From the Desk: Cleaning Amusement

I was cleaning up my painting desk yesterday and came across these. To the recycling bin with you MK1 cards!!

Tempest Blazers

Finally finished the Murder Ponies! It only took me a year to get these painted. They were a Christmas present from my buds last year. A couple notes about these for other folks that end up taking them on:
1) For anything beyond very careful handling, I recommend additional pins into the hooves to make it more stable to the base. A single plastic leg to support the whole model and bond it to the base is just ridiculous.
2) Make sure to fit the riders to the horses before putting the arms on. The riders with the arms outstretched forward can be a nasty fit around the horses' heads.

Quite honestly, I can't say I enjoyed painting these that much. I hate painting horses, and the final assembly was very tedious. I'm glad they are done.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #102

Last roundup post for this year.

I'm fully painted on my Legion collection! Hooray! Let's see how long that lasts. I'm starting to think about getting caught up on the remaining Legion things I don't own, but that might get eclipsed by whatever plan I make for Lock & Load this year. This year will probably be another focus on Unbound, but I haven't settled on what to bring.

As pictured here, the Murder Ponies are getting closer to done. Not doing anything amazing from a quality point of view to be honest. I'm going to try to get a little more contrast and color on them tonight before I crash. I did also get the Reliant primed just in case I end up finishing these and have a little more time left before the Christmas time crunch starts.

My buddies got me a wonderful gift for Christmas too. It's a total trolling: a Woldwrath. I hate to admit it, but I do want to paint it and am thinking about ideas for how to make it really interesting. I will not concede that this is getting me into Circle though.

I'm leaving my paint targets on this post for my own tracking, but honestly they aren't getting much attention for now other than trying to finish up the Murder Ponies.

Cygnar Paint Taget (tier 4):
pCaine - done
Ace - unowned
Reliant - primed
2 Gun Mage Captains - done
Gun Mages + UA - done
Gun Mages + UA - assembled
2 Hunters - done
Black 13th - assembled
Tempest Blazers - painting

Remaining DZC models:
Neptune - primed
2 Triton A2s - assembled
2 Phobos - primed
2 Odin - primed
2 Enyo - primed

Blight Wasps

2 units! Done! And to my buddy Mike: HAH! You trolled me into 2 units, and I've painted them. Just wait until I field them and start owning face!!

It's really hard to take these models seriously. I mean really... They're butterflies! But seriously, they aren't that horrible to paint except that their poses are all crouched up. They also required some special work since I needed to seal them before putting them on the flight bases. Otherwise, they are about the same effort as a Harrier.
I gave each unit a slightly different tint, with one being more red and the other being more blue-green. This makes it simple to differentiate them on the table.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #101

Bite me holiday busy time!

Day behind since I forgot to post last night. This week was pretty productive. Finished up Zuriel and the Twins. The Butterflies are nearly completed, with just detail work remaining. I even got a bit of work done on the Murder Ponies, finishing up the horses and getting them attached to bases. Hopefully I can finish up both of those projects before the end of the year.

Cygnar Paint Taget (tier 4):
pCaine - done
Ace - unowned
Reliant - assembled
2 Gun Mage Captains - done
Gun Mages + UA - done
Gun Mages + UA - assembled
2 Hunters - done
Black 13th - assembled
Tempest Blazers - painting

Remaining Legion models:
Blight Wasps (8 total) - painting


Remaining DZC models:
Neptune - primed
2 Triton A2s - assembled
2 Phobos - primed
2 Odin - primed
2 Enyo - primed

Locked!

Got my hotel reservation and purchased my badge for Lock&Load 2016 yesterday! Thus begins the next 6 months of obsessing about what I will plan to play at L&L this year. Perhaps another Unbound game hopefully!

Saeryn and Rhyas Talons of Everblight

Let's see how much I write up in 5 minutes here. Loved painted these two. Great sculpts, albeit a little tedious to put together and handle due to the flowing sashes. I went a little out of style for myself and did some OSL on the glow from Saeryn's hand just for fun. Otherwise these are pretty standard for my Legion painting. For not having painted a Legion model for quite some time, I have to say I'm pleased with how these turned out. Sorry the picture tint is off though.

Zuriel

It's been a while since I finished a Privateer Press model. Almost 5 months actually. Getting Zuriel done feels like a real success. I've been painting, but all DZC stuff lately, so to step back into Legion was a refreshing experience. Why? Well quite frankly, the scale is more pleasurable and painting Legion is always a refreshing break because I can play with color options a little more freely than my other projects. Zuriel here in particular was a lot of fun cause he's big and posed well. It's also a morale boost since he'd been sitting on my desk for quite some time before I got around to even priming him. Once I started putting paint on him though, it went fast and joyfully.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #100

Three and a half years of roundups instead of random desk updates. Crazy.

So despite being the "100" milestone of doing weekend roundups, this one is not particularly special in any way. I'm almost done with Zuriel and the twins now. I'm hoping to get cranking on the murder ponies again once I finish these, but it's possible that painting the butterflies will instead spark my interest. In general though, I'm really finding my joy in painting again. One particular thought that is now striking me is whether to start painting arcs on my Legion models. I've found it very valuable on my Cygnar and not really that distracting from the quality of the models. Perhaps these will be the first ones to try it with.

On the topic of paint targets, below is my next major paint target for Cygnar which I'm planning to aim for next once these Legion models are done. Note that this list actually contains a model I don't own yet as well, namely Ace.

Cygnar Paint Taget (tier 4):
pCaine - done
Ace - unowned
Reliant - assembled
2 Gun Mage Captains - done
Gun Mages + UA - done
Gun Mages + UA - assembled
2 Hunters - done
Black 13th - assembled
Tempest Blazers - painting

Remaining Legion models:
Saeryn & Rhyas, Talons of Everblight - painting
Zuriel - basing
Blight Wasps (8 total) - assembled


Remaining DZC models:
Neptune - primed
2 Triton A2s - assembled
2 Phobos - primed
2 Odin - primed
2 Enyo - primed

Battle Report: PHR vs Scourge

Basically just posting pictures here.

Finally played a game of DZC with my 1500pt force. This is less of a battle report and more just notes about the game.

Wrecking buildings is fun. Especially when the building contains a bunch of enemy infantry and has vehicles next to it. I really enjoyed that and I see that as a viable PHR strategy overall.
Having a higher commander rating really is useful, not just for the initiative bonus but for the additional cards. There were a couple times when my opponents cards really swung the tide of the game.
Finding the right balance between infantry, anti-ground, and anti-air. I'm starting to see more and more the merits of walking onto the battlefield rather than spending points on transports to do it.
This game is hot looking with fully painted armies on the table.
A full 1500pt game really takes longer than I expected. Like a lot longer. We had to look up lots of rules and by the middle of turn 4 (out of 6) we'd been playing for 3 hours. I was starting to fall asleep from exhaustion so we estimated the rest of the game. I was losing the overall attrition war, but I'd eliminated almost all of his infantry which thus prevented him from scoring much at all.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #99

Still painting, but posting before I pass out with my face in the palette.

So I'm finally painting something other than DZC! It's about time too. With my recent surge of playing Legion again, I've got a renewed vigor to paint some Legion models and the Twins and Zuriel were already primed and ready to go. I forgot how much I enjoyed painted Legion models too until I picked these up.

In other news, I realized I haven't got a new paint target. Normally I was working in lists, but that broke down once I finished my DZC paint target so now I need a new one. However first I'm hoping to close out my remaining DZC models as well as finish a few more Legion things. I might just work from a favorites list for the time being. The next week will really prove out what draws my enthusiasm. In the mean time, I'll track my remaining DZC models to finish on my weekend roundups.

Remaining DZC models:
Neptune - primed
2 Triton A2s - assembled
2 Phobos - primed
2 Odin - primed
2 Enyo - primed

Poseiden

This model was actually quite fun to paint since it had such a large area to work with and crisp details. I'll try to get a picture of it with the Hades carried underneath it later.

Battle Report: Bethayne vs Borka2

No picture for this battle. It was just ugly.

My list: Bethayne, Belphagor, Succubus, Blightbringer, Seraph, Beast Mistress, Stinger, 2 Shredders, Blackfrost Shard, Hex Hunters (10+Bayal).

My opponent: Borka2, Mauler, Earthborn, Axer, Bouncer, Fell Caller, Janissa, Fennblades (10+UA), Krielstone Bearers (3+UA), Totem Hunter, Thrullg.

We played a basic killbox/center zone scenario. In all fairness, I should have lost this game too. Henry had me dead to rights given his brick of Borka/Mauler/Earthborn that was able to march forward with the protection of Janissa's stone wall. Unfortunately for him he positioned his Mauler too far to one side on the advance and I was able to Gallows it out via arcing through Belphagor. After 2 pulls of it (getting it out from protection of the krielstone aura), the Blackfrost Shard harmed it and then the Beast Mistress' posse was able to take out out the Mauler handily, and left the Mistress free to energizer them all back and heal 1 point of the Stinger's body back up. I was pretty happy with the execution of that. From there things slowly went downhill for Henry. In the end he made a bold attempt and took out the Blightbringer with the hopes of eliminating my main hitting power. However with the combination of Harm and the Beast Mistress' posse, things came to a bloody end for Borka.

Lessons learned: First, and most importantly, Carnivore short-circuits Battle Wizard because the targets are removed from play before being destroyed. That was really inconvenient for my Hex Hunters when it was pointed out to me. As a result I completely wasted my feat. The Blightbringer continues to be pretty mediocre. Being able to give it's template Continuous Corrosion from Bethayne was pretty amusing at least, but still not amazing. To be honest, all of it's blight effects tend to be pretty underwhelming to me.
I do really like the Beast Mistress and her posse. It's remarkable how much threat range and hitting power they can pull off, especially with the Blackfrost Shard there to harm stuff for them.

Games this year: 36

Battle Report: Thagrosh1 vs Syntherion

I continue to be underwhelmed by the Blightbringer, but I'm having trouble justifying it.

My list: Thagrosh1, Succubus, Blightbringer, Carnivean, Ravagore, Stinger, Seraph, 2 Shepherds, Forsaken.

My opponent: Syntherion (tier 4), Corollary, 2 Diffusers, 2 Galvanizers, Mitigator, 2 Ciphers, 2 Assimilators, 2 Dispersion Optifexes, 2 Optifex Directives.

No scenario yet again, which by halfway through the game was being lamented by Lance. At SPD 4 and going second, the Blightbringer is really hard to get upfield and be a melee threat. However I will say that putting the Blightbringer heavily forward with Spiny Growth on it against a mob of light jacks is pretty amusing. It would have been even more amusing if I'd had Thagrosh far enough forward for his aura to cover the space and improve the Blightbringer's effective ARM even more. Still though, this was a pretty decent combo. After jamming the Blightbringer forward, a wave of jacks and Syntherion eventually took it out after stacking a very respectable Synergy bonus. However at that point I had Thagrosh within range to Slipstream him up enough and charge Syntherion and put him in the dirt.

Lessons learned: The Blightbringer's +STR/ARM aura is warriors only, not the Blightbringer itself. That's really disappointing. totally missed that the first time through. The more I actually review it, the more I feel like everything the Blightbringer has is just a little bit curbed back from being good. Still though, having a gargantuan on the table brings a certain dynamic to the force. I will also say that playing against a Convergence list with no Prime Axiom is like playing a really different faction.

Games this year: 35

Neptune (take 5)

Yet another Neptune. That makes 5 now. Just 1 more to have them all painted.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #98

Distractions distractions!

Last week I had my hobby time crushed by work stuff. And then this week is also a holiday week so who knows how much hobby time I'll actually get in. I'm still stuck against a Warmachine painting block. The Murder Ponies are still in progress and have a lot of inertia to getting moving on them again. Once I get rolling they will probably go fast, but I just need to get over that hump.

As a note about my DZC paint target, I've decided to just go ahead and wrap up the unpainted stuff I have for the sake of being complete. Hopefully I'll actually get another game in soon to justify this, but I will freely admit that closing out my DZC unpainted models would feel really great.

DZC Paint Target:
2 Zeus - done
2 Ares - done
2 Phobos - done
8 Immortals - done
4 Junos - 4 done
5 Neptunes - 4 done, 1 painting
Hades - done
2 Helios - done
2 Janus - done
2 Sirens - done
1 Triton A1 - done


Remaining DZC models:
Poseiden - painting
Neptune - primed
2 Triton A2s - assembled
2 Phobos - primed
2 Odin - primed
2 Enyo - primed

Battle Report: Lylyth3 vs Skarre1

Sometimes you just gotta proxy the new hotness.

My list: Lylyth3, Succubus, Blightbringer, Ravagore, Naga Nightlurker, Shredder, Stinger, Warmonger War Chief, 2 Shepherds, Spell Martyr, Warspears (5+UA).

My opponent: Skarre1, Skarlock, Nightwretch, Kraken, Darragh, Tartarus, Bane Thralls (10), Bane Knights (6), Mechanithralls (10), Necrosurgeon, Saxon.

No scenario for a third time, although I think given my tactical retreat during the game, I suspect that will come to an end now. My real aim anyway was to test out the Blightbringer. On paper I've been very disappointed with it, but in the spirit of practical experience, I decided to proxy it and try it out. After all, it's a pretty cool looking model but it's not cheap. So what did I discover? Well first is that being able to put the Ravagore animus on the Blightbringer is pretty hot. The blight effects for the template are a little tricky to deploy effectively. The no-spells one would have been more handy against Cryx if I could have gotten it somewhere that would have made a difference. The bonus STR/ARM one is sort of easier to get in place when there's a good target to take out first. I also like that template with Ogryn since it makes them even more tough. The Concealment template has a bit of Skornegy to it though since it grants Concealment to ALL models, including enemy. However overall I have to say that I was pretty happy with the performance of it, and having Escort from Lylyth to get it up to SPD 6 was very handy. I definitely want to proxy it a couple more times before I make up my mind on getting one or not though.

Lessons learned: I really enjoy playing Lylyth3. I played a much better early game this time around too which made me feel better. And trying out the Blightbringer just reinforced my mantra of practical experience over theorymachine.

Games this year: 34

Zeus

And finally I have a command unit for my army!

Juno A1 (take 2)

Second batch of Junos. I chose an opposite color pairing from the first so that I could differentiate my Immortals to this pair. If I'd been thinking clearly from the beginning, I would have had each one only have a single color to match their unit, but again, not a fully cohesive plan per the previous post.

From the Desk: Weekend Roundup #97

Distractions distractions!

Nothing special to report. Painting this weekend didn't really get very far because I went to the Raiders' game. My final DZC model for my 1500pt force is in progress but has a long ways to go before it's done. Otherwise I'm close to finishing that paint target and will need another shortly.

DZC Paint Target:
2 Zeus - done
2 Ares - done
2 Phobos - done
8 Immortals - done
4 Junos - 4 done
5 Neptunes - 4 done, 1 painting
Hades - done
2 Helios - done
2 Janus - done
2 Sirens - done
1 Triton A1 - done