Battle Report: Stryker1 vs Vlad1

My list: Stryker1 (tier 2), Ol Rowdy, Hammersmith, Ironclad, Jakes, Charger, Journeyman, Stormclad, Stormblades (6+UA), 2 Stormblade Captains. Fuel Cache objective.

My opponent fielded: Vlad1, Drago, Andrei Malakov, Conquest, IFP (10+Black Dragon UA), 2 Mortar Crews, Battle Mechanics (4), Drakhun, Eiryss2. Armory objective.

We played the Two Fronts SR2015 scenario. I won the initiative and opted to go first, which may or may not have been a smart move. From the point of view of scenario, it helped me. But from the point of view of attrition, it was bad. I took a real beating in the second turn. We nearly called it, but I said "let's play it out and see what I can do", since I feel that learning to dig out from a desperate situation is a key skill in this game. So what happened? Well ran Ol Rowdy up to the corner of my zone near Vlad, Drago and Andrei, and then cleared my zone and destroyed his objective, putting me at 2 control points, but my Ironclad was destroyed, my Stormblades down to a single man, my Stormclad continuing to be disrupted by Eiryss, and my Hammersmith on the far flank mostly out of all the action. And then a miracle happened. Due to timing, Vlad went first and move over. This allowed Rowdy to countercharge in to melee with him. I missed the attack, but the danger was now in play. Henry then charged in with Drago and tried to take out Rowdy but failed to disable any important systems. Andrei then fled over behind the Conquest and he tried to get a crit devastation against his own Drago using Conquest to clear Rowdy. Fortunately this failed and that left him in a very bad position. On my turn I walked the Stormclad around to Andrei, taking a brutal free strike from the Conquest but surviving, and struck down Andrei with a single strike. Next Rowdy used his quake attack and knocked down both Vlad and Drago, and then proceeded to take 2 more hammer swings against Vlad. After that, Jakes' charger then advanced and put two shots into Vlad and finished him off.

Lessons learned: First, always play a game through, no matter what. Learning how to deal with what appears to be a desperate situation is valuable, and likewise, not starting to panic when your opponent makes a desperate maneuver is also valuable. Second, Rowdy with Arcane Shield is crazy business. Third, I learned that I personally feel more comfortable when my army contains multiple ranged options. It's just my play style, but it's good to know what my thought processes reach for when I'm trying to calculate my options each turn.

Games this year: 21

Centurion

This one got done last cause it's SPD 4. No wait, that's not why. It's cause I didn't already have a painted base ready for it.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #84

Countdown to Lock and Load: 40 days.

Lots of progress this week! Finished a bunch of jacks. Got my Silverline Stormguard started, drilled and painted a bunch of bases, and started assembling the murder ponies. And one added bonus, my all-in-one Cygnar army box showed up this week so I have tons more stuff to paint. My real conundrum is whether to try to get a second Storm Strider done before Lock&Load or just stay the course on painting infantry for the time being.

Nemo3 Tier List Progress:

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

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

• Casters: +45 pts (8 models)
• Warjacks: 166 pts
• Battle Engines: 9 pts
• Units: 48* pts
• Solos: 22 pts
• Merc Solos: 6
• Merc Warjacks: 5
• Merc Units: 4

Minuteman

This one was a little more frustrating to work on only due to the lack of flat places to put some freehand, especially given that I wanted him to have a decent amount of battle damage.

Hammersmith

Man are there a lot of hammers in Cygnar!

Battle Report: Nemo vs Directrix

My list: Nemo1, 2 Stormwalls, Squire, Storm Strider, 3 Stormsmiths, Arcanist Core.

My opponent fielded: Directrix (Tier 4), Axiom, Corollary, 2 TEPs, 12 Elimination Servitors, 12 Accretion Servitors, Optifex Directive.

We played the Close Quarters SR2015 scenario. This game was actually a specific test for Lance to try out using a Directrix backlash assassination option against colossals. Given that I knew it was coming, I did everything I could to try to prevent it short of designing a list against it. In the end though he whittled down Nemo by the end of turn 4. There were a couple key turning points though. First was when he managed to spray my Storm Strider off the table almost completely with a single TEP and then finished the job using a couple servitors. That was rough since the damage rolls spiked to cause all the damage and on average it would have easily lived and had 3 power tokens for the following round. The second was after charging and destroying the Axiom with one my Stormwalls, I was unfortunately within walking range of Directrix. Although this sounds benign, the net effect was that she could walk instead of charging, which meant her servitors were able to put the +2 damage effect on the Stormwall. This shifted Directrix from dice minus 8 to dice minus 6, which made all the difference in terms of triggering backlash.

Lessons learned: Nemo is still fun, but still squishy. Backlash is totally a thing, and even though I had metal storm templates and lightning bouncing and all kinds of crazy Cygnar stuff going, it's still pretty easy for Directrix to arc Backlash on to a colossal.

Games this year: 20

Ol Rowdy

This was actually a little tougher for me to paint than most of the jacks have been. Mostly because it's a pretty busy model with bumps and ridges and rivets and such. Instead of painting around all the rivets, I had to actually go back and touch them up afterwards. Putting it together was also a bit of a challenge and getting it positioned on the base so that it's stable means the hammer sticks out a ways. All that aside though, I enjoyed this project quite a bit. So much so that I felt obligated to use that big flat space on the back of the shoulder to leave a little farewell message for victims of his assault when he's walking away from them.

Hunter (take 3)

And it's another Hunter! Nothing fancy to say here.

Dynamo

Now this is a lovely jack to have in my Nemo army. Not just because of it's stats and fluff, but also because it just looks like a sleek racing machine. It was a little tricky to get together but otherwise it was a real blast to paint. I'm very curious to see it in action on the table.

I'm still working on getting better photos in posts using this new technique. I need something that helps me color correct pictures better before uploading them. Maybe I'll start using Camera+ again.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #83

Countdown to Lock and Load: 7 weeks.

This was a good week. I drilled and added magnets to 20 large Tau Ceti bases, finished 4 jacks which I'll be posting in the next few days, got started on 2 others, primed a couple more solos, and generally got my paint desk in more order. This also includes putting up my replacement lamp.

Nemo3 Tier List Progress:

• Nemo3 - primed
• Finch - primed
• Stormwall - completed
• Dynamo - sealing
• Thunderhead - completed
• Mechanics - completed
• Silverline Stormguard - assembled
• 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

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #82

Countdown to Lock and Load: 8 weeks.

Fast recap on this week...

Registered for Lock and Load events: Masters, Unbound*, and Token Aggression. Hopefully I get a spot for Unbound since it's my primary goal and I've been painting all year for this. The other 2 are just optional.
After 7 years of use, my lamp broke. I love this lamp too. It's a little sad. What's really sad is that these lamps are now twice as expensive as when I bought it 7 years ago.

iPhoto is all new. Normally I'm pretty happy about updates on my Apple devices, but this one really changed things up on my previous process. So I'm still trying to figure out a smoother way to get photos into my blog posts in a way that I like.

I finished eAbby. I also started on 6 jacks, with Dynamo getting the most progress so far. I'm hoping to get at least 2 jacks done this week if not more.

Cygnar all-in-one should arrive by end of this month, so I really need to stay on task for the next couple months.

Nemo3 Tier List Progress:

• Nemo3 - primed
• Finch - primed
• Stormwall - completed
• Dynamo - painting
• Thunderhead - completed
• Mechanics - completed
• Silverline Stormguard - assembled
• 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

Absylonia Daughter of Everblight

This project seemed to drag on forever, and despite not being completely happy with the end result, I can honestly say that the added depth of color I did in the final shading of skin seemed to make a bit difference.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #81

Countdown to Lock and Load: 9 weeks. And the schedule is up!

All my Stormguard are assembled now, and the jacks I assembled all got basic metals done. I also finished assembling Murdoch, Shaw, and Harlan. This was actually somewhat significant since it meant I'd assembled everything that was in my portable assembly kit so I have since loaded it up with more things to assemble.

So why has my progress been pitiful lately? Well honestly I've been distracted reading comics (Blackest Night story arc) and work has been kicking my ass. I've been sleeping more than usual to compensate for the stress too which has cut into my hobby time a lot. Hopefully things get better.

This last week I did get some experimental time in though. I just got a new Sotar 20/20 airbrush and I've been meaning to try out the Daler-Rowney inks in the airbrush. So when my 5 year old son told me he wanted to try painting with the airbrush, I figure what the heck! So I broke out an old Bones model and let him experiment a bit using the inks and then I did some additional experimenting using old business cards and the variety of inks that I have. Pictured here are the results. I do have to say that I really liked using the inks just straight in the airbrush too. I think I'll invest in more of them for the future.

Nemo3 Tier List Progress:

• Nemo3 - primed
• Finch - primed
• Stormwall - completed
• Dynamo - painting
• Thunderhead - completed
• Mechanics - completed
• Silverline Stormguard - assembled
• 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

Battle Report: I Am NOT The Boss

First, here's a quick Who's The Boss Resource for random caster selection.

So my LGS had a 35pt Who's The Boss tournament on Saturday which was a total blast. We had 7 people participate and we ended up playing 4 rounds just by virtue of interest in playing the format. Lists were built using 40pts (with 5 minimum put into jacks/beasts) and each round we picked a random caster (literally) from a box of caster cards. The breakdown of factions was: 2 Circle, 1 Legion, 1 Menoth, 1 Convergence, 1 Cryx, 1 Skorne. Overall the event was a blast. Below is the breakdown along with my own list.

My list: Scythean, Ravagore, Soldier, Shredder, Succubus, Raptors (5), Shepherd, Spell Martyr. My theory was to have a relatively balanced list that could take advantage of a variety of spells from whatever caster I drew.

Round 1: Scenario was Destruction. I drew Siege. I was playing against pCaine paired with a Convergence list: Corollary, Mitigator, Conservator, Attunement Servitors, Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex, 2 Enigma Foundries, Accretion Servitors, Optifex Directive, Reductors (10+Enumerator), Obstructors (10).
This game was pretty brutal for Caine. Early on I managed to drop a Ravagore hit on him and set him on fire. Then after more pummeling, I drop a second hit on him and dusted him. Siege really made a mess of convergence paired with the Scythean and Ravagore.

Round 2: Scenario was Incursion. I drew Thyra. I was playing against Ashlynn paired with a Circle list: Ghetorix, Gorax, Pureblood, Wilder, Blackclad Wayfarer, Shifting Stones, Bloodtrackers (10+Nuala).
This game looked bad. I was losing on both scenario (3 flags) and attrition. Fortunately I managed to get Stranglehold on Ghetorix and my opponent was pretty focused on trying to shove beasts into Thyra's face. So after patiently waiting for the right opportunity and feeding him targets, I managed to get the range and opportunity I needed and took an assassination run on Ashlynn with Thyra. A few quick hits and that was all she wrote. My opponent was rather sore because it turned out his Shifting Stones couldn't control the flag and that made all the difference between winning and losing in the end. In all fairness, it would have meant me running something extra over just to contest temporarily to prevent it but at least we all know the rule for the future.

Round 3: Scenario was Destruction. I drew pMagnus. I was playing against Calaban paired with a Circle list: Stalker, Megalith, Gorax, 2 Gallows Groves, Bloodtrackers (10+Nuala), Shifting Stones + Stone Keeper.
I was hoping for this to be a slam dunk but it turned into anything but that. I laughed. I cried. I slowly watched my models disappear as Calaban hid in a trench where I just couldn't ever get a line of attack on him. He stayed camping 2 to 3 fury the entire game which made it impossible to get an assassination run on him. Eventually he ground me down and a desperate final run failed. It's a real shame I didn't get a picture of this game as it was Joren's masterfully painted Circle army against my painted Legion and the whole thing looked great on the table. Hats off to Joren for being a fun and skilled opponent.

Round 4: Scenario was Fire Support. I drew Sturm & Drang. I was playing against pReznik paired with a Skorne list: Gladiator, Shaman, Krea, Marketh, Tyrant Commander & Standard, Paingiver Beast Handlers (4), Nihilators (10), Slingers (10), Swamp Gobbers.
I expected to lose this game right from the start. And I did end up losing it, but not the way I expected. Early on I managed to take out his Gladiator. From there things were going ok in that I was picking where the critical fights were taking place. However when making an assassination run on Reznik with my Scythean, a Paingiver totally cranked a free strike damage roll and took out the Scythean's mind. At that point I just didn't have quite enough juice in the tank. I would like to point out that I managed to use Sturm's feat to drop the Fury of all his beasts to 1 which left them in a maxed out state, preventing transfers. This was the crux of my assassination run and if it wasn't for that free strike, I would have easily had him dead to rights. After that Sturm was hanging out with no fury on him.

Lessons learned: This format is awesome. Like really fun. I'd totally play this again, even in a casual format. It's also amazing to watch and see which players can actually make something out of what appears to be nothing. I think this type of improvisation is actually an important skill in Warmachine.

Games this year: 19