Thrullg Sapien, bought, based and painted

  I don't know if you've been reading the last few blog batreps.  No one's blaming you if you haven't, but I'm getting my butt handed to me by Cryx.  I've tried Jarl, and you'll see my work with Grim1 a bit.  I'm about to just drop Madrak2 for everything.

  Incidentally, Fear of God from Severius2 ticked me off too.

  Anyways, I noticed Thrullg, and while I'm completely aware that he's not Eiryss, he still seems like could be a decent backline support model able to free my Fenns of whatever Cryx has on them today.  Him and the normally useless Drummer can be buddies.

  I love the model though.  Even with the Bull fighter flag arms he's got.  So I picked him up, and he immediately struck me as similar to Abe Sapien from the Hellboy comics.  So I wanted a swamp look, and the blue.  I twisted his tentacles up a bit so they're not just straight out.  Mixed up a base coat of 1:1 vallejo Electric Blue and Night Blue, then air brushed him today after work, and lightened the second coat from there.

  The base, I coated in Citadel Loren Forest (a dark, earthy green) added grasses and coated in clear window sealant.

  I have no idea how he'll play, but the model is awesome.  Except for how the arms adopt this attitude of "What, foam?  Fit into square foam holes like everything else?  NEVER."

  Other than that, I'm debating dropping him into a tailored Grim1 list, or trying to adapt my Madrak2 list to handle Cryx as well.  The third option is the expensive one, and that's buying Grim2 and seeing how that rolls.  I'm getting the Hunter's Grim eventually, simply for painting purposes, but they seem fun to play.  Anyways, that's the hobby post for now.  

50pts Bethayne (Legion) vs Grim1 (Trollbloods)

Got a chance for an impromptu game mid-week last week and busted out Grim1... because I could, I guess? I wanted to try him with Long Riders again, and Nyss. My opponent wanted to run his bethayne tier and see how it rolls. The Bethayne tier is legit, but cornercase. Anything that can deny magic/magic attacks will shut it down. It's two units of hex hunters that can capitalize on her feat, and two Nyss Sorceresses on Hellions, which are actually kind of annoying solos to deal with.

His list:

Bethayne
*Angelius
*Angelius
Hex Hunters
Hex Hunters
Black Frost Shard
2x Shepherds
2x Hellions

My list

Grim1
*Runebearer
*Bomber
*Impaler
*Stormtroll
Nyss
Fennblades w/UA
Long Riders
Fell Caller

He won the rolloff and deployed first, with the ability to redeploy the hex hunters because of tier.



I stayed center, and he redeployed the hex hunters back to a more normal state of things. Tricky legion players.



And everything ran. Angelius hauled up the board, Hex hunters all ran, Hellions all ran. One of the Hex hunter units got Carnivore, and an Angelius got Blood thorn.



I opened with farstriking the Bomber, who walked up, and chucked a bomb downfield at the right Angelius, and was just out. So it drifted, did very little. So he chucked one at the left, boosted to hit, and hit directly, doing about a spiral of damage. Grim1 moved up, with farstrike down, and put a shot into the right angelius. Then Cross country landed on the Riders. Fenns got pathfinder and ran to screen and get upfield. Stormtroll trudged in behind, and the Long Riders hung out in the woods.

The Nyss moved up 7'', and finished making Bethayne pay for getting her beasts so far up the board. 2 CRAs later, and the left Angelius was gone.



Did you see my screwup? It's right there.

Bethayne has Gallows. That bloody spell that pulls a person d6 if it hits? My opponent ran a Forsaken up, and Belphagor (Bethayne's ride), then arced through both of them. Grim1 got pulled in, and what was left of the first Angelius landed on him and killed him in the first AP hit.



Shortest batrep ever. Thoughts on the game.

1. Obvious mistake was obvious. I'd read the card. I knew she had gallows, and I didn't think to look at arc nodes. I just assumed Grim was far enough out of range. I had the opportunity to drop Fenns all around him and block things just like that from happening, and I didn't. Definitely dropped the ball on that one.
2. On the other hand, Nyss CRAs are awesome. That was fun. Killing an Angelius off the bat is legit. I think I was about to lose a lot of Fenns to the feat turn, and maybe some Nyss, but a lot of the punch was gone, and I had the shooting to take down the other one too.


So yeah. Silly short game, but it's there. Watch out for gallows, right?

In other news, I've got a unit of Warders and a unit of Burrowers on the painting table right now, plus my fancy Impaler.  Trying to get them all playable for the weekend.  I've been vassaling them both, and have enjoyed them a lot.  The Warders take a bit to get used to.  They out threat the Champions, but move up the board slower.  They're doing good with Madrak2, but it makes his slow brick even slower.  Burrowers, however, are amazing, and a blast, and employing the little guys almost wherever I want in the field, and getting Blood Fury on them, is hilarious.

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.

Warmachine to Hordes, and building lists for Circle

  By building lists for Circle, I mean doing math, because there's really only 2 factors I have for building circle lists.  A)  I own this.  B)  It adds up to this.  

  My wife transitioned from Khador to Circle this week, and our first game was 50pts of Baldur1 vs. Madrak2.  Looking back, 50pts is probably not where anyone wants to start with their first game of the most complicated faction.  Baldur1, Bloodtrackers w/ Nuala, Druids w/ UA, Megalith, Warden, 2 units of Stones w/ UA and a Blackclad, and Nyss.  Trying to figure out the synergies between a new caster, faction, 2 new infantry units, 2 beasts, and stones which are a mystery all their own, on top of trying out the fury mechanic...  However, she didn't do bad, and had easily removed the Fenns, pretty nearly had the Champions gone, and SHOULD have killed my Impaler.  I managed to get Madrak2 going on his Tide of Death, and tangled with Baldur, sitting on 3 fury.  Luckily, my Bomber had been putting shots into Megalith, and cranking the damage rolls, so the second transfer killed Balder with the damage left over.

  However, she liked the faction.  She started painting the Bloodtrackers yesterday, rocking a red scheme.  She won't paint Khador red, but Circle, sure.  It looks pretty good though.  

  Essentially, she got tired of Khador and the focus stat.  When I can run my beasts conservatively, hang back, then go all out on the turn I need to, whereas she's limited to a set number of focus, it gets frustrating.  And against high P+S like Trolls can bring, she'd rather have Transfers than extra ARM.  She rather enjoyed being able to wing it with the fury mechanic, and get more out of her beasts.  As far as the fury mechanic goes, it clicked pretty well and she used it quite well.

  Focus and Fury has always been something of a debate.  It definitely leads to more infantry in Warmachine games.  For a game that stars robots and beasts fighting eachother, there aren't many robots running around.  It simply isn't efficient enough.  Every turn of allocating focus is a bet against what you think you can accomplish.  And after playing with Mulg, the Earthborn and a few others with 5 Fury, I don't know how I'll go back to a Stormclad with 3.  When my Mauler at Fury 5 can charge for 1, use both initials and buy 4 more attacks vs. a Stormclad that charges for 1, uses 2 initials and buys 2 more attacks, it doesn't trade very well. 

  This limits Warjacks to being used only on casters that can help their focus efficiency or casters that don't require their jack to do more than one or two things.  Casters that have a bond (4 focus), or casters that can give free charges, or boosted attacks (Kraye's pretty efficient with jacks) can get melee use out of their jacks.  Otherwise, the jacks are for shooting, which they can do for one or two focus.  Casters like Haley1, Haley2, Bart, so on, so forth.  One of the few exceptions is a list in our meta under Khador's Harkevich.  This guy runs 4 clamjacks and Black Ivan, and doesn't give them hardly any focus, all game.  He casts Broadsides every turn, drops a ton of AOEs everywhere, and sits on scenario at ARM25.  It's pretty hard to dislodge.  These examples, of course, ignore Menoth, because Menoth can run four jacks with the Choir and be completely fine.  

  So in most cases, you have 1, maybe two jacks in a list, and all infantry otherwise in Warmachine, because it's really not efficient any other way.  A spell like Blood Lust will do a lot more damage with a unit of Iron Fangs vs. 3 attacks from a Juggernaut.  

  Hordes doesn't have this issue as much.  So how does this level out?  At first glance, it doesn't, yet Warmachine factions continue to do well.  For starters, they're a bit beefier and can take a bit more punishment.  In some cases, they're cheaper.  Trollblood's best beasts start at 9.  Khador and Cygnar both have solid 7, 8pt options.  Hordes casters also don't generally have as much fury.  5 is far more common in Hordes than it is in Warmachine.  Secondly, a beast can frenzy.  See, the betting is still there.  Fury doesn't get out of the gambling game, it simply makes it more potent.  Instead of having a focus or two left on a jack that didn't use it all, sure, your Mauler killed something, but it's probably out of the game next turn.   It'll get one strong attack off at the closest enemy model, and it's done.  The main advantage is being able to stop allocating Fury when you want to, and not overdoing it.  You're able to push on the turn you need to as well, but you run the risk of not having any beasts next turn.  

  It does balance out, believe it or not, but if you're getting into the game to play large-based monsters of steel and flesh, you're not going to find it in most of Warmachine.  You'll find that the infantry does much better, generally is cheaper and has more utility.  However, it's easier with Hordes to make it up as you go.  As you reach a point where you can plan a whole turn or two ahead, Warmachine starts to come back into it's own, but quite frankly, my wife and I are both enjoying the Hordes side of things.  Jess loved the Fury, and played it like a boss.

  Circle, on the other hand, was more difficult.  First off, the Bloodtrackers preyed the Fenns.  After the game, she realized she'd done that backwards.  The Nyss were more than capable of handling the Fenns, whereas between Stone Skin (+2str, and the Tracker's ranged attack is a throw), and Prey, they could be POW13 boosted Damage (ranged attacks are weaponmaster) against Champions, and reform back.  At RNG7 with the ranged attack, and reform from Nuala, they could be 10'' away from a unit with an 8.5'' threat range (except Skaldi).  That's a good inch and a half of error for harassing my hard hitting unit every game.  Next game, I expect to struggle keeping my melee alive long enough to get into contact.

  She also feated turn 1, which worked out well for her as well, since between AD and the run, her Bloodtrackers were well within mini-feat range of the fenns.  With Baldur's feat though, the Fenns were stuck.  

  Baldur1's Solid Ground spell is also hard to deal with.  One of the best ways I have to deal with Hi-DEF infantry is blast damage, and Solid Ground cuts that out completely, for everyone.

  She also wasn't sure what to do with the Druids.  Next game, I imagine they'll be up front, putting out clouds all over the place, and I won't get any more Bomber shots into the Wolds.  This game, they held back till late game.  They managed to clear some champions, but really, didn't use much of their toolbox.  

  Then there was the stones.  She used them to block charge lanes in the end game, which was difficult to deal with as well, and they healed the Wolds a bit, but the only teleportation they did was the Warden, who got diced.  Out of 6 attacks, he missed 1 one against the Impaler, and at -3 dice, did 4 damage.  She actually had charge range on him, and should have done that instead, but it still wouldn't have been enough.  She got diced bad there.

  Otherwise, she attritioned me much better than she has before, and only got caught by Tide of Death from Madrak2.  

  I'm considering a few units for her.  I'd like to grab Morvahna1, and magnetize a Warpwolf for her (including Ghetorix).  I'm also curious about Slaughterhousers to run on Baldur1, and I imagine she'll want a Gallows Grove as well.  

  Overall though, she's liking Circle, enjoying the Fury mechanic, and I expect, will be thrashing my trolls here shortly.  I'm dreading the day when she picks up Morvahna2...

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.

Mulg and the Champions painted, and what order not to paint in.

  Believe it or not, we have not the first hobby post of the week, but the second!  Been some spare time this week to finish off these Champion Models, so I got after it.  Been about a month and a half, two months on these guys here and there (Bouncing between them and the War Wagon), and I've got a few pictures along the way. 

  One of the things I'm experimenting with is painting orange first under the metal, looking for a rust look.  The other thing is figuring out an order of painting.  Originally, I just basecoated in black or white, laid down primary colors and went from there.  Lately though, I've been tackling one bit at a time and driving it to completion.  Jarl, for example, looks fantastic on his bedroll and jacket, but nothing else is painted.  

  The other thing is what prime in.  I primed in black, since that would be the skintone, but really, the Champions have very little skin showing.  It would have made much more sense to airbrush them orange, and paint the black on later.  As it is, I airbrushed them black, painted the armor orange, drybrushed the metal, then painted the blue and had to go paint the black over again as well.  They're done now, but it was kind of a long process. 

  So first off, I primed them black with the airbrush and did basic highlighting.  Then I did a burnt orange on the metal parts.  

  At this point, I drybrushed the darkest silver the Vallejo line has over the top of the orange, to accomplish a basic rust look.

                                 

  Then I started highlighting, after a wash.

  Then I did blue for the letters on the armor, for the Kithkar specifically.

  Then edged around the cloak with my Insane Detail brush from Army Painter.

  So, on the wrong order again.  On my Kithkar, I was originally painting him with the Sons of Bragg, but they got bumped behind the Champions, and the Kithkar stayed with them.  So, I already had painted the blue before I did the orange.  With the orange, the idea was to drybrush over the top which is hardly a controlled method of painting.  So I ended up getting paint everywhere, and had to paint both the blue, and black again.  

  But, I tell you what, it's all worth it.  Mulg first.  When I first glued him to his base, I faced him downhill, which was a horrible idea.  He was incredibly top-heavy, and the slightest tip forward would topple him.  He couldn't be on any elevation whatsoever.  I finally tore him off and flipped him around.

  Then the Kithkar.  I love this guy.  The model is amazing, the rules are fantastic.  This guy is Madrak's bread and butter.  I've seen him tear through a unit of Iron Fangs singlehandedly on Madrak1's feat, and I've seen him annihilate a whole unit of Warspears on Madrak2's feat.  He clears up Fenns, he kills casters, he hunts solos, he's great.  My wife bought him for me for the birthday, and she's regretted it ever since.  He's also the only one in this series of pictures where you can see the light blue stripes on the tartan.  Part of the problem I've been having painting the tartans is I've been going too small.  So I widened it up a bit, and that looks really good, but you only barely can see the light blue stripes.  I'm going to have to lighten them up even more, to stand out, and lighten the dark blue square because it stands out too much.  Otherwise, I'm really proud of how this model turned out.

  Champion Hero!  Really like this model too.  

  And the Champions.  I've got a max unit, but I only shot pics of four.  

  That's all I've got.  Hope you enjoyed the pictures.  Comments, questions, insults, bring them!

Building a Skorne flag for an Impaler

  Whaaaaaa?  A hobby post on DotFD?  Yeah, yeah.  Lots of batreps lately.  I'm loving my trolls.  My Iron Grudge app tells me that I have an 81% win record with his faction.  It also tells me I've only done 22 games since I started the faction which is every game since I got my models and put them on the board.  So either, people I play against don't know what to do against trolls, or I'm using all the games against my wife to spike my  stats.  Both are probably true.

  Anyways.  You're here because the title indicated a hobby related subject.  Let's take a look.  I own 2 impalers.  One came painted, the other came unassembled in the original plastic bag.  The one that came painted is the one that you've seen in my batreps (Read: all of them).  I'm to the point where I want an impaler that matches my army.  The first one is painted fine, but it's clearly not mine.  That being said, since I have one, I want the other to be different.

  I have 0 interest in playing Skorne, but I love their flags.  If you've ever seen the Last Samurai, the battlefield behind Tom Cruise is full of flags marking units and men, and it looks fantastic.  Very colorful, very vivid.  As time goes on, I want to progress that way with my army.  So, let's look.

  To start off with, I grabbed 1/4 dowel from Hobby Lobby.  I already had Grey Stuff (PP3 green stuff) and magnets, so no issue there.  I cut two lengths from the dowel, one about 3 1/2" and other about 2".  Then I glued them together, which was a royal pain.  Trying to hold two round objects together long enough to glue together without glueing you too.

  Forgive my phone pics. The final pictures will be legit, but the wip shots are shot with a phone camera.  So, once this is glued, we need the flag, as Eddie Izzard will tell you.  Before we mix up our putty, we need a couple of things.  Cooking spray (PAM or the knockoff), flat, untextured plastic and modeling tools, like the green stuff tool from GW, or any like tool.  Hobby Lobby sells a four pack of them in different sizes and shapes.  For my plastic, it's needed as a modeling surface.  Something flat that we can spray with the pam, and shape this flag on.  I took a plastic cottage cheese lid, flipped it over and cut the rim off, using the underside as my surface.  Spray it quick with your cooking spray and wipe off the excess.  This is just so the putty doesn't stick.

  Mix up your favorite modeling putty.  I did a ball about the size of my thumb after the last knuckle, and it was too much.  Start with probably 2/3ds of that and go from there.  First thing I did was tear off a small ball, roll it out to a noodle and flatten it with the handle of my modelling tool.

  Then, using the half-ball shape on the end (Opposite end of what is seen in this pic), I pushed the middle of this strap in.  I had to stretch it a little to get the length I wanted, then wrapped it around the glue joint of the flagpole.

  Now the flag.  Take what's left of your putty and smash it out.  This was the longest part, rolling it out and smashing it with the tool the same way I did the strap, but on a much larger scale.  Once that's done, cut as square a shape as you can by pressing your hobby knife into the putty.  If you cut it like you would anything else, it'll probably drag and tear your edges.  You'll notice I didn't square off the right edge.  I intend for this flag to be tattered, so I didn't worry about that end.

  Start with drawing a few loose lines where you want the tatters (assuming you want them).  Don't worry abuot being to precise.  Then press your hobby knife into the line to serrate it as much as possible.  Then slowly start picking away what you serrated.  This will naturally tatter the edge and give it the torn look.  Once your done, use the tip of your knife to press a seam all around the flag.  

  Using what's left, cut straps probably twice as thick as the first one.  Cut four of them, enough to attach to the flag, wrap over the pole and back to the flag.  Stipple your seams around the edges like we did with the flag.  At this point, go eat supper, watch a tv show or two.  Give it about an hour to dry and stiffen before you come back.

  Now glue them to the flag, wrap over the pole and glue the other side.  I added a base to the flag so I can place a magnet on this thing (for storage purposes) so I had to slide the flag up a little to fit it, which is fine.  I want the waving look anyways.  So  push your flag around till you get the shape you want and glue the straps in place on the pole.  Set this thing in a vice and leave it overnight.

  For my Troll, I wanted a belt wrapping around the troll, as if it's holding the flag.  I made a wide belt the same way I made the straps, then cut a square for a belt buckle, and cut out the center.  I glued it over the top of the belt, poked holes in the belt and cut a small rectangle out of my scraps which I glue to the belt buckle as well.  I then added a small strap over the base onto the flag, just to complete it.

                                     

  There's a preview there of the completed model, but let's get the full view here.

  The base is actually what started this, because as I mentioned earlier, I'm looking for that "Last Samurai" final battle scene with the flags and wood barriers.  I wanted to set up the Impaler as if he's dug in behind a wall, his sheath of arrows stuck in the ground beside him for him to draw from.  Once I had his back free, the flag idea was even better.  The base is just wide popsicle sticks, the spear quiver, long grass from hobby lobby and coffee grounds.

  That's it for today.  Finished the tartan on my Champs, Sons of Bragg, Mulg and Kithkar.  All's left is the touchups and they'll be posted.  Then, of course, I gotta paint this guy, which will be fun.  Anyways, hope this was interesting for you and chime in with suggestions or questions!