Deneghra3 the Soulweaver finished.

  Finished Deneghra3 in time for my client to take to WMW.  If you're there, feel free to point at it and laugh.

  Fun model to build and paint. Lots of detail.  The wings are my favorite I think.  The body of the beast is the typical exaggerated armor and edges that Cryx models have, and PP models in general.  The wings have a lot of imagination in them though and I really enjoyed it.  Most of the basecoating and the osl for this model was an airbrush and everything else was brush work.

  The wings are also magnetized.  That being said, this model is easily the biggest I've photographed, so I apologize at how much of the lightbox is visible in these shots.

Cryx Commission: Goreshade3, Daragh Wrathe, Soulhunters

  Picked these guys up some weeks ago from the same guy the Kracken commission was for.  

  Next up, I have Thyron and after him, Ruin.  Then back to Cryx for the Witch Coven.

  I also got in my first Hirst Arts mold, and have gone ballistic with that.  All kinds of things.  I got my hands on the new Croak Raiders, and the base from the 10 Year Hordes Anniversary set.  So lots of sweet stuff coming in, and several new batreps, whenever they come along.

  Anyways, any comments or critique is welcome.  I'm enjoying the Commissions, but want to make sure I'm giving my customers the best I can.  Feel free to harp on issues with these paintjobs.

Something Different than Trolls - Kracken Commission

  Our newest Cryx player is expanding his army in leaps in bounds.  A constant theme in his lists is his Kracken.  He had the based version of it at the latest tournament, but I got the last touches of paint on it yesterday morning and turned it over to him.  Was interesting to get back into Warjacks a little bit after a year of organics.  The airbrush makes it considerably simpler, and it was a godsend for the OSL.

  The guy wanted it based more excessively than normal.  He originally wanted it tearing through a boat, but couldn't find one of a suitable size.  So he ended up handing it to me with some aquarium terrain he found.  I did the base seperate from the Kraken, but about the same level, trying to pose them together.  I ended up spiking a back leg on the kraken up pretty high to land on a column once I got the base completely made, and then I painted the base before moving to the Kracken.

 I had to glue it together and basecoat the whole thing briefly for a Masters tournament, but otherwise they've been two seperate pieces.  The pillars kinda took me in a ruined greek temple direction, so that's the pallete I stuck with for the most part. I did the basecoat on the Kracken with the airbrush then went into detail work with a brush.

This is un-rusted.

  The client wanted a rugged, used looking kracken, so I set into the rust.  I tried to make a solid orange wash, but ended up with a nasty looking yellow, and a mars red when I tried both times.  This actually worked better.  I essentially pretended to be a watercolor painter and left deep red in some spots and yellow in others, then mixing and blending as I went.  It gave a really good natural random look to it.  Very inconsistent.  Then I dabbed watered-down elmers in spots and sprinkled secret weapons pigments on it.  Then I sealed the model.

  Only thing left was OSL.  I did forest green first, mixed it with a lime green, then went to the lime green, narrowing my focus each time with the airbrush.  As I moved through the levels, I would place the Kracken on the base and see where the light would reach on the base and airbrushed forest green into those spots.  The final step before glueing the whole thing together finally was to create a near-white thick wash from white and lime green, and flow it into the vents at the center of the OSL.  The final effect is what we have here.

  So there you have it.  I'm a commission painter on the side now it seems.  I'm excited to see what else comes down the road from this player.  There's some really awesome Cryx models out there I wouldn't mind seeing on my table for a painting session.  I just need him to get into Khador so I can paint Ruin too.

  I have two Batreps en-route very shortly, both against Gators.  Our normal Cryx/Circle player that thrashes me on a regular basis recently got into Gators with the release of Jaga and the Vault, and both games have a Vault in them.  Until then.

50pts Goreshade2 (Cryx) vs. Jarl (Trollbloods). The Rematch.

If you missed the last one, I got my models handed to me by a Goreshade2 tier list that doesn't understand the meaning of dead models. The limits of my opponent are dictated by the number of Bane Thrall models he actually owns. He ran out at one point in the last game. Sanctjud would have been proud.

For my part, I got home and shelved the War Wagon. I still don't think that Jarl is a good matchup for Goreshade2, but I wanted to give it a shot with the bomber and try that a bit differently. The new lists were:

Goreshade2
*Ripjaw
Max Bane Thralls w/UA
Min Bane Thralls w/UA
Max Bane Knights
Bane Lord Tartarus
Max Bane Riders
2x Pistol Wraiths
9x Scrap thralls

Jarl
*Runebearer
*Bomber
*Impaler
*Stormtroll
Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
Fenns w/UA
Fenn Kithkar
Fell Caller
Chronicler
Sons of Bragg

He won the rolloff, deployed first.



Then everything ran. Occultation on the Riders.



Then my stuff ran. Champions to the left, Fenns spreading out on the right. I decided to try popping feat once stuff was engaged, so held off for a turn. Quicken went on the Fenns for +2 DEF against ranged/magic, and the Champs got Weald Secrets. Impaler Far Striked the Bomber, and the Bomber put some blast damage out there on the Riders, but not enough to kill anything.



Then the Riders charged. One tried to get into my Bomber, but failed charge. The Leader got into my Champions, and another failed charge as well. One more ran back. Because he's a chicken. The leader did healthy damage to the Champion he hit, but nothing crazy.

Everything else ran, and Sudden Death went on Tartarus, Curse of Shadows landed on the Champions, and I think the Bomber got Death Chilled by the Pistol Wraiths, while one shot a Fenn, giving me Vengeance.



Fenns Vengeance up, put some damage on the rider, but nothing more. The Kithkar, however, Vengeances and finishes him.

Jarl drops Weald Secrets, upkeeps Quicken. The Kithkar activates again, and charges the Bane rider on the right. This triggers Sudden Death from Tartarus, who charges into the Kithkar, and rolls double ones to miss. Haha.

The Kithkar then kills the Cavalry between his two attacks, and the Fenns charge with a Warcry from the Fell Caller. I try to get one up between Tartarus and the Kithkar to within reach of the rider waaaaay in the back, but I can't make it happen, and he fails charge. The rest of the Fenns charge into Bane Knights/Thralls, including 2 into Tartarus. For the most part, the Fenns murder their thralls, but leave Tartarus on one box, and with perfect thresher targets as he sits.

Great.

The Champions charge, and kill the two riders on the left, and with Overtake and the extra attack, creep forward and smack a couple more. The Bomber puts some AOEs in the backfield, but only kills one or two. Stormtroll kills 2 more Thralls. Jarl moves up, magic bullets and tries to kill the last Bane rider in the backfield, but just doesn't have range on anything that's not stealthed (Bloody occultation). So he takes a shot at something else and feats, dropping clouds on all the melee stuff.

Which does me 0 good against Cryx, mind you, since the debuff is only -2 to hit for Living Models. None of Cryx are apparently alive.

But on the plus side, my dice, for the most part, are doing good work. The Bomber is killing things, stuff's going ok. Sons of Bragg run, and the Chronicler gives the Fenns Hero's Tragedy.



Aaaand it's feat turn for Goreshade. He drops Occulation. Tartarus opens the ball with a Thresher that kills 3 fenns, misses one, and misses the Kithkar. Pops three Banes and adds them to the nearby unit.

Goreshade feats and brings back 4 riders and 5 thralls. He then drifts away, his work here being done.

Thralls charge, kill off all of the Fenns, the Kithkar still somehow being alive. Thralls on the left charge, and kill two Champions. Pistol Wraiths death Chill the Bomber again.

What's left of the Knights tangles with the Stormtroll, and one gets all the way into the Chronicler, but he toughs, and a Rider engages Tor, son of Bragg, while the rest fill in behind Thralls.



So, the Champions move in and start killing things. Each one hits, each one moves an inch with Overtake, and hits another one. Champions are doing work again this game. Champion hero plows through them, and threshers what's left.

Kithkar stands up, and whacks a few thralls. I should have whacked the Bane rider, but I didn't. Tor backs up since he's engaged by the Bane rider, (not the thrall, which is toughed at the moment), and dies to the Free strike. Wrathar and Rhudd do some work, but I really needed Tor's spray, and couldn't make it work.

Bomber kills a few things, Stormtroll shoots the leaps do some more work, but at this point, I'm grasping at straws, and don't have a way to contest this zone very well. In fact, I think at this point in the game, one of the Riders had killed my objective (it's been a week ago since this game happened lol).

Jarl finishes Tartarus though, and shoots another thrall down.



Knights and thralls push in, kill a few more models like Rhudd and another champion, but my tough rolls are hanging in there, and making life difficult. However, he does manage to score 2 CP, on top of the 1 he already has. My beasts are alive at the moment (though there is damage out there), but I don't have any good ways to contest the zone, and with Occultation down on Goreshade, I can't even see him. The Game store is closing in 5 minutes, so we let it go and call it game.



I gaurantee I got some of that wrong. It's been a week and I've played a few games since then. I'm about to invest in a notebook and just start doing shorthand notes as the game goes. Make things considerably simpler.

Thoughts:

1. Bomber was great. Much better than the Wagon. I don't think he made his points back (Not that it matters, because everything could have made points back, and he just kept creating them), but he removed some key models. There was one blast damage that cranked it and killed Bane rider even. I still don't know that he was the best model for this game, (Rok may have been better), but I liked him a lot more than the War Wagon.
2. Jarl. I like Jarl, I really do, but dealing with this much stealth (Thralls, Occultation) makes it really difficult to do what he wants to do. He can try to remove key units all day long, but either he can't see them or anyone within 5'', or Goreshade feats them back. I wouldn't drop Jarl against Cryx, which makes him difficult to take in a 2 list format if my other list won't handle cryx either (Probably Madrak2).
3. The key point of that game, I think, was Tartarus and the Kithkar duking it out in the middle. When Tartarus countercharged, he blocked the charge lane that I had to the last Bane rider, and killing the Bane rider was pretty instrumental in shutting down some of this list, I thought. ARM18 with boxes is tanky for that list, while everything else, I can generally kill with AOEs and stuff. 5 of them is a pain, 9 of them with the feat is ridiculous. I had a charge lane to the last one, and Tartarus blocked it. And then Tartarus wouldn't die. Either I couldn't hit him, or I couldn't roll damage. But, to my opponent's credit, he did it at the perfect moment. If Tartarus had countercharged the fenn I planned to send at the last rider, I'd of magic bulleted the rider off of Tartarus. After that, I just didn't have a way to reach him. Grim1 would have aimed and shot him off the board, but Jarl with neither True Sight, Mage Sight, or a Magic Bullet target, couldn't do it. After that, I struggled to get back in the lead attrition wise. The Champions did great, but for 15 pts, I was only getting 11 attacks, whereas with the Long Riders, I'd get the charge, impacts, and could slam Fenns all over the board. Idk if that would have been the right option, but it would be worth a shot.

Overall though, I wanted to try Jarl in the bad matchup again, and make sure I actually do hate the War Wagon, which I do. I'm curious if Madrak2 would handle this matchup better, and I feel like he would, simply because of the number of attacks he can dish out on his feat. But I think Grim1 will be my next shot, for kicks and giggles. I don't know that Madrak2 could handle most of the Cryx matchups, whereas Grim1 would be more suited for it I think. Idk. But I really enoyed the game, learned a lot from it and am looking forwards to the next one.

  I have 3 batreps coming yet.  Grim1 vs. Bethayne, Madrak2 vs Harkevich, and Jarl vs. Issyria.  We'll see how it all goes.

50pts Goreshade2 (Cryx) vs. Jarl (Trollbloods)

Last saturday I snuck in a game with a friend against his Cryx. He had a few casters lined up, Denny1 and Denny2, and a Goreshade2 tier list, and I had Madrak2, Doomy2, Grim1 and Jarl, all of which I was ok for trying that day. Against Cryx, Grim1 makes sense, but we're not talking to eachother at the moment, so I opted for Jarl, and tried to fit the War Wagon in, trying to make it work somewhere. I spent months painting, it'd be nice to field it, right?

Goreshade2
*Ripjaw
Max Bane Thralls w/UA
Max Bane Thralls w/UA
Max Bane Knights
Bane Lord Tartarus
Max Bane Knights
2x Pistol Wraiths
9x Scrap thralls

Pretty simple list, maximizing on lots of infantry, and the ability to replenish them. The Scrap thralls are simply there for feat.

Jarl
*Storm troll
*Impaler
*Runebearer
War Wagon
Max Fennblades w/UA
Max Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
Fell Caller Hero
Sons of Bragg

I dropped a bomber for the War Wagon I think. Really wanted to try the War Wagon again. Otherwise, fairly straightforward list. Between the sprays from the Sons of Bragg and the War Wagon, plus Black Penny on Jarl himself and Magic Bullet, and any help from the electro leaping Stormtroll, I was hoping to be able to clear off any engaging forces and get to charge every turn. Between Vengeance and that, I was expecting the Fenns to trade up in the fight pretty well.

We rolled off, and he won. He deployed pretty symmetrically, with Knights in the center and Thralls on either side. Lots of stealth. Grim1 would have been a good drop, but I haven't had any luck with him and wanted to try Jarl against Cryx.

I deployed Champs to the left, and Fenns to the right. Scenario was outflank, so I was hoping to focus on the right side, and let the champs contest the left. The sons would go whichever way was needed, and the Stormtroll would support from the middle. The corner pieces throughout the map became obstructions, instead of walls as we normally play them, so that was different, but it worked out ok.



First things first. The Santjud list runs forward. The Bane Riders push decently far on the right, but everything else is somewhat slow without the curse to help speed. Goreshade puts Occultation on the riders, and Sudden Death on himself for kicks and giggles.



My stuff moves up. The impaler moves up his 5'' and puts Far Strike on the War Wagon, or Jarl. Jarl moves up, and shoots a Bane Rider... except it's stealth. I consistently forget that almost every model in the front line has stealth. So Jarl feats, getting ready for the alpha. Nothing really was in charge range, so it wasn't the best time to feat, but I wasn't sure when the best time would be, so he feated. Quicken goes on the Fenns, and Tactical Supremacy on the Wagon.

Turns out, the best time to feat would have been after the War Wagon. The War Wagon now doesn't have a LOS to anything, but I did manage to leave a slight gap for it, so it moves up and throws a shot into the Thralls. It, of course, misses, because A) they're stealth, and B) It's got the RAT of a scoped slingshot without a sling. The deviation is solid though, and drifts to cover six Thralls. However, needing eights, I manage to box only 1, and it toughs.

Go war wagon, go!

The Champions run up on the left, Sons follow in, with the Stormtroll, and fell caller. And that's turn.



Goreshade drops Sudden Death, and drops Occultation as well, expecting the riders to be in Melee this turn. Essentially, everything spreads out, wary of the inneffective AOE5s now, and the Bane Riders ride into Melee with the Fenns. Goreshade puts Occultation on the Knights instead. The Pistol Wraith on the left moves up, hits the low DEF Wagon easily, and death chills it, blocking my Stormtroll in pretty effectively behind it, between the obstruction and the Wagon. Wraith on the right runs down my flank.






Feat's done now. Jarl upkeeps both Quicken and Tac Supremacy. So the War Wagon leads off, and puts a shot into the thralls again, and the deviation lands over three or four, and again, needing 8s, fails to break all but 1 dude, who doesn't tough. The Spray is even worse, and can't hit anything.

Moses activates and puts Harmonious Exaltation on Jarl. Jarl puts Magic Bullet down, and pops a shot into the Cavalry. Boost damage, and kills it, and the Magic bullet kills the Pistol Wraith that ran up the opposite flank of the first one previous turn. He puts another one into another rider, and boosts damage, only doing three damage. He camps 1 fury.

Impaler aims at the damaged, unengaged Rider, boosts to hit and kills it, but no crit. Champions on the left charge into the Knights, and kill them easily. The Hero charges through and threshers like, four of them, easily. Sons and Stormtroll shift around, and stay mad at the War Wagon. That's the end of the turn, so the Wagon shifts up and over 3'' with Tactical Supremacy. Fell caller gets the Fenns +2 to hit, and they wipe out all but four of the Riders, and a decent amount of Thralls.

Yes, the Feat rings are still there, but they had so many models on them that we left them.



The Knights vengeance, but don't do much. The Thralls charge into the Champions (What's left of the thralls, mind you), and one hits the Hero, who takes 1 pt of damage, and swings back with Retaliatory strike, and kills the Bane. They damage a few Champs, but nothing big. Tartarus, however, charges in, and threshers. He kills all but 2, but two of those tough, so I'm left with four. The Hero, the UA, and one Champ are gone, so that hurts, but they're hanging in there better than I thought they would.

Goreshade moves to the left, out of LOS of anything important, and casts Curse of Shadows through the arcnode Ripjaw, and hits the Fenns, dropping their ARM by 2 and giving his units the ability to move through them.

The other thralls move in and charge the fenns. Two hit the War Wagon, and do about half damage to it. The rest kill Fenns. The last Rider charges in, and gets a Fenn too.

Then my Opponent realized he forgot to feat, which was great, because it was my turn now, and I forgot to take a picture. First things first, Fenns vengeanced, and killed a few more thralls. Jarl upkept... Quicken I think.

The War Wagon had a number of models engaging it, and for a long while, I considered trying to clear out enough to get Quicken onto it, and trample it across the Banes on the right zone. I should have, but I decided I wanted to clear it out enough that I could aim and shoot, and maybe hit something. I'm pretty sure if I can get it loose, between it and the Fenns, I can kill off the right zone, and remove that unit from being feated back, not to mention, score a few CPs.

So the Sons Assault. Tor fervors and kills 3 of them engaging the Wagon. The Champions stand up, and kill seven or eight thralls (MAT7 weaponmaster, yo) and the Impaler charges the Rider, kills it, buys an attack, and misses a Thrall engaging the Wagon.

Jarl, however, aims, Magic bullets, and clears off the Wagon. Using swift hunter, he moves right 2'' and toes into the zone. I mean to take my second shot at Thralls again, but I've conveniently moved myself outside of 5'' of Thralls, and forgot they were stealthed again. I don't think I have enough fingers to count how often I forgot that.

However, I remembered long enough to realize that the war wagon had to move to be within 5'' of the Thrall UA (and the best Scatter target). So the Wagon charges, impacts a guy and murders him. Then it fires, misses, deviates ok (2.5'' scatter max) and fails to break a single ARM. So then I shoot with the spray, and it fails to hit anything.

And then I realized I have a wonderful spot on my shelf for the War Wagon, from which it will never come again, and that leaves a fantastic spot in my Jarl list for which a Bomber would be perfect.

To add insult to injury, the Fenns proceed to do the same thing, and every one of them misses their intended target as well, leaving 5 Thralls contesting my zone.



The Ripjaw gets 2 focus. Goreshade upkeeps Curse of Shadows. The then activates and feats, bringing back 7 Thralls and 2 Pistol wraiths, since I managed to kill the Bane riders when he conveniently forgot to feat. They, of course, can do nothing but move, but they're back. He brings back most of them to the left zone, and a few to the right.

The Thralls on the right charge into the Champions again, and after everything is said and done, one toughs through and is still contesting. A second gets missed on snake eyes, and hangs in there, but he doesn't contest. One thrall tangles with the Storm and takes out his body. A last Thrall charges Tor and kills him.

The Ripjaw walks in, and one rounds the War Wagon. Just like that. The Thralls in the right zone shuffle about and kill all but two Fenns, and put some hurt on the Impaler. The Pistol wraiths flank hard and get in behind the Sons of Bragg and Jarl, but can't do anything.



I'm running out of options. Fenns Vengeance, and can't kill anything. Champions, however, stand up and kill 4 more models each. Those guys are rocking out. I decide to go for the assassination, since my models are getting into the single digits, and I don't see me making it much farther. Tor assaults, and Wrathar kills the guy engaging the Stormtroll. Tor hits the little jack, doesn't quite get reach on Goreshade with the spray, and fails to kill the jack. I'm not sure how, but he does. Stormtroll moves up, boosts to hit, hits, boosts damage on Goreshade, but only gets maybe 3 damage. I decide to sit back with Jarl, and kill off the Jack, so he boosts to hit, and misses the Jack, even with black penny. The shot does, however, hit Tor, and rolls boxcars for damage on him, where he fails tough.

Jarl puts another shot into the Banes... except they're stealth, so he doesn't. Impaler charges in, kills the standard bearer. Fenns swing, and miss everything some more.



Thralls on the left kill all but the last Champion, who continues to tough like... a champion... They do kill the Stormtroll though. The bonejack forces Rhudd to tough, and another Thrall kills Wrathar and engages the Fell Caller. Thralls on the right kill every Fenn but the Drummer. They get the Impaler too. Goreshade runs away to the left.



Jarl goes all out, boosting to hit, boosting damage. He misses the second shot, only does a few damage on the first one.

I somehow don't get a picture of the very end, but it's pretty simple. Goreshade charges in and kills Jarl, twice, because he toughs the first time.




Thoughts:

1. That was a rough game. For starters, I wasn't sure what to do with the feat. I blunted his alpha, but the -2 to hit in the clouds (melee and ranged both) only applies to LIVING models, which none of Goreshade's list was.
2. Secondly, the War Wagon sucks. I'm pretty much done with it. This game seemed like it struggled dice wise, but I'm not quite as superstitious as that (I did change dice like, six times though). The Wagon's huge. It blocks my lanes, my LOS, and jams my own lines more often than not. I should probably have it way out on the flank, coming around, but I'm to the point that I like having AOEs in the army, but not being able to boost ANYTHING on it does not do me any good. On top of that, trample on a huge base like that is a joke. Very rarely do enough bases cooperate for that in a 10'' run. Any melee attacks are only half inch range which can be difficult to line up with a huge base against multiple targets. Even with FarStrike, I was struggling to accomplish anything with the Wagon. Sure, being death chilled lost me my aiming bonus, but I don't want the direct hit with an AOE, a drift is fine. The point is to kill things, and even at -8 dice, on 6 targets, I should get something. Nada, and no ability to boost either. I'll bring the Bomber, thanks.
3. I felt like I attritioned halfway decent till the last half of the game. The last turn that the War Wagon was alive, I fully expected to be able to clear out the right zone betwen Jarl, the Fenns, and the Wagon, and it just did not happen. Up to that point, I still felt like I could win the game. My opponent forgetting his feat for a round helped a lot, but even then, I felt like I was hanging in there ok.

I have a second batrep on the way that's pretty nearly identical to this. Same opponent, same Goreshade2 list, but I drop the Wagon and get a Bomber instead, trying that. I don't think Jarl's the best matchup against Goreshade2, but I wanted to at least try the uphill battle again, but direct comparison of bomber vs. wagon. My opponent was awesome, and I enjoyed both games a lot. The meta at our shoppe doesn't have much Cryx, and in fact, my opponent normally plays Mercs, or Circle (The Krueger2 vs. Stryker2 batrep from awhile back was against him), so I don't get to see them often. As popular as Goreshade2 is, this is the first time I've played him, so it's nice to get out there and see what I'm missing. I also realized why Grim1 is not as bad. I assumed Grim could fight a ranged army, but that's not the case at all. Grim1 likes a melee army to come to him, which is why he can get a RNG8 debuff spell out there. It's worth considering Grim1 again. I really like Jarl, but he might be more of a 3 list caster for me, rather than a 2list. That or I have to figure out a different Cryx matchup. I like to drop Madrak2 against everything, and I think Madrak2 would have handled a Goreshade2 list much, much better than Jarl did, but I don't know about a lot of the other Cryx matchups.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed the report! Comments, critique, insults and slander, mostly welcome.