From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #80

Countdown to Lock and Load: 10 weeks.



This week was pitiful for progress. I had a work trip to Vegas and things sort of got away from me really quick there. After getting back and recovering, I didn't get a lot of hobby time in. I did however build a bit of a base for eAbby, got my Stormguard parts trimmed and about half of them assembled, and primed Nemo3/Finch and several jacks. Beyond that it's pretty sad.

Nemo3 Tier List Progress:

• Nemo3 - primed
• Finch - primed
• Stormwall - completed
• Dynamo - primed
• Thunderhead - completed
• Mechanics - completed
• Silverline Stormguard - assembling
• Stormcaller - completed

Total Cygnar points painted for Unbound (now tracking theme-based mercs):

• Casters: +45 pts (8 models)
• Warjacks: 128 pts
• Battle Engines: 9 pts
• Units: 48* pts
• Solos: 22 pts
• Merc Solos: 6
• Merc Warjacks: 5
• Merc Units: 4

Why There Needs To Be A Proper Warmachine Annual

At first I was excited, but then I realized that the new Forces of Distinction "book" was woefully lacking things that I wish were in it. I honestly hope someone at Privateer reads this post and at least puts some thought into it. There's so many other things that could have easily gone into this book that would make me definitely pay for it. Especially a physical copy. Here's my (rather blunt) thoughts:

• Theme Forces - Yes, the NQ ones are includes, but updates to existing ones could be made as well. I mean seriously, there are some insane theme forces out there that just don't make sense or else are not viable at the 35pt level.
• Theme Force Cards - Include cards for all the theme forces for people to bring with them. Yes, Warroom is a fine reference for that, but for all of us that play with the physical cards (almost everyone), it would be nice to have official cards for our tier lists as a reference during a tournament.
• Steamroller - Just include the latest version of the Steamroller format. The whole thing. Just for convenience.
• Steamroller Cards - Include cards for the latest version of the Steamroller format. The scenarios and objectives both. It would sure be handy.
• Updated Cards - For those models that have been received errata in the last year. Again, Warroom is a nice way to confirm the latest updates, but physical cards would be great.
• Special Tournament Formats - Who's the Boss! Spell Draft! Foodmachine! It would be nice to have copies of these formats for LGS tournament options.
• Special Scenarios - A collection of scenarios to play, such as those that were made available at Lock & Load. This could also include a campaign format which I know my LGS has been experimenting with on its own.
• Stickers - SERIOUSLY! Where are my damn Warmachine stickers?!?! I want stickers to put on everything. My laptop for work. My car. My phone. My kid. Everything! Include a bunch in the annual. Put them in blister packs too while you're at it!

I'm sure other people have had these thoughts, and I sure hope Privateer has and that there's good reasons they did not include this type of stuff. At least they included fiction in there!

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #79

Countdown to Lock and Load: 11 weeks.

Feels like this was an average week. Finished the Neraph, got a bit of progress on eAbby, and assembled more Cygnar jacks. Specifically Ol Rowdy, Hammersmith, Centurion and Hunter are all fully assembled in addition to the previously assembled Dynamo.

I realized that my Gun Mages are still on old bases so I can't count them for Unbound yet. At least not against my own high standard. Gotta figure out whether I'm going to rebase them or not. I may also wait until after I get my Cygnar box to decide what to do there since I may paint a new unit of them as well.

Random note here about iPhone apps. I downloaded Steam Genius and it has been great for tracking games this year. I hope it gets more dev work. I would happily pay for it to not have ads.

Nemo3 Tier List Progress:

• Nemo3 - assembled
• Finch - assembled
• Stormwall - completed
• Dynamo - assembled
• Thunderhead - completed
• Mechanics - completed
• Silverline Stormguard - blister
• Stormcaller - completed

Total Cygnar points painted for Unbound (now tracking theme-based mercs):

• Casters: +45 pts (8 models)
• Warjacks: 128 pts
• Battle Engines: 9 pts
• Units: 48* pts
• Solos: 22 pts
• Merc Solos: 6
• Merc Warjacks: 5
• Merc Units: 4

Neraph

This isn't my best work by a long shot. Not even in the the the parking lot of the mall across town from the ballpark of it. What it is though is finished. This Neraph model really is a fantastic model, but it suffers from a couple key challenges that impede normal army painting. First, it's plastic with rough places for mold lines to be cleared from. Second, it's challenging to put together and properly "gap fill" all the places where things don't fit tight. Third, it's got a complex form for painting when it's fully assembled. Put all these things together and it makes it rough going since it would be easier to paint in parts, but that becomes a logistical nightmare since the proper gap filling requires serious work that would then have to be painted over.

All that said, I'm happy with the results. I should have used the airbrush but for some reason my airbrush and I have been fighting a lot and I just decided not to increase my frustration on that front. I will say that the one piece I'm happy about is how the base worked out. This got it well up and above and disguised the flight base quite nicely. I'm looking forward to fielding this just to see how it looks on the table up high like it is. And being plastic means it's far more stable than the Angelius conversion I did ages ago that turned out quite top heavy.

Battle Report: Darius vs Lucant

I'm loving playing Cygnar.

My list (tier 4): Darius, 2 Stormwalls, Squire, 2 Stormblade Captains, 3 Stormsmiths, Storm Tower, Rangers, Mechanics (6).

My opponent fielded: Lucant, Axiom, Modulator, Corollary, 2 TPEs, Attunement Servitors, 2 units Optifex Directives, Clockwork Angels.

We played the Hardcore scenario so that Lance could test out Lucant specifically for it. The match was pretty brutal. He jammed in Axiom top of round 2 and brought up the TPEs on each flank, then feated with Lucant to really gum up the center. I rolled up 1 Stormwall and took out 1 TPE, then the other Stormwall came up and put a few hits on the Axiom but nothing major. The following round was rough with Lucant coming in to destroy most of a Stormwall by himself. The Axiom then finished it off and did almost half damage to the other Stormwall. Fortunately it survived. At this point I needed to get creative of the attrition game could have swung around against me. So after consulting my rules and the position of the board, I put 1 focus on the Stormwall, cleared a space, and ran it around Axiom to get into melee with Lucant who had no focus left. Then Darius cast Full Throttle (despite no charge benefits) to give boosted melee attack rolls, and then spends his remaining 3 focus on Jackhammer to roll out additional attacks from the Stormwall on Lucant. Game over!

Lessons learned: Sometimes an order of activation puzzle can be solved with careful rules reading. Not always, but sometimes. Also, Lucant is crazy in melee. In the game right before mine I watched him finish off a Conquest and Beast 09. Also also, my new Cygnar dice are pretty sweet and seem to roll well. Also also also, I am really loving playing Cygnar. It's a puzzle-solving-toolbox of fun.

Games this year: 15

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #78

Countdown to Lock and Load: 12 weeks.

Better late than not at all I guess. Last night and today were crazy busy so here's my super fast update.

After finishing my Mechanics I decided to get a couple Legion models done so I'm working on eAbby and the Neraph. I also started assembling more Cygnar stuff since I have very little assembled at this point. Nemo3, Finch and Dynamo are all assembled and the parts for Ol Rowdy, a Centurion, another Hunter and a Hammersmith are all trimmed and ready for assembly.

For better or worse, I pre-ordered the Cygnar all-in-one box. It isn't much of an overlap with my existing Cygnar collection and what does overlap will actually be great for any multi-caster games I can manage to get in. I'm pretty stoked to get it.

I also finished listening to the Dogs of War book on Audible. Poor Aurora just seems to get routed by everyone!

So now that my Darius tier list is completed, it's time for a new focus goal, so I've chosen a Nemo3 tier list.

Nemo3 Tier List Progress:

• Nemo3 - assembled
• Finch - assembled
• Stormwall - completed
• Dynamo - assembled
• Thunderhead - completed
• Mechanics - completed
• Silverline Stormguard - blister
• Stormcaller - completed

I'm also going to start tracking my total Cygnar points to work towards a 200pt Unbound game at Lock & Load hopefully...

Total Cygnar points painted for Unbound:

• Casters: +45 pts (8 models)
• Warjacks: 128 pts
• Battle Engines: 9 pts
• Units: 48 pts
• Solos: 22 pts

Battle Report: Stryker1 vs Severius1

My list: pStryker, Stormclad, Ironclad, Squire, Strangeways, Stormblades (6+UA+3WA), Stormblade Captain, Gastone, Vanguard.

My opponent fielded: pSeverius, Blessing of Vengeance, Devout, Hierophant, Avatar, Zealots (10+UA), Knights Exemplar, Choir (4), Wracks.

We went with no scenario since this was Henry's first time playing Menoth and I deferred to Henry for the initiative so he chose to go first. The picture above is at the end of the second round when I had popped Stryker's feat. From here things went downhill for me slowly. Sev feats, catching everything. Avatar and stuff proceeds to do some basic house cleaning. On my gimped round I manage to upkeep Arcane Shield on the Ironclad and walk around to knockdown a few things. Gastone flanks around leaving his Vanguard jammed in on the Avatar. Next round Sev rolls up Blessing and goes for double Immolations on Stryker but comes up 2 damage short (as was about right on average dice for the focus he had available. Avatar clearcuts the Ironclad and Vanguard in a single activation. At this point I had 4 models left: Stryker, Squire, Stormclad, Gastone. I was sorely outnumbered and Sev was sitting way back with a toe in the forest and his Devout just barely 2" in front of him. So at this point the "gloves come off". [Queue the assassination run background music]
Stryker puts 2 focus on the Stormclad, walks up just close enough to drop an Earthquake on the Devout and Chior that were blocking LOS to Sev. He then shoots the Chior member for good measure, and then puts Snipe on the Stormclad. Stormclad advances carefully and throws lightning at Sev, boosting hit and damage and drops a bunch of damage on him. Then Gastone swings around from the flank and pops a cap in Sev's ass. Fortunately I rolled "average" on my rolls for all this stuff. It was probably an overall 60% chance of success on that run all things considered. It was also fortunate in the placement of where everything was that I could get enough range from the Stormclad to Sev.

Lessons learned: Even when Sev's feat hits, it doesn't stop pulling a focus from the Squire to upkeep at least 1 spell. Also, having threat vectors is good. If Blessing had jammed into Stryker after the failed spell assassination and Sev had taken out Gastone earlier when he had the chance, this game would have completely ground me down to dust. Having ranged threat vectors with Cygnar is still a key element of how I play them.

Games this year: 14

Mechanics

Again, nothing particularly special. I sort of hammered through these pretty fast. I also opted to go with "traditional" green skin for my gobbers to match my existing Reinholdt scheme.

Rangers

Let me first say that these models are some fantastic sculpts for being part of a unit. Easily my favorite sculpts of all the Cygnar units. For my paint scheme though they caused me a little challenge since I didn't want to go with additional colors in the mix and kept it strictly to my metal/black/blue/red scheme. I could have probably done a bit more with it, but having finished them I do like the sort of understated look of these guys. They got done pretty quick thanks mainly to using the airbrush to do all the main cloth work. Once that was done it was just accentuating shadows and then detail work.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #77

Feeling summer fresh after those 2 games last week.

Finished my Ranges! I'll post pictures tomorrow hopefully. Mechanics are in progress, with the leader done and the grunts just barely started. I also painted up a bunch of bases as well (12 small, 4 medium, 2 large). Pictured here is the progress on eAbsylonia and also on a base for my Neraph. Sort of getting ahead of myself on doing the base first, but I had a dash of inspiration.

Yesterday I went to the flea market at my LGS this weekend as well and scored a set of GF9 Cygnar dice including the dice tin which was a real bonus find. I'd been trying to get my hands on one and failing to find reasonable auctions on eBay so when I picked these up for $20 I was stoked. I also managed to get a limited edition Knight Models Spider-Man model for half price which, although I didn't really need another Knight Model to paint, was a real steal.

Now that I'm almost done getting my Darius tier list together, I need to start thinking about how many points I have towards playing a 200pt unbound game at Lock & Load. I haven't done the math yet but I figure I must be getting close. The tough part will be if I decide to get a second Storm Strider done before then. Lock & Load is less than 3 months away at this point.

Darius Tier List Progress:

• Darius - completed
• 3 Halfjacks - completed
• Stormwall 2 - completed
• 3 Stormpods - completed
• 6 Rangers - completed
• 6 Mechanics - in progress
• Storm Tower - completed

Battle Report: pStryker vs Witch Coven

Oh dice how I sometimes hate thee.

My list: pStryker, 2 Stormwalls, Squire, Journeyman, Strangeways, 2 Stormcallers, Storm Strider, with the Fuel Cache Objective.

My opponent fielded: Witch Coven, Kraken, 2 Nightwretches, Skarlock, 2 Pistol Wraiths, 2 Warwitches, Withershadow, Necrotech, 4 Scrap Thralls, Wraith Engine, with the Effigy of Valor Objective.

We played the SR2015 Incoming scenario. I won the dice roll and opted to choose sides and thus went second. This afforded me some good terrain options, but resulted in me being jammed pretty hard for the scenario. To be fair to, my opponent had been taunting me about a list similar to this in order to specifically counter my "double Stormwall technology". The battle was brutal for me with Death Chills and Stygian Abysses and the Coven's feat immobilizing a big chunk of my army for my second turn, which is what the photo shows. In the end I lost this game but more because I rolled poorly on two assassination situations. The first was on my second turn where I managed to drop 2 Stormpods and then get 2 triangulation attempts on one of the Witches. Unfortunately I failed the skill check on the second triangulation otherwise I would have killed one of the Witches then. Later in the game, the whole Coven was standing in my zone to dominate and were B2B with the Egregore so stealthed which made for no direct shooting options. So what did I do? Well fortunately my Storm Strider still had Snipe on it, and although it was Death Chilled, it resultantly had 3 power tokens on it. So what I did was move my Stormwall close enough to drop a Stormpod and clip 1 Witch. Then I fired twice with my Storm Strider at the Stormpod (not damaging it) and the lightning bounces leaped into the Witches. Unfortunately I rolled minimums for both bounces and wasn't able to use all my power tokens and finish them off. On average rolls I would have nuked them all. At that point I straight up lost on scenario.

Lessons learned: Playing against a list heavily skewed against my specific list was frustrating but ultimately made me a better player. Instead of following traditional tactics, I had to get creative with my options. I feel really good about this game despite losing since ultimately it made me a better player. I'm also really boon on this Stormpod/Storm Strider trick now too.

Games this year: 13

Battle Report: eHaley vs Syntherion

Crazy eHaley double Stormwall time take 2!

My list: eHaley, 2 Stormwall, Lancer, Squire, Jakes, Journeyman, Stormcaller, Tarin. Note that 1 Stormwall was with Jakes and the other with eHaley. Just like last time.

The game: My opponent fielded: Tier 4 Syntherion, Prime Axiom, Corollary, Assimilator, Cipher, Diffuser, Galvanizer, Transfinite Emergence Projector, Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex, 2 Optifex Directives.

We played the SR2015 Outflank scenario. This was our first use of this scenario which I think went pretty well actually. My opponent won the initiative and decided to go first. The photo above is from the start of my second turn. What followed was a real donkey punch to Convergence. Stormwall 1 walked over and destroyed the battle engine, and then Haley made a lateral away and feated. The rest of the game mostly turned into me controlling the left zone. I would have won on scenario sooner if I'd played specifically for that but I dragged out the game a bit by trying to stress test Haley's survivability in a dangerous position. In the end I still won on scenario but not until after losing Haley's Stormwall and Jakes, which left an inert Stormwall hanging out. I missed a prime Time Bomb opportunity as well which would have severely nerfed Synth's feat round.

Lessons learned: Haley with Arcane Shield and full focus camp is a pretty tough nut. I'm still routinely shocked at how easily an Axiom can take out a colossal on Synth's feat round. Some quick rules I learned were that Haley's bonded jack can be allocated 4 focus, and that trample directions aren't limited by the model's facing. And finally, I need to watch more carefully for when to use the right spells with eHaley given how focus starved she is.

Games this year: 12

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #76

And BOOM!

Finished eHaley! Finished Darius! This feels like a good week overall. I also got started on my Rangers with some airbrush base coating after having gotten more confident during the eHaley project. That was tempered by spending an hour and a half stripping down and cleaning my airbrush in detail. I was having a lot of problems with clogs. In the end I think I got it well cleaned but time will tell. I also got some paint on eAbby (after priming her) and started painting the unit leader for the Mechanics. Beyond the actual painting desk, I also got the Gobber Tinker assembled which has to be the second most annoying model to assemble in recent memory, after eAbby of course.

My next goal after this Darius tier list is really going to be looking at having 200pts for Unbound, and then after that to be caught up on Legion, but I'm trying to not get ahead of myself.

One last night, I finally finished reading the Exigence fluff. Time to get back to listening to Dogs of War.

Darius Tier List Progress:

• Darius - completed
• 3 Halfjacks - completed
• Stormwall 2 - completed
• 3 Stormpods - completed
• 6 Rangers - in progress
• 6 Mechanics - in progress
• Storm Tower - completed