Fire Eaters painted and bad dojo

  I've got one unit of Fire Eaters painted.  I have a second unit to go that I did the flames on, but the first unit is done.  At the very least, I know which is which on the table.  Because they're  always on the table together.

  I love these models.  The Pyg is probably my least favorite, and he's still not bad.  The other two are phenomenal though.  So I sat them down and started working on them and Maximus.  Maximus is mostly there but there's details yet on him.  

  I ended up going with a confederate looking style from them.  Between some of the caps (Gunnbjorn) and hats (Highwaymen or stuff I modeled), there's a western theme going for them, and I like the grey a lot.  This jacket I got kind of carried away on though, and I liked it.

  The image I used for reference is not mine, it's a fire blower image I found on Google that probably has rights to it, so I won't go there.  But googling Fire Blower will pull it up.  After some gloss varnish on the bottles and tophat and some airbrush OSL, this is where I ended up.

  The yellow OSL looks a little too green in this picture, and it's not green at all on the model.

  Or is it?

  My background here is kind of rough.  I found a good spot for lighting in the house and added some of my own, but I need to build another lightbox and figure out what I what in the back.  Pretty wood grain isn't really doing it here, so idk.  The black/blue stormy background I used to have was too much I think.

  Anyways.  These guys are done.  I have the second unit to do, and a whole ton of other stuff.  My Highwaymen are partly done, Maximus...  Now I have Pendrake, Bone Grinders (They'll probably never get painted lol), Kriels (Since I dislike them, they'll probably not get painted for a long time either), and I finally cracked and got Gunnbjorn, and he stands in an unpainted spot with Calandra and Borka1.

   Which leads me to terrible Dojo.  Between Dozer (arguably) and the Highwaymen, I think Gunnbjorn's got a shot to be on the competitive scene without being toted by special snowflake players.  Snipe on the Highwaymen is pretty solid, and makes them incredibly good.  I started writing lists for him, and it feels like he just has too much going on.  I want to spam Guided Fire, but that doesn't work on Kraye either.  I may try double bomber w/Highwaymen and chaff (Fenns and such) and see what it does.  What the Highwaymen need is a flare model somewhere.  I really think they're good, but a flare would help so much.  Without that, the Scats still have solid territory and it's hard to ignore them in an anti-cryx list.

  Secondly, the Efaarit are inbound.  I'll need two of those for the models alone.  There's some people repeating the anti-Hunter argument with these guys, and if you've seen my Kraye reports, you know I hate hunters.  With a passion.  Efaarit, on the other hand, while not obviously competitive, can do work.  For the price of one hunter, I can get a AP shot at 1 higher POW (basically +2 compared to the pow6 on the Hunter) with all the same tricks a Kraye Hunter has.  People who like the Hunters spout how amazing they are on Kraye.  Well, Efaarit run just like that, without focus.  Sure, damage isn't boosted.  I'm ok with that.  On top of that, they completely ignore what I find frustrating about the hunter, the struggle to kill a grunt with a POW6.  Sniper bypasses that completely.  Just need one reliable shot into a grunt to clear a lane?  RAT7, RAT9 with aim, pop, walk away.  Shieldwalled IFP?  One point, done.  That's gold.  I'm willing to pay 6pts for 2 of those every turn.  Will it go in every list?  Absolutely not.  But I gaurantee I'll be finding places for them in my gunlines.  They're not bad at all.

  It's going to be a good year for trolls.

  Other news.  I'm dabbling in commission work.  You saw the Kraken.  There's more inbound from that it sounds like.  I'm also doing a display piece with my Dynamo, so that's coming.  My wife just got ahold of the 2player Circle kit, so her army just pretty much doubled, and more importantly, she got Skinwalkers.  So some of that may come across here too.  I've also got the Croc rematch half written and that'll drop this week as well.  Stay tuned folks.

  All like, three of you.

50pts Rask (Minions) vs. Madrak2 (Trollbloods)

  I watched the tail end of a game between two friends of mine Saturday.  3x Posse and Jaga-jaga vs. Skarre1 w/ Kraken, DJ and lots of Satyxis.  Was a pretty rough game for the Cryx guy, especially with Spellpiercer out there all game from Jaga-Jaga.  After the game was up, I took on the Minions, and he traded warcasters out for Rask.

  There's been a lot of discussion about the new Fire Eaters, and with Madrak2 specifically.  I think they'll work very well with him, and I think he's pretty decent against 3 units of Gators too.  The main concern I had was the Sacral vault in the list.  80% of my army can't even get near it, so that was an issue.

Rask
*Spiny Growth bot (Let's be honest)
*Swamp Horror
Sacral Vault
Gator Posse
Gator Posse
Gator Posse
Bog Trog Shamblers
Witch Doc Croc

  This was a Blindwater pact, so he got two water templates to put in place.  I came wanting to play Madrak2 or Borka2's tier.  Looking back, I think Borka2 would be playable into the list, but the low model count would have struggled against 15 gators.  Madrak2 was a better matchup against Minions in general, be it Jaga or Rask.  I built this list earlier this week, and it was a delivery module for Fire Eaters, and Kriel Warriors, because I'm trying to make 100$ work for me.  So far, the Kriel Warriors are looking like a waste of time on anyone but Grissel1, much to the chagrin of the Trollblood forums or facebook group.

Madrak2
*Runebearer
*Storm
*Pyre
Max Burrowers
Max Fenns w/UA
Min Kriels w/ 3 Cabers and UA
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters
Min KSB w/UA
Fell Caller
Fell Caller

  We rolled off and I won, electing to go first.  My opponent chose the side with the wall for Rask to hide behind.

Deployment was pretty straightforward, and I tried to line the Fire Eaters up to flank, and take a unit of Posse each.



  Everything runs on my side, and I cast nothing.  Madrak fully loads the stone.  I'd just as soon not have -2 DEF on anything because of Blood Fury.  Looking back, the only ranged attacks he had was Rask or the Vault, so I probably would have been fine, but meh.  I was expecting Rask's feat on my opponent's turn to hurt my alpha, so my opponent would probably get the alpha, so it made sense to keep the DEF normal for the fenns.

  Pretty simple reply.  Rask put Boundless Charge on the Vault, Fury on posse, and Admonition on himself, and Feats, which I expected.  The Shamblers run up, the Vault charges one of them, kills it in melee, and then uses the rest of it's shots on the fire eaters, killing one, much to my frustration.  The Posses move up, but only use about half of their full movement, playing it very conservatively.

  So I've got a couple of options.  The Burrowers are going to pop up, and definitely be in range of shooting the battle engine once they've moved.  The question here is how much I want to focus on the Vault.  It honestly me worries me some, and most of my army can't do a lot about it.  At ARM20, the warbeasts are pretty much useless against it, so that leaves Madrak, Burrowers (shooting) or the Fire Eaters.  

  Madrak's feat is incredibly adaptive.  You can clear tarpits engaging you with it, you can run through forests and then attack after the run with it, (suck it Bradigus), you can charge a bunch of stuff, and kill everything else you engaged with it, all sorts of things.  An ideal Madrak2 feat turn for me is Blood Furied, War-Cried Fenns charging in a 24'' line with the UA/Drummer duo centered, forcing CMD checks on the world, engaging as much as possible, getting off a bunch of decent attacks at MAT8 Weapon Master, and then Madrak feating, and killing everything else.  It's a thirty minute turn but it's amazing.

  However, here, I can use it run fenns into the faraway gators, get really agressive with Madrak2, and maybe kill some gators early.  However, I'm really worried about the Vault still, so I decide to make it up as I go, and pop the Burrowers. I carefully move them to within 5'', but not within 2'', and all but 1 Burrower makes it.  At RAT4, I need 6s to hit, and I think most of them hit ok.  I got like six or seven hits out of nine.  

  Then I rolled like crazy for damage, and left like, two boxes on this thing.  Really frustrating.

  So my Fenns run.  They can't charge anything, so they just sprint around in a tarpitty sort of way and mini-feat because I expect Terror checks here shortly from the Gators.  This leaves my Fire Eaters on the right.  The Pyre hits them directly and lights them on fire, for little to no damage.  The little guy assaults a Burrower (conveniently landing the Vault in the spray) and the other guy assaults a juicy row of gators by targetting a Fenn.

  The little guy, of course, hits the Vault and fails to do damage.  Horrible damage roll.  The other guy scratches a few gators, but I'm so used to 8'' sprays on the Scats that 6'' sprays catch me off guard.  Everything else runs, and here's where I debate.  I can feat with Madrak, and with 2 boxes left, definitely kill the Vault, or I can save it.  I debate, and debate, and debate, and feat.  The second or third burrower kills the vault, and I kill a gator or two.  Worst feat ever.

   Then the Gators proceed to come in.  The unit on the far right does work.  The unit in the middle runs into the Burrowers which miraculously pass their CMD, and the unit on the left tears into the Kriel Warriors.  At two attacks each, most with rerolls, they did work.  Even the Swamp Horror moved in and cleared at least three models.  I think one model toughed out of the whole group.  The attrition level very clearly swings in my opponent's direction.  I lose 7 Fenns, most of the Kriels, the Fire Eaters on the right and a few Burrowers.

  This is where it gets rough.  My Fenns use vengeance, move into melee, and fail CMD.  Just like that.  I was hoping to clear the center unit of gators, but with five badly needed models now fleeing, it's not going to happen.

  I still think I can clear the left flag and control it with the Fire Eaters and the Kriels though, and I think Madrak can start doing work on the right flank, so it's still possible.  However, the order of activation issues are crazy.  My brilliant plan involves the Fire Eaters on the left assaulting the gators on that flag.  One can target a dude, land in melee with him and stay base to base with the flag  The other can spray him, and two more badguys, and do it first so as to light the other guy on fire for his boosted damage.  I try this, and realize I need 9 to hit my guy on the hill in the back, and I make it.  Sweet, high rolls.  Then I do damage and roll and eleven, then fail the tough, killing him.  And the plan goes to pieces.  The kriels get in there a little bit, but it's a lost cause there, and I leave one gator alive.

  The Stormtroll goes after the Swamp Horror with flaming fists, barely scratches it.  The Caber misses the attack against the same beast.  The Burrowers scrape some damage onto the Gators, and Madrak kills like three.  The stone charges into combat, passing CMD, and starts trying to provide Grim Salvation targets.  The one gator on the left and the one gator on the right are both contesting, or it would have been a point each.

  On the plus side, I just remembered how much damage my MAT4 burrowers did that turn.  Three gators are dead.  This game was about a month ago, so remembering everything is rough.  My fenns did pass CMD though and are back.

  Speaking of rough, this following picture is crap.  The gist of it though is that the Gators are attritioning better than I am at two attacks each, and the Gator Bokor is getting all kinds of corpses from me.

  Rask and crew clears most of the left flag, and the Shamblers start CRAing on the Burrowers.  The Gators on the right start working their way into Madrak.

  Madrak moves right, with blood fury on him at this point, and kills all four gators at the flag, and goes base to base with it.  Go Tide of Death or whatever it's called.  The Burrowers keep working on the Center Gators leader, who has toughed by now.  And they're killing shamblers because DEF10 is in their comfort zone.  The Pyre moves to the center flag to control and bombs a bunch of shamblers, but one contests, putting me at 1 CP for the one Madrak is on.  My Kriel flag contests left flag.

  The Swamp Horror charges in and kills the Pyre.  The Bokor drops a bunch more shamblers and these both contest, and kill things.  He has to fight Madrak instead of contesting his own flag because Madrak will definitely clear his own flag faster than Rask can.  He outnumbers me all day long and I'm losing models, but he has to keep coming to me.  

 I'm down to one Burrower at this point, a couple of KSB, and a Fennblade UA.  One shambler contests me.

  At this point in the game, it's been going on four hours, and we're just going through the motions.  I'm pretty sure I'm missing pictures here, but you're not missing much.  My opponent clears contesting models and contests my flag.  I'm at 2 CP, but I get up to 4 at some point, Madrak just cutting for fury lol.

  Yeah, I'm missing pictures.  There's like a whole other round after this, but you can see the writing on the wall.  It ends with just Madrak, by himself, swinging an axe.  The Shambler Bokor gets in there and finishes him finally, but I'm at 4CP when I die, all of those gained after the game went against me.

  Victory to Minions.

Thoughts on the game:

1.  Most important:  The Sacral Vault is not that scary.  Is it a problem?  Sure.  It's Defenses are many and prevent me from doing much about it throughout the game.  However, it can't do much while it's alive.  It takes huge parts of the board, but really, the only other thing it does is shoot things, and it's D3 at best.  I should not have Feated to kill it.  That's where I lost the game I think.

2.  Failing CMDs and inopportune dice rolls begone, I almost had 5CP in at least 3 different spots.  At some point in the game, I gave up on it and was just finishing it, and I gave it a good try, but I just wasn't in it, and I could have gotten that 5th CP.   

3.  Rask didn't feel like much of a threat.  The Shamblers really turn him up since he has sac pawn to them all day long, and I basically fed him bodies for it, but really, Triple Posse is a Hipster MMM, and Madrak2 eats it up all day long.  We go for a rematch a week after this, and he changes his caster, and I drop:

4.  The Kriel Warriors.  I really get a lot of flak for disliking these guys, but I really do.  No Vengeance, Set Defense, Minifeat, nothing.  I think Jarl and Grissel1 can probably use them, but Madrak2 has got better things.  In the next game, I replace them with Min Scats w/UA, and I like that considerably more.  Here, they really didn't do anything.  They need Tough to work before they're making points back, and I've got no use for that.

  Excellent game though, and I've only played against Rask a handful of times.  Really enjoyed the matchup, even with some lousy CMD checks on the Fenns.

  

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.

Omaha Masters tournament

  Our masters tournament came and went yesterday.  We had a 35 player turnout, including most of the guys from Muse.  The day began pretty horribly for me since I forgot my Highwaymen, Fire Eaters, Pendrake, Warders and Bone Grinders.  The TO gave me bye for the first round to figure things out and my wife drove the models to me.  So yeah...

  However, she came in just as I was setting up my first game, and I owe her a ton.  She told me she was going shopping and I pretty much just nodded my head and off she went.  There could have been a new Ford sitting in my driveway when I got home, and I would have been understanding of that.

  A lot of work went into this tournament.  ADR is a really cool format and I've been looking forward to it, but between Exigence, plastic resculpts and the option of 20pts of sideboards, I realized how many models I don't own because I simply don't have room for them in lists.  Pendrake's a good example.  Pendrake, to me, is a Specialist model.  There's so many 2pt solos and I'm always going to want an SSC, but against say, Legion, Pendrake is better.  So I ordered him, and actually, everything that I listed above.  In fact, they were sitting in their own carboard box on my painting table, which is why I forgot them.

  I also built a huge wood tray for this thing.  There may or may not be a tutorial for that later, but it's basically just fancy work with a holesaw and a lot of 1/4'' plywood.  My original model count with ADR factored in was 94 models, and only 19 of those were small based.  Trolls are a pain to transport.  However, I played my Kriel Warriors a few times, and they really annoyed me, so I dropped them from the lists and replaced them with Fenns until I understand Kriels better.  So that saved me like, 15 model spots.  So, lists.

Jarl
*Runebearer
*Slag
*Impaler
*Pyre
Pendrake
SSC
Max Long Riders
Horthol
Max Fenns w/ UA
Fire Eaters
Fire Eaters

Specialists:
*Storm
*Mulg
*Fell Caller

  Jarl is my Legion, Cygnar, some Circle, and support heavy list counter, E.G., some Skorne and Menoth.  The ADR options are pretty simple.  Storm/Pyre swap depending on Circle/Cygnar or Menoth/Legion.  If a Colossal enters the game, Mulg and the Fell Caller come in, and Horthol, Pendrake, the Slag and the Runebearer come out.

Grim2
*Runebearer
*Rok
*Bomber
Fell Caller
Min Bone Grinders
Max Burrowers
Max Fenns w/ UA
Max Highwaymen
SSC

Specialists:
Min KSB w/UA
Warders
Warders

  Grim is my all-comers.  He's primarily tailored for Cryx, but there's not much he can't deal with.  I can tarpit, deal with ARM, DEF, and if all else fails and I really need an ARM skew of my own, I drop the Fenns, HWM and SSC and bring in the Specialists.

  So yeah, I byed the first round.  Second round I landed Crump.  MoM Miami #52 talks about this tournament a bit, and he covers it pretty well.  He ran Kallus and Vayl1.  Jarl is my Legion drop, and I've played Kallus before, but at that point I only had the models for Jarl, so I wasn't really considering what else I could do.  Going in though, I was very aware that Long Riders were going to get shafted by Kallus's feat and Incubi spawns.  Crump ran a ton of units, no solos and 3 shredders.  Long Riders can handle infantry swarms, and I had Fire Eaters too, but Incubi spawning in behind everything pretty much shuts down my Riders bad.  On top of that, Blight Blades came in from behind and pinched my army in pretty well.  I failed to score any CPs, and lost pretty quickly.

  Grim2 would have definitely been a better drop, but I do think Jarl could have handled it a bit better than I let him.  I'm not super worried because the chances of running into Kallus again are pretty slim, but yeah.  The highlight though was that by turn 3, I was fully aware that I could not win this game.  We had plenty of time left, so I told Crump that my goal this game was to see how many things Fire Eaters can kill.  Keith was sitting right next to me, and Crump was interested too.  Turn 2, one unit of FIre Eaters killed all a unit of Blight Blades effortlessly.  On turn 3, they killed another 8 models between legionairres, swordsmen and incubi.  This was while they were lit on fire, so it was pretty much only a question of range and SPD.  If a model was in range, it died.  I was pretty happy with them.

Round 3, I landed Legion again.  He dropped Thags1 and I dropped Jarl again.  This was actually a legion list I was ok with, even though there was a ton of arm in this list.  He ran tier, with two units of Warspears, 2 scytheans, one carnivean and 2 pots.  I had a forest right central in my deployement path, so that was an issue.  However, most of my list has easy access to pathfinder, even without the Fell Caller.  So stuff flanked, and the pathfinder stuff ran through the woods.  The Warspears tried to assault things, but the juiciest targets were the Long Riders, and they were DEF16 because I know this trick.  This is not the first time Warspears have needed 11s against Long Riders, and it makes me happy.  However, it made for a pretty solid wall that his beasts hid behind.  The scenario was Fire Support I think too.

  So Fenns charge in, jam, and miss the Fell Caller a lot.  I think, needing 8s, only 3 hit, and did little to no damage because Thags1 has an automatic STR debuff that's dumb.  Jarl feated behind them, covering them in clouds and protecting everything else, and then he went to the right.  Long Riders hid behind clouds except one that smashed a pot.  Horthol did the same thing on the opposite flank, but failed to kill the pot, but he took two turns to dislodge.  On the legion turn, the warspears tried to clear Fenns and did ok, but that was pretty much all that happened.

  At this point, I realized that my Fenns were pretty much gone, but the right flank was completely unoccupied and I had the means to clear the objective and dominate pretty easy.  So the Fire Eaters charge in, and annihilate the world.  Not kidding.  These 5 models (the Carnivean sprayed one and cranked the dice.) killed almost all the warpsears.  It was amazing.  4 were on fire.  8pts, made back super easy.  The Long Riders finally commit to the fight, leaving the objective on one box, and basically trying to block paths to the flag.  I blocked a good charge lane for my long riders with the Impaler that I charged into a Scythean, because I just wanted him to engage, but otherwise it went ok.  Jarl moved in, magic bulleted a model, killed the objective and swift huntered into the flag to dominate for 2, taking me to 3.

  Legion counterattacks, and kills most everything.  He gets a Scythean into my Long Riders and kills all of them, and Thags charges in at his own model.  This is pretty key.  He's trying to get a mutagenesis on Pendrake so he can land next to Jarl and kill him.  However, he charges, kills his model, and I put an ash cloud down because I'm the one with surplus 3'' rings.  This blocks LOS to Jarl, because Thags wasn't close enough to the model he charged to be in the cloud, as far as we know.  My opponent got ahead of himself, removed the model and I placed the ring, and then we didn't know if Thags was in the cloud or not.  If he had been, a Mutagenesis would have happened, and Jarl probably would have died.  The better option would have been to charge the model, and because he lands in range, he doesn't fail the charge.  At that point, he casts Mutagenesis because he can cast a spell at anytime.  He lands near Jarl and uses his initial there instead of at his own model.  It's not a failed charge because he made melee range.  I was not aware of this trick, and my opponent forgot it.  Would it have got him the game?  I don't know.  It would have been close.

  However, on my turn, there's a Scythean in my way of dominating.  So, I begin a very careful order of activation.  I have one fire eater (that blows his fire out, dangit), pendrake, Jarl, a Pyre that can shoot, a Slag a long ways away and... that's it.  I really want to charge Pendrake in and use dismember, but it's actually better to KD the beast if at all possible.  So Pendrake moves, KDs the beast, and blocks my Slag's charge lane.

  I'm an idiot.

  So the Pyre buffs the Slag, moves in, shoots the Scythean.  Does ok.  The Fire Eater assaults and does solid, getting most of a spiral, which is awesome.  Jarl activates, quickens the slag, shoots Pendrake and kills him, and shoots the Scythean, boosting damage.  The Slag charges in, has range (I was iffy, but he was well within what he needed to be), and on the very last roll, kills the Scythean.  I end turn and dominate for my 5 CPs total that I need.

 Round 4 shows up and I get Fox from Muse, and he's got Denny1 and Goreshade3.  Either way, my Grim2 list is my drop, and I don't want Warders for this.

  He drops Denny1.  Croes, bonejacks, Nyss, 2 units of Banes...  All that stuff.  Fenns get Crippling Grasp right away.  Top of two, Denny pushed way in and feats, catching most of my stuff.  Happily though, she's not far away.

  So Grim2 moves up, feats.  Burrowers come up, mark target everything.  Grim lands Mortality on Denny (and mage sight, because Gorman put a cloud up) and hits her, doing decent damage.  The Bomber moves up, and is just a hair out of range.  I was leaving room on a central hill for my HWM to get LOS to her, but after I had already moved Grim2 and left him on no transfers and forgot to reform him, I realized that HWM cannot igore stealth.  So yeah.  If I had put him on the hill, the Bomber would have range, and it would have been a different game.  As it was, I targetted something else with his second shot, and dealt some decent blast damage to Denny.

  Then I prepared to die.  Somehow, that did not happen.  My fenns get pretty much wiped out, and I take some losses in everything else.  Denny tries to run a way, but Killbox won't let her.  So Grim2 pulls in everything, moves up, boosts Mortality and MISSES.  So I boost my rifle shot, hit, and leave her on one box....

  Then Rok assaults and misses her.  And the Bomber tries to move, and dies to a free strike (Three total hits from Banes over his turn and my turn.)  1 Box, and denny survives.

  So he tries to kill Grim2 again.  Tales of Mist is up on him, and he's on a hill.  Nyss try to get him, he toughs, and cannot be targetted.  However, a bane sneaks in and finishes him off.  And Gorman blinded him.  Not in that order, but yeah.

  1 box.  I should have boosted to hit, boosted damage, and it'd of been game.  But I wanted Mortality, for Rok.

  Overall though, I reeeaally enjoyed the tournament, and it was good to meet some of the Muse guys.  The two I played, Crump and Fox, were decent guys to play and Fox specifically was a pretty funny game.  It took us awhile to roll off successfully because we both rolled a 6, then we both rolled a 5, then a 4.  It finally broke at three, and he won the rolloff, but there for a bit it was weird.

  Great games though, and I love Fire Eaters. So much.  Now that Masters is done, I'm excited to go back to other casters.  I want to push Calandra's EE tier a bit more, and I want to run Borka2's tier.

  Until then, enjoy your spring weather guys.  It's beautiful out here, and I'm loving it.










 

Unboxing the Fire Eaters

    As soon as the rules came out these guys, I wanted two units.  Trolls has a weird thing with the point cost of 8 and 16.  In ADR, that's super cool.  I noticed first with Champions vs. Long Riders.  LR w/ Horthol is 16pts, and so is Champs w/ UA and Hero.  This can be replaced with 2 units of Warders really easily.  Now with the HWM, it can be replaced with Warders - Highwaymen.  The Fire Eaters step into that circle too now at 4pts.  2x Fire Eaters is six models instead of 5 Warders.  This is really good for us with the new ADR rules.  It's very easy to standardize your battlegroup and tarpit then fill your army up with 8pt options and swap them out as needed.  My Jarl list, for example, can have 2x Warders, 2x Fire Eaters, Highwaymen and solos.  Feralgeist and Fellcaller, Pendrake and Runebearer, or better yet, min KSB w/UA.  Whatever.  Completely changes up the army after you know the enemy caster.  This is pretty powerful for Trolls where infantry is our bread and butter.  Madrak2, Jarl, Grim2, everyone will run 2x Warders the same way, and that will be an ARM skew.  Don't need an ARM skew?  Highwaymen/Fire eaters.  Now we have a completely different list.  I like it a lot.

  So, anyways, I saw their rules, and their rules are awesome.  People don't want to bring a Pyre, but you're already bringing a pyre for a damage buff.  People don't want to waste his shot, but mine rarely shoots.  He buffs a warder and runs around.  Now he's firing a shot at this unit, buffing a warder, and resuming his business.  Not a big deal.  But if you're bringing a 5pt Pyre already, just bring 2.  8pts for 6 models is pretty reasonable in trolls where 8pts usually gets us 5 Warders.  I think they're perfect.  

  That's the preamble.  I've got them.  They showed up Thursday with a Slag, Pendrake, Kriel Warriors, Bone Grinders, second unit of Warders (Apparently that's a thing), my AOE keys and a receipt from Discount games who mailed it a day before the Fire Eaters released.  Pretty legit.  Right away, the box displays an impossible standard of painting and dares you to try.  The box is the little one like the light warbeasts ship in.  Probably the most expensive small box Trollbloods has.  As far as painting goes, I'm super excited to give it my own shot, and I'm eagerly awaiting Arizona Troll's rendition on the forums.  These will be specifically difficult because of the area effect lighting that the flames generate.  I think it's possible to do without an airbrush, but I'm really glad I have mine.

  Bunch of little pieces.  PP is getting brave with their plastics these days, and these are very well done.  

  I assembled my Warders in the same evening as these guys, so I may be overly appreciative of these dudes, but I'm not seeing molding much.  This cape as a small gate issue on the bottom right of the cape, but all the seams are on the edges as they should be.  

  That's really all I'm finding though, just fill port issues, and they're in easily accessed areas of the model.  There's not fitting a tiny sanding tool in there to get it down.

  This is the pyg.  Probably the least impressive of the three.  He's still cool, but you feel like he's the tagalong to the party.  One of the dude's little brothers that won't go away or something.

  This is the worst seam I've found I think, running down the side of our tagalong.  It's easily cleaned though, 

  This guy's billowing fire.  He's a little more complicated, but here's his pieces.  The hands are seperate, the little whelp holding the torch is his own piece, and there's a keg and his head.

  Best for last.  I love this sculpt.  He's almost got the Indiana Jones torch looking thing going on and I really like it.  I'd be tempted to use the base of this guy for a Borka1 or Madrak2 conversion.  Borka1 is probably better suited, but I'm a sucker for flowing coats, and this guys does it beautifully.  He comes with both hands separate, his head, the keg on his back, and two little pieces that slot in on his back.  

  Overall though, they're pretty simple to put together and I love the models.  Super excited to paint these.  

    Overall though, these guys are solid, easy to assemble and great looking models.  I think they're going to be awesome hits in the field and I'm excited to see them go.  

  I've got two batreps to put online with my ADR lists.  I'm also painting two Krakens for commission, and they'll get on here at some point.  We're through the worst of the winter here and things are starting to get a little less busy, so hopefully we'll see more of the blog.  Hopefully you guys are enjoying your weekend and we'll see you around.

  

  

50pts Thagrosh1 (Legion) vs. Borka2 (Trollblood)

I have two ADR lists I really need to try out before my tournament in a week and a half. 80% of the units I need for Grim2 is in the mail... so... I played what I wanted to last week, and I really like Borka2.

My opponent is my friend that plays Legion, and he's breaking out Bethayne and Thags1 for ADR. Normally, my drop would be Jarl w/ Long Riders, but that list also has Fire Eaters for ADR, and they're not even released yet (Wednesday!). I really like Borka2, and I don't know what he looks like against Legion based on first hand experience. So that's what we rolled with.

My opponent'sI list looks like:

Thagrosh1
*Zuriel
*Carnivean
*Scythean
*Blight Wasps
Spawning Vessel
Blackfrost Shard
Striders w/ UA
Maximus
Shepherd
Shepherd

Pretty simple. My opponent had a bunch of new stuff and wanted to play it. I've not played against the wasps yet, or Maximus, so that was going to be a treat. He's got ways to deal with infantry spam between Striders, Wasps and Zuriel. Maybe not a Grissel1 tier infantry spam, but definitely a unit or two. Then of course there's three solid heavies in the list, four if you count Thags bringing back his favorite one. Happily, I have snacking, so I'm not terribly worried.

Borka2
*Runebearer
*Rok
*Mulg
*Axer
*Axer
*Bouncer
Whelps
Max Highwaymen
Min KSB w/UA

I love this list. Borka2 brings an ability to me to play the game, all game through. When I push the button on the clock, I'm still holding my dice because I have 6 countercharges available to me, and all but one of them have reach, and he compensates by having a spray that ignores EVERYTHING on my team (except KSB, but they're in the back). Building Borka2 lists is a game of bringing as many beasts as possible for countercharges, and debating what the best tarpit unit is. For me, it's Highwaymen. Fenns or Kriels are a major consideration, but HWM are 8pts, and go to DEF16 with Borka's Snow Shroud spell. That's pretty decent. In this case, Striders had hunter, so DEF16 didn't happen, but in most other cases, it's an issue. On top of that, they bring a lot of ranged attacks, and CRAs into stationary beasts are always cool. Especially ARM17 Legion ones. The KSB is great because it means that basically every beast is ARM20. It's not a 3M list, but it's definitely got some ARM to it. The kicker is getting there without getting hit by something else en-route, and doing it on any other turn but feat turn. Quite frankly, Borka2 is a blast to play, and I think he has a higher skill cap than one would think simply because of Battlecharged. The feat is killer too. Most of the time, it just turns out to be a turn where I don't get attacked much. However, if timed correctly, (e.g., I get first turn), it can force some pretty challenging questions.

I won the rolloff, and elected to go first, because of that. I'm ok with second, but it usually forces me to feat defensively with Borka2. My HWM get split up, beasts on all sides, and my lights on the flanks. Unpacking this mess and allowing countercharges simultaneously is a nightmare I haven't figured out yet.



My stuff moves up. Because the Striders have Hunter, I opt not to cast Snow Shroud, and I do nothing but fill the stone with fury and run with Borka2. He only runs about 11 inches up because I don't want to find out that there's a Legion trick I don't know about with Zuriel. A full CRA is possible from the Striders, but Borka will be ARM20 under the stone, so I'm pretty sure he can't be one-shotted. I basically baiting my opponent into giving Mulg an extra 4'' move on my turn.

HWM move up, and my beasts push as hard as they can forward. I effectively box Rok in unfortunately, but my KSB gets up there and pops aura. Everything but two HWM way out on the left flank.

My opponent opens the ball with the Striders who move up and CRA in two man groups into the HWM. He seriously considered the CRA option into Borka, but felt like he would accomplish more killing HWM. Oddly enough, he didn't, rolling snake eyes twice, and only forcing one tough before reforming back. The Scythean gets Draconic Blessing, Fog of War comes up, and everything pushes forward, with the Wasps really getting out near the front.



Having gone first, I'm a decent range up the board for the scenario (Close Quarters, incidentally). I feel like I'm in a decent position to push up into my opponent's face and cause problems feating. I want to get Borka into range of dominating on my next turn, and I want to deal with Maximus before he gets in my face. I also need to set up charge lanes for my beasts to countercharge.

What happens is I lead off with my Highwaymen. I get them going, but I'm out of range on the right for Maximus. I've got three or four in range of the Wasps though, and I need hard eights to hit without CRAing. The Striders are DEF17 with everything considered. I decide to stick with the Wasps, and go for hard eights. I crank the next couple of attack rolls and my Highwaymen kill two of them. I hit the one in the center of the group of Striders, but I only hit him once, and leave him for Borka.

Then my Axer on the right casts his animus on himself for 2, and charges Maximus for a third fury, needing a 7 to hit. That doesn't happen, and the Axer sits there full on fury and glares at the pig.

Borka feats, casts Battle Charged, and assaults the closest Wasp, boosts to hit, hits and kills the Wasp and all three Striders around it. He's now sitting way up the board, pretty much alone, and out of control range of the two left light warbeasts. They proceed to walk into control range, Mulg and Rok run. I can't get Rok into a decent position, but Mulg is set up with a pretty clear lane forward. The KSB ends up packed around Rok, getting the aura to most of the army. The Runebearer minifeats and gets Snow Shroud onto the Highwaymen so they can be a part of the feat.

This leaves Borka stealthed at DEF14, ARM20 with 2 transfers.






So, my beasts and more importantly, my caster, are wide open, but under the feat they only get one melee attack before they're stationary. Also, because I have Mulg, I have protective fit. For every bit of damage, Mulg is going to move 4''.

Draconic Blessing gets upkept, Fog of War goes away. Maximus charges in and hits the Axer for pretty decent damage. I think one spiral goes down. Then Max becomes Stationary.

The last wasp charges in, staying out of melee range of Borka, and charges Mulg, wedging into the left corner. This activates the Bouncer's countercharge. He charges, needing a 7, and misses. Between the wasp and the KSB on the right, Mulg can't move forward. This sucks.

Striders move in to shoot at Highwaymen, and the Axer on the left charges, missing. He engages about four of them though. The rest shoot at Highwaymen, but sitting at ARM16, only kill a couple of them.

Thags pushes in hard and tosses an obliteration at Borka, but because he's stealth, it deviates and kills one KSB guy and that's it. He forgets to use his spray and activates the pot. They push past Thags and pop a Stinger. It charges Borka, cranks the damage roll and does 10 boxes. I transfer to the bouncer. Mulg seethingly changes facing slightly.

The Carnivean assaults. The spray misses Borka, but hits two KSB and a Highwayman, and the Stinger. Kills the Highwayman, and both KSB, clearing up Mulg. Also kills the Stinger, giving another fury to Thags, bringing him up to four. The melee strike hits Borka for good damage and he transfers to the axer on the left. Now he's stationary too.

The Scythean decides to go in after Mulg and block him from Thags. He hits Mulg once for good damage, goes stationary, and Mulg drops a whelp in front of him trying to block a charge lane from Zuriel who has yet to activate.

Zuriel goes, moves in within an inch of the whelp and sprays everything. He's down 1 RAT because of the whelp, which he misses with his first spray. He boosts to hit on Borka, and hits. Fails to break ARM at -8. He sprays again, and gets three boxes of damage. And the whelp lives.

The Blackfrost shard move up and stealth.




So it worked. Blocking in Mulg just almost got me. I can either walk away from this and probably kill both the Scythean and Carnivean, then dominate for two, or I can try to clear a path to Thags and let Mulg do his thing. I'm pretty sure I can get to Thags by removing just two of the Spawning Vessel's acolytes, so I decide to see how that goes first. I drop all upkeeps, pull in all the fury I can. The Axer that Maximus hit eats the whelp he popped, and rolls a 5 for d3 boxes to heal. Mulg leaves the whelp he spawned alive because Zuriel at -1MAT/RAT is funny to me.

The Highwaymen activate, open fire and kill the two acolytes easily. They shoot the Striders and I think miss most of them. The Axer moves in and threshers, killing the one Blackfrost Shard he could reach, two more acolytes, and calls it a day. The Bouncer smushes the wasp. KSB moves up, pops aura for +1STR

Rok assaults in and misses Thags, but gets close enough to Primal Mulg. Mulg walks around the pot and starts swinging at Thags needing 5s to hit. He can reach with his mace, but not his fist. I swing 6 times, missing once on snake eyes. Thags uses all four transfers, killing the Carnivean and hurting both other heavies pretty severely. Mulg was rolling at PS19 -2 because of Thagrosh, +1 from the stone, +2 from Primal, so altogether +4 on Thags (I think). Every time he hit was at least 7 damage, if not 10 to 14. The carnivean dieing fed back two damage to Thags, but Mulg is out now. I think about running Borka for it, but realize that with the Carnivean gone, Borka's easily in range of walking around everything and reaching Thags. SPD7 cav casters with reach are awesome. So Borka moves up, boosts to hit, hits, does damage. Buys, boosts, does trip ones. Last attack, buys, boosts, and puts Thags in the ground.



Thoughts on the game:

1. I've been really wanting to throw Borka2 to the wolves like that and see what happens. Usually I'm trying to answer questions, and Borka2 actually poses some very serious ones. Things went bad when he boxed Mulg. Things went much better when he cleared Mulg off. The key mistakes in that were A) Obviously clearing Mulg B) Not spraying with Thags (he forgot to) and C) Not leaving room for the Scythean to hit him. Borka was down 3 boxes. One good solid melee hit from a heavy would have sealed it. Granted, the Bouncer missing the average roll needed to hit the wasp kinda stunk, but meh.

2. I have to figure out how to unpack this list. Rok is actually one of my key models because of his spray, and not having him close enough to the front line to really ever get it off on the countercharge hurt. The obstacle on the right kind of limited me, but it's still something I need to take into account. Unpacking this list is something I almost need to do on an empty table three or four times and figure it out before taking it into the field.

Overall, it was a fun game, and could have very easily gone either way. My dice were hot pretty early on (RAT5 POW10 trolls should not be one-shotting 5 box Legion wasps under Fog of War). They tried to abandon me later in the game, but held out. Borka2 is easily one of the most fun casters in Trolls to play. I can't say that he's as competitive an option as Madrak2, but I'm certainly a long ways from the skepticism I had when he first came out. Between his feat and countercharge, he poses some serios problems. An ARM20 warbeast skew that plays on your opponent's turn almost as much as it does on yours is awesome, and watching a player try to work out the order of activations in his head when he's trying to do anything to your list is hilarious. A single countercharge from you can ruin anything, everything, and a single countercharge could move your favorite warbeast into range of Ghetorix. It's a tight game to play and I really enjoy it.

Hope you enjoyed the read! I've got an ADR masters here in a few weeks, I'm taking Jarl and Grim2. We'll see how that goes.

In other news, I got my PG status, so I'm excited about that.  I'm also somehow now a commission painter, and I have two Krakens to assemble and paint in the next couple of weeks.  I'm not a huge Cryx fan, but I'm looking forward to these.  I think.  And hey, Gargs again!  Another Mt. King to paint.  I'm excited.  I'll buy Zapdos for my wife too, but mainly so I can beg her to let me paint that guy too.

Borka2 painted

And back to our regularly scheduled Trollbloods.  I bulked up the sides of the bear's head and added a hump just before the saddle, trying to go for more of a grizzly look.  Pictures are still phone pics, still getting packed into the house.

I got to put him on the table weekend before last.  Cryx w/ Scaverous.  I ran two Axers, Rok, Mulg, a Bouncer and full Highwaymen.  KSB, Whelps and Runebearer in there too.  Not an ideal matchup for Borka2, but countercharge is pretty ridiculous.  The Highwaymen actually didn't do a lot for me since A) They can't touch stealth, and B) My opponent left them on the other side of the board.  They did great against other stuff, but mainly they tarpitted, and every once in awhile, CRAed against something hi-DEF.  The key moments in the game were Tartarus charging into a perfect thresher zone, only to be countercharged and one-shotted by Borka2.  Rok primaled and killed Deathjack with ease.  Um, an Axer and Rok both killed multiple banes on the countercharge, on my opponent's turn... Yeah.  So, I don't think Borka2 is super competitive yet, but he's hella fun to play.  Countercharge is only reason to play him I think.  The feat helps protect a lot on the way end, but Countercharge is pretty handy when you have 6 models on the table that you have to gamble against for a single charge.  2 Axers to thresher, Borka and Rok to assault.  On top of that, with the KSB in play, Borka2 is DEF14/ARM20, and with Mulg gets to walk up and beat things up every time you try to break that ARM20 number.  The one chance my opponent really had to mess Borka up, he had to spend his stack tking things around Mulg so Protective Fit didn't win me the game.  The assassination attempt failed, and Rok ate Scaverous, but it was a good shot.  I really like his model, and I enjoy playing him.

  I don't know if I can fit him into my 2 list matchup, but if I get bored with Madrak2... maybe.  The thing right now though is that I have Madrak2, Jarl, and Grim2.  Obviously, that's not going to work in a 2 list, and what happens is that Jarl and Madrak2 go, and I just hope that I don't land Cryx, and if I do, it's not one or two specific players and I can handle it with Jarl.  Generally, Madrak2 handles Khador, Skorne, Menoth (Except Harby), Trolls, Convergence and anything that looks like I'm facing high ARM or dudespam   Jarl handles Cygnar, Legion, Circle, Cryx.  I don't ever see Ret in my meta, but probably Jarl gets them too.  Jarl mainly comes along because Cygnar outshoots Grim2, and wipes out Madrak2 long before he shows up.  With Borka2, that's not going to happen, and he can handle most of the same stuff Madrak2 can, and Grim2 can get what's left in the cracks while at the same time dominating Cryx.  So we'll see...

  I'm also super excited that I got 3rd place in a 12 contestant tournament, so... strategic advice from me is hilarious.

  Hey, exciting things:

  Dynamo is assembled, based, and awaiting basecoat, and.... that's probably it for awhile until I've got my den built.  I broke the guns off of my Cyclone, and I'm going to grab a hammer from a friend or a bits store and make a second Ironclad.  I have two minutemen now, the two Ironclads, Dynamo...  And Kraye.  Plus stuff.  It's going to be fun for like, two weeks, and then I'll be mad I have no good medium based infantry, and be back to trolls.

  So yeah.  There's the update.  Look forward to painted Highwaymen... and stuff.