1 down, 5 to go

Finished the unit leader for the Daughters of the Flame. I figured rather than try to paint all 6 at once, I'd fully paint the leader first as a template for the others. I departed from the normal color scheme because, quite frankly, bright white armor on a set of stealthy assassins is, well, silly. I'm sticking with my plan for tabletop quality only for units, so this little lady isn't real fabulous, but I can easily reproduce her.

Arquebus Jonne

Just finished Jonne this morning. He's really just a tabletop quality job, but very entertaining to paint. Instead of practicing my blending, I did alot more practice at washes on this model. It really helps speed the painting process being able to do washes. Anyway, not alot of comments here, enjoy the pics.

Stupid Dice!

Had another game against Zugbart last night and I have to say, I had some of the worst dice rolling ever. It was pretty much insurmountable. I still had a good time, but such terribly one-sided battles are rarely entertaining. Anyway, here's some quick highlights.

Trollkin Champs backed up by Madrak's Surefoot are pretty solid for indestructability. With Surefoot, and in base-to-base with each other (the "troll brick" strategy), they are DEF 16. And that on top of ARM 17 and 8 wounds is pretty outrageous. On the downside, it took 4 of them, 3 rounds to take down a castigator.

After surviving a Mauler charge (mostly due to his high DEF), Amon was able to completely beat down a Mauler in a single round with 6 focus.

Back in the Saddle (finally!)

I finally finished a model again. This is the Iron Kingdoms Paladin. He was much more fun to paint than I expected. The whites actually turned out better than I had hoped for. I used some different shading techniques than I've used before. Specifically I make sharp dramatic transitions where the plates come to corners rather than trying to smooth blend. It's pretty logical to do so given the shape of the model.

Ok, so there's some wierdness about the paint job on this model. Scroll down and take a look. Does it stand out to you? If so, post a comment to me. If it hasn't already jumped out at you, the problem is that the shield has a bunch of battle damage on it, but the Paladin's armour has none. On the one hand I like the look beacuase it says that Paladin is so badass, that he never takes a hit to his armour. On the other hand, it makes the model look inconsistent. I might revisit the model and put some a few battle damage marks on him later if it ends up bugging me.

And now the pictures...

Amon vs Doomshaper

Ok, before I say anything else about this battle, this was hands down one of the most fun games of Warmachine I've played. It was the weekly Wednesday game against Zugbart, but for some reason this game was just outrageously fun. Hats off to Zugbart for going to the mat to pull out the victory on this one. The game ran about 3 hours and probably 10 rounds, so there's no play-by-play description this week. First, the lists:

Me: Amon, Devout, Revenger, Castigator, Chior(6), Vilmon, 2 Paladins, Seneschal, Gorman
Zugbart: Doomshaper, Mauler, Blitzer, Axer, Impaler, Fell Caller, Krielstones(4)

Now the highlights:

• The Impaler made an impressive showing against the Castigator, charging in and ripping off one arm of the Castigator. Unfortunately for the Impaler, the Castigator recieved 3 focus from Amon the next turn and delivered a brutal beatdown from the one remaining fist.
• The Seneschal managed to return back from the dead briefly after a Paladin got snacked on by the Mauler, only to be gunned down by the Blitzer right after that.
• A lone chior boy got did 4 damage to the Blitzer on an amazing free strike roll. For all of you at home counting, I rolled 5-5-6 on the free strike damage roll, doing 22 damage to the Blizter. Not enough to do anything major, but still an impressive showing.
• Vilmon and a Paladin very nearly put down a Mauler in a single round, but in an unfortunate twist, they were short by 1 damage from killing the Mauler. That very Mauler ended up surviving till nearly the very end of the battle.
• Amon and Doomshaper traded spell blasting at each other troops. Amon's Sand Blast spell was very effective at delivering slams to key things, especially when cast through the Revenger's arcnode. Doomshaper's Accursed spell again frustrated my jacks.
• Rock walls are awesome. Especially when Amon stands behind one. It makes him pretty much impossible to hit.
• Doomshaper's feat was crazy outrageous. He scored 14 damage on 5d3 against Amon when Amon spent 5 focus to finally dust off the Mauler. That's 1 short of max.

Game End: The end came when Doomshaper managed to hit Amon with Accursed and scored the exact 3 points needed to kill him, AND Amon failed his tough roll. Doh! If he'd survived the tough roll, I honestly have no idea how the rest of the battle would have played out. At that point it was Amon, a movement-disabled Devout, and 2 chiorboys (no leader) vs Doomshaper, the Fell Caller, and the Blitzer.

MVP: Amon was an outstanding performer in this one. Through careful use of his Meditative Stance he was able to lay out alot of damage with the Sand Blast spell.

Learned Lessons:

• Vilmon is outrageous. Being able to sacrifice either movement or action to become immune to everything except spells and feats has a sneaky use for the patient player. Spend one round running into melee range (sacrificing action to be immune), and then the following round sacrifice movement and get to take attacks. He and a pair of Paladins are also a pretty secure lockdown of a control point.
• The Steamroller 3 missions are pretty unbalanced against non-infantry based lists. We rolled to play a 2 control point mission (I forget the name of the mission) and basically since I won the first turn, I could have easily won the mission by the second round without a single attack being exchanged.
• 5 Focus casters are not terrible, but they do require alot more precision than an 8 Focus caster. Wrack usage is also made much more challenging with such a limited range.
• The game reinforced that what I love about WM is the small squad feel of the game. Battles where armies have 50+ models feels like playing warhammer 40k all over again, and seriously, they just take so much longer to play.

All around, this was a fabulously entertaining game!

Another Double Header!

I got to play 2 games again this last Saturday, although this time it was 2 500pt games against the same opponent with different army lists. Here's the sum-up:

Game 1: Madhammer vs Doomshaper
I had Doomshaper with 2 Maulers, 2 Impalers, the Totem Hunter and a Fell Caller. Madhammer had Croe's, Alexia, 2 Blasters, Gorman, Rupert, and a Bokur. This battle was pretty one-sided. I moved in too quickly, but even if I hadn't, it would have still been one-sided. At the beginning of the second round, one mauler was blind and could not make attacks due to some crazy Madhammer spell. The other mauler was knocked down. By the end of round 3, Doomshaper was getting poisoned badly. It wasn't so much that the trolls were outnumbered, but rather that there was just too much movement/action denial stuff pinning them down. It didn't help that the Bokur cut down a Mauler in a single charge round.

Game 2: Amon vs Karchev
I had Amon, a Castigator, a Revenger, a Devout, Vilmon, 2 Paladins, a Seneschal, a full chior and 3 wracks. Karchev had 2 Berserkers, the Behemoth, and Alexia. This battle I got a lucky set up in and used Amon's feat on the second round. This allowed me to sand blast the Behemoth into a Berserker, knocking them both down. Then the Castigator moved up and threw Behemoth off to the side and cleared a charge lane for the Devout. Gorman black-oiled the Behemoth and then the 3 Paladins went to town on it, nearly destroying it. The Seneschal pulled off a chain-attack slam against the other Behemoth, slamming it into Karchev and knocking them both down too. With the exception of Alexia and her 5 remaining risen, everything was knocked down. The next round went similarly too, with everything ending up knocked down or destroyed, and Karchev black oiled as well.

I really like this Amon list. It probably can't compete with an infantry swarm, but I'm ok with that. Having all warjacks and solos for front-line fighting makes for an interesting dynamic.

Feora cryx's Doomshaper

From last Wednesday, another good rumble against Zugbart. This time I took pictures! They are here and are the Apr 11th set. It was a re-run of the same lists from the previous week. My recounting of the battle is somewhat sketchy unfortunately.

Round 1: The surge. Both armies rush forward. I got to go first, so I was able to invade the middle ground and take control of the hill in the middle. This helped me alot through the rest of the game.

Round 2: The stand off. Both armies position trying to set up for something nasty. Due to poor placement, the chior leader gets whacked since he's about the only thing able to be shot.

Round 3: The gnashing. Initial exchanges start to take place. Vilmon get whacked by Doomshaper in melee. Nothing like seeing the High Paladin of the Protectorate get beaten down with a stick. There's some more exchanges in melee, some slamming, and Rupert unfortunately gets whacked by the Blitzer.

Round 4: Feora gets an arcnode shot at Doomshaper, sneaking in 6 points of damage early on. The Blitzer gets pelted by firebombs and black oiled by Gorman. Unfortunately the Devout gets crippled by a super slam from the Axer (ouch!) and the Repenter loses his flamethrower as well.

Round 5: The Blitzer nearly gets finished off and the Axer gets whacked by Feora. The Revenger moves deeper. Feora lights up the trolls with her feat. Unfortunately, most of the fire went away immediately. The Mauler moves in and slams the Repenter into Feora, knocking her down. Then Doomshaper rolls in and very nearly kills her with Acursed. A lucky boosted damage roll of 6+6+5 puts her at 2 remaining health. If it wasn't for the 2 focus she'd kept in reserve, she'd have been toast. Doomshaper blows the rest of his fury going for a kill but doesn't have enough to boost the damage and gets an unlucky roll, doing no damage.

Round 6: Feora shimmies through the rules here. She sacrifices her movement to stand up, her action is gone due to accursed, but she can still cast spells. She stands up and levels Doomshaper with an Immolation.

All around, this was a close game again. I was a couple bad dice rolls away from having something break loose of my containment strategy. Feora again awards the MVP to Gorman for keeping the Blitzer at bay. The zealots get the award for most improved, remembering to use their "you can't shoot me" prayer to avoid disaster. It was also good to not walk them out of melee as much this time. I definately felt like I did a much better job of controlling the board and taking advantage of the terrain.

Closing shot: Feora sends Doomshaper to troll heaven!

Double Header

Last Wednesday I got to play 2 games of Warmachine in the same day! I used the same list for both games, so I got to test out the list against 2 very different opponents.

The List (500pts, 19vps):
Feora
Revenger
Repenter
Devout
Zealots (10) + Monolith Bearer
Chior (6)
Vilmon
Rupert
Gorman
2 Wracks

Game 1:
My first opponent was against a Madhammer list. It included (if I recall correctly): Madhammer, Wroughthammer, Grundback Blaster, Croe's (9) with Bokur, and Alexia.

The game was unfortunately rather one sided. Croe's and Alexia were a pain in the ass to keep under control, but through careful positioning, and the use of the Zealot's and Chior's "no ranged attacks" protections, I was able to create a wall that shut down half of the merc's attack potential. Then on the second round, I positioned Feora and set almost the entire merc force on fire while the medium jacks, Gorman, and a wall of fire from Feora kept the enemy at bay. The game wrapped up with Feora unloading double flamethrowers into Madhammer and toasting him.

Top performers this game:
Feora again proves badass. The chior, zealots, and Rupert were also highly useful as always.


Game 2:
This second game was against Zugbart, and he has once again chronicled the battle quite well.

This game was much closer. There were a few times where things were in danger of losing control for me, but for the most part, I felt like the trolls were staying pinned where I needed them. Losing my chior leader after the first round was a nasty setback. With a full chior I would have layed out much more serious hurt to the troll warbeasts.
I sacrificed alot of guys to walking out of combat in order to set up for more damage. In the long term, it was probably not the best plan. The battlefield also featured a centrally placed forest which was annoying to deal with. Every battle I'm played against Zugbart so far has had terrain that put me at a disadvantage.

Top performers this game:
Feora again was badass. Even more so though was Gorman. Black oil on warbeasts was a key component to keeping the trolls in their place. Vilmon was also an impressive performer this time.

All things considered, these were two fun games. The former was fun to see what Madhammer was capable of. The latter was fun due to the tactical challenge it put on me. 2 victories for Menoth helps reestablish some respect for my skills as a general.

Catchup Work

I finished up some minor things today, as well as doing some prep work. I put the replacement chains on the Harbinger, and put replacement pipes on the Castigator. The Castigator pics are on my photobucket gallery, but they are pretty poor pictures all things considered. Here's the final Harbinger pic though.

I just finished priming Herne, Jonne, and the Reclaimer. The Herne and Jonne models are super cool, so I'm promoting them to ahead of the Daughters.