcars on everyone, except Valachev, but I wasn't able to roll higher than like, 5. Still, I didn't expect to kill many Nyss this game with the Fenns. At this point, I'm trying to force her to deal with them, instead of shooting KSBs off of Madrak. I do put 2 fenns in melee with her jacks, trying to tie her up still.

I check control range, and I think the Stormtroll is in range of my Fenns engaged with the Nyss. With back arc, engaged, and aiming, I need a 7 to hit. Boost to hit, and miss. There's no chance of hitting a Nyss, so I rile for one. I'm fully expecting to lose a beast this round. Stupid Stormtroll.

Sons of Bragg shuffle up by Madrak (again, outside of Grim Salvation). KSBs run up, pile in around him and pop aura. I only have the KSBs, Madrak, Janissa, the two beasts in front, and the Sons still in the aura. Janissa moves up, drops a wall, and that's turn. The tape goes back to Jess.



She contemplates for awhile, and decides that it's probably feat turn. The Impaler is half dead, and the Slag troll worries her considerably. Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh, and Sorscha puts 2 focus to the Behemoth sub cortex, and 2 on the Destroyer, and keeps 2 for Boundless charge.

Holt starts up again, and shoots a fenn engaged with Behemoth, and he toughs, FINALLY. He kills the other one, and Ayaina stealths. Jess debates long and hard on how far to move Sorscha. She's pretty tired of losing Sorscha on the last chance long-range assassination runs that I pretty much live for, so she finally decides to move up a few inches to get LOS to the toughed Fenn, and feats. She handcannons the Fenn effortlessly, puts Boundless charge on the Destroyer, and calls it. She's got 1 champion, the Slag, the Impaler, and several fenns in her feat. The fenns don't matter, but she wants the Slag and Impaler.

The Men of War shuffle/charge, and kill three Champions with Harlan's help, and none of them tough. The Nyss Zephyr around, and kill more Fenns, including my UA so I lose Vengeance. I'm down to my drummer, and one Fenn, who fail CMD. Behemoth aims, and puts a shot into my slag. It connects, does 2 damage which becomes four. Not great, but ok. Second shot, hits, boosts damage, and she does 6 damage, becoming 12, and takes him down to 6 boxes.

The Destroyer charges. Between the bond of 2'' of movement and Boundless charge, it easily gets into melee with my Slag, and she conveniently sets it up to get melee on my Impaler as well. She slays the Slag in the charge attack, and I pull the fury in. She takes the last two attacks out on the Impaler, and wipes him out easily, enjoying the feat. I let that fury go.



Things are getting tight here. She's attritioning me pretty well. The Kithkar gets Vengeance moves up, AND KILLS THE FIRST NYSS OF THE GAME. WOOOOOO!!!!!

Ahem. I upkeep Blood Fury, and pull Fury off of the Stormtroll. The Champions charge/run. The left one charges Harlan and a Man of War, and the other runs in between the other tree, because I'm hoping to get them into Madrak's feat and get attacks against everything. The guy who charged kills the MoW he charged, but takes both attacks to do it, and therefore does not kill Harlan.

The Stormtroll aims, boosts to hit, AGAIN, NEEDING A 7, and MISSES. AGAIN. He riles for 2, since he's my only fury generator.

So, since the Fenns haven't accomplished anything, the one with a sword runs away, dies to the FS, and the drummer goes and plays Children of the Corn in the field. I have no idea what he's for except 3'' of CMD range.

The Sons of Bragg though, they do fervor, and charge. 2 of the 3 hit, and Tor with the Assault kills 2 by himself AND Valachev! I finally get to use these guys, and they're doing great! The Kithkar charges into the pool (which we're not currently counting as anything, or the elevation around it) and misses the charge target twice, but manages to get everyone into his melee range.

Madrak.... No, Moses. Moses gives Madrak Blood Fury, and THEN Madrak charges the Destroyer with 4 Fury on him. He starts weeding through the boxes on this guy, misses one attack on snake eyes, and comes down to the last fury, and fails to kill the Destroyer. So he feats, and whacks him again. Not quite, but getting there. The Champions are out of my feat, but the Sons and Kithkar both are. And they lay waste to the Fenns, killing all but four on some finally decent rolls. The Nyss fail CMD too.

The Fell caller gives Warcry to himself and charges the Destroyer. The little Weaponmaster that could finishes the Jack and puts him in the dirt. Janissa, who I was saving for last with her AP attack, OR the wall, depending on what was needed, gets to do the wall, and drops it in front of Madrak. The KSB shuffle around him protectively and pop aura, catching everyone but the Champions.






We're sitting at 28pts and 26 pts, Jess in the lead attrition wise. The last turn was good to me, but I'm still playing catchup. Sylys upkeeps Iron Flesh, because why not. Sorscha puts 3 on the sub cortex of Behemoth and keeps the rest. The Men of War desperately want charge Madrak, but they don't have the range, or the spd, so they settle for helping Harlan finish the Champions. I think this is the first game the Men of War have actually outlived the Champions.

The Nyss "flee" and reposition in a line between A+H and Sorscha, and rally successfully. Ayaina "kisses" the Kithkar, and Holt kills him. No tough, of course.

The Destroyer shuffles over, boosts a shot into Madrak, and hits (Even with the wall, Blood Fury has Madrak down to DEF16), hits, and between Grim Salvation and blast damage, kills 3 of my KSB dudes. The second shot misses and doesn't do anything. Sorscha tucks in behind the Jack, camps her focus, and Sylys slips over to block LOS to her.



Madrak upkeeps Blood fury, cuts himself for 2, pulls fury in from the Stormtroll. The Fell caller puts Warcry down on him, and Madrak charges the Nyss. I still need 8s to hit, but I'm hoping to Tide of Death my way through the Nyss, A+H, Sylys, and finally Sorscha. However, needing 8s to hit, I kill the first one, but the third Nyss completely stops me. I can't roll higher than 5 in a row, 3 times, so I stop, leave 1 fury on Madrak and stay there. The Sons of Bragg shuffle, Fervor, and Tor sprays Ayaina, catching the 2 remaining Nyss, and A+H. He kills 3 of them, and the last Bragg kills the remaining Nyss.

Stormtroll runs forward, riles for 2. Moses wanders up, and Janissa drops the wall protecting them all. The last KSB dude runs in by Madrak, pops the last Fury. The Drummer, my last Fenn, runs and unknowingly becomes a Grim Salvation target. Tada, that's what you're for, buddy!

Madrak is at DEF16, ARM19 w/ stone, 1 fury, and 3 Grim Salvation targets.



Iron Flesh is gone now, since the Nyss are Finally dead. Sorscha keeps all her focus. Harlan walks up and puts shots into the KSB. He hits, and doesn't break ARM. Tries it again, hits, kills, toughs. Last time. Hits. Overall, between Harlan's four shots, 2 shots from Behemoth, and a charge from Sylys, all three grim salvation targets are killed, sylys personally finishing the Son of Bragg nearby. The Men of War shuffle forward, and Sorscha and her 6 focus charge.

She hits, and does 6 damage to Madrak. I mark it down. She buys, boosts to hit, does another 6 damage. She's down to 4 focus. She buys, misses. Buys, hits, does 4 damage. I have 2 or 3 boxes left. She buys, hits, does 6 and I transfer. She buys, misses, buys her last attack, and hits, and does enough damage to leave Madrak at 2 boxes of health.

And that's it for her, and once again, I pull out a last ditch assassination because the dice hated her, EXCEPT, I realized that I'd marked all my damage on Prime Madrak's card in my 3 ring binder, not Epic Madrak's card. I had cut for fury last turn, for 2.

eMadrak was dead, and I failed the tough roll.



Thoughts:

1. I just realized that I think Sorscha has crit freeze on her melee attack, and I'm pretty sure that she got crit at some point in those attacks, and both of us failed to realize it. Madrak was definitely dead, because she wouldn't have missed after Stationary.

2. Before we realized I'd marked the wrong card, we were theorizing on how she could have killed Madrak otherwise, because she thought she'd rolled with the best plan. I think she did too, but thoughts on this would be great. The other option was for her to focus on hand cannoning Madrak and taking down Grim Salvation targets, then let Behemoth walk around the corner with 3 focus and put the fear of Armor Piercing into Madrak. That was a possibility, but it counted removing enough Grim Salvation targets for Behemoth to get into melee.

3. I think she should have ignored the Fenns a bit more, and used Zephyr to put a few Nyss through the lines and kill my KSBs throughout the game. She had plenty of Nyss to tie up my Fenns, and still leave a few to shoot at me. The fewer KSBs I have, the less Grim Salvations I have in late-game. Between the KSBs and Janissa's wall, Madrak and pretty nearly hang out where he want to in the late game, and that's a problem.

4. We're ready for Scenario, I think. Straight-up caster kill lets up attrition slowly, and focus on killing armies, whereas, on Scenario, I would have had to devote time and resources to controlling the Champion Zone after the MoW cleared it, taking from my stronger flank. I think Jess has a better chance of beating my brick if she can play the Scenario game.

5. I really like my Sons of Bragg. That was fun. The Stormtroll is normally a really good buy too, but man, he sucked this game.

6. Iron Fleshed Nyss are a serious issue for my Fenns. That stumped me all game long, and I think have a few answers finally. A) A Bomber. Drifting AOEs at POW8 don't give a crap about DEF18. B) Chronicler. Make her pay for killing my Fenns in Melee by KDing the Nyss. That pretty much guarantees that I'll kill a few next turn, especially in conjunction with my Stormtroll. The Chronicler is on my to-buy list this weekend, and so is either Skaldi, or a Champion Hero. Or eDoomy. Might be eDoomy. My Mt. King isn't ready yet though... Might be Jarl though.

So, Comments, questions! What's the next good buy for Khador? Behemoth? Great Bears? WGI w/UA & Joe? The big thing is replacing the Men of War. I need something better for that 9pt slot. Between Harlan and Eiryss, there's some wiggle room for a bigger unit than 9pts too, but otherwise, I'll probably see Boomhowlers against my Champions next game.

35pts, pStrakhov (Khador) vs. eMadrak (Trollbloods)

My wife decided to stretch her Khador out Sunday, and took Sorscha1 against eMadrak. I didn't batrep it, because it was, well, my wife and she's played maybe three times.

And then she pretty nearly killed me. Her Nyss annihilated my Fenns (Fenns can't hit DEF15 for the life of them, without a Fell Caller), her feat completely neutered my Champions and clogged my charge lanes. The only reason I pulled through was from the Mauler putting the rage animus on Madrak and the Impaler. Both took a shot, Madrak feated and they both shot again, and a Kithkar got lucky on the charge and finished her. It was the only model I killed all game, compared to my Champions, Fenns and a smattering of solos.

So she challenged me again today, and decided to bring Strakhov again. 35pts, mostly the same army (Essentially all the models she owns). We proxied a Spriggan in there instead of the Juggernaut (So be not deceived), and rolled.

Strakhov
*Sylys
*Spriggan
*Destroyer
Max Men-of-War Shocktroopers
Max Nyss
Reinholdt

I brought back eMaddy, but brought a Fell Caller this time. I brought a Slag for more damage on Jacks, and +2 STR animus on Madrak and the Impaler, and the Impaler because... he's the Impaler, and can benefit from the feat, with reach, and just good all around.

eMadrak
*Runebearer
*Slag Troll
*Impaler
Max Fenn Blades w/UA
Fenn Kithkar
Max Champions
Fell Caller
Kriel Stone Bearer w/UA

She won the rolloff, chose to go second. I put the Fenns on the right side of the board with lots of room to run, and put the Champions in the woods, with everyone else center, maybe being able to use the building as cover for Madrak and the KSB, not that the Nyss care.



My wife put the Shocktroopers across from the Fenns, and the Nyss across from the Champions. Not the best matchup for either one, but the Shocktroopers would struggle with the woods. Everything else went center.



Turn 1. Fenns take off across the clearing. Slag runs and riles for 2, Impaler runs and riles for 1. Madrak drops Warpath, puts fury to the stone and charges a Nyss. The KSB runs in behind him and pops aura. The Runebearer runs in behind them. Mistake 1 for the game, not using Moses first to make Warpath cheaper. The Fell Caller puts pathfinder on the Champions, and they run into the woods.



My wife sends the Men-of-War forward at the Fenns, the Nyss run to the edge of the wood, and the Destroyer advances up all of it's 4''. She pops a shot off at my Fenns, hoping for a good deviation. It is, but fails to kill anything. Reinholdt reloads Strakhov. He puts Superiority on the Spriggan, Sentry on the Destroyer, and throws two shots downrange at the Fenns again. Both deviated away from them. The Spriggan pushes forward 6'' and fires twice, again, hoping for deviation, but luck is against my wife. Both deviate towards the MoW and do nothing. Sylys walks up behind Strakhov, and the tape measure comes back to me.


Madrak pulls in his fury, upkeeps Warpath. Moses activates (did it right this time), cheapens a spell for Madrak. Madrak then activates, puts Blood Fury on the Fenns, and drops the Impaler's animus on the Slag, and dumps the last fury to the stone. The Fenns open the ball, minifeat, and three charge into the Men of War, and the rest run. One engages the Spriggan (But not the Devastor, like I hoped), and the rest space out. Sentry triggers, and my wife's Destroyer murders a Fenn. Two of the three that charged kill their targets, and remove the two Men of War on the right side. The Champions move up to the front of the woods, daring the Nyss to charge them while they're within the KSB and base to base.

The Slag activates, moves up, and I realize that I engaged the Spriggan with my Fenn... Adding 4 DEF. So I throw at the Destroyer instead, and miss. Buy another shot, chuck it at the Spriggan, boosts to hit, hit, boost damage and roll 4 dice at -8, doing 4 pts of damage to the 5. The Impaler moves up, throws at the Spriggan as well, misses, kills the Fenn, but he toughs. The Krielstone runs up, pops Aura, and the Elder does "No Continuous effects". Fell caller shuffles in behind them, and the Kithkar tucks in with the rest of the Fenns.



My wife thinks long and hard about feating, but decides to activate what wouldn't be affected by it first. She puts 3 focus to the Spriggan, 1 to the Destroyer, and kept 2 for Strakhov. The Nyss decide to open fire on the Krielstone and ignore the Champions. At dice -5 though and tough, she only killed one. If it'd of worked, I'd of lost my +2 ARM, which I really liked. It was also my functioning buffer for keeping Madrak alive with Grim Salvation because we were both aware that the Spriggan was in full charge range of Madrak between feat and Overrun. If the Nyss had cleared out the KSB, I'd of probably lost Madrak.

The Destroyer tries, and takes a shot at the KSB behind the wall, needing an 11. Gets a 9, but the deviation covers 2 of them. With the KSB aura though, they're at -10, and neither of them die. The Men-of-War don't need the charge bonus, and shuffle around with a charge order to get the bonus. All three hit Blood Furied Fenns at DEF10, and all three break ARM, but 1 toughs.

Strakhov steps up. Jess decides not to feat, since she's pretty sure she can get the charge off with the Spriggan without needing the 4''. Instead, she rolls 3 for ROF on the gun, and with Reinholdt's reload, she's got 4 shots. Strakhov shoots the Fenn that's KD in front of the Spriggan, and breaks ARM. He toughs. She shoots him again and he dies, and the Spriggan shuffles forward 6'' with Superiority. She shoots the other one that's KD in front of the MoW, breaks ARM, and he toughs. Shoots him again and he finally dies.

She hates tough, incidentally.

Spriggan charges. He goes after the Slag, hits, and is at dice even with the KSB nearby. She hits, does mediocre damage, hits with the hand, does very little. She buys an attack, and it misses with snake eyes. Buys the last one, hits, and does seven or eight damage. He's left with seven boxes. He should have died, but the missed attack and bad dice on the charge attack leave him standing, but he's engaging both the Slag and the Impaler. She did manage to drop the Mind in the slag though, so no regen, and no forcing him.



I feel like I have the game in hand but I have to deal with the Spriggan. Unfortunately, I ran my beasts hot, and the Slag has a fury left on him. He passes his threshold check. Fenns vengeance up, and one has reach on the furthest right MoW, and takes a swing at him. He does decent damage, but not enough to kill. The Kithkar shuffles up with his Vengeance, but doesn't have reach on anything.

The Champions charge the Nyss, because I'm a moron, and forgot to activate the Fell Caller first and give them +2 MAT. Out of the two attacks at MAT7, they kill 4 of the 5 Nyss they engaged.

The mindless slag hopelessly pounds on the hulk of the Spriggan for a few boxes of damage. The Fenns charge into the Men of War again, and annhilate them easily. The Kithkar takes advantage of Tactictian and barrels through them into Strakhov. At dice -3, he does 16 boxes of damage, leaving Strakhov at 1 box.

Now I'm debating. I want the Spriggan dead, but I want Madrak safe too. The KSB move up, activate aura, and do no continuous effects. I should have done +1 STR, because both the Slag, and Impaler were under the aura, but I didn't think of it.

The Runebearer does his minifeat and puts Blood Fury on Madrak for free. Madrak charges the Spriggan, hits with the charge and at dice -6, I roll a 6, two 1s and a 2.... I buy two more attacks, eating away at the jack, and have two Fury left. I really need this thing dead now. He feats. The Slag beats on him for a few points, and the Impaler does a few. Madrak hits him, and completely whuffs the dice again. No choice. Madrak buys two more attacks, leaving the jack at seven boxes.

The impaler activates, shuffles as far back as he can around the jack, staying in melee, boosts damage, buys, boosts damage, and FINALLY kills the jack, triggering Warpath. The Impaler walks forward three inches and injertects himself between the Destroyer and Madrak, who is sitting at DEF 12 (Blood Fury is -2 def), 0 transfers, and only 1 Grim Salvation target nearby.


Do or die time. My wife has it, and she knows it. Sylys has nothing to upkeep, but makes himself use-

PS7, and reach. All I can imagine is this guy with a weapon as powerful as a tennis racket, but it's like, ten feet long. He takes a swing at the Kithkar engaging Strakhov and does one box of damage. Strakhov inches forward, just BARELY getting Madrak into feat range, feats, kills the Kithkar, and triggers Overrun, which the Jack uses to move around the Impaler. The Fenn engaging him swings, but fails to knock out any systems.

The Nyss ignore the Champions again. There's six left. They push up and around as much as possible and get range/los on Madrak. 6 shots later, (All of them hitting), only one breaks ARM, and Grim Salvation kicks in, killing the KSB dude next to Madrak.

The Destroyer charges. He charges for free, has range all day long and slams into Madrak. The charge attack hits and he does a whopping 5 damage... Buy, hit, 5 damage. Buy, hit, 3 damage. Buy, hit, 4 damage. Madrak is still standing with 1 box. That's all she's got left.

...Yeah... I don't even mess with fury. I roll a charge attack with a fenn against Strakhov and put him in the dust easy.



Thoughts on the game:

So, I lost to my wife, basically. She got diced bad at the end. All four attacks hit. It was dice -2, and Only because of the KSB Aura. Dice averages should have been 8 damage on the first attack, and five to six after that. She should have done a total of 23 damage, easy, and she simply got diced. Bad. All game long, really.

The Nyss did the best they could. We realized post game that if she had targeted the KSB bearer himself, the next pawn in line would have been far enough away that the +2 ARM aura wouldn't have reached Madrak, and that would have killed him. Unfortunately, it was only the very last Nyss that hit that broke ARM on Madrak, and managed to kick in Grim Salvation. Maybe she should have started with the KSBs instead in that case, and looking back, probably. They were dice -5, so much easier to kill. They would have had to target the bearer next to Madrak then, but still, -5 is easier, and after that, maybe have a shot at Madrak. Either way, the Destroyer would do much better at Dice even.

Strakhov is a no-go. She doesn't like him, and I don't blame her. She had the Sorscha game like I had this one. By the end of my 2nd turn this game, she was pretty sure she was going to lose and started thinking assassination, which was the position I was in last game. Sorscha wipes the Trolls in the dirt. She shuts their charges down, freezing grip kills my tarpit, she's terrifying. Strakhov has some cool things going for him, but he has very little support for infantry, and while Occultation is nice, Trolls really aren't shooting anything. pGrim maybe, but this is Madrak. Occultation's one of his best spells and he never needed it.

So it's back to Sorscha for her. She's probably going to get eSorscha here before too long, who seems like all the best parts of pSorscha, but with anti-trollbloods in mind. Until then, she's determined to go after me again, but with my own Cygnar, and eHaley at the helm. As far as other Khador, the Great Bears are an option, and another jack kit. With Strakhov unpopular at the moment, it might be the new Kodiak plastic kit (hopefully) that comes with Vengeance. I also need to find a cheap WGI unit running around somewhere.

Valachev would also be a serious boon to the Nyss. I hate that guy.

Thanks for reading! Throw comments and questions below and be jealous that I have a wife that challenges me to Warmachine games

Jonas is a Trencher and my wife is a traitor.

  While we loyal Cygnarians admit that trenchers exist, we won't really play them unless Alexia has re-animated them first.  Kinda sad?  We'd rather them die first before we're willing to play them.

  Not so with Jonas.  He's better off alive.  Giving Assault to units that probably shouldn't have it like the Nyss?  Weapon Masters with a POW10 to fire off with before hand?  My favorite is the Boomhowlers with pCaine.  POW12s and then PS13 to actually get in there with?  Absolutely.

  All that being said, he's a cool model to have, and an excellent ruleset to go with it.  Got him painted yesterday.

  The base is little squares of foamcore damaged and messed up (There's even runes painted on) to look kinda like some of the ruined temple bases.  I'm not sure what I think about it.  Jonas turned out fairly decent, and the level of detail is excellent in this model.  Had a lot of fun painting him.

  The second part of this is that my non-wargaming wife who had 0 interest in Warmachine when we got married discovered my basepainted Khador and decided to adopt them as her own (With a little encouragement).  She hated the tan/red scheme I was running (I like desert paintjobs.  Idk why), and decided they were all wintery soldiers, needing to be light blue and white.  I never play them, so I'm not concerned, so have at it.  We even played a game first to see if she liked them.  It was brutal.  I understand that Man-O-War shocktroopers are not considered competitive, but at ARM21, my pCaine list struggled to handle them as they moved inexorably up the board.  The only thing I was able to clear out was her Nyss (Except 2), and I lost all my Lances and most of my Boomholwers to do it.  The only reason I won was because Caine thunderstruck her Juggernaut back, giving me another turn with my Avenger alive.  She also left pSorscha too close to her Destroyer, so I KDed them both, and what was left of my Blazers shot her to pieces.

  All that being said, she did very well, and I expect to be helping paint a box of Winterguard and Kovnik Joe here shortly.  The Traitor aspect comes from my wife picking my faction's mortal enemy.  I don't know what faction wouldn't have been an enemy, but nonetheless.  I'm ok with it though,  Could have been Menoth.  My wife has a heart though.

  Her test paintjob was one of the Shocktroopers.  The white inside the barrel is nothing I was a part of, just so you guys know.  It tied together pretty well, and we sprinkled some ballast out onto the base, hit it again with a watery-glue spray and dumped baking soda on it, which turned out fantastic.

  

  

    They turned out pretty decent, this being our first experience with white.  White sucks.  We're off to the store now to grab some Vallejo white because the reaper white we used is paint I've had for... three?  Three years.  Otherwise, I think it turned out pretty well.  I'm not sure it got quite the quality of the Nyss, but we're also dealing with more layers of paint here, and I think that's taking a toll on the final texture.  Overall though, we're pretty pleased with it.  We'll have the rest of the Shocktroopers done before too long and the Jacks won't take long either.