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!

50pts Sorscha2 (Khador) vs. Jarl (Trollbloods). Balancing a game against my wife.

One of the privileges I've had of being married is introducing my wife to this game. While the general thought of hers was "That's a silly game, but I'll allow you to play it", it slowly graduated into her painting with me, and then playing the models she had painted. Currently, my wife is up to:

Sorscha2
Sorscha1
Strakhov
Juggernaut
Destroyer
MOW Shocktroopers
Winter Guard Riflemen
Kovnik Joe
IFP Kovnik
Great Bears
Valachev
*Nyss. The Nyss aren't actually Khador, obviously, but you wouldn't know at my household.

Her main gameplan is to proxy the Destroyer as Behemoth, apply Iron Flesh to the Nyss, and laugh at my Fenns when her Rifleguard shoot them to pieces. This has generally worked decent for her, for most games. More often than not, she loses, but not because she was attritioning worse, but because I got a lucky assassination. All it takes is one Kithkar to get in there and Sorscha's a goner.

So, as you're reading this report, I want you Khador-savvy guys to sit there and have ideas for what to buy next for Khador. We proxy Iron Fangs in the next game, but this one doesn't have them. Speaking of which, lists.

Sorscha2
*Behemoth (Proxied by the Destroyer)
*Sylys
Reinholdt
Nyss
*Valachev
Winter Guard Riflemen
Kovnik Joe
Great Bears
Ayaina + Holt
Harlan Versh
Iron Fang Kovnik
Eiryss2
Manhunter

There's a few issues with this list already. It's got a Lot of support. It's got a bunch of neat little missiles, like the Man Hunter, the IFPK, and Harlan's a pain too, but it's basically a 35pt list with solos added in to make it 50.

For my part, I'm tabling my newest caster, Jarl. I've played him a few times on Vassal, but this was my first time on the table. I also brought out the War Wagon, trying to use that again.

Jarl
*Storm Troll
*Impaler
*Mauler
*Runebearer
Fell Caller
Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
Fennblades w/UA
Fennblade Kithkar

She won the rolloff, and chose second. I put my Champs towards the woods, and gave the Fenns the open ground. She countered by putting the Nyss across from the Champs and the Winter Guard across from the Fenns.



Champions! They're not done yet, but they're close. In fact, I'm painting the tartan on them today.



Unfinished Jarl and the War Wagon too. Jarl strikes me as a Robin Hood wannabe, so he's in a treestand, for lack of a better term. It's kinda cheesy, but it's fun, and he stands out. He also requires his own foam cutout. Him and Janissa both, and now my 2nd Impaler. I gotta quit with the modding here.



Stuff runs. Stormtroll runs, War Wagon moves up, Mauler Runs, Impaler runs. Jarl gets Weald Secrets onto the Champs, and Quicken on the Fenns. The Fenns can now run 16'', but there's no reason to feed them all to the Riflemen, so I try to give her two, and get her to trigger Vengeance for me. Kithkar and Hero both station themselves within their respective units.






Jessica starts off, camping all 6 focus. Behemoth can walk 6'' with the Bond, so she's not worried about running him. The Nyss run through the woods, and the Rifleguard spread out, everyone keeping in mind the 5'' AOE pie plate I can drop with the Wagon. Behemoth walks up. The camp followers come along as well, the Bears screening Behemoth. Sorscha moves up and puts Iron Flesh on the Nyss, and decides against Shatterstorm on the Rifleguard. Kovnik Joe moves up and gives the Riflemen Fearless and Tough, and A+H stealth.



It might be feat turn for me. Jarl's feat is pretty amazing, if done right. He spawns d3+3 4'' clouds anywhere in his control area that act as normal clouds, PLUS they keep the -2 to hit for melee attacks as well. Also, models can move through eachother within the cloud, so there's some neat positioning that happens there, but generally, his feat allows him to push pretty hard with his army (Between Quicken and Tactical Supremacy, they're wicked fast), and still protect them from shooting in ways that very few other casters can.

So, I decide not to mini-feat the Fenns, since the Winter Guard are fearless this turn. Instead, I pull in fury, upkeep Quicken and Weald Secrets. Storm Troll moves way off to the side, and animuses 2 Fenns with Electro leaps. The Fenns run/charge and two of them slam into the lines while the rest run for center field. Of the two that reach, one misses. The other hits, the WGR toughs, but the leap almost kills Joe, which is cool.

War Wagon moves up, pie plates a Nyss.... and kills one. Stupid drift. Champions run to center, trying to squeeze in tight for the feat. Impaler far strikes Jarl, who moves up, shoots at a Great Bear and misses. I cast Tactical supremacy on him, feat, and roll a 5, so I get all six clouds, which is awesome. I cover up the fenns, and leave the far right flank of the Champions exposed, simply because I didn't get them together tight enough. Kithkar, Fell Caller, Champions all move up, and I hang tight. Jarl moves behind the War Wagon.

Incidentally, the rings in the picture are 3'' rings, so the space outside of them is measured with a melee gauge. I need to buy the 4'' rings, which will probably happen tomorrow, actually.



My wife's not happy with me. "I can't do anything." she says, thinking. Sylys upkeeps IF, and she keeps focus on Sorscha. The Nyss have a go at it, move up and put shots into the Champions, but only do a few boxes of damage. Eiryss does the same thing. The manhunter charges, but due to absolutely terrible damage rolls, fails to do much more than two or three boxes.

"This is dumb. Oh, I have an idea." Then things go downhill. Sylys gives her Arcane secrets. She boosts to hit and hits the Fenn nearest to her that I sent up there to tie up the Winterguard Riflemen... Aaaand now all the Fenns are Freezing Gripped and stationary.

Woohoo. This is why Khador doesn't have arcnodes.

With the Fenns gripped, the WGR shift around, kill both of the Fenns. The Great Bears move up, the IFPK moves up, and Behemoth scatters a few shots into the mists, killing one more Fenn.



This hurts my list considerably. I also have things so tight together that the War Wagon can't get out because the Stationary Fenns are in the way. Jarl upkeeps... nothing, and pulls in Fury. The Fenn Kithkar moves up and kill the drummer, giving the War Wagon room. The Impaler puts Far Strike on Jarl, whoe moves up, magic bullets himself and shoots a Great Bear, damaging him ok, but using the Magic Bullet to kill Sylys instead. He then puts Quicken on the Champs. The War wagon moves forward, pumps a shot into the Nyss, and scatters, missing all of them. Way to go.

Storm troll moves up, and fires a shot off into the Rifleguard. It bounces once, kills them both. Fell Caller moves up, gives the Champs war cry (+2 to hit). Champions charge. One goes way off into the unknown, after Eiryss, but comes up way short. Two hit the great bears, two more engage Nyss, and Bonehammer himself goes after the Iron Fang. The Great bears all die, the IFPK dies to Bonehammer, and the Nyss get killed too. Mauler runs to shield Jarl, and that's it for me.






I still feel like my wife has got a decent chance at this game. It's feat turn time, and I fully expect to lose the Champions to Weapon Master Nyss on Sorscha's feat. The Fenns are no longer stationary, but the WGR are going to get boosted attack rolls from Joe. And Behemoth... Behemoth is a monster.

Sorscha puts 3 focus to Behemoth, and Reinholdt activates. He reloads her, and Sorscha feats, and shoots a Champion, missing. Happily, she has Reinholdt's shot, so she shoots three more times, but doesn't do more than four boxes. She then puts Boundless charge on the Jack. The Nyss charge, and do much better, with the exception of three horrible rolls. They kill all but Bonehammer and one Champ.

Behemoth moves up, and with AP, one rounds the War Wagon. Just one hit, and it's gone. He fires his next two shots into the Fenns. A+H move up, kiss the Fenns and Holt kills 1. The Rifle Guard polish them off with the exception of the UA. Harlan got in there too, but the Fenn he hit literally toughed 4 times and through 2 dice changes... It was sad. Hilarious, but sad.

Then I forgot to take a picture. Imagine a lot less on my side though. It's not hard.

Jarl upkeeps Quicken. The Hero charges in, and with War Cry help from the Fell Caller, carefully threshers the Nyss off the two Champions remaining. Bonehammer and the Champ charge Sorscha, and the two of them kill her with room to spare.





Thoughts on the game:

1. I don't think I have a clue how to use a War Wagon. I also question whether or not it's worth having in a Jarl list when I want to hide behind templates, except that there's a Huge base in the way. Maybe as a flanking force?
2. Looking at the pics, I feel like my wife had a decent assassination shot there once the War Wagon was gone. A couple of Fenns out of the way, maybe Kiss Jarl with Ayaina, and empty the Winter Guard rifles in his general direction. Evasive would have helped, I suppose (Jarl moves 2'' on a miss), but RNG14 rifles on those Winterguard don't care if he stumbles much. It wasn't a half bad shot, but she was focusing on the Fenns at that point.
3. She's figured out Freezing Grip, and I'm going to have to start hiding Fenns. She lands it on the next game too, and it's really hard to fight back on that one. Most stuff is high enough ARM to weather it, but it's still hard. I like to run them way out there as a tarpit, and now, she wants me to. Not good.
4. Speaking of tarpits, she didn't do that at all this game, which was something we talked about. She pointed out that she lost all of her Great Bears, without using them, Again. Same goes for the IFPK. But she's not shielding them. She's got 2 great units for shielding (Nyss and WGR) and neither one is shielding. The bears are just moving forward, hoping for the best until I out threat them.
5. Jarl is awesome. I actually get to outthreat. I forgot to mention Runebearer, but he was active all through the game, helping Jarl juggle some spells. Getting Quicken around is pretty nice. SPD8 Fenns are messed up. SPD7 Champions are wonderful. SPD9 Long Riders are as fast as Tempest Blazers. It's a lovely thing. And with the clouds, he can actually protect them. On top of that, he can clear out stuff on his own. Ignoring melee with black penny, magic bullet, all kinds of stuff. I like him.
6. I don't know what to get my wife. Like I said, the next game we proxy IFP. She really doesn't have much melee, and I think that's kind of an issue, since everything is so hi-arm. Sorscha can counter that for one turn, so that's nice, but it's still a rough game when everything still has to break 8 just to do damage, and when you do actually damage something, it has 8 boxes. Toss out suggestions, by all means. IFP? Merc unit of some sort? Somehow slot the MOWs in? Play the Nyss differently? What do you think?

Anyways, thanks for reading!

  Blog Readers!  Sup guys.  Ya'll are the best.  I post these batreps to the forums as well, but I've been enjoying some of the input here too.  Keep it up.  I wanted to reference the title of this post a bit more though, and talk about gaming with my wife just a little bit.  It's a subject I've seen come up several times on the forums. "How can I get my wife to play?"  

  You can't, really.  My wife did a demo game that was heavily in her favor (First game ever, using Haley2 and a Stormclad/Lancer combo?  Yeah) and thought it was ok, but that was it.  The kicker came later when she tried painting, and found out that she enjoyed it.  After that, it was a matter of her wanting to play what she painted.  As long as I've got stuff for her to paint, she's got stuff she has to play because you can't paint it and not play, right?

  Then, in our own home, she enjoys it.  She doesn't play it at the shop, she doesn't get on the forums, and she doesn't drool over the shelves at the store.  She does, however, enjoy a 50pt game of an evening with me, and enjoys talking smack with the guys at the shop.  She'll sit there and watch me through a game, joking around, offering advice, and be a part of it, which we both enjoy.  It's a game for us when we want something more complicated than risk, but less complicated than Axis and Allies (believe it or not).  I really love that she plays the game a little, and understands what's going on, as silly as the whole thing is.

  That being said, when we play these games, my goal isn't to really win, but to have a good time.  Half of the time, we're figuring out her turn together and she's bouncing ideas off of me and deciding what works for her.  Freezing grip in this game was her idea.  I hadn't even thought of it, or I wouldn't have sent my Fenns in so far.  She's good at the game, whether she'll ever admit that or not.  

  So, what's this about?  Balancing a game with my wife?  If you've got a good friend or loved one stepping into the game with you, step back from that tried and true twin-stormwall Haley2 list and try something different.  Don't build a list with what they have in mind.  Instead, have fun.  My game has gone up considerably playing my wife because I've tried units I never would have otherwise.  

  As far as balancing, I'm trying to figure out what she needs to play me better.  She's beat me more than once, and I'm game for her doing it some more.  The better she is, the more she'll play, and the more time I get to enjoy playing warmachine with my wife.  It's a win/win.  I brought Jarl this game, and I probably won't again unless she plays someone else.  Jarl vs. any shooting list is a great matchup for me, not her, and that's not really all that fair.  I try Madrak1 in the next game.  I'll probably bounce around quite bit, but because I can.  She plays her game, we enjoy the discussion, have a good time competing with eachother, and it's a blast.  

  If you're getting your significant other to play the game, take it easy, let them show the interest, and let them play a good game.  There's been more than one game I won on the first go around, but when we rolled back the dice, and looked at another assassination route, my wife won.  Don't be the guy that measures the deviation template eight times, or uses a laser for LOS.  My wife enjoys it because she's spending time with me (Horrible reason to enjoy the game, I think, but I'm not arguing), and she enjoys figuring out strategy.  Let him/her figure it out, let them play the game and take some ownership for their ideas, and if they play out, awesome, otherwise, go back and have them try something else.  You'll learn more playing a relaxed game with them than you will getting trounced at the shoppe.

  And if they don't like warmachine, meh.  Fairy Tale's a fun game too, I've found out.  Or Zombicide.  We play a lot of that.  

  Anyways, that's my blurb.  Maybe one of these days I'll actually ask her why she plays the game, and get some real reasons from her.  But then she'd have to admit she likes the game, and she might quit altogether at that point.  

  That's all I've got for today.  There's another batrep in-route, Madrak1 vs. Sorscha2 (my wife again).  I also have the Champions, Hero, Kithkar, Sons of Bragg, and Mulg all just waiting for tartan stripes, and they'll be on here.  The Champions will come with a walkthrough on the armor, in case you like it.  I also am painting another Impaler because I'm tired of using the mismatched one.  I'm also getting creative.  If you've ever wondered what a light Troll looks like with something like the Skorne flag the Cyclops carry around, I'll have the answer soon.  And it's not actually a stolen flag, I modeled it, and we'll have pictures for that process too.  Going to be a good blog week I think, so stick around!

  

50pts Thagrosh2 (Legion) vs. Madrak2 (Trollbloods)

Back when I first started doing batreps, one of the first guys I started playing in the area on a regular basis was Legion, and we played all the time. I think I played 80% of my games against his Legion in particular. We hadn't gotten to play for awhile though, and in that time, I transitioned from Cygnar to Trollbloods. We finally got a chance to catch up on a Warmachine game last weekend.

Thagrosh2
*Typhon
*Scythean
*Carnivean
*Seraph
*Shredder
*Shredder
*Shredder
*Shredder
Shepherd
Shepherd
Feralgeist

For my own part, I brought my Madrak2 list. I considered pGrim, simply because my opponent said he's smashed every pGrim list he's seen, but I felt like I'd rather have Madrak for this go around. It's probably a pretty good thing, because as you saw earlier, I brought pGrim for the next game and go figure. Got smashed.

Madrak2
*Runebearer
*Impaler
*Bomber
Champions w/UA
Champ Hero
Fenns w/UA
Fenn Kithkar
KSB w/UA
KSB Hero Kithkar Fell Caller Chronicler of Scorcery.
Not really. I lied about that last guy.
Janissa Stonetide. Truth.

I'm loving the Champion module right now. It works very well, takes a lot of punishment, and between Skaldi and the Hero, clears it's own charge lanes quite efficiently. They also allow me to not have to bring heavy hitting beasts. The beasts in my Madrak2 lists are generally pillow fisted in melee, and half of the time, the Impaler doesn't even kill a model. Or even try. But with blood fury, everything else hits fantastically hard.

Anyways. My opponent won the rolloff, deployed central. He's got four heavys, 9 medium based models and a caster who scares 2 of the latter. Deployment is pretty straightforward.

Mine's pretty practiced at this point. Fenns to the left, Champs to the right to take advantage of the hill.



Typhon makes a run for the hill to my left, setting up to kill all of my Fenns by himself because he can. Seraph moves to support him, and the other two beasts make for the woods that very conveniently allow my opponent to play aggressively forward.

Thags puts Dragon's Blood (I think) on Typhon, and hangs onto everything else. Shepherds move up and clear fury from running, and it's my turn.

I'm up. I don't take pictures, but you're not missing much. Moses gives Madrak Harmonious Exaltation, and Madrak moves up. He casts far strike on the bomber for one, because why not, and dumps fury to the stone. Bomber moves up, chucks some bombs that deviate from anything useful, and the Impaler riles. The stone moves up and pops aura so I know where to put my Champions, and Janissa drops a wall in front of the whole mess. Then, conveniently, having an idea where the aura is, I place half of my champions outside of it brilliantly.

Good job, Jedi. The Anakin part is showing through.

Fenns run, and everything else shuffles in. I prepare for the Typhon sprays.



Sure enough, the Typhon sprays come. Thags upkeeps Dragon's Blood on Typhon, and Typhon moves in, and instead of worrying about Fenns, he sprays the Champions instead. 3 sprays later, he's damaged the three under the aura, and forced a tough check on the nearest, but otherwise, his dice hate him. He did catch a Fenn in that mess, and kills him, so I get Vengeance, but that's it.

Seraph moves in, takes a few shots, and finishes the nearest Champ. Thags move into the woods and feats. If your're not familiar with his feat, everything gets to make a full advance and a melee attack after everything has finished activating. It's kind of like Stryker2, but for battle group only.

The Carnivean moves in, and sprays, and finishes two of the Champions on the left. The Scythean moves up, nothing more. Shredders go rabid and run to engage Champs, including one who cleverly runs to engage Skaldi. No countercharge for me. All in all, one engages a Fenn and forces a tough check. Another toes into the wall near Madrak and the Bomber. A third engages the left champions, and the fourth is Skaldi's.

Shepherds move up and do their thing, and the Feralgeist runs forward. Feat kicks in, and everything but the Scythean runs and hides in the woods. Instead of moving in and engaging my lines further (Which I would have liked) they hide in the woods and force me to come to them. Sneaky.



First things first. Vengeance is nice, and I manage to kill one of the Shredders engaging my Fenns, and get some better positioing, but I still need to clear the Shredders off of the Champions. The Hero charges across near the Scythean, and one-rounds the Shredder there, so that's something.

Harmonious Exaltation from Moses again. Kithkar charges across and murders the Shredder engaging the Bomber. Impaler moves up and farstrikes the bomber. The Bomber moves up and throws twice at Typhon. First misses and does nothing, but the second hits and does 13 damage I think, but it's on an off column so it doesn't remove any aspects.

Madrak moves up, puts more fury to the stone, drops Blood Fury on the Champs, and hangs onto 2 transfers.

The Fenns charge now. Two charge across to whack the last shredder, while the rest spread out, trying to fill area and distract Typhon. Unfortunately, they block the charge lanes for my Champion on the left to charge into the Beasts, so that plan is out.

Instead, the Blood-furied Champions focus on the Scythean instead, and charge him. Three weaponmaster blood fury attacks later (5 dice at -6 I think...) and the Scythean is gone, and my Champs are conveniently clumped together. I've also left a nice avenue for Thagrosh to reach Madrak2.



The Carnivean begins by advancing, and swinging at a few Fenns between Thags and Madrak. He kills them both. Thags charges forward at a third one and murders him, creating an Eruption of Ash, an ability his weapon has. The AOE3 doesn't reach anything else, so that's good. And I minifeated the turn before with the Fenns, so they're fearless.

Thags then casts Scourge, and attempts to hit the Bomber, in an attempt to KD Madrak, which would be bad. However, the Bomber is DEF16 behind the wall. Thags misses, and the deviation scatters to directly in front of the wall, somehow finding the ONE spot in my army where it touches NOTHING.

He's committed too much at this point though, so the Seraph moves up, rolls and gets a whopping total of two shots, missing both of them. Typhon activates, and he ignores cover at least, but only barely gets Madrak in range, and nothing else. He fails to hit and do damage both until the last one, and even then, only triggers enough to force Grim Salvation and take away a KSB dude.

Shepherds move in and do their thing.

At this point, it's pretty much a done game. In an effort to move through the turn faster and end the game for my opponent, I skip the Vengeance move on the Fenns, and move right into the important part. Fell Caller gets +2 on the Champs, Madrak upkeeps Blood Fury (not in that order) and Champion Hero moves into Thags first, threshering Typhon and Thags both, doing damage. That's followed by the Champions walking to Thags. Even with two transfers, 9 weaponmaster attacks easily destroy Thagrosh. (4 champions with 2x attacks and the Hero)



If that hadn't worked immediately, I would have gone ahead with the Vengeance move and played the turn as normal, and probably killed Thagrosh regardless. At that point, it was getting the game done and over with so we could move to other things. With Thags up as far as he was, it wasn't going to be much of an issue.

Thoughts:

1. With the exception of a funky Mangled Metal game, that's the first game I've had against Thags2, and it was meh. I really expected a lot more carnage. He focused a lot on the Champions on feat turn, and only managed to kill two, and on top of that, gave me an easy Vengeance, killing just 1 fenn for me. He didn't focus on them at all with typhon like he could have. Sure, he'd of lost a beast to the Champs, but he he had several more. On his next turn, the assassination was a lost cause against Madrak2, but the Champions had him so worried, he risked it. I felt like they were gone, with the Carnivean in their back arc and an assault spray. I was pretty sure that was the end of them, but the 5 dice monsters had my opponent jumpy. I think that was the main reason I won that one as easily as it seemed like I did.

Otherwise, really good game, enjoyed getting to see Thags2.

50pts Severius2 (Menoth) vs. Grim1 (Trollbloods)

My PG pulled me in for a game, wanting to work with his eSevvy list. Normally, my PG plays trollbloods, but sometimes he falls to the darkside and brings Menoth instead. He brought:

Severius2
*Reckoner
*Reckoner
*Crusader
*Crusader
*Blessing of Vengeance
Choir
Vassal
Vassal
Errants w/UA
Wracks
Heirophant
The Book
Vassal Mechanic

...I think... I imagine he'll swing by and correct me.

For my list, on the other hand, I wasn't sure what list he was bringing, and I wasn't sure what I had to bring. It was kind of a tossup between Jarl and Grim, (I had just played eMadrak), but the winning choice was whoever had the War Wagon in their list, which happened to be pGrim.

Grim1
*Impaler
*EBDT
War Wagon
Fennblades w/UA
Long Riders
Chronicler
Fell Caller
Sons of Bragg

I've been trying to get that War Wagon painted now for two months, so regardless of how well it did, I was excited to field it. We rolled off, and my opponent rolled a 7 with tier, and deployed first. Fairly straightforward, his list being pretty symmetrical. Errants were AD, so they ended up out in front after I finished.

My Fenns went to the left, Long Riders to the right, hoping to use the forest as cover with Cross country.



My opponent starts the ball by allocating a focus to each jack. Everything runs, and Severius gets Holy Ward onto the Errants for a DEF bonus.



The Impaler moves up, puts far strike on the War Wagon. War Wagon moves up and drifts his AOE into the Errants and kills one, which self sacrifices. The Fenns run up, and the Chronicler gives them Concealment. Grim moves up, puts Return Fire on the Wagon, and Cross Country on the Long Riders. The Riders move up, and the Sons of Bragg run as well.



Severius upkeeps Holy Ward. I think. The Choir move up and battle everything, and the Vassal gets Admonition onto the Blessing of Vengeance. The Errants shuffle/aim and shoot down a number of Fenns, a few of whom tough. Severius moves forward, feats, rolls a 6 for d3, and takes over four Long Riders and two Fenns. He then lands Fear of God onto my Fenns, through the KD guy. The Fenns just turn around and walk, swinging at other Fenns. Three Long Riders run across the map into enemy lines, and turn for the backstrike bonus, while the fourth rider runs back to about 6 inches inside my deployment zone.

The Reckoner and Crusaders on the right proceed to walk up and smash 2 of the long riders, the third one toughing. The left Crusader blocks lanes with the Book (no knockdown there) to Severius, and the left Reckoner takes a shot at the Fenns. The Fire of Salvation moves forward into a good position for next turn, and it's back to me.






Oh, and the Long Riders rode waaaay up into the flank, and on my opponent's turn, he blocked them with the Vassal Mechanic and choir members.

So, back to my turn, I'm down to the last chance assassination, which is pretty sketchy. The Long Riders move in, and the one in the back kills the Mechanic, and the other guy impacts and kills 2 choir dudes in front of him, leaving the EBDT room to walk around the Crusader, as I've now learned :P

The Fell Caller charges the Reckoner hopelessly, does some damage, but again, nothing great. The Sons move out of the way for Tor, Fervor, and Tor assaults, hoping to get range on Sevvy, but comes up shy. The EBDT walks around the Crusader, picks up the Reckoner, and pitches it across the choir and into Sevvy, hitting, but only doing maybe 3 boxes of damage. He then spends the rest of his attacks punching the Crusader.

Grim moves to the side, fires a shot off, hits, and needs a 16 to kill He does not roll a 16, and leaves Sevvy on 6 boxes.



The Reckoner gets 3 focus, walks up and smacks Grim into the ground.



Overall, reaaally good game. I got shot to pieces, but learned a ton.

1. The Feat isn't as bad as I took it. Like, I really struggled with how to counter that feat, and really, there isn't a way. It's 6 models, and unless it's Champions, it's only going to kill 6 models. That's 10+pts, sure, but Madrak's come from worse.

2. Grim sucks against Menoth. No magic shooting except Grim himself, Menoth doesn't really care about -3 SPD, so on, so forth. On top of that, I'm no good at landing Marked for Death. Madrak2 would have been a better match, especially since Grim can't do much against 4 heavy jacks.

3. All that being said, I put my Long Riders up too far. Knowing Sevvy had to come up to get them in his feat, I should have pulled them back and forced him to come out and play. I also mismanaged my Sons badly, and if I had moved them closer to the action, I may have gotten the hit with Tor's spray, and that could have been the make or break of the game for me. Also, charging with the War Wagon was dumb. I should have screened it with the Chronicler and Fell caller, and saved the Wagon for the assassination run.

Good game though, and looking forward to the next one.

50pts Stryker2 (Cygnar) vs. Madrak2 (Trollbloods)

My second game Saturday was against a guy who just recently switched to Cygnar. He'd been playing Khador, and in fact, his Harkevich list with 4 clamjacks and Black Ivan had given me serious fits. However, he's recently started picking up swans, and we set up for a game after I got smashed by the last Khador player.

So, Stryker2 vs. Madrak2. Something of a mirror match. One guy gives everyone a post-turn 3'' move and an attack, and the other guy gives everyone attacks to everything in their melee simultaneously. Some differences, but certainly more similarities. Both casters rely on a high volume of attacks, and try to get their guys to hit harder, but I think Madrak does it better. Stryker requires a jack, preferably with Reach, to get in there and make Positive charge work, whereas Madrak just adds a dice to his favorite unit and sends them in. As far as Positive Charge goes, Trollbloods basically has it on a stick with the Chronicler, and I haven't used it at all. Me and my two months of Trollbloods experience...

So, eMadrak.

Madrak2
*Runebearer
*Bomber
*Impaler
Fennblades w/UA
Fennblade Kithkar
Champions w/UA
Champion Hero
Fell Caller
Janissa
Min KSB w/UA

The list continues to change. I had the Champions originally, and dropped them because I thought they were too slow, and got the Long Riders instead. I still like the Long Riders, but I playtested the Champ Hero and Skaldi a bit more, and I really like what the Hero and Skaldi to for the Champs. I also dropped the Sons of Bragg, because they're amazing, and need to go in lists that need amazing help, without feeding them support (Jarl, Grim, even eDoomy).

The Battlegroup is also evolving. I originally had the Impaler and Slag for some ranged anti-jack goodness, plus some +2 damage for Madrak or the Kithkar (maybe the Hero now), but at the end of the day, I was struggling against Hi-DEF infantry, and not against Warjacks. Fenns on Blood Fury don't need a Slag to soften up a jack before they hit it. So out with the Slag, in with the Bomber. Or the War Wagon. In this case, the Bomber. I'm debating between 2 AOE4s that I can boost damage on, vs 1 AOE5 and 1 Spray 8 template, plus a bunch of impacts. It's an interesting trade. The other problem with the War wagon is that I need a second beast to pull fury from, so while the wagon is cheaper than the Bomber, the 5pt beast I'd need to bring counterbalances it considerably. So the Bomber makes more sense at the moment.

My opponent's list had a familiar format, but with some changes. The Stryker/Maddie/Squire concept was all the same. The Stormblade Deathstar (Heh) was there as well, along with Runewood, Rhupert, SB Captain and Jr. for support. However, where I take Nyss, he took Forgeguard with Jonas, and Swordknights.

Stryker2
*Squire
*Ol' Rowdy
Maddie
Runewood
Rhupert
Stormblade Captain
Stormblades w/ UA and max WA
Sword Knights w/ UA
Forgeguard w/Jonas
Harlan Versh
pEiryss
Junior

Some differences, but it's a caster I've played a lot, and am pretty familiar with what he can do. He can easily box eMadrak, but he can't do that, AND remove all grim salvation targets, especially over a wall that's taking Madrak to DEF16 against Melee.

We rolled off and he won, so he deployed first. SKs went to the right, Forgeguard to the left. Stormblades were scattered behind, Harlan on the right flank, Eiryss on the left. Rowdy, Stryker and support hung out in the center.

I dropped Fenns on the left against Forgeguard. Not only was I pretty much guaranteed the alpha against them, between POW12 and Blood Fury, I wouldn't have any problems breaking their ARM. The Champions, on the other hand, went opposite of the Sword Knights, which meant that I could pretty much ignore them and penetrate as deep as I could into the flank and start cutting apart Stormblades.

To support that was the Bomber/Impaler combo, there to clear out Swordknights/Stormblades. The KSB went center, the Fell Caller hung out behind them, Janissa, Runebearer, all that great stuff.



Cygnar leads off. Everything runs/moves up. Stryker drops Deflection and camps, and Jr. puts Arcane Shield on Rowdy. Jonas probably minifeated, making the dwarves immune to blast damage, but I had better targets for that anyways. The kicker in this mess is Runewood, who put pathfinder on the Swordknights, who then activated and ran forward, clumping into 3man groups for Defensive line. Unfortunately, this left runewood in everyone else's way.



First off. Fenns run forward. Moses does Harmonious Exaltation on Madrak. Champions run forward. Impaler moves up, puts Farstrike on the Bomber and hangs out. Bomber moves up and throws a bomb. It drifts the right way, lands squarely on a clump of Swordknights. I boost the damage three times and kill all three, and pass on buying a second shot. Chances are I'd drift the wrong way, and on top of that, I'd be running hot, and would be out of fury anyways with which to boost blast damage.

Fell Caller shuffles along. Madrak presses forward, drops Warpath and dumps the rest to the stone. Janissa presses forward and drops a wall. KSB moves in, and auras, catching all but a few of the champions, several fenns, and all of the brick. The Fennblade Kithkar and Champion Hero run to support their respective dudes and it's my opponent's turn.



More of the same now. Jr. drops Arcane Shield on Rowdy and moves up. Everyone runs forward a bit more. The Forgeguard spread out, getting ready to take the alpha from the Fenns and countercharge. Stryker moves forward near Rowdy, toes onto the hill, casts Deceleration again and camps. Eriyss sneaks closer to my left flank, and Harlan sprints to flank my Champions. The Swordknights run forward and clump again, with the exception of one lone brave soldier who runs to engage my Champions, and triggers Countercharge from Skaldi, who crushes the little guy.



Looking at the pics, I think 2 sword knights engaged, and Skaldi killed one of them. That left one more to deal with.

So, Madrak pulls in fury. The Champion Hero charges, decides not to thresher for obvious reasons, and easily kills the Swordknight. The Impaler chucks a spear at someone, misses, but puts Farstrike on the Bomber, who again starts bombing Sword Knights and Stormblades. Needing 8s to kill, I fail to kill more than 2 of them.

The Champions proceed to charge, and tear into the Swordknights, killing most of them. They fail CMD, but pass it on the reroll since the banner is still in play. One champion gets countercharged by rowdy though, and gets boxed, but he toughs.

The Fell Caller shuffles over, puts War Cry on the Fenns for +2 to hit. Moses moves in and gets Blood fury on them with his minifeat. They charge in, minifeating also, and I distribute one for each of the forgeguard nearby (Which have tough on them from Rhupert) and four charge into Rowdy's back arc now, since he charged. The forgeguard are all boxed, but one toughs. Rowdy is taken down to 1 box on his cortex. All engaged units pass their terror checks as well, which is saddening.

I really debate about throwing an axe into rowdy, just to finish him off, but decide against it. Madrak moves up, casts warpath to burn fury, casts Blood Fury onto the Kithkar so I can get it off the Fenns and take them back up to DEF12 instead of DEF10, and then puts one more on the stone, leaving me at 1 fury, and capable of taking in everything from the warbeasts next turn.

KSB moves up and pops aura. I could have put fury to them, but I wanted warpath instead, whereas the stone would cover everything I needed it to.

Janissa drops a wall, Kithkar moves up, and that's turn.



Now the counter attack. Rowdy turns around and Tremors. We found out later that you can't do star actions with the systems missing that Rowdy was, but it doesn't change much. He rolls a 6 on one dice and knocks all four of the Fenns down engaging him. The Swordknights swing back, and damage a few Champions. Harlan shoots Skaldi in the back a bunch, but does just 1 box. The Stormblades assault, with Runewood's blessing, and kill a few, and finish off some of the Fenns that are KD behind Rowdy.

The forgeguard charge, and kill everything they reach. Eiryss shoots a Fenn too. Rhupert moves up and puts tough back on the Forgeguard. Jr. moves up to be within range of Stryker, and Stryker activates, hangs out, casts rebuke on what's left of my Fenns, and feats.

So, everything that survived the onslaught dies. The Stormblades and Swordknights move in and finish the champions, and every Fenn in melee range dies except 2. I'm down to four Fenns, the Kithkar, and my Hero Champion.



I pull in my fury, drop Warpath, and drop Blood Fury. The Fenns that can Vengeance can, and I don't think they have reach on anything. The Kithkar moves up and kills one of the Forgeguard at the edge of the hill.

The actual turn begins. The Champion hero charges into the place occupied by the champions last turn, and threshers, killing a few Sword knights, but missing the charge target, AND Rowdy, who I really wanted to finish. Double 1s for both those guys. I think Rowdy had a box of movement left, not Cortex, or I would have autohit.

The Bomber unleashes a few attacks, and clears out the Swordknight UA, banner, and a couple more SKs and a Stormblade or two. Not bad. Impaler drops a Stormblade on the hill. There's two near Stryker, but I'm leaving them as much as I can. Fenns move up and swing, since they can't charge. They kill a few Forgeguard, but it's not terribly important. I'm clearing a charge lane.

The KSB runs forward, up onto the hill near Rowdy, but leaving room for Madrak, and pops aura, and the Elder adds +1 STR.

The Fell Caller puts Warcry on Madrak, and the Runebearer gives him Harmonious Exaltation, and he charges the Stormblade in front of Stryker. He's 8.5'' from Madrak, and Stryker's a good 3'' beyond that. Madrak reaches him, feats, and essentially threshers, killing Rowdy, and both Stormblades. The Hero smashes what's left in his melee range, and that's pretty much it for things to do with the feat.

So, Madrak has 2 fury now from the feat, and 5 normal fury. He spends 1 to gain Blood Fury (Harmonious Exaltation) and spends the other to move forward and attack with Tide of Death. He hits Stryker, and does a few boxes at PS15, or Dice minus 5.

Buy. Hit. Two more boxes. This sucks. Blood fury is boosting every damage attack, but two boxes? Buy. Miss. Buy, hit, four or five more boxes. Buy, hit. Another two or three boxes. Buy my last one, swing, connect, and roll perfect damage to box Stryker.



At that point, I realized that I forgot to factor in the STR bonus from the Krielstone. That added 5 damage automatically for the attacks that hit, and did damage. So it wasn't as close as I was afraid. Had me worried, but it wasn't the perfect damage roll like I thought it was.

Thoughts on the game:

1. I played my Champions too hard. I could have charged one or two in, and let them take it, but I didn't. I have a problem playing Madrak where I see a bunch of targets, and I decide that I'm definitely going to feat, so I engage all my stuff in the enemy lines, and kill everything I engage... which means there's no reason to feat. Then my army sits there and takes the counterpunch. That's no good.

2. Jr. dropped Arcane Shield on Rowdy, and meant to put it on Stryker, and never did. That would have saved him. Easy. But he never did.

3. Maddie never really got used. Usually, Maddie, Runewood, Squire and Stryker is a surefire heads up that the assassination is coming, but it never did. In fact, he just sat up fairly close and never went anywhere. He attritioned well, but he's not impervious to assassination. It felt weird to assassinate my favorite assassination caster, but there it is.

4. I like my list. I enjoyed having a Bomber for a change... Where are those Kayazy now?