Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Battle Report: Stryker1 vs Irusk1

My list: Stryker1, Sylys, Rowdy, Lancer, Charger, Journeyman, Stormclad, Stormblade Captain, Stormclad (second), Stormblades (6+UA+2WA).

My opponent: Irusk1, Behemoth, Kodiak, Bokur, Koldun Lord, Drakhun (with dismount), Kayazy Assassins (10+UA), Greylord Ternion, Black Dragons (10+UA).

Scenario: Mosh Pit (book), no clock.

I won initiative and chose to go first. I could go into details, but honestly the Rube Goldberg contraption that was Henry's army was immaculate. He had Ternions putting clouds on Kayazy, which were stealthed, and those guys created a cloud wall for the rest of his army to advance behind. Irusk's Inhospitable Ground kept me from assault/charging them. This whole combination was frustratingly effective. I ended up feating too soon, and from there things continued to go downhill. There was a lot about this matchup that was just unfortunate too, like Kayazy having Anatomical Precision which handily overcomes my Stormblades despite having great armor stack options. In the end I took a last ditch assassination run on Irusk but an early failed boosted attack roll by my Stormclad against a key Kayazy failed (needing 8 on 3d6 I might add), and that sealed any chance I had for lucky dice to save me. If I'd succeeded, then it would have opened a lane for the Lancer to advance, then Stryker to Earthquake and perhaps the Charger to get a pair of shots on Irusk, in what would have been perhaps a 20% chance of success.

Lessons learned: I really need to develop my skills around using premeasuring effectively. Using proxy bases and marking spots and all that stuff is super key to taking proper advantage of premeasuring.
Also, Jack Marshalls are a thing. The Stormblade Captain granting Reposition to the Stormclad is a pretty serious advantage for it. I will definitely be thinking about that option in the future.

Games this year: 37

Sunday, June 26, 2016

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #127

Critical stall.

Just got back from a weekend away. Short update. Lancer is complete except for a base, which I had to backorder from my FLGS. Will have it done in a few days once that base arrives. Also got a bunch of stuff assembled and ready for priming. New Proteus arrived as well and I've got all the parts trimmed. Hopefully have him assembled this week as well.

Friday, June 24, 2016

Battle Report: Nemo1 vs Garreth

My list: Nemo1, Squire, Thunderhead, Lancer, Firefly, 6 Stormcallers, Strangeways, Arcanist Core.

My opponent: Garreth, Imperatus, Griffon, Chimera, Corbeau, Arcanist Mechanik, Destors (3), Mage Hunter Assassin.

Scenario: Mosh Pit (book), no clock.

I won initiative and chose a side of the table. After a brutal exchange where the Destors nearly wrecked Thunderhead, I retaliated and wiped out the Destors. From there things continued down a brutal attrition battle. Again though the game turned into attempts at trading assassination runs, with Nemo making a valiant attempt to chain lightning onto Garreth a bunch and nearly killing him. However as the battle wore on, Imperatus was able to stay in the battle long enough to be a problem, and in the end I got checkmated on scenario, losing 2 to 3 on vps.

Lessons learned: Keep looking up rules! It's good to review the new rules. This game we ended up re-reading most of the power attacks, spellcasting details, and a number of misc things. The more we play, the more we find that the rules are better but we're trying not to make any assumptions that they are the same. Also, camping a couple focus on a caster for damage drops is a serious survivability advantage. And when Nemo has a turn with 11 focus on himself, in addition to Power Up, it's an amusing round for spell slinging.

Games this year: 36

Ironclad (take 2)

Ironclad from the Mk3 Cygnar starter box. More hammers!

Firefly (take 3)

Firefly from the Mk3 Cygnar starter box. Nothing fancy to say except that it will be amusing to field 3 of these at once.

Monday, June 20, 2016

Major Beth Maddox

My first official Mk3 model completed! I'm pretty proud of myself for having her painted less than a week after LnL. I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical of the sculpt quality in plastic, but now that I've got her completed I really am pretty happy. The biggest issue I have is actually with the one side of her hair which just seems to have a weird edge to it. Otherwise, pretty happy with this sculpt.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #126

Happy Fathers' Day to all the hobby enthusiasts out there!

I'm super tired, so this update is going to be pretty condensed. It was a good week overall. Maddox and the battle group from the Cygnar starter box are started (as pictured here), and I'm hoping to get most of Maddox done tonight. In addition, the 2 Gun Mage Riflemen are primed, and most of the Legion starter box is assembled at this point, with just the Neraph left to go. I also got the 2 Hellmouths prepped and ready for priming as well. I'll likely leave all the Legion stuff alone for the time being until I star the Riflemen.

In addition to this hobby work, I also got a couple games in this week, playing 0pt and 35pt games with Haley1 vs Helynna. I won both games. I'll forgo a proper battle report on those probably, since I suspect there will be a lot of Mk3 games coming up.

Games played this year: 35

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Lock and Load 2016 Recap

Achievement format go!

The Long Road - Drive from the Bay Area to Bellevue. 13 hours of driving with two of my best friends. Was totally rad. Loved the whole trip, especially the last couple hours when it was open season for jokes found via Google. And yes, I had my Sloan model blue-tacked to the dashboard of my car the entire trip, much to the torture of my friends. It was glorious.

Veteran Warrior - Feel like a real LnL Veteran. I felt like a real veteran of LnL, having attended 4 years in a row now, especially given how many people were commenting that this was their first year. Especially given that this is now 3 years at the same venue, it made things familiar and easy to know where things would be.

Master of None - Play in Masters. Yep, totally played in Masters. I got pretty thoroughly stomped, going 1-3 in the early heat, and coming in at 47 out of 102. That makes it sound good, but lots of people dropped. In fact there were 2 people that dropped and still ranked higher than me. Still though, I had a fantastic time. All of my opponents were great, especially the indomitable Brad Fish in my last round. We had a delightful chat about Cygnar after he assassinated Sturgis with Caine2 top of round 3. All of my games were a delight though, and I wouldn't change a thing. This was the first time I played in Masters and I have to admit that it was a great way to start the entire weekend. In previous years I arrived just planning to play in the arena, but now I think future years might feature more tournaments than anything else.

Hang With The Cool Kids - Go for drinks where the PP staff does. So it turns out when you take all your buddies out for drinks at a nearby upper class restaurant bar, you end up seeing the Privateer staff there too. We didn't interrupt them as I believe they were celebrating a number of things, not the least of which was probably Simon leaving. Still, it was great to see a bunch of them all hanging out and enjoying drinks together.

Sole Unbound - Play Unbound with Jason Soles. It finally happened! Clearly my biggest and most exciting achievement. I was the only one to show up for the Unbound event and Jason happily kept the event on. It was an amazing game and wrapped up in under 6 hours amazingly. During the game I got to chat with Jason a lot too which was really enjoyable. He's a really nice guy and clearly enjoys the game. The Mk3 release was clearly a huge event and now being able to talk about it was clearly a huge relaxation for him. It was hilarious watching him rip Mk2 cards out of their sleeves as I finished them off and toss them with a cackling "Goodbye Mk2 card!" So many things going away in Mk3 that make the game more enjoyable not just for the players, but for the staff as well. Getting to ask him questions like "what's your favorite thing about watching people explore Mk3" were especially fun to hear his commentary on. I'm sure he was getting a ton of questions about individual models, but having a more broad view of the entire game means he has such an interesting high level perspective on the new edition that I think most people didn't take advantage of. Anyway, again, the Unbound game was awesome, and Jason destroyed me pretty handily. There was however a shining moment...

Dice Bending Miracle - Get a crazy run on dice. So in a desperate move during the Unbound game, I managed to teleport Sturgis into Jason's backfield and right next to eFeora and a Judicator. I then proceeded to win the initiative, go first, and have an incredible run of dice for Sturgis to assassinate a full-focus-camp eFeora. It was epic, and I think Jason was actually pretty shocked.

Shut Up And Take My Money - Buy lots of stuff. Yep, totally bought a bunch of stuff at the store. Got 4 card decks, 2 starter boxes, 2 Gun Mage Riflemen, 2 Hellmouths, and 3 blisters of Gobber Drudges. So great.

Stay on target - Play a bunch of games towards my yearly goal. I played 9 games total while I was there which really jumps me forward on my goal. I could have played more undoubtedly, but between Masters and Unbound, it ate up most of 2 days of gaming time and I did also want to have some general hanging out time as well.

Getting the gang back together - Play games with all my friends. Check and check. I was especially enjoying that I got 2 games in with my buddy Mike who made a last minute plan to fly in for 2 days of LnL. It was really great to see him.

And that's pretty much it. Another Lock and Load in the bag and a pile more memories of a great time. I'm already hoping to attend next year!



Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Taelor

Another Malifaux model completed! I'd say I really enjoyed it, but what I liked about doing it was actually the couple key pieces of practice I got. Specifically painting her ab muscles, and painting a denim pattern on her pants and top. It was enjoyable practice. I also feel like her face got at least somewhat right, despite the small size of her eyes.

Sunday, June 05, 2016

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #125

Jump, jump, jump, pounce!

So progress this week has shifted gears after finishing the Sacral Vault. I trimmed a bunch of Cephalyx models (3 units and 3 heavies), but painting jumped over to Malifaux models that I had prepped and primed. It's sort of fortuitous actually since I was hoping to make some progress on my remaining Malifaux horde of stuff. Iggy was a very quick paint and I've already made a significant amount of progress on Taelor, with the base mostly done and herself mostly done as well. The Black Blood Shaman is ready to start, and 3 Daydreams just got primed. I've only got 3 more evenings of painting ahead of me before leaving for Lock & Load, but we'll see how much gets done on Malifaux during that time. Speaking of Malifaux, I did some planning work to figure out what all bases I still need to make. I'm documenting it here for my own future use.

Malifaux basing plan:
Remaining models:
Black Blood Shaman - 30mm Nephilim
Lilith Avatar - 50mm Nephilim
Nekima - 50mm Nephilim
Lilitu - 30mm Nightmare Nephilim Woe
Lelu - 30mm Nightmare Nephilim Woe
Widow Reaver - 40mm Nightmare
3 Daydreams - 30mm Nightmare
3 Alps - 30mm Nightmare
2 Stitched Together - 30mm Nightmare Puppet Darkened
Mysterious Effigy - 30mm Puppet Effigy
2 Waldgeists - 40mm Beast Swampfiend

Currently have:
2 30mm Nightmare
2 30mm Nephilim
1 50mm Nephilim
1 50mm Woe
2 30mm Woe

Need to make:
1 50mm Nephilim - custom for Lilith avatar
2 30mm Nephilim/Nightmare/Woe
4 30mm Nightmare
1 40mm Nightmare
Bases for Stitched Togethers, Waldgeists, and Mysterious Effigy - Gotta decide on options there

Saturday, June 04, 2016

Iggy

Since I was all wrapped up on my PP model painting, I decided to pick up a prepped Malifaux model as an interlude. This one was already primed and ready and definitely bite sized. Honestly it's a nice change of pace from all the army painting I've been doing. I took way more time than I needed to on this model, and yet I still feel like it was a really fast paint job. Perhaps I'll paint a few more Malifaux models before LnL.

Friday, June 03, 2016

Sacral Vault

This was a beast of a project. So many challenges along the way.

What went well:
* Using the airbrush to do initial layers of stone work, then building up from there.
* Working through details one layer at a time.
* Painting in parts, but doing all the pinning/fitting work up front.
* Not letting myself get too buried in detail work and trying to make it all look great.
* Resin for water effects. Combination of luck and planning brought it together.

What could have been better:
* Spending more time on key parts.
* Paying closer attention on where to put candles at the beginning.
* Not letting it tip over and crash, necessitating multiple repairs.
* Green-stuffing the candles down rather than just gluing them.

Thursday, June 02, 2016

Countdown to LnL2016: 1 Weeks

7 days now. It's very real.

Scott's Pro Tips (this week) for packing: Bring glue and aspirin.

Logistics:
Travel - check
Hotel - check
Food - check
Model transport - check
Shopping - check
Gaming equipment - check
Tokens - check
Repair kit - check

Events:
Masters - Check. Registered! Lists finalized.
Unbound - Check. Finalized my list.
2nd Unbound - check

Pretty much ready to go at this point. Just a matter of actually packing my car.