Captain Jonas Murdoch

Nothing especially fancy here, but done is done. Photo is terribly dark too for some reason.

From the Desk: No Weekend Roundup

Sometimes life just goes upside down on me. Such as it was the last week. So there's no progress reports or anything really. I've been spending time assembling models when I can but little else. This post is just for my own sake really to distract my mind from life for a few minutes.

Now that Lock&Load is over, I think it would be good to have a new paint target. To that end, I've created the following two Cygnar tier lists that I want to start working towards.

Siege, Trial By Fire (tier 4):

• Siege - trimmed
• Squire - completed
• Triumph - trimmed
• Hunter - completed
• Journeyman - completed
• Hunter - completed
• Journeyman - completed
• Defender - completed
• Strangeways - completed
• Jakes - completed
• Charger - completed
• Field Mechaniks (6) - completed
• Gun Mages + UA - completed

This one is pretty easy. Most everything comes out of my existing collection.

Caine1, Sons of the Tempest (tier 4):

• Caine1 - completed
• Hunter - completed
• Defender - completed
• Gun Mage Captains (2) - completed
• Gun Mages + UA - assembled
• Hunter - completed
• Gun Mages + UA - completed
• Hunter - completed
• Black 13th - blister
• Tempest Blazers - assembled

This one requires a significant amount more work.

Major Prime Victoria Haley

Done! Completed before general in-stores release! I'm actually quite proud of myself since I did shell out extra bucks at Lock & Load for her. I sped up the process by undercoating with the airbrush and then the blues on the cloaks were done with thin blue glazes. I cut a few corners to get her done so quickly but nothing that I regret honestly. My color scheme is a slight departure from my normal scheme for Cygnar with so much extra blue. I particularly chose to do this simply because it's such a unique set of models.

Battle Report: Haley3 vs Zerkova1

My list: Haley3, Thorn, Lancer, Sylys, Jakes, Dynamo, Journeyman, Stormclad, Silverlines (10), Harlan.

My opponent fielded: Zerkova1, Sylys, Decimator, Devastator, Spriggan, Drakhun (with dismount), Greylord Ternion, Black Dragons (10+UA), Widowmakers, Eiryss2.

We skipped using a scenario and just went for old fashioned assassination. I lost initiative and Henry opted to choose table sides so that I didn't get a key piece of terrain for standing on a shooting from. The battle rushed into the center with me doing a lot of just trying to hold him at bay while I set up my ranged game. Rather than try to describe the middle of the game, I'll jump to the end. Zerkova was on a hill and a wall of jacks and black dragons was in front of her. I activated Haley's unit, arc'd Domination at the Spriggan and moved it around right in front of Zerkova and took a swing (missing). Then I moved Past Haley into range of Thorn and Future Haley into shooting range of Zerkova. Past Haley cast Force Hammer and slammed the Spriggan over Zerkova to knock her down. Then future Haley zapped Zerkova 3 times and put her in the dirt.

Lessons learned: Haley3 is very interesting to play. Very complex though. Because all 3 models activate as a unit, it forces some order of activation challenges in terms of getting things done. It's going to take a lot more practice with her to feel at all competent. There's a log of challenges in using Haley3. The past/future copies are only Focus 4 which makes it hard for them to hit with spells. Prime Haley is commonly expending 7 focus every round so it's leaving her focus starved most of the game. The first round of advancing and getting past/future haley out is a real strain. I will say that I had a real blast playing her though and I'm looking forward to more games with her.

Games this year: 30

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #89

Still basking in the afterglow of LnL2015.

Gonna make this a quick update since I'm trying to cram in more painting tonight. This last week was moderately productive. I did some repairs on a number of models that suffered some "damage" during transit or during use. Mostly it was models that came loose from their bases and needed to be glued again. In addition, I assembled my new unit of Gun Mages, Tempest Blazers, and Eiryss2. I also assembled, primed and started painting Haley3 (as pictured here).

In order to get back to my more focused prioritization, I think it might be time to plan another tier list. Just have to decide which one it's going to be.

Cygnar: One Year Later

Almost exactly 1 year ago today I embarked on adding Cygnar to my stable of models. At the time I don't think I realized how much I was going to leap into Cygnar. Looking back at it now though, I'm glad I took the plunge.

So how did I really get into Cygnar? Well a lot of it has to do with my two good friends, Lance and Henry, who got me a number of models for birthdays and Christmas. That list includes a Stormwall, a Storm Strider, Stryker3, a Hunter, Eiryss2, and Tempest Blazers.

I have absolutely been loving both painting and playing Cygnar. I love having a quick paint scheme that I can slam out army painting for. I also love playing Cygnar because it suits my play style of having good ranged pressure options and a variety of tools in my toolbox. I'm a big fan of the "water" theory of battle and not going into a game with a "playbook" to execute on. Instead I've been building my Cygnar armies using a "fire team" sort of style list building.

So how much have I painted in the last year? I painted 101 models covering 280 points and 8 warcasters. In addition I painted a few mercs specifically for this army, including Arcanist Core, Harlan, and Sylys. It's sort of amazing how much I got done. I also re-based one unit of Gun Mages and both of my Gun Mage Captains.

And what's next? Well my remaining horde of Cygnar models is as follows: another unit of Gun Mages + UA, Kraye, Sloan, Siege, Stryker3, Nemo3, Haley3 (which I'm painting now), Murdoch, a Cyclone, an Avenger, and another unit of Stormguard.

And I'm still looking to add more. Specifically I want the Storm Lances and Laddermore (cause Soles showed me that cavalry is totally a thing). I'd also like the Black 13th, although I'm hoping they do a re-sculpt of them eventually. I would also like to obviously add the Hurricane when it comes out.

Lock and Load Recap

Back from Lock & Load and finally doing a quick recap. This time in ACHIEVEMENT format!

Soled Out - Play a game with Jason Soles. I almost won, until he crushed me. It was awesome. I played Sturgis and he played Kreoss3. I have new respect for cavalry. And Jason is a class act of a guy.

What were you thinking? - Ask Jason Soles about Grotesques. Yeah, totally asked him. Can't quote him though. But it was an interesting conversation in general about models in the game that exit play-testing in a state that still feels incomplete.

Measured Connection - Give something to Jason Soles. I gave my spare tape measure to Jason Soles. His old one broke during his 15 hour Unbound game the night before. I have therein creating an awesomeness link to him. It's sort of like an arcnode for awesomeness.

Unbound - Play a game of Unbound. This was my biggest goal for the trip. I played it against a PP staffer, Bryan (sorry I forget your last name). It lasted a mere 9 hours. Bryan's dice were terrible, but he still managed to grind me down eventually. By hour 8, we were both running out of juice and started making tactical errors. Bryan just made far fewer of them. He played Durst, Feora1, and Vindictus against my Haley1, Nemo2 and Sturgis list. It was a major highlight of the trip for me.

Time for sleep in the grave - Not sleep enough but muscle through. So yeah, pretty obvious. I think I averaged 5 hours of sleep each night which is still a lot given the situation. I think I honestly found just the right balance of sleep and pushing myself.

Been there, done that - Play 5 new games. I tried out all 3 Level 7 games, High Command, and Bodgermania, all for the first time. I have to say, I kinda liked High Command and Level 7 Omega Protocol. Might pick one of those up. We played Omega Protocol with one of the staff guys who actually did graphic design for it, and with assistance from the staffer that designed it. Sorry again for forgetting names. Those guys were a blast and definitely improved the enjoyment of the games.

Getting the band back together - Played games with everyone from our crew. There were 4 guys that were a part of our crew that all went and I managed to sneak in games with all 4 of them which was fantastic.

Chillax - Take the year off from painting competitions. I'm so glad I did this. Taking the year off from competitive painting and the consternation it causes me was really rejuvenating. I have to say that showing up to Unbound with a whole fresh painted army was awesome and I feel great about how much army painting I did this last year.

Starstruck - Chat casually one on one with Matt DiPietro. Such a good chat with him. Talked about painting processes (rather than techniques), Crystal Brush, artistic vs technical judging, comparison of studio vs his personal style, and just general chit chat. I always enjoy talking with Matt and find him to be such a humble and talented artist. My only regret here is that I would have loved to spend far more time with him.

Shut up and take my money - Get awesome stuff at the store. I got the Hordes 10th anniversary box, the Haley3 box, Shredder plushies, pins, and art prints. Lots of awesome stuff. Totally blew out my hobby budget badly. All of it is super cool. Perhaps my favorite though is the "Perfect 10" print, signed by Matt Wilson. Such a glorious piece of art. I'm now racing to get Haley3 ready before our next normal game night at the LGS just to taunt the big Cygnar player there with her.

Ninja! - Ninja shop for a friend. I totally ninja shopped and mailed Durst and Scout models for my buddy Mike. You're welcome bud!

Whew! That was close - Drink plenty but not get myself into trouble. I think this year I managed to not get myself completely wasted and be overly loud and obnoxious. Unlike last year. Honestly though, who would have noticed?

And that's it! LNL2015 is in the bag and I had an amazing time! I'm already looking forward to next year!

Sylys Wyshnalyrr the Seeker

This guy is long overdue from when I had wanted to add him to my army. I really enjoyed painting him and the little details made it all the more fun. This is the first model for my Cygnar army where I actually opted to not have any insignias added, mostly because of all the carved runes he already has.

Stormsmith Stormcallers (take 2)

More Stormsmiths! Can't have enough zapping! So ready to play 6 of these in Unbound at LNL2015!

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #88

Countdown to Lock and Load: 3 days (remaining of painting time).

Final things are coming together now. Stormsmiths are done except for sealing them which I'll do tomorrow morning. Sylys is very much in progress as pictured here. Probably a couple more hours of work left.

I also started sorting out carry capacity for models in my toolbox, which is sorely not as good as I was hoping for, but I'll manage somehow. In hindsight, I probably should have gotten a Battlefoam bag for this trip, but it's too late now.

Final Unbound Push:

• Stormguard - done
• Storm Strider - done
• Stormsmiths - sealing
• Squire - done
• Journeyman - done
• Gun Mage re-basing - painting bases
• Sylys - painting

Battle Report: Haley2 vs Asphyxious1

My list: Haley2 (tier 4, Riders of the Storm), Stormwall, Thorn, 2 Storm Striders, 3 Stormsmith Stormcallers, 2 Gun Mage Captain Adepts, Stormsmith Storm Tower, Field Mechaniks (4). Bunker objective.

My opponent fielded: Asphyxious1, Deathjack, Cankerworm, 2 Nightwretches, Skarlock Thrall, Aiakos, Leviathan, 2 Pistol Wraiths, 2 Warwitch Sirens, Withershadow Combine, Gorman. Fuel Cache objective.

We played the Recon SR2015 scenario. I lost initiative and my opponent opted to go second, choosing sides in the process. On his first turn, Asphyxious and the DeathJack jammed right into the middle of the table and left me with a real conundrum. I had a lower odds assassination option (slam Asphyxious with Thorn then put 6 boosted POW 15 shots into him) but that would have left me 3 points short of killing him on average dice. Instead I went the attrition route. This game would have been more interesting if I'd remembered to feat. As it turned out, I was thinking I should save my feat and totally forgot my initial thoughts about how to stave off a massive retaliation. During my turn I at least cleared most of the backfield (Withershadow, Gorman, 1 Warwitch and Skarlock) and disrupted the Deathjack. Unfortunately the retaliation was brutal. Both Storm Striders and the Stormwall got destroyed. At this point I didn't have a lot of options, so I went for the long shot. Because Asphyxious had cast Parasite, I managed to get Thorn loose and in range, dropped Parasite on Asphyxious, then started flinging shots into him. I believe I came up 3 points short. At that point I pretty much lost on scenario since I was already down 2 CPs at the start of my turn and did nothing to prevent him from scoring more on my own turn.

Lessons learned: First, read all my stuff carefully before playing, especially when I haven't played for 4 weeks. If I'd remembered Haley's bond, the Stormwall would have been much more threatening, and if I'd decided to feat when I should have, it would have been a very different game. Second, this tier list is pretty amusing to play. I'm looking forward to playing it more.

Games this year: 22

From the Desk: Deadline Freak Out

Countdown to Lock and Load: 9 days (before driving up).

I totally failed to do a normal weekend roundup, mostly cause I didn't get much done this last week. I was traveling for work and then during the long weekend I was installing recessed LED lighting in my living room and putting up ceiling tiles and crown moulding which ate almost the whole weekend. However now my living room has kick-ass lighting for board games.

I finally managed to get a blister of Sylys which I'd been searching for. He's now officially in my final push for Unbound as well. However I'm traveling for work the next 3 days again so I'm really down to just a few evenings for painting. This is gonna be pretty tight.

Final Unbound Push:

• Stormguard - done
• Storm Strider - done
• Stormsmiths - painting
• Squire - done
• Journeyman - done
• Gun Mage re-basing - painting bases
• Sylys - primed

From the Desk: Ready For Unbound

This post should probably be titled "Apparently Social Media is a Thing, But I'm Too Old to Appreciate It".
It's no secret to readers of this blog that I'm excited about playing in Unbound again. So the other day when Jason Soles posted an Insider about his preparations for Unbound at Lock&Load, I got even more excited. With the help of my good friend Mike, I finally got my Twitter account working properly and tweeted this picture of my Cygnar army ready for Unbound. I'm hoping it might bootstrap my odds of both getting into Unbound and actually getting to play Jason.
I also shared this picture with Mister Justin of Secret Weapon Miniatures to show my army entirely based using his resin bases which I've loved. He of course promptly asked to share it on the SW Facebook page which I was vary happy to agree to.

Now I want to be clear, all but 1 model in this photo was painted within the last year. The only exception in that photo is Maxwell Finn who I painted prior to Lock&Load 2014 as the test model for my new Cygnar color scheme. Everything else though was painted within the last year. I'm actually really stoked about this progress and even more stoked to be bringing this to Lock&Load 2015 in just a couple weeks.

Maybe now that I know how to use Twitter, I'll start using it more often to post little stuff.

Squire (take 2)

Second Squire finished! Same deal as the Journeyman Warcaster I painted. Nothing else fancy to say.

Journeyman Warcaster (take 2)

Second Journeyman Warcaster finished! I wouldn't have painted a second one of the same sculpt except that it came with the Cygnar all-in-one-army box and I can use it for Unbound. Perhaps I'll do a side-by-side comparison of the two at some point, but for now it's just a quick post.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #87

Countdown to Lock and Load: 17 days (before driving up).

No pictures this week. My desk is actually somewhat empty. The Squire and Journeyman got finished this morning and the Stormsmiths are not started yet. I'm actually doing this post early cause I expect to crash early. I spent a big chunk of today installing new recessed lighting in my living room area. The project is about half done but most of that work involved holding things above my head. On the plus side, the work is about half done. Also, I'm flying out tomorrow morning for work for a couple days. In fact the next two weeks before Lock&Load are packed with work travel and meetings and lots of junk so I'm not sure how much more painting I'll be getting done before then. Out of the 17 more days before I get into a car to drive to Seattle, I'll be traveling for work 6 of them.

Final Unbound Push:

• Stormguard - done
• Storm Strider - done
• Stormsmiths - primed
• Squire - done
• Journeyman - done
• Gun Mage re-basing - painting bases

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

• Casters: +45 pts (8 models)
• Warjacks: 175 pts
• Battle Engines: 9 pts
• Units: 57* pts
• Solos: 27 pts
• Merc Solos: 8 pts
• Merc Warjacks: 5 pts
• Merc Units: 4 pts

Silver Line Stormguard

Painting whole units can be really soul crushing. I'm glad to have these finally done.

Storm Strider (take 2)

Technically this was finished last Saturday but I've been sorely behind on blogging due to work/life/sick events. Painting a second one of these was both fun and quick. I really enjoy the huge based Cygnar kits in general and I'm really looking forward to having two of these on the table at the same time.

The "pose" on this one is a little different, partially by accident and partially on purpose. It's leaning forward a little bit as if it's about to fire a massive strike. When I was first lining up the legs after pinning, I discovered that it had a bit of a lean. It would have been easily corrected, but I decided to keep it as I liked the look of it. I will say that on the flipside, for some reason the overhead bar above the central ball came in really close on the ball itself which still baffles me a bit. However, it's done, so in the spirit of completing and moving on, I'm moving on!

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #86

Countdown to Lock and Load: 25 days.

This weekend update is sorely behind schedule unfortunately. Things have been really hectic for me on the life/work front.

Storm Strider got done. Stormguard are getting some attention again finally. I also got 30 more small bases drilled, magnets added, primed and a first base coat on them. In addition I got 3 Stormsmiths assembled along with my second Squire and Journeyman, even though I may not actually paint them.

My big question to myself now is just how hardcore to get with my Unbound list. Do I limit myself to just models I've painted since last L&L, or do I go ahead and include things that I painted before but re-based to match in theme. If I drop prior models, then I lose both Gun Mage units, both Gun Mage Captains, Tarin, the Vanguard for Gastone, and Reinholdt.

Final Unbound Push:

• Stormguard - painting
• Storm Strider - done
• Stormsmiths - assembled
• Gun Mage re-basing - painting bases

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

• Casters: +45 pts (8 models)
• Warjacks: 175 pts
• Battle Engines: 9 pts
• Units: 48* pts
• Solos: 22 pts
• Merc Solos: 8 pts
• Merc Warjacks: 5 pts
• Merc Units: 4 pts

Harlan Versh Illuminated One

Somehow Harlan managed to sneak into my paint queue. I'm not sure how, but once he got there I couldn't help but respect him. This model was actually quite fun to paint. I went with a minimalist style like the rest of my Cygnar and I feel that really helped make the model more compelling overall. There's lots of details and it could be easy to throw lots of color all over him, but this final result is something I'm quite happy with.