Custom Muse on Minis Token Box

   Remember Ruin?  The commission deal was more of a dare with benefits, really.  The benefit was that he'd order the Muse tokens, and I took it.  As you have seen, or can see if you're new to Diceotfirstdegree, Ruin turned out pretty well.  I got the tokens last saturday, and they're awesome.  Muse really put it together on these guys.

  I also like the PP Fury and status tokens as well though.  Muse met me halfway and built me a custom order that didn't include the Fury tokens or the walls since I make those as well.  I prefer the compact stackable fury tokens Privateer Press does, and the faction sets from Muse don't include any KD, Fire, Stationary or anything else like that.  So instead of containing this menagerie of tokens and dice, I put my radial arm saw to use.  Below is everything I want in the box, sans the dice.

  It needed to fit into my Army Transport bag pocket, so that limited pretty severely in height, but gave me a roundabout 6x12'' square I could play with.  Most of the wood is 3/8'' birch plywood.  Everything else is leftover hardwood from other projects.  Not oak, possibly birch as well.  The small town nearby has a family owned mill and they generally have scraps hanging out they sell for cheap.  The piece I used for most of this is about an inch thick and I cut it in 7/16ths strips.  I had some big plans for pinning, and wood gluing and frames to hold it, but turns out that regular loctite superglue bonds it incredibly quick, and quite solidly.  

  With my 1x7/16'' strips, I cut narrow strips of my 3/8'' plywood and ran it around the inside to create a ledge to glue the floor too and create grooves to slip my dividers into.

  The lid was originally going to sit flush with the top of the box, but when I set my dice in there they were too tall, so I tested the fit in my bag and decided I had enough room to go a bit higher.  I cut a panel to slip into the top of the box, cut it short so it didn't cover the dice slot, and then glued more of my strips around the edge to create the lid.  It also created a nice area to roll dice as well.  Happy Accidents?  Is that what we call that?

  I already planned on doing my name and Diceotfirstdegree into the box, as well as locations for the tokens, but I decided to go big or go home.  I printed a greyscale picture of my Mt. King, covered the back of the paper in pencil lead (by literally coloring it with a pencil), then traced the important lines on my King with a pen to lay the graphite down on the board under it.  Then I woodburned.  I used to woodburn quite a bit in my teens, but it's been several years since.  

'

  I feel like it turned out pretty well, and I'm happy with it.  I woodburned into the slots underneath as well.  I filled some cracks, sanded it and prepared it for a stain.  I normally stain things dark dark red, but with the woodburning, it hides that.  So I went with a lighter red, Colonial Maple I think.  I also cut a block to fit into the end and cover the dice.  I also chiseled in the spots for the hinges.

   Final light sanding after the stain, then added the hardware to call it done.  I picked up some brass hinges and corner plates from our local tool place, and then used magnets to lock the box shut.  I used 1/4 square rods about an inch long for the bottom, and planned to do that for the top, but realized that my 1/4'' magnets for model magnetization would be way better so I did that for the top.  Viola, the completed project.

  

  Fits in the bag like a champ too.

  Overall, very pleased with the result, and it probably won't be the last box I make.  Probably some pretty sweet doorprize potential here now that I know what I'm doing.  Thanks to Muse for the tokens, and I hope you guys have enjoyed this brief walkthrough!

Unboxing the Croak Raiders, Doom of the World

  We saw the models awhile back, we got the rules and they're gold.  It you're enjoying Fire Eaters, expect to enjoy these dudes.  I'm enjoying this RAT6 trend as well.  The only concern I have is how excited everyone but Circle is about them.  Free boosted Ravagore shots, boosted incindiarii damage rolls are all well and great.  For them.

  Anyways.

  I'm actually very surprised they're metal.  I wish they weren't, honestly.  Would keep the 70$ price tag out and drop it maybe to 50$.  No luck though.

  There's three sculpts, and a leader.  Leader being on the far left with the open mouth.  The left sculpt is throwing bombs, the middle is throwing spears and the right column has spears held at ready.  Everybody comes with the exact same quiver.

  The leader has the torch and the only arm with a spear that's different of the four.  Pretty simple.  Mold lines aren't that bad.  Noticeable in a few places but not horrible.  

  The Bomb guys have the throwing arm, a balancing arm and of course, quivers.  They were probably the biggest pain because of the sprue the bomb arms come on and having to sand that down.  On the plus side, the worse part of the seam goes in the socket, but it's still a little bit of work.

  The aggressive looking guys of the bunch, the spear chuckers, are one piece except for the quiver.  The hood has a mold line, and check the insides of the legs, they have mold lines as well.

  Last but not least, the en garde dudes.

  Overall, not bad. Pretty pleased with them.  I'm going to run with a poison dart red/white scheme.  Probably gesso prime them to give them a texture, paint them and then gloss varnish most of the model after sealing it for that wet frog look.

  My basing got pretty ridiculous pretty quick too.  I've had this box full of Hirst Arts molded pieces sitting here:

  Which became this.

  I'm currently painting the bases, then will start filling them with grass and water effects before painting the frogs and gluing them on.  Because of the nature of the bases, I'll have to match each model individually to a base and then keep track.  It's not hard to get a good pose since you can bend the metal, but you want to do that before you paint, not after.  Order of Activation issues as always.

  That's where we're at.  Nothing complicated.  Nothing like Warders or Highwaymen.  Check back to see how these guys turn out.  Otherwise, there's still a Thyron Commission, as well as a Ruin Commission, the Witch Coven and now a Druid Wilder (for fun.)  Lots going on.  I also got ahold of the base from the 100yr anniversary Hordes set, so I'll paint that eventually too.  

  Enjoy your summer!

Putting Kraye's theorymachine into play

  Right after my last post, my wife and I decided that it'd be fun to spend the entire day at the game shoppe, and play games, either boardgames, cardgames, or Warmachine.  I.E., she'd con people into playing the Lord of the Rings Deck Building game with her, while I get to Warmachine.

  Deal.

  I took Kraye and eCaine, who I've been playing pretty much exclusively these days trying to get used them working together in the 2014 tournament season.  First game landed me a Harkevitch tier list with 4 destroyers, Black Ivan, 2 WG gun crews, WG deathstar and Joe.

  In case you're unfamiliar with Harkevitch (Most of us are), the Destroyers gain pathfinder with him, and he has broadsides as a spell that they can shoot out of activation once per turn.  This lets them move up the board 4'' at a time at ARM25 while the rest of his army follows behind until feat turn where they charge in with an extra 2'' of movement and cause problems.  Idk what the WG are there for.  Filler.

  I brought:

Kraye
*Squire
*Stormclad
*Ironclad
*Avenger
*Minuteman
Full Nyss w/ Jonas
Eiryss
Min Blazers

Eiryss disrupted all day long, but it was kind of silly since nobody wanted any focus and Hark just camped it most of the game.  However, right off the bat, I pushed the Avenger up the middle, the Stormclad way out to the right and Ironclad to the left to try and divide up his clamjacks.  It somewhat worked, allowed Eiryss to aim, and drop Escort and four focus off of Harkevitch, leaving him at ARM16.  My Stormclad had a 17'' charge range and was well within charging Black Ivan, and hitting Harkevitch with Reach after that.

  But!  For kicks and giggles, I figured I'd shoot Black Ivan with the Avenger and KD the Jack and Harkevitch both.  I proceeded to miss on 3 dice, and learned that Black Ivan has dodge... He blocked my charge lane, I lost my Stormclad, yeah.  Nyss don't handle 4 Clamjacks bombarding them every turn, and neither does Eiryss.  Losing the Stormclad was pretty paramount.

  Overall, I played the list fine until I dumbed up and shot Black Ivan.  I wouldn't have, but it was my fault for not knowing the Jack or looking at his card.  On the plus side, the Minuteman killed most of a weapons crew, three winterguard and Joe all by himself, wandering around behind enemy lines.  I think I'm bringing the same list back, but I'll bring 2 minutemen, and no Avenger.  I realize that Minuteman really can't do much against that much Hi-arm, but 2 of them wandering around behind enemy lines does 2 things.  1)  It wipes out support if it's left alone, and 2), forces my opponent to dedicate things from his front line to deal with the problem.  In this case, it'd be a Devastator or two, and lets me deal with things a bit more at my pace.

  I liked my list, was just really ticked at myself for screwing up a perfectly solid assassination run.

  The second game was eCaine vs. Kallus in Legion, and that was over fairly quick.  Hiding behind the Angelius does you very little good when I have Taryn.  Which, in other news, may have been a better list to bring against Harkevitch there as well, except I didn't have a way to strip focus like eEiryss can.

  Overall though, I'm pleased with my lists, and enjoying playing Kraye different than I have been.

Playing Kraye as if I want to win by Scenario.

  Christmas season is past.  It's still difficult to prime models when it's -2 outside, but progress is still being made.  The painting table is slowly transitioning from Cygnar and Mercernary support to Trollbloods.  I have a primed Axer and eMadrak on the table right now, and the finishing touches to a Lylyth3 and Raptor Solo for a friend.

  Meanwhile, on the gaming side, games have been scarce, but there's been a few.  The two main things I'm working on is figuring out out to play Trollbloods and develop the Kraye game a bit more.  I posted some basic musing on him last month sometime, but I've sounded out and put to the test a few of those theories.

  1.  Arcing Pursuit.  This seemed pretty neat at first.  Run Kraye with a Lancer and land pursuit out there.  This lets me move my favorite heavy up 4 or 5 inches, extending his threat range considerably and forcing my opponent to really wonder how much he wants to move.  This didn't work for a couple of reasons.
  A)  Lancer is 6pts, and he can't arc in melee, so you move him up, and that's it.  Next turn, he's going to die, be engaged, something, and you can't use him anymore to arc.  So you're paying 6 army points to move your Stormclad 5'', assuming your opponent doesn't find away around it.
  B)  There's a decent shot your opponent will.  Maybe 25%.  Maybe he won't move that jack, and he'll move something else.  Maybe it's Circle, and I'm an idiot, and the Stones will move him.  Either way, my Lancer either dies without accomplishing much, and possibly, my Heavy doesn't actually get to move.
  C)  Me moving my Stormclad forward may work in his favor.  Overall, at the end of the day, the Lancer is 6pts I'm gambling on when I really would rather have something I know is going to do work.

2.  Hunters.  I'm slooowwwwly less hostile towards hunters, but they still make me sad reeeaaally frequently.  It's also required in Kraye's tier to bring 2 if you want anything good.  That's 12pts of gambling.  Quite frequently, I find that while the AP cuts the base ARM in half, the +2 or +3 ARM buff the jack has makes it really tough for POW6 to do anything.  So sometimes, they do ok, but generally, I just dislike them.  They've been working better for me, but usually, if I'm taking them in a Kraye list, I realize I'd rather have something useful, like Nyss or and Jonas vs. 2 hunters.

  3.  Infantry.  And not Rangers.  There's been three major candidates for Kraye's infantry.  Nyss, Boomies and the Trencher Commandos (gasp).  The Nyss so far seem to be winning.  Boomies really are good, but I use them in my other list.  So the Nyss see more use with Kraye.  They do well, tarpit excellent, and don't really need help from Kraye, which is great because has nothing for them.  The Commandos are just fun, but they want help from Finn and/or Rhupert, turning them into a 14pt module, 17 if you go all out.  Nyss like having Rhupert, and Jonas, but they're not nearly as required.  Either way though, running Nyss or Commandos has been working for me, screening rather well.  My favorite game with the Commandos so far has to be my eStryker vs. Constance game.  My opponent brought 2 units of Forgeguard, and my Commandos with Stryker and Runewood and anatomical precision killed probably 14 models on feat turn, and I only got maybe 7, 8 of them into combat.  Anatomical precision cares not about your ARM34, dwarf.

4.  Ironclad.  I'm liking the Ironclad with Kraye, more than the Hunters, really.  PS18, Tremor, SPD5.  He plays up front, alphas in, kills something, and dies.  Which is great, because it begins the piecetrade process, and starts with me on the high side.  13'' threat range w/o feat turn is great.  I'd consider running 2, but I really need infantry.

  So, right now, my list looks like this:

Kraye
*Squire
*Stormclad
*Avenger
*Ironclad
*Minuteman
 B13
Nyss (max)
Rhupert
Eiryss
Blazers (min)

  This generally doesn't mind a decent amount of infantry (Cryx hordes aren't any fun, mind you), but excels against lots of Warjacks, support heavy armies, and can deal with upkeep-heavy armies.  Khador, possibly Retribution (MHSF hate Minutemen, yo), Menoth (Eleaping blazers eat Choir), Legion (Same problem), and sometimes Circle.  It's also my drop against Mortenbra, possibly Scaverous, and a few Skorne lists.  Maaaaaybe Trolls, but probably not.  Lots of Medium-base infantry is a problem for this list, though weapon-master Nyss help.  I'd expect this list to struggle against a High Reclaimer list though, when you're usually seeing multiple units of Bastions.

  The other option I'm testing is to trade out the Avenger (gasp.  Jedi, Kraye, and no Avenger?!) and drop in a second Minuteman and Jonas for the Nyss.  This would let it handle more infantry, more support, and throw wrenches into a lot more plans.  I still don't feel like it'd be comfortable to handle a camping Butcher2, but it's still got a lot of fast, accurate jacks and will be fairly difficult for a Warmachine list to go up against if they've got multiple warjacks.

  The wrench in the plans is colossals, of course.  An eHaley list will make it cry, though a Stormclad/Ironclad combo might possibly be able to handle one of them.  If I tournament this list, I'll probably bring Ayaina and Holt instead of the B13, and leave them in my eCaine list.  This will focus the list a bit more towards Higher Arm, but that might be what it needs anyways.  PS21 Stormclad, anyone?

  Incidentally, the Avenger is in my eCaine list...  I can't help it.  KD is such a great thing.

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.

Playing the financial side of Warmachine

  The part that actually matters to your family isn't your win/loss ratio or a 1st place trophy from Privateer Press.  I imagine something like that would occupy a slot similar to the lamp in A Christmas Story.  I'd love to have one, my wife couldn't care less and it certainly wouldn't be going in the window.

  No, the financial side of Warmachine is the end that affects your wallet.  I came out of Games Workshop, and immediately appreciated that Warmachine was cheaper to get into.  A 10man unit may cost the same or more as a Space Marine 10 man kit, but it's going to fill up far more of your points than the Space Marines will in a comparative army.  Warmachine is cheaper, I don't think there's a doubt about that, but it's still not easy on your wallet.

  My pre-marriage Cygnar army grew in leaps and bounds, while army growth after marriage has slowed considerably.  I'm not going to claim expertise on budgeting or marriage and Warmachine, but I can also tell you that I've spent about half to two-thirds as much on my army than most everyone else.  If you're just getting into the sport, or you're looking at going about getting another faction (Like I am), let's run through some things together.  First we're going to talk about buying your army.  Then we're going to talk about painting your army.

  1.  Get rid of the old stuff.  I had 4500 points of Space Marines.  One of our local stores had a trade-in program for Warmachine specifically, and I got my stuff traded to them in about two loads.  I made about 300$ in-store credit for just that alone.  I got my Stormwall, my Nyss, and my Boomhowlers for free.  Look into a trade program.  If you're not having any luck locally, check out bluetablepainting.com.  You'll only get in-store credit, but if they've got a bunch of the army you're looking for, there's nothing to lose.  bartertown.com is another excellent place to sell, or trade.  You're probably better off selling at that point, but it's an option.  The other choice is..... facebook.  If you're a member of a local group with a facebook group to go with it, post it on there if you haven't already.  I've seen factions fly that way.
  2.  Buy used.  Carefully.  I bought most of my Cygnar in one lump at 60% value.  Not a bad deal, but most of it came painted, and was the older metal models.  If that's cool with you, awesome, but if you enjoy painting as much as I do, I would have much rather bought new, unpainted, unassembled plastic models and painted them myself.  However, when I delved into Circle a bit, and bought used, they were unpainted, 60% of retail price, and I was much happier with that, and was able to get into Circle for just shy of a 100$ and I own 37pts of them.  Not bad.
  3.  FLGS discounts.  This one varies, and requires you to spend to save.  Kinda tricky.  But look into it.  The one I have right now gives me a punch card with 10 spots.  For every 10$, I get a hole punched, and at the end of the card, I can turn it in for 20% off my next purchase.  I generally nickel and dime the card to death with 10$, 15$ purchases over a month or two.  The store is the only local supplier of Vallejo paints, so it works out really well.  I'll grab one or two paints, break 10$, move on.  My wife loves the store, and we'll get card packs for some LOTR games (Want to clarify here that we're not Yu-Gi-Oh fans), or sometimes a board game.  About once every other month, I can grab a unit or jack for a decent price with that discount card.
  4.  Buy Online.  This one trumps everything.  I can buy online for what I pay with 20% off at the FLGS, if not more.  Amazon runs stuff at about 70% of Privateer Press retail.  For me, this is the best option.  For two reasons.  A)  I have a Discover Card with a cashback bonus.  After the bills are paid and everything else, I generally have about 20-30$ in cashback awards that can be directly applied to Amazon purchases.  Neat huh?  I paid about 5$ for my ATGM and that was mostly shipping.  I usually get a couple of solos or a min unit free every month because of this.  B)  Selection is better than the LGS.  Yeah, you can order from them, but that can take awhile.  It's up to you.  The main thing you're going to have to decide is how loyal you are to supporting your FLGS.  I don't have a problem supporting them, but I can't bring myself to pay 30% more for the same model that I can get online, AND, probably by just paying shipping because of the Discover deal.

  Hobby.  This'll be a shorter section, I think, but I want to hit a couple of points.

  1.  Vallejo paints.  They're as much as GW or P3, but they come in dropper bottles, which means you can mix way easier, you won't spill as much paint, and unlike GW, won't ruin your brushes nearly as quick.
       1B.  Washes.  I love GW washes, but after awhile, I want my own.  Use the old paint pot, drop in some drops of paint for the color of your choosing (mud, black, red, whatever), and add in water at about a 3:1 ration or 4:1.  Depends on how runny you want it.  Works like a charm.  I don't buy washes anymore.
  2.  Master's Touch Brushes from Hobby Lobby.  Michaels has some decent brushes as well for about the same price, but I tend to like the MTBs.  They're not synthetic, they've got a huge variety, and they hang out right at about 4 bucks.  They'll last much, much longer than P3 or GW brushes ever will.
  3.  Master's Brush Cleaner.  Different brand, same aisle.  Run your brush under warm water, lather it up in this cleaner, rinse.  Done.  Clean.  I love it.  My brushes have quadrupled in lifespan.
  4.  Terrain effects for your basing.
    A.  Rocks are outside.  Just saying.  I'll buy fine ballast and whatnot from hobby lobby, but I'm really getting into my basing.  Otherwise, rocks are outside.  Gravel driveways are great for this.
    B.  If you're looking for a Grand Canyon layered rock kind of look, treebark is your friend.
    C.  Dirt.  I know some guys just use regular dirt.  That works.  I like used coffee grounds.  Let it dry, throw it in an old spice shaker and you're good to go.
    D.  Forest Debri.  Not dirt, but just regular stuff you want scattered around for forest terrain.  Used tea bags.  Break them over, repeat the shaker step from C.
    E.  Leaves.  Parsley flakes are awesome if you want green leaves on the ground, but for fall, I love me some Red Pepper flakes from Great Value at Walmart.  4 bucks.  Done.
    F.  Grass.  RayofPaint just mixed up a whole bunch of sawdust with watered down acrylic paint from Walmart and it looks fantastic.
    G.  If all else fails and there's something you really want, I recommend Hobby Lobby again.  There's a daily 40% for one item coupon available right here: http://www.hobbylobby.com/weekly/coupon.cfm  This is great for any terrain you're looking for, or if you want to get into bigger purchases like an air compressor or airbrush.

  I hope some of this helps you out!  See you guys more throughout the week.

The Hobby Explosion. Folding Table, Terrain, and finished Lances, Nyss and Journeyman

  I live in an apartment without a whole lot of room.  Kinda sucks.  I recently built a dining table that you can see in the previous post and my wife and I are rather proud of it.  It's also about 6'' too small for Warmachine.  So I needed a 4x4 table, but instead of making a full table or buying on, I wanted one I could carry around, build terrain into, and have a really nice board.  Right now, our meta is limited to decent terrain, but nothing near the scale of WTC or some of Poppabear's endeavors.  One of these days, I'd like to get into Hirst Art's molds, but not quite to that point yet.  Besides, his are all town molds, and I need more of a desert.  Anyway, I spent all Friday in my powerless garage building this table.  It's 2 sheets of 2'x4', 3/4'' thick plywood with fleece glued to the back to protect whatever surface it sets on.  There's also pallet boards on the edges.  The hinges, well, you can see the hinges.  I screwed on 2''x4''s and cut them to the correct height, then chiseled out the hinge placement.

  So messy, yes... I know...  I'm cutting the edge boards at this point.  I glued the fleece on the day before, and that's the tan stuff you see sticking out in the first picture, and all over the back on the second.  The other option was felt, but I liked the fleece better.

  I'm pretty happy with it, and as can see, it supports some weight too without just flipping up all over the place.  So now, I've got a full scale Warmachine table at home and I love that.  Over the next few weeks, I'll be putting my accumulated terrain work into play on a large scale and fill in a desert/entrenched warzone into the table.  I've got water effects, coffee grounds, tea grounds, insulation foam, trees, all sorts of stuff.  I'm excited.  The other thing I've got to do is stain the outside of the table, install some straps to carry it and some locks to keep it closed and it's good to go.  

  You can see the basic terrain I have now.  This was stuff for A) Kicks and giggles, though I used it later at the Convergence of Cyriss event and it won me the medallion thing, woohoo.  B) To figure out if I'm capable of this or not.  I think I am.  The foam is 2'' thick high density insulation foam that I cut to basic shape with a hacksaw blade, then ran a craft knife down the edges of it multiple times.  Stab it with a screwdriver, pick out random bits and it creates the edges you see in the pictures above and below.  

  Then they got basecoated in cheap yellow acrylic from Walmart.  That's how they sat for a long, long time, and then with the table suddenly getting built, I needed to finish them.  The trenches were a pain to cut out, but a utility knife does decent, then I painted a dark walmart acrylic in there for a mud basecoat.  The trench walls are popsicle sticks glued together.  Then I coated everything in watered down glue to give it kind of a shell.  After that, they got sprayed in 3M Adhesive (the shell keeping the foam from getting ate up by the aerosol).  The rocks are a mix I've been accumulating from hobby lobby's fine collection of ballast.  I think there's three sizes in there, from the fine sand ballast, to the small rocks.  It gives it a pretty varied look.  At this point, I wash the trench walls with my regular model wash, and carefully spray a Krylon british tan over the rocks.  Mix up some more cheap acrylic for a light light yellow, and drybrush the whole thing, and I'm pretty happy with them.

  I figure I'm the only guy with legitimate trenches too.  They're wide enough for small based models, and one trench is big enough for medium based, but anything else can't quite get in there.

  Pretty slick, huh?  To top this all off, I finished my Lances.

  These took some time.  The bases are greenstuff/bark with sticks from the back yard, coffee grounds and tea grounds.  Used, mind you.  Coffee is valuable stuff.  The flag is greenstuff I modeled.  I tried to do this awhile back for a different unit, and for the life of me, couldn't build a flag.  It helps if you spray a flat plastic surface in a non-stick cooking spray.  Makes it hecka easier to greenstuff anything, really.  Rolled it out flat, cut the shapes and then wrapped pieces around an alan wrench to hold the flag in place.  The stitch marks were poked in with a hobby knife.  I'm pretty happy with how these guys turned out.

  While I was working on these guys, my wife decided to tackle the Journeyman.  We posted pictures of that the other day, but here's the completed one.

  I haven't thought of a better name for her than JediAnakinSolo's wife.  I'm just going to start calling her JediTahiriVeila.  See if anyone gets it.  If you haven't noticed, it matches my blue Cygnar not at all.  In fact, it's pretty nearly exactly what I painted my Khador.  I don't care.  I really like it and don't mind it standing out at all.  Gives it some flavor.

  To top it all off, she ended up wanting to do something crafty or artsy last night, but couldn't decide on anything for a bit, until she sat down and saw the unassembled Nyss in front of her.  I have six already basecoated (in horrible colors, according to her), but had just got the units to flesh it out to a full Nyss unit.  She decided to tackle those.  Four assembled Nyss and a wife with hands glued together amidst green stuff, and we went ahead and started painting them.  She picked all the colors, pretty much ran the show until we got to the base.  The orange, white, light blue, all of it.  I think the native american skin tone attempt was more my idea because neither of us like the fluff Nyss shades.  Cylena, we wanted to be different, so she's african, and we think it turned out pretty well.

  The original plan for the fall leaves was to be crushed eggshells, an idea I saw on... rayofpaint's blog, I think?  So she'd been saving up eggshells for me for month now, and I crushed them all up, and we ran to walmart for more acrylic for terrain and food coloring to dye the eggshells.  On the way in, I had the idea to stop by the spice rack.  Pffft.  Throw your eggshells away.  We bought crushed red pepper flakes from the Great Value brand and mixed it into some our ballast mix at a 3:1 ratio.  I really like how they turned out.  A couple of these guys (3 to be exact) have a little tree with them.  The trees were from a package of them at hobby lobby that I found on sale.  I green stuffed it in, and scattered the CRPF over the top.  Kind of my beta for forest terrain on the table.  I like how it turned out, and I think we'll see more of that in the future.  Overall, I really liked my wife's choices of colors and intuition on these guys, and a 10 man unit gets painted waaaaaay faster when you have two people doing it.

  That's all I've got today folks.  See you around later this week and hopefully we'll have some table progress.

Double Batreps, Legion vs. Cygnar

  I've got a lot that's happened warmachine wise in the last two days.  We'll start off with the batreps, because getting pictures together of the other stuff will take a bit longer.  First off, I built a dining room table.

  We then armed it with chairs, our stoneware and fake flowers.  We're pretty happy with it.  It also gives me a place to play Warmachine.  However, if I damage the table, my wife probably won't be happy.  On top of that, a 4x4 table was a bit crazy for an apartment our size, we thought, so it's only 3.5x3.5.  I need a bigger area than that.  So yesterday was spent applying all of the stuff I've seen Poppabear on the forums and Ray Burns doing on his blog (http://rayofpaintstudios.blogspot.com/, great place), and built myself a folding table.

  That's another blog post.  Probably the next one.  It's nothing crazy right now, but I have more plans for it.  However, the important stuff is that it folds in half, has felt glued to the bottom so it doesn't scratch my table, and successfully fielded four armies over the course of two games last night, on top of supper for three people, God bless my wife.

  I also got to use all the terrain I made months ago.  Finally got it spraypainted and some stuff glued down. I think some drybrushing and touchups and we'll be good to go.  Anyways, on to the report.  All this to say is that last night, I got to play Warmachine on a full-size table with all the terrain I could need, in my home.  

  It was awesome.

  So, Scott shows up, my wife cooks inchiladas, they were delicious.  We eat real quick (she was pretty aghast when I told her that we probably wouldn't be setting up the table to eat on first, we'd just jump right into the game), and we throw down our lists.  My lances were painted to a stage that they were playable (haha) and so pCaine it was for me.  That and I've only played pCaine against Legion one other time, and it wasn't Scott.  If my Cygnar list can beat Scott's legion lists, I usually feel pretty decent about them.

  On Scott's part, he dropped pLylyth because he's really been wanting to try out dual raptor units.  And he has this 134$ Archangel model he hasn't found a list for.  So we both had colossals and lots of cav.  Very fun game.

  pCaine

*Stormwall

*Squire
Journeyman Warcaster (The red model on my side of the table.  My wife painted it beautifully the other day)
Full Tempest Blazers
Min Stormlances
Full Boomhowlers
*Jonas Murdoch
Black 13th

I got to go up against:

pLylyth
*Archangel
*Carnivean
*Seraph
Min Raptors
Min Raptors
Raptor Solo gal.  Whatever her name be.

  We rolled off, I won and chose to go first.  We deployed to either side, and opened the ball.

  The only major downside to playing at home is the lighting is not that great in the dining room at night.  Just saying.  I may try to alleviate that in future games, but for now, between the yellow light and yellow wood, there's not much help for it.  Speaking of yellow wood, look at that table.  Haha.  Wait'll it has modular terrain built in.  Speaking of terrain, are those trenches you ask?  Why yes, yes they are.  I figured I'd be the only guy to ever own terrain with trenches that aren't just templates.  They don't count for elevation, though I think next time they will, but the trench itself is +4 cover.

  Anyways.  I divided up my cav, dropping the Lances behind the Boomhowers and we were off.  Black 13th got into the woods, the Boomhowlers ran and Jonas gave them go-to-ground.  pCaine tucked into the trench and got Blur on the Blazers and Snipe on the Stormwall.  Journeywoman dropped Arcane Shield on the Lances and got into the trench next to Caine.  Blazers got into the woods, and Stormwall moved up and threw templates out.

  All the Cav!

  Scott moves everything up as well, slipstreaming a few things with the Seraph for the extra 2+ movement.  Lylyth puts Spiny Growth on... the Archangel, who returned the faor, I think, and then moves b2b with him, and the Raptors all run up.  If you haven't seen Raptors yet, they're poorly named reindeer that basically Tempest Blazers with poison and weapon master.  They're not quite the toolbox the Blazers are, but given the circumstances, they can be better.  They worry me, to say the least.  Especially on pLylyth's feat where everything gets boosted attacks.  

  

    So, pLylyth base to base with a DEF13 model means one thing.  Electro leaps!  But it's kinda chancy at dice minus 4.  I'm not sure if I can get the hit with the RNG8 Lances, especially since they have to go through the forest.  So Stormwall moves up, shoots at the Archangel for little to no damage.  pCaine upkeeps Blur and drops Snipe, and Deadeyes both the Lances and the Blazers, and puts Snipe to them, thanks to the focus from the Squire.  The Blazers move up, and four of them hit the Archangel, and lylyth takes all of the electro leaps.  I only manage to do six or seven damage though.  I don't think the Lances can all get hits, and she's got a transfer still.  So I abandon that idea and light cav onto the hill.

  The Lances move up further, and the Boomhowlers shuffle up.  A few takes shots at the Carnivean but even though one hits, it doesn't do much.  The B13, however, do much better.  Scott got to learn to respect them this game.  Lynch aims, damages one decently with his shot, Watts shoots and hits with one, does damage to another Raptor.  Ryan, the money maker here, shoots, and misses.  He deviates 1'' to catch the two damaged raptors and kills them both.  Haha.

  They proceed to fail their CMD too.  

  Journeywoman upkept Arcane Shield, incidentally, and that's pretty much that.  So... I think I could have done better this turn?  Maybe been able to shoot the Raptors with the Blazers, but the woods may have stopped me there.  Who knows.  

    So, yeah.  the Feat.  pLylyth hanging out behind the wall moves up, and shoots a Boomhowler.  Hits, kills, doesn't tough. She does it again, and misses I think, but the next shot hits and kills him. And he doesn't tough.  She feats and gets back behind the wall.

  Seraph rolls strafe and gets... 3 shots?  Shoots and hits two or three Boomhowlers, and they all fail their tough.  This isn't cool.  50% chance of tough, guys.

  The Raptor Solo gets another one.  The Archangel rolls three shots and shoots one at the Blazers for kicks and giggles even though they're DEF20 right now (I love Blur)  It deviates and hits a Lance, but at ARM20, does nothing.  The next deviation kills a Blazer, and the last one gets spent on Boomie himself, and kills him.  That sucks.  There's six left, and the Carnivean moves up and sprays two or three and I think they might tough.  It's rolls were pretty bad there.  But it's in my way now.

  The Raptors on the left though, they do much better.  They walk up and start swinging on my blazers, leaving me with one, who passes CMD.  His Raptors on the right fail theirs again, so that's something I suppose.

  He should have pretty nearly annihilated the Boomhowlers, so I'm glad they're still kicking.  The Blazers are hurt, but the Lances are in a good spot to do some serious damage.  However, the Archangel is in prime charge range of the Stormwall.  I can charge him this turn, tie him up, let the Journeyman drop Arcane shield on him and let him tank.  The Lances will either finish the Raptors or get in to help Stormwall, but I'm thinking Lances.  pCaine can move up and feat before that too, then teleport back.  The Boomhowlers still have Jonas, so they'll assault the Seraph and Carnivean.  I'm hoping to really cripple Scott's list this turn.  

  So we start with the Stormwall.  He gets three focus, and Caine pulls another off the squire.  I open the ball with Stormwall, and he charges the Archangel.  He hits four of the five times I swing at him, and takes the Beast down to about half.  And then the electro leaps go into... pLylyth.

  She takes two of them, but has to transfer the third, and the fourth kills her.  Game.  At that point, with four more electro leaping shots from the Lances and Blazer, she would have died, it just didn't dawn on me until after Stormwall tangled with the dragon.

I forgot the picture too, but the only difference is the Stormwall is b2b with the Archangel.

Thoughts.  Scott asked me what I thought of the list.  If it was bad dice or not well played.

1.  Archangel is the best screen Lylyth has in this list, but anytime a Hordes caster goes base-to-base with a beast and I have five to twelve electro leaps, it's going to hurt.  If he'd get past putting her base to base and give it just a quarter inch, it would have gone to the Seraph instead.

2.  Archangel ties up too many points.  Dual Ravagores would have murdered my Boomies or Blazers.  Even a Scythean would have worried me with the ability to ignore tough (not that it mattered this game...)  But Archangel is 20 pts and he shot... seven times in the whole game. He killed a Blazer, and a few boomhowlers.  That's definitely not his points back.

3.  Raptors are terrifying, especially with all boosted rolls.  That's pretty serious, and has the potential to annihilate any kind of screen that I have, except in maybe a Kraye list or something.  They essentially get brutal shots for living models.  That's horrifying against Cygnar.  I think the list can work, but not when 20pts are tied up in the Archangel.  

4.  I didn't get to use my lances :(

  So the next game, Scott wants to redeem is Rhyas list that I smashed with a turn 2 Kraye assassination a few weeks ago.  I considered switching to my eStryker list since I have a full Nyss unit now, but meh, I like pCaine.  So I keep him.

  pCaine

*Stormwall

*Squire
Journeyman Warcaster
Full Tempest Blazers
Min Stormlances
Full Boomhowlers
*Jonas Murdoch
Black 13th

  Scott brought:

Rhyas

*Typhon

*Seraph

*Shredder

*Shredder

Swordsmen w/UA

Swordsmen w/UA

Warspears w/UA

Warmongers

Warmongers Solo

Succubus

I think I'm messing this list up.  He had a Ravagore in there last time, and I don't see it here.  So we roll off, and I win, but decide to go second, hoping to get some shooting off even though the tier bonuses that Rhyas has gives Stealth for everyone first turn.

  We also keep incursion.  We thought about changing it up, but wanted to get into the next game, so we just ran with it.  I almost cut templates for outflank, but meh.

  

  Lots of 8 wound AD infantry.  Not any fun.  Also, look at the cool terrain?  It's neat, but models don't stand on it very well at all.  

  Everything runs.  The Warnouns push as far up as they can.  Rhyas gets to the wall, casts Dash so everyone gets another 1SPD, and puts Rapport on the Typhon so that he gets her MAT/RAT stats and can be transferred to once for free.  Seraph slipstreams some stuff because apparently Legion beasts aren't fast enough already, and yeah.

  Oh, and the Warspears pick Stormwall as the prey.  Which I'm ok with.  I have a Journeyman for that, and I'd rather the Stormwall tank the prey attacks rather than the Blazers which can't tank anything.

 The Boomhowlers are stacked in the back in the picture above because they didn't sit on the terrain at all.  It was horrible, so we drew the front line with empty bases and worked with it.  Caine keeps his focus, hops into the ditch, puts snipe on the Stormwall, Blur on the Blazers and I think Deadeyes the Boomhowlers...

  The Black 13th moves up, because they can, and Lynch opens fire with a flare.  He shoots at one of the warmongers on the right, misses, and it deviates to hit two of them anyways.  Ryan hits them with a magestorm and hurts them both, and Watts doesn't have range. Or misses.  Or doesn't kill them.  I don't remember.  At this point, I was just glad that I was remembering she has 2 shots.

  Stormwall moves up and shoots one dead, and throws templates in front of the warspears hoping to slow them down some.  He puts a pod out as well.  The other big gun misses.

  The blazers are all out of range, so they hang out in the woods.  The Boomhowlers, with Jonas, assault, and get as far as the barricade.  They're able to finish off the two in the flare template, but are outside of 5'' for everyone else, barely.  So they hang out with Fell Call (50% chance of tough).  Lances get behind the trench, Journeyman gives the Boomhowlers Arcane Shield and that's turn.

  Scott sees a shot as assassination and starts moving for it.  Rhyas reaves in her fury, charges out and hits the closest Boomhowler.  She hits him easily, and he toughs, so she feats, which allows her to go anywhere base to base with him, and swing at something again.  So she does, moves to the next guy, hits him.  He toughs.  So she buys, hits him again.  He toughs.  She buys one more, and he toughs.

  Haha.  Making up for sucking at tough rolls last game.  She has Sprint, so she runs away and that's it for her.  The Warmonger solo charges in, and he kills the first one, who finally fails his tough. but the second one toughs again against the feat attack.  

  At this point, he debates long and hard about the assassination.  He needs 11.5'' to get to Stormwall, hit, flip around with the feat to the back of the base and go after Caine.  He debates, and debates, and finally decides against it.  It was a good call.  We measured after the round and he'd of been a quarter inch out of melee range.  So Typhon sprays some stuff, including the Boomhowlers, which tough a bunch of times.  Seraph rolls and gets 3 strafe shots, kills a boomie but nothing else.

  The other Warmongers charge in and they hit, beserk, and get the feat attack.  Between me toughing every other one, (The first two guys toughed seven times between the two of them), he takes them down to half, but they pass CMD easily.  One Warmonger hits the Black 13th, and kills two of them, leaving just Ryan, who passes CMD as well.

  Warspears move up, realize they need 13s to hit Blazers at this point, so they chuck everything at Stormwall, who takes some decent damage.  Maybe two fifths of his boxes.  Swordsmen all run up and get in the way and that's turn.

  

  

  I step up to the ball.  Caine keeps his focus, pulls one from the squire, and upkeeps Blur, but not snipe.  Ryan kills the swordsman she's engaged with.  Caine then moves up out of the trench, casts Deadeye on the Blazers, and the Lances, and keeps the last two.  Then he feats, needing sixes for pretty much everything.  He does decent, killing several swordsmen, putting boxes out on the Warmongers, but while the to-hit rolls were decent, the damage rolls weren't as good and I don't thin things out as much as I want to, even though he gets a shot at pretty nearly everything.  It's not bad though, and I actually get to use his feat, which is the second time that's happened.  He teleports back behind Stormwall and that's it for him.

  Blazers move up, kill the Warspear UA which eliminates Prey, and kill another Warspear, but can't do much else even with Brutal.  Stormwall shoots Typhon twice, puts templates out, and forgets to do the Stormpod, which was stupid.

  Lances assault.  No... nope they didn't.  They should have, because they would have nearly killed what Typhon had left, or seriously hurt him, but no, they didn't.  They do ridebys, all three hit, but don't manage to do more than a few boxes.  They get back behind the trench when they're done.  Journeyman gives Stormwall Arcane Shield, shoots at a swordsman and misses, and that's it.  I managed to clear out a ton of infantry though, so we'll see if it's enough.

  Rhyas pulls in her fury.  The Swordsmen charge in, one runs to Watts but gets no attacks because of the run.  The others get into the Boomhowlers, and one kills Boomie who fails his tough, and the others don't do much better.  Two more make the run to engage the lances.  The Warspears assault the Blazers and Stormwall, and...

  Oooh, I just figured out another spot I screwed up.  Moving on.

  The spears don't hardly do anything, and neither do the melee attacks.  Without prey and against ARM22, they're pretty hopeless at  -9 on the dice.  The Warmongers keep working on Boomies, who I'm almost out of.  Typhon pushes in, takes POW12, and sprays Stormwall three times, and hits Caine with one of them.  The other two miss against DEF17, which is really good, because the last one that hit left Caine with 2 boxes.

  Stormwall, however, doesn't take any damage from the sprays either.  The Seraph shoots down a Lance, sits on the flag (The left one went away turns ago) and a Shredder runs and takes the other.

  At this point, I'm about to lose, and I'm realizing where I seriously messed up.  In my last turn, instead of running the DEF15 in melee, DEF18 against shooting, blazers back into the woods, I should have engaged the Warspears.  And an assault with the Lances would have been good too.  Now, they're in my face, and I can't do anything about it.  I can shoot Warspears all day long, maybe kill a few, and Typhon will definitely die against PS20 fists, but unless I can contest both flags, he'll take another 2 points on my turn, and be at four, and simply have to end his turn to win with 6.  So I do the important stuff,  Stormwall gets three focus.  Watts makes a run for it to contest the flag, takes a free strike and dies.  Caine tries to shoot some stuff, and gets a Warmonger.  He puts Deadeye on the Lances, the Blazers... and I think that's it at the moment.  

  The Blazers shuffle around because he managed to engage my Lances with the Nyss Swordsmen in the last turn, so I have to handle them.  So two move back and shoot electro leaps at my immune Lances, needing sevens on three dice to hit.  

  One misses..  The other hits and kills a Nyss, but the other misses...  The other three has Blazers kill a Warspear, but don't manage to kill another.  So the Lances assault run.  One goes after the Seraph and takes it to half health by himself, contesting that flag, and the other one tries to run and get within 4'' of the Shredder.  He dies to a freestrike, and that's game, since I can't contest the other flag, and Rhyas only has to dominate it, which she does easily.

  That other flag is waaaaay off to the top (It was our right).  Pictures don't quite get it.

  Thoughts:

  1.  Scott played this one pretty well, and the Rhyas list did what it was supposed to. That being said, I botched it.  I should have moved the Blazers into combat on the feat turn, and the Lances should have assaulted.  That would have easily contested the one flag, leaving me a bit more time to get to the other one, and on top of that, kept Stormwall free for another round to push forward.  I botched that one pretty badly, again, by not pushing forward.  I'm too used to trying to keep Blazers alive that I don't even think about it.

 2..  Otherwise, everything in my list except me did fantastic.  Boomhowlers are MVPs, making Scott kill them about twice to three times as many as they needed to be killed.  It was awesome.

 3.  I love my table, and the terrain was fun.  I'm pretty excited about all this stuff. 

 4.  I've never fielded an Journeyman except with eStryker, and an ARM22 Stormwall or ARM20 Lance is stuff that stays alive.  I'm having a much better success rate with AS on units with boxes than I am units without them.  ARM18 Stormblades have yet to impress me.  ARM19 Boomhowlers do a bit better, but ARM20 lances or ARM22 Stormwall makes people cry.

  Speaking of the table, I'll be posting later this afternoon with:

 1.  The table and kinda how it got built, plus dirty pics of the Garage from whence it came.  

 2.  Completed Stormlances.  You saw them get played.  I've got the finished product with better pictures.

 3.  Completed Journeywoman.  That red girl running around putting Arcane Shield on stuff.  My wife painted her, one of the reasons I included her in my list that night because A)  I think she did a great job and B) My wife was with us most of the night watching and I wanted her to see her model played.

 4.  Completed Nyss.  This surprised me.  I was in the middle of a Vassal game with Sevensins when my wife suddenly got into a craft-making kinda mood, and simply sat down and started glueing together Nyss.  That's a surefire way to get out of the crafty mood, if you ask me.  The only thing worse than glueing Nyss would be the new Convergence Angels I think.  She tanked through it though, and we decided to paint them.  A 10 man unit gets painted Waaaaaay faster between two people, and they turned out pretty slick. Anways, they'll be here later today.

  In other news, I played my first Trollblood game yesterday.  Sevensins, who will not be allowed to pick out maps ever again, rolled with one that's basically funnels everyone into the same 12'' in the middle that's 80% rough terrain.  And then we brought Trolls and Pygs to fight on it.  Brilliant.  Anyways, I played eDoomshaper vs. Lord Carver, bringing Mulg, a Mauler, max Fennblades and a Chronicler against a Road Hog, War Hog, the shooting pygs and Sevensins's favorite solution to everything, Slaughterhousers.

  Those things are a pain, and everything moved at half speed for like, eight turns.  But between Vengeance Fennblades, a goading Mulg with Wild Aggression and a refuging Mauler, I managed to clean out all of his infantry, and his.. War Hog, whichever doesn't have the gun.  He killed my Mauler with Carver after it finished his Hog and engaged him, but wasn't able to kill Mulg with three slaughterhousers, so he trampled in, killed one with the trample and goaded into Lord Carver.  Four fury later with one to spare, he simultaneously killed the remaining Hog heavy warbeast and Carver himself.

  I think in the near future, I'll be selling my circle.  I'm not terribly clicking with them, and I simply can't get interested enough in them to paint more than the constructs.  The Trolls have always been far more aesthetically pleasing to me and I love the fluff with them.  I think I'll be getting into them before the end of the year or slightly after that, but without buying the battlebox.  Probably start with an Axer and an impaler, Mulg, a magnetized Dire-troll kit, eMadrak, eDoomshaper, Borka, Fennblades and or Kriel Warriors, and then Janissa and a Chronicler.  Which is quite the list, but we'll work up to it.  I want to top off my Stormlances at some point too, and maybe get the Silver Line Stormguard, but who knows.  I have Boomhowlers too, so they'll help with the infantry side of things on the Trolls until I get into them all the way.

  Anyways, that's all I've got, thanks for reading!  Cya later today!