Battle Report: Unbound at Lock and Load

One last post about Lock and Load 2013. As mentioned previously, the last day I was there I played a 200pt Unbound game with Tyson Koch. It was a blast despite getting completely rolled by Tyson's troll force. What follows is less of a battle report and more a photo dump with some narrative about the game.

At 200pts, I was basically fielding every painted Legion model I have except for warlocks. In this game I had eVayl, Bethayne, Rhyas and Saeryn. Tyson had pGrim, eDoomshaper, Calandra and eMadrak. I can't remember everything that we each had on the table, but this shot gives you a pretty good idea of the massive number of models. Of special note were the Mountain King and 2 Battle Wagons on the troll side. Setting up 200pts is actually pretty challenging, and in retrospect I think I would do things very differently next time. However as this was my first Unbound game, it was a massive learning experience.

So the way this game came about was Tyson had been looking for an Unbound opponent, specifically one that had a fully painted force (or nearly fully painted). I ran into him at the display case and was chatting when I mentioned my desire to eventually play all my models over the course of games in the Iron Arena. You can probably easily guess the rest of the conversation. From there it was just a matter of figuring out how many points we could each field, and it turned out I was the lower end of that. Nevertheless, 200pts was still plenty to put on the table. I'd like to point out that at one point during our game, Ed Bourelle came by to watch and mentioned how he's been looking forward to playing an Unbound game with his 450pts of Cryx. I shudder to imagine that much painted Cryx on the table.

On the right side of the table I'd deployed my Throne along with Saeryn, Warmongers and various flying beasts. This exchange proved to be one of the better parts of the table for me. Saeryn's breath-stealer really took the fight out of the Fennblades and my Warmongers and beasts were able to clean out all the Longriders, Hoarthul and the Battle Wagon. Alas though, this was my best portion of the battlefield. A big key to this success was Saeryn's feat. One personal victory here was the use of an Afflictor to put out an Incubus!

The left side was a different ball game. I had Bethayne posted over there with Typhon, Proteus, Raptors, Anyssa, Blackfrost Shard and Hex Hunters. But despite all that force, the Battle Wagon and Champions were able to overcome. It didn't help that a lucky deviation from the Battle Wagon wiped out most of my Hex Hunters early on, and I was never really able to recover. Another key feature: in Unbound, 2 or more Battle Wagons means they gain +2 DEF, and that +2 made a significant different. I did however learn a lesson after the game which was that battle engines never gain defensive bonuses for elevation. Doh!

In terms of the flow of the game, Unbound really plays different than a normal game. I found that winning the initiative made a huge difference in taking it to your opponent. There is also a lot to be said for winning the battle at the center of the board. There's also a huge bias in how animii expire at the end of the round, so activating some things later means they aren't going to get as much mileage as things that activate earlier. It really threw me off from my normal play style.

As the game ground on, the trolls pushed into the center of the table and the real breaking of my army's back was eDoomshaper's feat and the Mountain King making a push in and slaying Rhyas. I honestly wasn't expected him to get that far given what all I had in the way, but Tyson did a masterful job of clearing a path that I couldn't plug up quick enough. On my left side, Bethayne also ended up going down. This was unfortunate because I'd activated her and popped her feat to catch eVayl in the hopes I could lay out a punishing round of attacks on the Mountain King, but I simply couldn't leverage enough firepower against him. At this point I surrendered the game since my losses were just too great and the Mountain King was healthy enough I'd never be able to wear him down.

Finally, this was my dead pile at the end of the game. Someone asked me if when my dudes "died" they instead just wander off to the tavern for drinks and I liked that visual.

So there you have it, my first Unbound game. I had a great time and Tyson was a wonderful and fun opponent. During the whole game we got a lot of great comments ranging from "Great painted armies!" to "You guys are nuts!". We even enjoyed having the PP staff member that made the table (sorry I forget your name!) come over and comment how satisfying it was to see such a huge pair of painted armies on the table. Several other PP staff members came by and they took pictures several times during our game. Perhaps there will even be pictures in the September No Quarter!

LL13: Wrap Up and Pic Dump

Massive photo dump follows from my Lock and Load trip. This isn't a spoiler recap post, or a recap of whatever else. It's a review of what I remembered to take picture of along with other random notes at the end.

First up, and probably the most memorable chunk of things I did, was the painting classes. Here is pictured Matt DiPietro doing his Introduction to Two Brush Blending class specifically. I also took his True Metallics class, as well as Meg Maples' Femme Fetals and Color Theory classes, and Ron Kruzie's Painting Unclassified and Army Foundry classes. I'm not going to recap them here for brevity sake. However I want to point out that these classes were all really well run. The video support for them was really amazing and helped the class immensely in comparison to other classes I've taken. They also included handouts to take home where appropriate. I also really felt like they were extremely organized and the material for the classes filled the time very appropriately. All three of them were great about explaining details, but I have to say that Ron was my favorite simply due to the number of hysterical quotes. I walked out with several pages of notes and lots of things to practice. One last note was simply the ability to watch how they paint and note the subtle differences in their processes and set up to give me ideas to try (like twirling my brush when picking up paint). As I experiment I'll provide notes on this blog.

Next are some pictures of studio models that were in the case. It was hard to get good photos through the glass, but these two came out really well fortunately. I wasn't trying to get a full view of the models, but rather details of some specific bits, particularly battle damage. It was pretty amazing to look at in person and get a sense of the detail level. Hats off to the studio painters on these.

Another quick shot of a studio model: the Night Troll. Not a particularly good picture, but really amusing. It was cool to see the new releases in the case there.

And next is... oh... err... yeah, I apparently went out for drinks to my favorite bar in Seattle. Let's, uh, move on.

I didn't take hardly any pictures of models in the case, but this one really caught my eye. It didn't place as best in its category, and I don't even know how it placed, but for some reason I really enjoyed it.

Ok this was just amazing. Raven from Advanced Deployment had brought her Legion army which includes 55 Shredders. I was perplexed to say the least. She has painted each one as a different type of poisonous tree frog. I had a blast chatting with her about it. The spread of them was really amazing.

Now I start to transition to actual games I played. This first picture is from me playing eThagrosh against eVyros. My opponent was great and we had a really fun time. I'd never played against eVyros so it was new territory for me. I ended up winning this game mostly due to pushing Thagrosh in his face and his assassination run came up a little short on damage output to finish Thagrosh off. At that point I had to do a little maneuvering but I was able to bring enough firepower to bear on Vyros and finish him off. I will say that the table we played on was quite nice except for the unevenness of it causing some problems.

Next is where I played Absylonia against Ossyan. My opponent had this really strikingly painted army. It was green and gloss-black, which gave it a very "Tron" sort of look. We had a really fun game on a rather treacherous table (due to the slanted surface). At I think the top of the second round I took a Ravagore shot at Ossyan, landed it, and drolled triple 6's which killed him dead. My opponent was all set to shake hands but I called for a time warp and we replaced it with an average damage roll so that we could play out the game which is where the real fun happened anyway. There was a bunch of amusement with Eliminators sneaking around the side and flanking me from a stairway, my Scythean getting taken apart by Mage Hunters, and Typhon being a rock star and rolling in to beat a pile of face. To top off the fun game, Ron Kruzie came by during out game and commented on both our armies.

Oh, and yes, I drank more. Love that bar. Got to sit right at the bar and the bartender made custom drinks for us. This was one such example that he concocted on the fly.

Ok, so now to really nerd out this post, I'm going to list my "Achievements" from this trip:

Everyone To The Table! - I played every model that I brought with me! Well, technically not. I didn't play eLylyth (since she isn't really fun to play or play against), and I didn't play my unpainted stuff (cause I was enjoying playing fully painted in Iron Arena).

Iron Liver! - I went out drinking with my great friend Lance who I drove up with. Man what a great time we had. And I was able to walk back to the hotel safely as well!

Level Up! - I went to 6 painting classes and really feel like I learned a number of new things. Now I just need to put those into practice and use that experience to up my painting skills.

Hit Me, I Can Take It! - I sat down with Meg Maples and used my Shepherd as a sample model to get feedback. It was really constructive feedback with both things to improve and things that went well.

A Cut Above! - Not only did I enter the painting competition, but I got a Silver (for the Lylyth battlegroup mentioned before) and a bronze (for McBain). I also got great feedback afterwards and both Matt and Meg commented how much they liked my Lylyth battlegroup.

Like A Ninja! - I drove from the Bay Area to Seattle and back, and didn't get a speeding ticket or have any sort of incident with the travel. Hooray!

That's Unnatural! - I played a 200 point Unbound game with fellow painting fanatic Tyson Koch. I'll post more about that tomorrow, but needless to say, this was a first for me. I fielded nearly every Legion model I have.

There are more potential achievements, but I'll have to wait to see if I get those. Specifically appearing in No Quarter magazine in some capacity. Gotta wait till Sept apparently.

RtC: Lylyth (Competition Version)

This last weekend I brought my recently painted Lylyth to Lock and Load 2013 for their P3 Grandmaster painting competition. I'll post more about the event overall in the next couple days, but I wanted to get this particular model posted up first.

Cramming this model in right before L&L was pretty tough. I could have easily spent more time on it. The camera makes it rough to look at compared to in-person as well. However I'm still pretty proud of this model. My goal was to paint her to 90% of my best ability. Parts of it made it, while others didn't.

What went well:
* Having a deadline - This really kept me focused and on task. I worked on the model nearly every day during those 2 weeks.
* Cloak - I'm quite happy with the results on the cloak. It has a good mix of color variation and I feel like I achieved the effect I was going for.
* Metals - This is where I felt really happy actually. I spent a fair amount of time working on them and got them just about as good as my current skills could get.
* Basing - This also went great, and I feel like the basing was well worth the effort. I even did shading on the moss!
* Hair - The hair worked out pretty well. I used a combination of techniques here and just sorta went crazy. Who knows if I'll ever reproduce it.
* Not sealing - I didn't actually seal this model. I was happy with the final effect and didn't want to take any chances.

What could have been better:
* Skin - The skin is pretty rough, even in person. I could have done a lot more work on that. The hands aren't bad, but the rest could have been much better.
* Pinning - I had a heck of a problem with the single pin coming loose. It survived the trip and judging, but if I were to ever use it for playing, I'd want to re-pin it to the base.
* Arrows - Ugh, I hate painting the fletching on arrows. Especially the ends of the arrows all bunched up. No matter what it looks unrealistic.
* Not enough time - I could have easily spent several more hours on this model, but just didn't have the time.

So what was the net result? Silver! Although I should point out that I entered this as a part of a battlegroup entry, including the Teraph, Raek and Naga that I'd painted previously. Interestingly enough this represents a time frame of almost 4 years. I painted the Raek in July of 2009. I'm really not sure what to think about that, but I'm extremely happy. I think the best part was when I was asking Matt DiPietro for feedback on my entries, both he and Meg Maples commented on how they really liked my battlegroup entry. Needless to say, I'm riding a wave of happy vibes right now.

LL13: Progress, Pain, and Procrastination

Well, it's down to just a couple more days before leaving for Lock and Load. I'm in a final mad rush of painting and assembly and pre-packing. The painting has turned into partial success and partial failure. I was hoping to paint 2 new things, but it looks like Lylyth is the only thing I'm going to get done. On the flip side, I have gotten a fair amount of assembly work donw. I have a second Angelius mostly assembled at this point, but it still needs some putty work that I'll probably try to wrap up before leaving.

I think the bigger challenge I'm facing is packing all my models. I want to bring my Croxorz and my Legion, but that's some 150 models, including 2 huge bases. Well, 3 counting Lylyth 3, but she's not fully assembled so it's not a big deal. In any case, I'll figure it out. Driving has an advantage of storage options that wouldn't necessarily be flying-friendly.

So what are my hopes for attending Lock and Load? Well, it's simple. First, I want to talk with other painters and share tips. Second, I want to have a great time playing a ton of casual games. So if you're attending and interested in getting a game in, I'll be floating in and out of the Iron Arena during the whole event. Come and find me!

LL13: Impressions of Preparing

This is sort of a massive mash-up post. It's a combination of musings about going to Lock and Load, preparing for a painting competition, and just a general update of things going on at my painting desk. Rather than go into a lot of detail, I'm just going to include a lot of pictures and short notes.

A few days ago, I decided to paint something new for the Lock and Load painting competition. Not really a lot of time to get something done, but I'm making an honest effort to push for it. The assembly part went really smooth actually.

Priming on the other hand turned into a disaster. My can of Krylon primer seems to have turned bad on me. I'd had problems before, but it really got horrible. So I ended up stripping them and starting over. I lost a day, but fortunately the stripping and re-priming went smooth.

And yes, I switched back to Duplicolor primer. It's shmowza math. I'm never switching from it again.

And here you can see some progress. The new Lylyth sculpt is really quite nice. I'm not sure this will turn out to be my best work, but I'm going to make a huge effort on it prior to leaving. Hopefully I'm not doing final work on it while I'm at L&L.

I've still got a ton of stuff to do before I leave for L&L. Not the least of which is figuring out how to pack my entire Legion model collection and pack up a painting kit. Oh, and get some models assembled and primed to bring along for painting practice while I'm there. So much to do, and so little sleep to get.