Megalith

This model was a pretty significant departure from my normal line up of models to paint. Megalith has two predominant features, stone and wood, both of which are features I don't paint that much on such a larger scale. So, getting a chance to paint this one for my buddy Sean was an interesting challenge. I opted to use a combination of washes and 2BB for doing the stone, throwing in some additional reds and greens into the color to give it a little more lifelike feel. For the wood, I used a lot of controlled washes.

The runes turned out ok, but some of them could have definitely been better. I opted to paint the eyes like gems rather than glowing just because I thought it gave the runes a more specific theme to their purpose on the model. Overall I think the biggest struggle I had with this model was really more of a sense of mood since it's predominantly bright and doesn't have enough dark regions to create more contrast. Definitely one of those more holistic painting skills that I'm still working on.

From the Desk: More Megalith Progress

It's late, and I'm sleepy, so just a quick post of the progress on Megalith. The vines seemed to have worked out pretty well. I actually used the GW green wash as an intermediate step, and then used a light flesh tone (combined with olive green) to do the highlights. I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out so far, but there's still a long way to go.

Battle Report: 4 Player Madness

Better late than never! I finally got a chance to do this write up on the 4 player madness battle we played the other day.

The scenario was pretty crazy. Teams of 2 were randomly decided and each army's goal was to deliver a package to their team mate. The packages could only be carried by the warcasters' battlegroups, and could be handed off as a free action. Each player started on a different edge of the board with team mates being on opposite sides. We decided to go with a clockwise activation order rather than activating teams at a time. Little did we know the chaos this would end up causing.

I can't recall the details of the armies unfortunately, but here's a high-level summary. Team 1 was myself playing MacBain (!) and Aaron playing Stryker. Team 2 was Lance playing eAsphyxious and Henry playing Grissel. As it worked out, Aaron went first, followed by Lance, then myself, then Henry. The deployment was crazy, with people very close to each other right at the start of the game. More on that later.

This battle was crazy vicious. Cygnar and Cryx were mixing it up right on turn 1, with Satyxis boldly rushing in to cause chaos. MacBain used his feat on turn 1, and Stryker on turn 2 to avoid complete devastation. The terrain helped to funnel most things toward the middle as well, but with Cryx's speed, things tended to pour right into Cygnar's face. There was a crazy dual-caster-kill event that took place, with Stryker (actually the journeyman) killing eAsphyxious, and then a mob of Satyxis killing Stryker right afterwards.

In the end, MacBain was the last caster left on the table, but there were still random models running around (leftover Satyxis, a Brute Thrall, a Withershadow, a couple Troll Champs). We decided to play it out and in the end I just wasn't familiar enough with MacBain to get him loosened up and he went down. Total carnage!

All around, it was a seriously fun game. Afterwards we talked a bit about the scenario and came up with a couple ideas on how to alter it:
* Replace the "package" with an actual courier model who must be escorted. We had a lot of ideas on that as well, like giving him special actions he could use to increase his survivability.
* The clockwise turns worked out pretty well, but the deployment aspect was pretty vicious. It would definitely need some tweaking.

Anyway, good fun was had by all, and I'm definitely looking forward to tweaking and trying this again.

From the Desk: Getting Stoned with Megalith

More quick updates from the painting desk... I started painting Megalith for a friend last week. Unfortunately my work/life balance is pretty terrible, but I am making some progress. This is the first Wold I've painted, so it's a pretty significant amount of learning. I have to admit that stone isn't one of my best materials to simulate. We'll see how this guy turns out.

I also got to play in a 4 player game yesterday with an amusing scenario. I'll post pictures and a battle report tomorrow (hopefully) but here are a few quick highlights:

I played MacBain!

MacBain was the last caster alive!

The scenario was crazy fun!

Oh, and did I mention... I played MacBain!

Witch King

Just a quick post of a model I finished up for someone else. Nothing amazing here. I got some tips about painting black and did some experimentation with adding deeper shades of various colors to give it a little something more.

Battle Report: Here Comes The Train

Last night I played a game of Warmachine that was rather off the beaten path. My buddy Aaron and I put together a scenario to liven things up and the battle was a riot.

Scenario:
Here's how it worked. One player (chosen randomly) was designated the defender, and the other the attacker. 2" from the center line, on the defender's side of the board, we ran a road across the length of the board. This served to represent the train track. Starting on the attack's 2nd turn, the train enters. The goal for the attacker is, of course, to destroy the cargo car of the train. Here's the specifics:

The Locomotive was def 7, arm 21, 32 damage. The cargo car was def 7, arm 23, 50 damage. If the locomotive is boxed, it remains on the table, but the whole train becomes stationary. Other than the locomotive being boxed, the train cannot be made stationary. It is immune to knockdown, but can be affected by spells and effects and is considered a friendly faction model for the defender and an enemy model for the attacker. Both the locomotive and cargo cars can be repaired by mechanics.

During each player's maintenance phase, the train moves 8" along the track. It cannot have this movement modified by any means (feats, spells, etc) and always moves 8" provided the locomotive has not been boxed. If the train collides with a model during this movement, that model is slammed d6+2" and suffers a pow 20 hit, and then the train continues to move. Note that models could potentially be hit multiple times this way.

The defender sets up and goes first. The train enters the board at the start of the maintenance phase of the attacker's second turn.

The Lists:
me (defender): Amon, Reckoner, Castigator, Devout, Dervish, Choir(6), Deliverers(6), Vilmon, Paladin, Vassal, 3 Wracks
Aaron(attacker): eStryker, Ol Rowdy, Stormclad, Stormblades w/ UA, Longguners(6), Black 13th, Journeyman Warcaster, Stormsmith

Perhaps not an optimal choice for me, but I wanted the Castigator so that I could throw something in front of the speeding train. I hadn't played MKII Amon yet, so this was a golden opportunity to see how he played.

The Battle:
The first couple turns were as expected, with both of us making a mad rush to the middle and trying to secure a hold on the track zone. I scored first blood by launching my Dervish into the group of Stormblades and slashing through 3 of them. Things were looking good so far, but then, enter the train...

The train brought an interesting dynamic to the game. For one, it's big, blocks line of site, and is very dangerous. Plus, it distracts the attacker from wailing on the defender's forces. However, for me as the defender, it created a bit of a challenge. Either I hang back and have the train block off my ability to attack, or move forward and get trapped between the train and the attacking forces. I tried to find a bit of middle ground there, however I ended up having my forces get split up a bit, with my choir trapped on the other side of the train from my jacks. What follows is a series of pictures detailing the comedy that ensued from the battle.

Reckoner: "Uh oh... fence behind me... jacks in front of me... train to the left of me..."
This was a pretty bad situation for the Reckoner. Amazingly he managed to wriggle out of it without getting clobbered! The Castigator 2-handed threw the Stormclad in the way of the train, the Vassal ansilary-attacked the Reckoner to kill the Stormblade, and then the Reckoner sneaked out of the path of the oncomming locomotive. Unfortunately...

The Castigator didn't clear the path of the train and got slammed away, but not without earning his reward. The Stormclad was thrown into the front of the locomotive, and then during Aaron's maintenance phase, it was hit by the locomotive and slammed 3", and then slammed again another 7". Double slam baby! Aaron and I were both cracking up at the carnage of the locomotive.

This gives you a better view of the battlefield after the maintenance phase of Aaron's 3rd turn. My forces were split on either side of the train, and Ol Rowdy was well positioned to start wailing away. Despite my best effort to put some hurt on Stryker with the Devout and distract his forces, Aaron was not tricked. Ol Rowdy charged in and pounded on the locomotive... and pounded... and pounded... and pounded... and in the end...

... the brave locomotive engineer was slain, and the locomotive ground to a screeching halt! If it wasn't for this impressive display by Ol Rowdy, I think the scenario would have quickly gone downhill for Aaron, and although I loved the carnage, I believe we should all observe a moment of silence for the poor locomotive engineer.

[insert silence here]

At this point things started to go downhill for me quickly.

Vilmon was charged by 5 Longgunners who managed to beat him dead. Oh how sad! The Castigator got revenge by walking over and combusting on the Black 13th and Junior and burning them all to a crisp. In the end though, Stryker weeded out all of my remaining forces except for Amon and I sadly had to concede the game at that point. I should point out that both Aaron and I had some very comical dice rolling, with more double 1's coming up than I could believe.

Results:
The scenario was a blast! There's some refinements to make for sure, but overall it worked out quite well and we had a great time. Here's some thoughts on the scenario itself:

Changing the stats so that the Locomotive is a bit harder to kill and the cargo car is a bit easier seems appropriate. As it stands, the only viable strategy is to destroy the locomotive to buy enough time to actually destroy the cargo car.

Before the game we discussed the option of jacks going autonomous if warcasters are killed, just to keep the focus on the scenario instead of caster kills. It didn't come up, but I could see this being an important aspect to throw in.

We were both curious how it would have played out if I had thrown my forces across the tracks to block Aaron from getting to the locomotive. I suspect it could easily make the scenario much much harder for the attacker to win.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this rather lengthy battle report. I'd love to hear from folks out there if they've done similar scenarios before!

Kommander Strakhov

This is now the second Khador model I've painted. Strakhov was interesting to me for a couple reasons. I really like the skhulpt of his gun and his, uh, skhirt. Overall the skhulpt is nice: it has plenty of details without being overly khomplicated. The details are spread out enough so that the eyes khan read them properly. There's even a nice detail on his face of a skhar that adds even more expression to him.

The biggest thing I'm disappointed with on this model is aktually the basing. I used the GF9 snow basing material and it just didn't kheep it's whiteness. I think my original formulation of snow would have workhed better. In any case, this badass is ready for deployment in my buddy's armies now.

From the Desk: Starting Strakhov

Now that Kubla is done, my goal is to get into a happier place with my painting queue. Part of that is catching up on models I promised to paint for other people. The first in that line is Strakhov. I really dig this model, so getting a chance to paint it for my buddy Sean was a no brainer. This post is more of a teaser for him than anything else. I just finished the basic work on the reds. I decided to go with a bit more of the orange-ish tone to reflect his demeanor. I'm planning to paint the armor plates in a blue-ish white tone, and the trim as a black leather color. Unlike most of my projects, I decided to attach him to the base first to make things a bit quicker.

From the Desk: Angelius Repairs

I'm still wrapping up the Angelius, and in fact ended up using him for the 15pt Mangled Metal tournament at KublaCon despite it not being finished and sealed. Amazingly, he came through completely unscathed and didn't tip over once! That later point is something I'm very happy about from a usability point of view. However, he still had a structural weakness at the join between the upper body and the tail that connects to the pillar. So, in order to address the issue, I decided to bite the bullet and re-work it.

The structural weakness was specifically between the main body part and the small piece that I kept from the original sculpt. The join between that piece and the body extension that I sculpted is rock solid, and continues to stay joined securely to the pillar. The first step was to drill a second hole for another pin to more secure the two pieces. Next, the original join was a little gnarly with green stuff and it removed the illusion of a nice smooth flying snake, so I filed that down smooth. There was also a couple places where the sculpting of the body extension wasn't smooth, so I carved those down smooth. Lastly, there was some roughness to a portion of the sculpted body next to the pillar (probably due to glue issues) so I carved those down smooth as well. Now, once my paint-on primer order arrives, I'll go about repairing the paint job.

This is the first time I've done a major amount of repair work on a model that was practically finished. It was a little terrifying to start carving, but once I got started I realized that I wasn't hacking up anything that would be overly hard to fix. And in fact, I think this will be a good exercise for me to try color matching on the pieces that need to be repainted.

Pandora Avatar

After much struggling and a very long time, I finished Pandora in time for the KublaCon painting competition. I've got a lot of comments on this model so I'm going to diverge from my normal format a bit.

Feedback:
All along the way of working on this model I was soliciting feedback from a number of people and got lots of useful perspective. It was definitely a change from my normal method. Since this model was just for fun (there's no rules for her currently), I felt fine taking my time to get her done. It was definitely worth it. I feel like the additional time was well spent, even though there are still things I wish I could have done better.

Challenging Sculpt:
This sculpt presented a real challenge to my skills, and admittedly I think it was above my skill level to paint. The biggest problem is there's a lot of negative space in the lower half of the model. This worked against me heavily when trying to create a better overall composition of the piece. Try as I might, I just didn't pull it together entirely.

Competition:
This model was admittedly planned as my secondary entry for the competition (behind the Lady Justice crew), but I ended up treating it like a primary entry. It won a gold in the open judging which I am completely stoked about. In addition to the award, I got a chance to speak with one of the judges (Jody) who I respect very much. He's given me good feedback before and it was great to get his thoughts...

Judge's Feedback:
* The face, although a good attempt, doesn't read well enough. I knew this was a problem, and he said he was impressed with the attempt, but it's a challenging effect to pull off for even a master painter.
* The OSL needed to be more aggressive. This was something I suspected, but Jody's input put it into better perspective. Muting the rest of the color scheme would have helped exaggerate the light sources as well, and that would have helped the overall mood.
* The blue cloth is another cool color which competes with the cool green. This was a huge revelation. The greens and blues are both relatively cool colors in comparison to the reds of her skin and hair. It didn't even occur to me that the greens were primarily cool colors. Using a warmer color in place of the blue may have created a better overall color balance.

Final Thoughts:
Overall, I'm still pretty stoked. This was a challenging piece and I learned a lot (and I really do mean A LOT). I am especially thankful to all the people that gave me input on this model as I worked on it. I've posted it on CMON to see how it ends up getting rated, so feel free to cruise on over and vote!

KublaCon 2010 Update (part 2)

Kubla has come to a close for me. I'm pretty exhausted today, so here's a quick summary of the entire weekend...

Warmachine: In addition to the win in the Mangled Metal tournament on Friday, my teammate Aaron and I pulled out a win in the 2-on-2 multi-player event on Sunday. He was playing eStryker and I was playing Harbinger and we had some really good games.

Random: There were some amusing things going on, but the coolest new thing I saw was the remote control tank tournament, where each team got a random amount of time to move on their turn.

Classes: I managed to catch Lazlo's painting class. He spent a good hour demonstrating how to paint black and it was rather helpful. In addition he did demos of cloth texture and eyes. I think the take-aways for me were actually that having more paints in dropper bottles would really help my control of color, and some very valuable advice about how to avoid chalkiness that I need to try out.

Painting: Results for the painting competition were awesome. I only entered the open level (since last year I didn't get any golds). I got a silver for Typhon and golds for Pandora and the Lady Justice Guild crew. Afterwards I got to chat with one of the judges as well to get some feedback about Pandora and that was extremely helpful. I'll post that info when I get pics up of Pandora.

KublaCon 2010 Update

KublaCon is in full swing here, and yesterday I got to play in a 15pt mangled metal tournament. Kubla is a nice break from my normal hectic lifestyle these days, but I'm actually taking a break from it for today to get caught up on life. Tomorrow I'm planning to play in a special multi-player Warmachine event. However, for now, here's a summary of the 15pt tournament from yesterday...

Format:
The format was 15pts, warcaster/warlock and jacks only (standard Mangled Metal). 40 minute rounds with no timed turns. The mission was Killbox, but I don't think anyone ever lost to the scenario, although I heard a couple stories of people nearly screwing up by moving out of it. It turned out we had 16 people for the tournament as well.

My List:
Thagrosh, Carnivean, Angelius. I opted for Thagrosh because, well, his feat is pretty broken at this point level. I chose the Angelius for its speed and armor piercing hitting power. The Carnivean was because it's just plain awesome all around, but especially because its animus is awesome in this format. My intention going into the tournament was to use the Carnivean boldly and be ready to bring him back with the feat after I lost him.

Round 1: Loss
Karchev, Juggernaut, 2x Berserker - This was a really close game. It was a back and forth trading of heavies, with me starting the assault with an Angelius alpha strike under Draconic Blessing. Even a Khador jack cries under the pain of an armor piercing P+S 16 attack. I ended up using Thagrosh's feat to bring the Angelius back for a second round of it as well. In the end, I got a run on Karchev, but he was camping 5 focus and my dice rolls were just low enough that I failed to take him down by a few points and then he clobbered me. Incidentally, when he did swing and connect with the first hit (that I couldn't transfer either), he rolled triple sixes. Ouch!

Round 2: Win
Goreshade, Leviathan, 2x Slayer - I sort of deserved to face Goreshade. His feat is nasty in this format, just like Thagrosh's. This battle was swift. I put Thagrosh out there and alpha striked with the Angelius again. Goreshade rushed up, cast Mage Blight, feated, and dropped 3 Bane Thralls on Thagrosh. Then, in a moment if sheer luck, I walked the heavy wounded Carnivean out of melee with a Bane Thrall and survived the free strike without losing an aspect and proceeded to spray down all the Bane Thralls on Thagrosh. Thagrosh then charged in and cut Goreshade to ribbons.

Round 3: Win
eDoomshaper, Mauler, Axer, Slag - Unfortunately I lost the initiative in this battle, so I had to stall a bit before rushing in. My opponent made some errors in distance judgement and I managed to capitalize. Again, the Angelius alpha strike was devastating, crippling the Mauler but amazingly not killing it. However the next round was pretty crushing, leaving only eDoomshaper alive in the troll force. He made a desperate run on Thagrosh but at that point it was too late and the poor elder troll was cut down.

Round 4: Win
Amon, Devout, 4x Dervish - This could have been an amazing battle. It could have been full of crazy and kickass. It could have been a truck load of fun. However, my opponent's dice were just cursed. 3 times he charged in needing small numbers (5's and 6's) to hit, and all 3 times he rolled 3. After that, it all feel apart like a house of cards. I honestly felt bad, and would love to get in a rematch with this guy at some point.

Round 5: Tie
Asphyxious, Deathjack, Nightwretch, Cankerworm - Stupid casters running stupid away. If we hadn't run out of time, I'd have won this one. As it stood, I nearly pulled it off, but to the credit of my opponent, he managed to position his Nightwretch just right at the end to prevent me from getting the charge I needed on Asphyxious. So very very close. It was a pretty tight battle actually, with the DJ nearly coming back from only 2 boxes remaining to ruin my day. However he missed with all his attacks and after that it was short order to finish him off. Parasite was the bane of my existence in this game. If only we'd had another round to play.

Round 6: Win
Karchev, Behemoth, Juggernaut - Another close game. My opponent pulled the Karchev slingshot trick, dropping the Juggernaut on Thagrosh and the Behemoth on the Carnivean. However, my transfers kept me alive and then the Angelius was free to charge Karchev in the back and skewer him. Even if I had rolled average on the Angelius' damages and not killed Karchev there, Thagrosh was still rockin around and could have finished the job. Proof once again why I like Warlocks over Warcasters.

Results:
Don't ask me how it worked out, but apparently due to strength of schedule... I won! I was more than a little shocked actually. I though I was in contention for maybe 3rd place, but amazingly I came out on top. More than that though, I had a really kick ass time. Here's my bullet-point highlight reel:

Everyone I played was super awesome fun. Not a single bit of jerk around. And it was pretty much all people outside of my LGS area.

The format was a blast. I love the small point battles like this. I mean seriously, we played 6 rounds in about 6 hours!

It was amazing how often I forgot about Thagrosh's Death Shroud. I'm not sure it would have made a difference in most cases, but I need to remember it.

The Angelius is super awesome. Love it on the battle field!

I got a ton of comments about my Angelius conversion and my painting in general. It was also very cool to see almost every army be fully painted, and even those that weren't fully painted were mostly painted.

From the Desk: Seeking Critiques

Well, this is yet another work-in-progress shot of Pandora. I'm near completion, but I'm trying out something new. In addition to my normal "things left to do" list that I'm keeping, I decided to take photos and examine the photos for detail work that needs to be cleaned up. I think many people have the challenge with models looking better in person than in photos. I was thinking about this and figured I could use that to my advantage. So, here they are! Also, as a part of a community experiment, this is an open invitation for feedback comments on what needs to be improved. Constructive criticism is very much welcome. Part of the challenge for me is that I've been staring at this model for weeks now, so it's easy to just miss something obvious. Here are some of my own notes:

Things to do/finish:
* The base - You can't see it here obviously, but it isn't done still.
* Coat - I want to put some freehand on the back of her coat. I still haven't decided what yet, but it definitely needs a little something. My first thought was glowing runes, but I may steer away from that.

Things to improve:
* Mouth - It isn't as crisp as it should be.
* Boots - The shading has some oddities to it that need to be resolved. I also think more color would be useful, but just don't know where to go with it yet.
* Cuffs - The coat cuffs already got reworked once, but they need more effort I think. I don't want to overdo them because it will throw off the overall focus balance of the model, but they need something.
* Skin - Her mid-section could use some improvement. I need some reference photos to help out here though.
* Belt - Now that I look at the photo, the belt isn't as crisp as it should be. Go photo reference experiment!

Things I'm resigned to not being happy with:
* Box - The NMM on the box is terrible, and I don't see it getting any better. It's awkward to get to in the first place, but the tiny fidgety surfaces are nearly impossible for me to work with effectively.
* Greens - The glowing green streaks are not as smooth as I would like them to be. I'm not sure it's feasible to fix them at this point without a major amount of work. Ironically I think that problem is more obvious in person than in the photo.
* Fingers - The sculpt just had a problem here that I couldn't correct. Specifically her left hand (right side of photo). There's not much I can really do at this point to smooth things out with cutting off and resculpting it entirely. In hindsight, I should have found appropriate hands from another model and replaced these hands.

From the Desk: Turning the Corner (of the Box)

Sleepy again... making progress though. I'm starting to feel less like smashing it with a hammer, and more like I'm getting somewhere. It's still a little frustrating, and there's some places where I've made some color choices that are not working out so great. However, it's still recoverable. I'm going to continue to take my time on in.

On another front, I've been making some terrain! I'll post more about that when I actually have something worth reporting. For now though, all I can think about is how desperately far I am behind my goals towards KublaCon.

From the Desk: The Box of Woe

Sleepy... bad photo... feeling better...

Not much more to say here. I'm making progress on Pandora slowly, and she's starting to come together to a point that I'm feeling ok with. Still though, I kinda want to hit it with a hammer and move on. This may not end up being a KublaCon painting entry after all.

From the Desk: Angelius Conversion Work

The Angelius is a breathtaking beast to behold, but the pose of the sculpt lacks a certain degree of action deserving of such a creature. I'm sorry, but it's true. The only time he'd be "sitting" on the ground is when he's sleeping. I wanted to do a little conversion work to better reflect this full-time flying pose. To that end I did this bit of conversion work. Despite being a relatively simple change, it took me a frightful amount of time due to my lack of conversion experience. Unfortunately I didn't take any in-progress shots, but it's pretty easy to figure out how I did it.
First I started with a wedding cake pillar from a craft store and packed it with leftover tabs removed from models and secured it with green stuff. I then attached it to one of the metal PP bases. My reasoning here was that with an increased model height, I needed to put far more weight on the base to help compensate. Next I cut out the coil piece from the body of the Angelius and put a brass rod in place to re-join the two pieces at an appropriate length and curve. Next I put in some Milliput, dremelled that down appropriately after it cured, and then refined the gaps with green stuff. The remaining work mostly amounted to filing, smoothing, and pinning the re-sculpted body piece to the pillar to secure it.

Bing bang boom, and there he is, ready to be primed. He's not exactly "epic", but he's a little more exciting than before and I'm pretty happy. One side note is that I probably should have put magnets into the base before doing the final attachment, but hey, being smart is overrated.

Tournament Report: Any Random Saturday

Another local tournament has come and gone. I'm in an odd mood this evening so this report will be a little left of center. Please note that all ratings use the traditional rating scale of "jock itch" to "locomotive".

Players: 7
Number of douche bag players: 0
Format: SR2010
Point size: 35
Fun level: banana
My results: 3rd place
Tournament organization quality: box of drywall nails

My list: Fiona, Mariner, Gun Mages with Officer, Nyss Hunters (10), Grogspar, Dougal, Bokur, Eiryss, Aiyana & Holt, Reinholdt

Battle 1:
eStryker is badass. Even under Fiona's feat, he went for the assassination run. This first picture shows him boldly charging in and trying to put the hurt on Fiona. He did his overcharge thing and roll +11 str, which meant he was doing P+S 26!! However, at MAT 7, he needed 9's to hit, and even boosting that's rough with Fiona's feat stripping off a die. He rushed in and... miss, miss, miss! I breathed a sigh of relief and then tried to figure out how to finish him off. Unfortunately he'd disrupted the Mariner which put a real crimp in any plan to hit him with something hard.
The end result was I dog piled him, and just barely failed to do enough damage, mostly because the Bokur rolled well below average on his back strike. Then he counter-attacked, and got a really solid hit in on Fiona, but due to further bad dice rolling (which plagued us both), he just barely didn't kill Fiona. At that point she was able to finish the job. Victory for Thamar!

Battle 2:
eStryker again! Didn't I just kill you?!?! This battle was majestic. My opponent and I did great jobs of maneuvering to limit what each other could get done. I should have feated early, but as it turned out the second round feating worked better. In the end I ran my assassination plan. Nyss took a 9-man Nanokian Branded CRA against eStryker and nailed him with some damage. I unleashed Holt on him as well (Aiyana was too lady-like to slap eStryker around unfortunately) and put a little more damage on him. Then Fiona, in a brave gambit, charges Ol rowdy to close some distance, tosses out Teglesh Mark on Aiyana to get the rest of the range she needed, and tries to spell him down. eStryker's got 1 focus and sitting on 16/16 (def/arm). She rolls and hits. POW 12. Dice minus 4. She just needs to roll 8 or more on 3 dice and.... 3... 1... 1! Damnit! I gracefully forfeited at this point. This guy went on to get first place, which I'm not sure it makes me feel better or worse.

Battle 3:
At this point it's just for fun really and it turns out to be eCaine. That's right... 3 people were playing Cygnar and I ended up playing all 3 of them. This battle was pretty amusing. At this point I was tired, and out of the running for 1st, so I was a little sloppy. His list had a pile of shooting in it too, so we traded bitch-slaps. In the end, a mistake on my part (using Fiona's feat on turn 2) caused him to go for the assassination run. Here's an interesting thing to note: Shield Guard applies to Gunfighter attacks. So yes, in this picture, the Bokur standing behind Fiona was able to reach around and block one shot for her. In the end, that's exactly what it took to survive. He had Fiona down to 2 points left, and more of Thamar's luck saved the day. At that point I dog-piled him. It was actually Holt charging in from behind that put eCaine down.

From the Desk: Pandora Progress

After struggling to find painting time, I managed to get the better part of today for it. I spent most of that time working on assembling the Angelius, and painting Pandora. Here's a shot of the work in progress. I'm definitely deep in the throws of frustration with this model. I'm sure once it starts to come together more I'll feel better, but right now I'm feeling like I should just hit it with a hammer and move on. Painting it in two pieces like this is necessary, but adds more frustration due to the awkwardness of working with it.

Highborn Tactics: Units

In this first installment of my thoughts on Highborn army construction, I'm going to focus on unit selection. Obviously there's importance in which caster you pick as well, but I'm going to sidestep that issue for the moment since caster choice has a lot to do with play style preference. I'll just highlight that my experience of playing Highborn spans the following casters: Fiona, Ashlynn, Madhammer, Gorten, and Bart. I have yet to play the other mercenary contracts. Also, for the purposes of discussing unit selection, I'm going to leave out some of the small character units, like Aiyana & Holt. For simplicity sake, anything that I've never personally fielded I've marked with a *, so know that any comments following them are strictly theory-machine.

Steelheads:
Steelhead Halberdiers - What is there to say about these guys. They are sort of a basic trooper. Cheap, effective, mobile, and they have reach. Nothing spectacular, and nothing really terrible. I can't say I'm a huge fan of them though, mostly because the models seem like a pain in the butt to assemble and paint.

Steelhead Heavy Cavalry* - Out of all the Warmachine cavalry, these rank #2 in my book, right behind Cryx. They have a fair amount of damage dishing power. However I've typically stayed away from cavalry due to their being expensive.

Steelhead Riflemen* - Maybe I just don't get it. Why would I ever field these when I could get a unit of Long Gunners? These guys gain a reroll on CRA attacks and 1 point of SPD and 1 of POW, but lose so much in comparison. I'd rather spend the 1 extra point for the Long Gunners, provided I wasn't going to use my Cygnar unit slot for Gun Mages that is.

Rhulics:
Hammerfall High Shield Gun Corps* - I haven't fielded these guys yet, but my initial thoughts are pretty lukewarm. In shield wall, they are tougher than Forgeguard. Their ranged attacks are quite comparable to Steelhead Riflemen. They're pretty cheap. It's just the SPD 4 that makes them a hard sell. Perhaps under the Searforge contract I'll be more enticed.

Horgenhold Forge Guard - I've tried to love these guys. Under the right circumstances they have been awesome. However they tend to have far too many bad match ups. They're just so blasted slow and easy to hit, and in the new MK2 ranged meta, they just have a lot of trouble making it to the fray. Even at ARM 18, they are easy bait for most things. At SPD 4, they get out-threat ranged by almost everything else. Granted, with Ashlynn's Quicken and her feat, they can really wreck some havoc. However these guys are not first wave attack troopers.

Pirates:
Sea Dog Crew - These guys sort of underwhelm me in MK2. If you pile in enough of the pirate solos, they gain a fair amount of synergy. However the tipping point gets pretty expensive. Plus, I find that my Highborn lists have enough toolbox to them already that adding more stuff to coordinate gets complicated. I will note however that I am a huge fan of the Riflemen attachments.

Press Gangers* - I can't really speak to this unit. They seem interesting, and for so few points, I'd love to work them in. I just haven't mustered up the desire to try them out so no real opinion one way or the other on these guys yet.

Cygnar Mercs:
Long Gunner Infantry* - If I didn't make it clear above when talking about the Steelhead Riflemen, these guys are a good choice. They have been a Cygnar staple for years, and having them in a merc list is definitely useful.

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages - I can't say enough good things about these guys. They bring an element to the army that nothing else possesses. I should note that not including the UA is rather silly, since True Sight grants even more utility that the Highborn contract has trouble mustering. I'd classify these as a staple unit for Highborn contracts.

Precursor Knights* - In reviewing these guys, I'm suddenly wondering why I would ever field Forgeguard in place of these guys. They have better threat range, equal ARM in shield wall, and with the UA can hit even harder on a key round. The one key advantage of Forgeguard is that they are always that good, regardless of UAs and special rounds. On the flip side, these guys bring spell immunity to the table, which is an interesting feature.

Character Units:
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters - I love this unit. They have been worth their cost almost every battle I've fielded them. They're fast. They're accurate. They're remarkably potent in melee. And they are hard to hit!

Captain Sam Machorne & the Devil Dogs - I want to like these guys. Probably with a few more games I'll be more positive about them. With the right support (like Ashlynn's Quicken spell) they can bring something interesting to the table. Most of all, Sam has the Pronto jack marshal drive to use with non-Rhulic jack options, which is really useful. However this is a unit that clearly needs good synergy to help them out.

Greygore Boomhowler & Co.* - Again, another unit I haven't tried yet. On paper though, these guys seem great. I definitely feel like this is a unit that might perform quite well. They bring some of that classic troll toughness to the table, and with a good weapon selection to boot.

Wrap Up:
So where does this leave me? Well, there's definitely a couple units I want to try out still. However, there are also some staple units that take precedence. Nyss Hunters and Gun Mages are pretty much my go-to units because of their high defense. With Fiona or Ashlynn's feat up, they are pretty much unhittable. However, I'd love to hear other opinions out there. Combo suggestions, other synergies, etc.

How To: Stripping Models

After a bit of a hiatus from my painting desk, I'm finally getting back to action. I was cleaning up my painting desk storage areas and came upon a box full of old models. Some of them were primed poorly too. I had been looking for some test models to replace my existing one and this looked like a good opportunity for another tip entry. Today I'm going to go over in gory detail how to effectively strip models. I know there are many posts out there about how Simple Green is great for this, but I wanted to actually post a tutorial for those that would like to see proof.

Notes:

This tip is geared towards stripping quality, not speed.

I've only really done this seriously for metal miniatures, and not plastics or resins, so reader beware.

Simple Green is the key to this tip. Not only does it do the job very effectively, but it's biodegradable and non-toxic.

Simple Green will dissolve glue bonds. Typically if a model is on a base, or has parts glued, it becomes easy to separate the parts after soaking for a week.

What you'll need:

Glass jar with lid

Simple Green cleaner

Old toothbrush

Rubber gloves (optional)

How To:

	Step one: Get a jar to toss all your models into. Preferably one that will provide a good water-tight seal, and is clear glass so that you can see what's going on. Then toss all the models into it!
	Next, get your bottle of Simple Green. The easiest place to find it is automotive stores. Whether you get the spray bottle or the big bottle of refills doesn't matter.
	Now fill up your jar! The important thing is to make sure that all parts of all models are covered up. You'll probably want some air in the jar just to make it more effective when you shake it. Once filled, leave it for several days. Every so often, gently shake the jar. This accomplishes a couple of things. First, it shakes loose pieces of primer and paint from the models to let the cleaner do more work. Second, it causes the models to rub against each other and help loosen more primer.
	In this photo I'd left my jar for 2 full weeks. Again, I'm more focused on quality and less on speed. I wanted to make sure every bit of old primer got removed. Remaining bits of primer will fill in model details and defeat the purpose of stripping.
	Next, take the jar to a sink partially filled with warm water. Bring an old toothbrush and start scrubbing. Sometimes you get lucky and a model comes out completely clean, like this one. You'll notice in this photo that I'm wearing rubber gloves. The Simple Green, although bio-friendly, is pretty rough on skin during prolonged contact, so I highly recommend wearing gloves.
	Sometimes, not so lucky, like this old Psyker model. In this case, take the toothbrush to it and scrub a bit, rinsing as necessary to make sure you get all the bits off. A few seconds of scrubbing and typically...
	...all the primer comes off easily, like with this one.
	After scrubbing each model, rinse them off real well in the warm water and set them aside to dry thoroughly. And you're done! If you're willing to wait a couple weeks of soaking, you can literally be looking at a matter of minutes worth of work.