Wargames @ farfaraway.org

The practice is over …

owen — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:15:23 +0000

I’ve had a good couple of months practice with the Privateers and I think I have a pretty good handle on how they operate. My order of activation is working, well, most of the time and I rarely trip over myself too much. I managed to get two final practice games in on Tuesday ahead of this Saturday’s Steamroller event in Gamers World. I took on Steve’s Retribution first and then Harry’s Skorne. These are two of the nicest guys to play against – they play hard, but they play fair and I had great fun.

Steve’s army was led by Vyros, who I’ve only faced once before. It was a good tight game with my Sea Dogs dishing out a hellish amount of damage on the charge to two of Steve’s units. In response the Retribution decimated the crew and Pressgangers. The game devolved into a slugfest with me trying everything I could to get ranged shots on Vyros. Eventually it paid off and I managed to drop the Iosan ‘caster. The Commodore chipped in, but it’s main role was to keep the Retribution ‘jacks on their asses!

The second game was a much more one-sided affair. Again the Sea Dogs and Press Gangers got the hop on my opponent and killed off a swath of Swordsmen and Accuri. My dice were on fire and it seemed that everything I hit, I killed. In the face of so much destruction and with the Commodore having a commanding view of the battlefield, Harry decided that Xerxis would have been in trouble. He was right. Again the big cannon took on the big targets to slam them out of the way. Harry called it when most of his army was in shreds and he had no way of getting at Shae.

So, two wins to round out my practice with the Privateers. Let’s see what Saturday brings!

Owen

Legion of Everblight vs Skorne: 75pt Video Battle Report

owen — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:09:28 +0000

Yesterday Harry and I played out a 75pt game (No Mans Land scenario) of Hordes. Here’s a 9+ minutes video battle report -

Enjoy!

Owen

Shae vs eHaley (35pt Battle Overview)

owen — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 13:57:11 +0000

Lenny and I got a Steamroller practice game in on Tuesday and I’m slowing getting the hang of the Privateers. That said, I spread the army too far and fell into Lenny’s (well laid) trap, i.e. lots of ranged attacks zeroed in on the scenario (Incursion) objectives! He had good concealment and cover for most of his army, so I had little option, but to try and get on top of them fast.

Photograph Note: The Cryx models are serving as scenario flags!

It was, however, a close game in the end with Lenny having to risk eHaley in order to avoid a loss by scenario. My army was in tatters at that stage and Shae was engaged by a Centurion and Lancer. They had trouble hitting him, but they eventually did the job. I managed to drop the Cygnaran ‘caster to only four boxes, but in the end Cygnar won the day.

It was a good game and it felt quite tight (even if most of my army was decimated at range).

Owen

Warmachine: Privateer Army Video Slideshow

owen — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 13:41:32 +0000

Here’s a slideshow of the Privateer army.

Don’t forget to watch the HD version if your internet connection can handle it!

Owen

Shae vs Skarre (35pt Battle Overview)

owen — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 21:23:38 +0000

Oh boy is the Commodore Cannon a powerful beast! It blasted Gerlak Slaughterborn into Skarre, knocking her down and dealing a little damage. Then a marshaled Mariner followed up with a boosted damage cannon shot on her and that dropped her down to 4 boxes of damage. Peter had been rightly reluctant to come near the cannon, but there was little option as it was perched on a hill that offered an excellent view of a large part of the battlefield.

She managed to get Backlash onto my Nomad and between 4 Mechanithralls and Brute Thrall dished out eight points of damage onto Shae before the ‘jack was totalled. In the end the Commodore, with Money Shot from Lord Rock Bottom, blasted the Pirate Queen into oblivion.

I had much better control over my pirates tonight and everyone did something useful. The Press Gangers shanghaied four Sea Dogs into a severely depleted unit; Hawk took out a Skarlock; Grogspar blasted three Satyxis with his AOE; Rockbottom sprayed some Mechanithralls; Aiyana granted magical attacks to the Press Gangers when they needed it; the Sea Dogs used Cross-trained to replace some fallen Commodore crew. Shae did little other than feat at the opportune moment. All told, the army performed well.

Owen

Nomad Warjack: Video Painting Guide

owen — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 10:30:39 +0000

Here’s a quick video painting guide for the mercenary Nomad Warjack.

Don’t forget to watch the HD version if your internet connection can handle it!

Owen

Proxying the Pureblood Warpwolf

owen — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:00:50 +0000

Continuing my ‘proxied’ Circle Orboros army here’s my Pureblood Warpwolf. The miniature is a limited edition Wolfen from the Confrontation range called Varghar. I chopped off the large axe he was carrying in his left hand and decided to base him on ‘stone’ rather than the skull and bone pile he came with. I think he makes a decent proxy for the Pureblood.

I decided to try something different when painting its skin. The model was undercoated white, which I touched up with a wash of watered down Skull White. I then glazed it with a very pale blue glaze made up of 1:1:2 Space Wolves Grey:Water:Glaze Medium. Glaze medium is a retardent so it took about 24 hours to dry! I made a dark navy/grey glaze which I applied to the fur. I applied this while the other glaze was still wet. Once dried all areas received a watered down Asurmen Blue wash. The model (except the fur) was then drybrushed (using downward strokes) a 1:1 mix of Skull White:Space Wolves Grey. Finally high level edges were picked out with pure Shull White.

The other colours are just watered down base colours with a wash applied.

Apart from the waiting time it was a quick miniature to paint.

Owen

Shae vs Absylonia (35pt Battle Overview)

owen — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 20:41:22 +0000

In my last post about the Privateers I claimed Phinneus Shae is a hard man to kill! Well, Typhon proved this evening that is not the case. It took three boosted sprays, one of which that missed, but the Legion character beast got the job done…

Joe’s 35pt force was led by Absylonia and he used her to great effect, buffing his beasts and feating at just the right moment to heal loads of damage. I felt that I’d nearly killed each of the beasts (Typhon and Carnivean) at least three times!

I’m not very good with the pirates yet, but I got some things right this evening. Shae’s feat was very effective at helping to deliver the army to where it needed to be. It, coupled with Coup de Main and Mr. Walls’ mini-feat, gave the Sea Dogs an impressive charge. They had Payday on them too, so they showed a unit of Striders (plus UA) who was boss. They’d had Phantasm cast and upkept on them until that turn, so this coupled with 4+ Tough (from Doc) and No Sleeping on the Job made them a difficult target to get at range.

I did, however, also have several screw ups during the game. I used the Buccaneer’s assault to knock Typhon down. I then shot him with the Commodore, but of course couldn’t slam him! This was annoying as they probably would have hit him on an effective RAT 12 10 (base RAT 4, 2 x Gunnery, ~~Aiming~~ and Money Shot) without the knock down. The slam would have creamed the Shepherd behind it! Forgetting to allocate focus to my Nomad before it was due to charge the Carnivean was another mess up. It still got to charge (under Coup de Main), but just didn’t have the damage output without the additional focus.

My biggest screw up, though, was forgetting to win the game. We played the Close Quarters scenario and I had picked up one control point already. I spent a turn focussed on killing off a Carnivean (the audacious beast had attempted an ill-conceived assassination on Shae), but forgot to move one of several available solos into the control zone to net my second (game winning) control point. Typhon assassinated Shae on the next turn, doing exactly the amount of damage needed with its three sprays.

I’m still learning, but the Privateers are still a bit of a mystery to me. Oh well!

Owen

Kommander Strakhov: Video Painting Guide

owen — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:03:06 +0000

Here’s a video painting guide for Kommander Strakhov. Enjoy!

Don’t forget to watch the HD version if your internet connection can handle it!

Owen

Kommander Strakhov: Complete

owen — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 21:17:12 +0000

I didn’t time it too closely, but I reckon there’s about 3.5 – 4 hours work in this guy. He’s turned out beautifully.

Like the Widowmaker Marksman I need to complete the base, but I’ll wait until eButcher is finished before I do it.

Owen

Widowmaker Marksman: Complete

owen — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:27:17 +0000

Wow! I haven’t painted a Khadoran miniature since November last year, when I finished my Mortar Crew. I primed the Marksman, Strakhov and the Epic Butcher earlier and started painting the Marksman. It took about 1.5hrs to complete. The paint is still drying in the photos below.

I’ll complete the base when I paint the other guys.

As an aside – this miniature was proudly sponsored by Lost Hemisphere Radio – Episode 7!

Owen

Warpwolf, Wolfen, Warpwolf?

owen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:35:34 +0000

The Confrontation Wolfen miniatures make great proxies for Warpwolves. I’ve never been that interested in starting a Circle Orboros force, but I’ve had these old Confrontation miniatures for years and when I saw the Warpwolf Stalker I thought they’d make perfect proxies. The only Warpwolf miniature I actually like is the Pureblood; the original Warpwolf is in a weird pose and the new Stalker, certainly next to these Wolfen miniatures, is only so-so. These Wolfen will never be tournament legal, but I don’t care. It’s about putting paint on some neglected miniatures. I’ll never play Confrontation, so they may as well be used for something worthwhile!

Anyway, here are a few more of photos of my ‘impostor’ Warpwolves.

Here’s the painting scheme (and more-or-less the order I painted it in) -

Skin: Codex Grey; Fortress Grey; Fortress Grey + Skull White (50:50); Fortress Grey + Skull White (33:66)
Gums: Gore Red
Ears: Elf Flesh (DB)
Armour (Green): Orkhide; Orkhide + Knarloc (50:50)
Leather: Snakebite
Claws: Graveyard + Snakebite (66:33)
Armour (Metal): Brass Balls + Graveyard (50:50)
Sword: Boltgun
Everything: Watered down Magic Wash
Base (Earth): Watered down Graveyard Earth
Base (Stone): Watered down Codex Grey; Fortress Grey (DB); Badab Black (Wash)

I’ve 4-5 more of these guys unpainted in the shed. I wonder which Circle warlock is good with Warpwolves?

Owen

Making Beach-style Bases

owen — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 11:44:36 +0000

I’ve used lots of different ‘piratey’ bases (see here and here) for my Warmachine Privateer army, but a sandy beach was one I hadn’t attempted until I was working on the last unit of Thamarite Cultists. I could’t find any good tutorials on this, but I decided I’d give it a go.

Step 1: Since I was using Warmachine rounded-edge bases, I decided to fill the inside of the base with Milliput. For these kinds of modelled bases I always work with the model off the base. Before the Milliput dried I pressed the base into fine (but not too fine) sand.

Step 2: When this dried I used a watered dow PVA mix to liberally coat the base and again dipped it in the sand. I’m not too concerned about uniform coverage as walked on sand is rarely smooth.

Steps 3 and 4: Repeat Step 2.

Step 4: Attached the miniature to the base. As always time spent pinning them on now will save heartache later on.

Step 5: Undercoat the miniature. I decided to undercoat these guys black, which was better for the miniature, but would mean a few more steps in painting the base.

Step 6: Paint the miniature. This is easy and should only take a minute or two, right?!

Step 7: Paint the base. I tidied up any mess from the earlier painting using Chaos Black. Next I used two watery coats of Khemri Brown to get rid of most of the black. A watery coat of Iyanden Darksun (a deep yellow colour) was applied next. I then drybrushed the base with this yellow colour. Next I mixed it 50:50 with Bleached Bone and did a light drybrush. Finally there was one more pure Bleached Bone drybrush. Take some Chaos Black and tidy the edge of the base.

(I painted the base and then the miniature, but that was the wrong way around as then you need to be very tidy when working on shoes, etc.)

Step 8: Add Seaweed. I grabbed some moss from the back garden and left it to dry overnight. I mixed a very watery PVA mix and then dipped the ‘seaweed’ in it and added it to the base.

That sounds like lots of steps, but when your basing a whole unit there is very little hanging around as (certainly with the painting) once one step is completed on all of the miniatures you can go back to the first model and start the next step. Easy and effective.

Owen

Battle Report for Warmachine Beginners – Part 2

owen — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:01:15 +0000

Part 1 of the battle report is here.

Control Area and Feats: All warcasters have a control area which is a circle that radiates 2 x FOC from their base. In Rahn’s case that’s a radius of 16”. Only in this area can warcasters allocate focus to ‘jacks, so you need to move your ‘caster if your ‘jacks are advancing. Many spells and feats, a unique once per game mega-spell, effect this control area. A player may measure from his warcaster to any point in his control area at any stage.

Not a lot of damage done to either side so far, but Steve’s next turn would change all that. He allocated focus to the Chimera and Manticore and set about causing some mayhem. The Chimera charged the Drakhun and destroyed the horse. This left just the rider. The Mage Hunters zeroed in on the Juggernaut ‘jack and caused 15 points of damage with their crossbows (they get boosted damage rolls against warjacks) and disabled its left arm. Rahn activated next and feated. His feat is called Arcane Alignment and gives friendly spell casters +2” range on their spells and boosted attack and damage rolls for the turn. He then cast Telekinesis on the Devastator to spin it around so its back was facing the Battle Mages. The Battle Mages focus their attention on the Great Bears and the Manhunter (my assassination solo) and destroy them all. That’s the power of the feat. Ouch! The Manticore activates and puts 4 more points of damage on the Juggernaut with his Cyclone Cannon, taking out its movement.

Okay, I really need to respond before my whole army is gone. The Butcher loads up the Devastator with three focus and then he activates. He casts Full Throttle (three focus) allowing all of his ‘jacks to run, charge, slam or trample without spending focus and it also gives them boosted melee attack rolls. The Butcher shoots a Battle Mage for good measure. The Devastator activates and tramples towards Rahn. The trample is free because of Full Throttle, but uses the warjacks initial attacks, i.e. it counts as having attacked. Focus can be used to gain more attacks, so the Devastator makes three attacks at Rahn. Despite them being boosted (again because of the spell), he only connects with one causing 8 damage points. Rahn has 16 damage starting the game, so I’m only half way there. My Mechaniks run to engage the Battle Mages, in order to prevent them retaliating on their turn. Meanwhile the dismounted Drakhun does 13 points of damage to the Chimera tearing off its left arm.

It’s down to a slugfest at this stage and unfortunately for Steve his dice luck abandons him. The Mage Hunters only manage another 5 points of damage to the Juggernaut and the Battle Mages kill two of the four Mechaniks. As this is 50% lost in a single turn they must make a command check, which they pass. The Manticore manages to kill the War Dog. Rahn, loaded with focus, however only managed 14 points of damage on the Devastator. He could be in trouble next turn.

Time to finish this. I put three focus on the Devastator and activate the Butcher. He casts Full Throttle again (it isn’t an upkeep spell) and uses his feat, Blood Frenzy, which gives all models in his control area an additional die on damage rolls. The Devastator activates and does a special attack called Rain of Death where it lobs short ranged grenades. Everyone in base-to-base contact with it suffers a POW 18 blast hit! That would have finished Rahn except that the Force Field spell makes him immune to blast damage. Damn! I use a focus on the Devastator to buy an additional attack. It is boosted to hit because of Full Throttle and boosted damage because of the feat. Rahn is squished by the towering ‘jack.

The Aftermath

This was a pretty small game, but I hope it highlights some of the cooler aspects of Warmachine. It is a game of brutal damage and devastating effects, but it is pretty well balanced and no faction is considered vastly superior to any other. Steve played like a true gentleman in this game. He had a chance to finish things early on by hitting the Butcher with all of those Mage Hunter attacks instead of the Juggernaut. It would have been a much shorter battle report had he taken the easy kill, so if you suffered through the report this long you have him to thank!
Hordes is the feral cousin of Warmachine that features fantastic warbeasts and their warlock handlers. It has a completely different magic mechanic, but is fully compatible with Warmachine. Next time I’ll write about this other cutthroat game from Privateer Press. Whatever you play, remember to “play like you’ve got a pair!”.

Battle Report for Warmachine Beginners – Part 1

owen — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:00:07 +0000

The elves of Ios are angry, very angry. They believe that the magic wielded by mankind is killing their remaining god, Scyrah. The Retribution of Scyrah, once a small and outlawed rebellious sect, but now a popular movement amongst Iosans, aren’t willing to sit back and watch their gods die. Every nation of man that supports and promotes the use of magic is a legitimate target, particularly those who use magic to wage war.

The nation of Khador has been expanding their borders aggressively, having consumed the country of Llael and encroached into northern Cygnar. Their warcasters have been at the forefront of this empire building, leading massive armies to conquer their former neighbours. This activity has not gone unnoticed by the stealthy Iosans and their rapid armies have moved to intercept and assassinate these human warcasters. The Retribution of Scyrah cares little about the wars of other nations. It is the scalps of those warcasters that they seek.

The Protagonists

This battle report is aimed at giving an overview of how the mechanics of Warmachine combine to make a compelling, tactical and exciting wargame. Steve Coleman and I lined up two 25pt armies with a very simple mission – assassinate the opposing players warcaster. 25pts is a smallish game, but sufficient to show the main aspects of the game. I had my beloved Khadorans led by the walking beatstick that is the Butcher of Khardov. This warcaster lives for the sound of battle and the smell of blood. He is an unstoppable monster that can support his troops with his potent magic and push his warjacks to excel in combat. The rest of my force was comprised of two warjacks, a Juggernaut and a Devastator, a couple of small units and a couple of solos. The ‘jacks of Khador have the most formidable armour in the game also have the ability to absorb as well as dish out a lot of damage. They are typically slower than the ‘jacks of other nations, but what do you expect of constructs that are over 10 tons in weight!

Focus: this represents magical ability in Warmachine. Every warcaster has a Focus stat and this finite resource is what they use to cast spells, boost attacks and support their warjacks. It is replenished every turn, but there is never quite enough to go around!

Facing the might of Khador would be Adeptis Rahn, an arcanist beyond compare. His ability to manipulate magic and support other mages in his force is stunning. He has amazing spells to support every element of his army and blast his enemy with arcane blasts while doing so. He has one of the highest focus stats in the game, so he can put out a lot of support and/or hurt every turn. Making up the rest of Steve’s army was made up of two myrmidons (warjacks to you and me), a the much feared Mage Hunter Strike Force with Commander, a unit of Battle Mages and a couple of solos. The warjacks of the Retribution tend to be more specialist and nimble than those of Khador. They also sport an Arcantrik Field that can absorb damage before the ‘jack itself is damaged. Nifty! One of Steve’s warjacks was a light ‘jack named a Chimera. This ‘jack has a couple of nice tricks, but it also has a feature known as an arc Node. All factions (apart from Khador, doh!) have access to arc nodes that allow warcasters to bounce their spells through the ‘jack. This are very useful in keeping your ‘caster out of harms way. Remember, the mission in this game is to assassinate the opposing ‘caster.

The Game

Warmachine is usually played on a 4’ x 4’ battlefield with deployment in 10” wide on opposing sides. Steve’s Retribution force deployed between a wood and hill with the large Manticore myrmidon in the centre of his army. It was surrounded by Battle Mages who had Rahn in their midst and a Soulless Escort capable of absorbing enemy magic attacks attached. The Iosans view the phenomena of Soulless being born as a true sign that Scyrah is dying. To the left of this unit is the Chimera and beyond it is a Magister, a veteran Battle Mage. deployed. The Mage Hunters and Commander are advance deployed (up to 6” beyond the standard deployment zone) to the front and right of the rest of the force. Finally, an Archanist, a Retribution mechanic deployed beside the Manticore.

Casting Spells: Every spell has a Focus cost and this is deducted from the wascaster’s total when cast. If the spell is cast on a friendly unit then only the range needs to be checked. If it is in range it’s cast. If a spell targets an enemy the ‘caster check range and then must roll to hit. They player rolls 2D6 and adds their focus (FOC). If this total equals or exceeds the enemy’s defense (DEF) it is a hit. Spell effects are then resolved.

Across the table my red Khadorans deployed beside a hill with the warjacks up front. Just behind them was a unit of Mechaniks, the Butcher and a War Dog. The Mechaniks, as their name suggests, are adept at repairing ‘jacks in the heat of battle. The War Dog offers protection to a ‘caster through counter charging the enemy if he gets too close and increasing the ‘casters Defense stat in melee. In my previous article I mentioned the stats briefly, but I’ll go through the basics of combat when the action kicks in. On the far right flank a mounted Drakhun was ready to chase down whatever came near it. On the left flank stood the formidable Great Bears of Gallowswood, a trio of battle hardened veterans with the capacity to utterly destroy both ‘jacks and units.

Steve won the dice off, so the first Turn would go to him. He allocated one focus, from Rahn’s eight, to the Chimera to allow it to run on its activation. Warjacks function like any other unit, but they can be allocated up to three focus to allow they to run, charge, boost attacks and perform power attacks, such as slams, throws, and headbutts. Rahn cast Force Field (three focus) which allows him to control the direction of missed blast shots. He also cast Polarity Shield (two focus) on the Battle Mages which prevents them from being charged. The remaining two focus are left on Rahn and they boost his armour. He then advanced forward. The rest of his force moved rapidly forward and the Arcansist assigned one focus to the Manticore to allow it to run.

On my first turn I allocated one focus to each ‘jack and then ran most of the army forward. The Butcher walked up behind them and cast Iron Flesh (two focus), from his total of six, onto the Great Bears, which added +3 to their DEF. I was afraid of the Mage Hunters firing their crossbows through the wood at my precious (and expensive) unit. The Commander with the Mage Hunters granted them the Phantom Seeker ability allowing them to ignore line of sight when targeting. Of course I forgot they have an ability to also ignore the focus boost to armour and spells that add to DEF and armour (ARM). They are Mage Hunters after all. Doh!

On his next turn Steve had Rahn upkeep both spells. Some spells can last from one turn to another. The ‘caster must spend one focus at the start of the turn to keep a spell of this type in play. Again his army advanced up, thankfully he wasn’t in range of the Great Bears. On his left flank he moved the Chimera up to arc spells at the Drakhun. Rahn first cast Chain Blast, an offensive spell, through the arc node. He hit the Drakhun with ease. This spell has a power (POW) of 12, so Steve would normally roll 2D6, add it to the 12 and compare that to my ARM. If the total exceeds my Drakhun’s ARM it does the amount of damage it exceeds by. The Drakhun’s ARM is 19, so Steve decided to boost the damage roll giving him an extra D6. Thankfully he only rolled 9 on the 3D6 and only managed to do two points of damage. The Drakhun has ten boxes of damage. Since that wasn’t enough Steve used the Telekinesis spell to move the Drakhun 2” and spin him around. This is important as models need line of sight (LoS) to charge. They can still walk into combat, but they don’t get a movement advantage or cause more damage on their initial attack. The Magister charged the Drakhun, but failed to cause any damage. He missed with his first attack and the second just bounced off of its armour.

The Drakhun got his revenge on my turn; he spun around and smashed the Magister, but the Chimera was still lurking nearby, so his vengeance was going to be short-lived. Again the Khadorans advanced forward. The Devastator is the most heavily armoured warjack in the game so it ran right up close to the Battle Mages. It couldn’t charge them due to Polarity Shield spell. The Butcher decided to send his Obliteration spell towards the Mage Hunters. I knew it would miss as they have the Stealth ability (all ranged attacks originating from more that 5” away automatically miss), but I was hoping for a lucky deviation. Attacks with a blast template scatter when they miss, just like in Warhammer, and I was hoping for a lucky deviation. However, I forgot Force Field allowed Rahn to decide the direction of deviations in his Control Area, so he sent it harmlessly away from the Mage Hunters.

Part 2 of the battle report continues here.

Phinneus Shae is a hard man to kill!

owen — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:00:34 +0000

I’m trying to get some experience using my Privateers and I thought I’d start out with some small games using Shae. I was playing a 15pt game against Khador on Tuesday and I thought it’d be a good opportunity to try out the following list -

Captain Phinneus Shae
- Freebooter
Press Gangers (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Mr. Walls Sea Dog Crew Quartermaster
Bosun Grogspar
Doc Killingsworth
First Mate Hawk
Lord Rockbottom

This is a Tier 2 list and boy do you get a lot of miniatures for 15pts. I made my first mistake at the list construction phase. The Freebooter’s attacks are only POW 14 and the next most powerful attacks come from Shae with Blow the Man Down (POW 15) and Storm Rager cast on himself for a POW 15 melee attack. It was going to be difficult to dent Khadoran armour with that. My opponent had the Khador battle box and a unit of Widowmakers. Sorscha could immobilise much of my army as only Shae and the Freebooter would be able to shake effect.

My second mistake was made on my first turn. The Press Gangers and the Sea Dogs (because of Mr. Walls) were advance deployed with the solos as close as they could be. The mistake I made was moving the whole army forward and leaving Shae until last. He has two upkeep spells that I wanted to get out – Phantasm on the Sea Dogs and Storm Rager on Hawk. Unfortunately, my preferred targets were out of range. I moved him up and just cast Phantasm as Hawk was still out of range, but this left him behind the army when I’d prefer him to be in the middle of everything.

Anyway, the game went okay with Shae dealing most of the damage to the Khadoran ‘jacks and the infantry slowing the ‘jacks and dealing with the Widowmakers. Both armies were whittled down to pretty much the ‘caster and this is where Shae shown. He cast Storm Rager on himself and began camping focus. On a turn he upkeeps it he is DEF 17 with ARM 21. Even if you manage to knock him down he’s still DEF 17. MAT 9 and POW+S 15 is just gravy.

The game ended with Shae running into melee with Sorscha. She managed to critically freeze him, but couldn’t get through the armour. On his turn he shook the stationary and finished it.

Phinneus Shae is indeed a hard man to kill!

Owen

Talion Charter: Photographs

owen — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:00:37 +0000

There’s a complete gallery below, but first up are the recently completed Thamarite Cultists -

And Fiona the Black -

Everybody –

Owen

I am now a …

owen — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 20:09:59 +0000

No, not a toy soldier, a Press Ganger! You know, one of those guys that supports Warmachine and Hordes in their local community…

… should be fun.

Owen

Talion Charter: Complete (Video)

owen — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 16:28:47 +0000

This turned out to be a bigger painting job than expected. Because I bought a few of the miniatures already (excellently) painted I had a standard to aim for. My painting has been getting better over time, but this project really pushed me. I’ve spent significantly longer on each miniature than I have with previous armies. There are two reasons for that – the first is that I wanted to achieve a better standard and that takes time, and the second is that the pirates are all individuals. It’s hard to production line paint them like a standard unit. That said, I now have a beautifully painted army, so, no complaints! So, that’s it, my MkII project is complete (apart from maybe a ‘jack or two!).

I’ve just finished photographing the whole army, so I’ll post them later this week.

Owen

Fiona the Black and Thamarite Cultists: Work in Progress

owen — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 02:00:31 +0000

No, not the name of a terrible 1970′s soft rock band. Nope, this is the final Sea Dogs Crew unit for my Privateer army. I decided to paint them as Thamarite Cultists to complement Fiona the Black. They’re a work-in-progress, but are nearly finished. Anyway, here’s a quick video.

I’ll probably pick up one or two more ‘jacks, but that’s it for the pirates for now.

Owen

Blasted Heath – Final Game

owen — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 22:00:41 +0000

I’ve really enjoyed the Blasted Heath league as it has been a great opportunity to get to know Cryx as a faction. I painted the majority of them back in August, but hadn’t had an chance to field them too much. I’ve played seven games of various sizes against six different opponents using six different factions. All of my opponents were great fun and I enjoyed every game. Over the three weeks I’ve used three different ‘casters and have managed to go undefeated, which is nice, but not important. Having fun, that was important.

On Tuesday I played my final game of the Blasted Heath league against Eoin and his Protectorate army. We played a 75pt game with his force being led by Amon and mine by Deneghra. Of my three ‘casters Deneghra is the one I have least experience with, but I have fought against her a few times recently, so I had a good idea of what she was capable of. We played the Killbox scenario and I got to go first. I think Eoin was a little shocked at how fast the Cryx moved across the board. My intention was to use the terrain, namely the wood and pond, to my advantage by advancing my force to the right of the wood and through it. I had three opportunities to cast Ghostwalk per turn with Deneghra, the Skarlock and Deathjack. Coupled with Ghostly on the Bane Knights and Tartarus a lot of my army could ignore movement penalties for entering terrain.

I had a unit of Sea Dogs supported by Mr. Walls and Lord Rockbottom and they were possibly unit of the game. On Deneghra’s feat turn, which I dropped in turn two, they took out the Fire of Salvation (who also had Parasite cast on it) and a Revenger. They then swung around into the backfield and harried the rest of the Menites. This allowed the Bane Thralls to get stuck in and do some more ‘jack wrecking.

Seeing a Defiler spray and then arc Venom twice onto some bunched up Flameguard and Knights Exemplar was a nice moment too. Bile Thralls taking out half a unit of Zealots, a unit of Daughters and practically a full unit of Bastions was just gravy. I’m beginning to suspect I might be more of a Cryx man than a Khador man!

The ‘caster kill went to the Pistol Wraith who managed to get two turns of shooting on Amon (supported by some Pirates). It was a good game.

Owen

Building Balsa Wood Houses

owen — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:11:19 +0000

Building your own terrain is always easier than is first appears. This article will guide you through making a simple wood cabin suitable for Warmachine and Malifaux. You’ll need the following -

Materials
- Balsa Wood (3mm thick x 10cm wide x 45cm length (approx))
- Card (from a Cereal Packet will be fine)
- PVA glue
- Paints
Tools
- Sharp Craft Knife
- Ballpoint Pen (Black is best)
- Cutting Mat
- Steel Ruler
- Old Paint Brush
- Container to Mix Glue in

You can either read all of the steps below, or watch this handy video!

Step 1 Cut out a Gable End. Measure a 9cm length from the balsa wood. Mark a straight line perpendicular to the long edge. Use the steel ruler to guide the craft knife along the line. Many gentle cuts are better than a few hard ones (and are less lightly to result in loss of fingers!).

Step 2 Make a peak on the Gable End. Start by marking a point 5cm (the wall will be 5cm tall) up the 9cm side. Do the same on the opposite site. Now mark a point 5cm along the 10cm wide top. This will be the peak of the roof. Draw straight lines between the 10cm marks and the peak. Again use the rule and knife to remove these triangles.

Step 3 Make another Gable End. Repeat steps 1 and 2. You now have both Gable Ends done and the hardest bit is done!

Step 4 Make the Long Walls. Mark and cut a 12cm length from the Balsa wood. Now cut this 12cm x 10cm piece lengthways to make two walls 5cm x 12cm. You should now have all of the walls of the building.

Step 5 Make the Structural Supports. If you attempt to glue the edges of walls directly they will be quite fragile. One option would be to make card supports (either inside or outside) by bending a piece of appropriately sized card through 90° If you are using them card on the outside of the building you may want to paint it up to look like metal. Punching out a few card rivets would help with the look.

The option I used for the building pictured above can be achieved pretty simply. I cut a 5cm piece from the balsa (making a 5cm x 10cm piece). By cutting along the grain (which is very easy to do) I cut a 5mm (i.e. 0.5cm) strip. I make three other pieces so there is one for each corner. These will be internal supports. The building above has external ones too,
but they aren’t necessary for support.

Step 6 Score the Wooden Beams. This can be done after the building is assembled, but it’s easier to do now. Using the ballpoint pen mark the wobbly edges to wooden planks by drawing straight lines freehand along the grain of the balsa wood. Roughly parallel lines about 1cm apart look good. Do this on each of the four pieces of wood.

Step 7 Assemble the Basic Structure. Start by gluing the supports to the inside of the long walls. They should be positioned 3mm from the short edge, parallel to that edge. There should be two supports on each long wall, located at the far ends of the wall. Once the glue has set a little brush glue down the right angle made by the support and the wall. The Gable End will connect here. Be careful not to use too much glue as any visible glue will effect the final paint job. Glue all four corners.

Step 8 Making the Roof. Measure the length of the fall of the roof, or work it out using Hypothenuses theorem √52+42 = ~6.5cm. You’ll need a piece of card about 13cm x 12cm in size. Bend it down the middle and glue it to the top of the structure. Take another piece of card and cut a load of approx 1cm x 1cm tiles. Starting at the bottom of the roof glue these in rows, with a slight overlap between tiles. For the top cut a 12cm x 3cm strip. Divide it lengthwise and cut 0.5-1cm cuts along it. Glue this to the crest of the roof.

Step 9 Details. Doors and windows are pretty easy. Cut 3mm strips from a piece of balsa and cut them to length for a door frame. Cut a small piece for the door handle and glue all of the pieces in place. For a window, cut a piece of card the required size and them make a frame for the window from balsa.

Step 10 Painting. I undercoated the house with black spray, then painted it brown and highlighted with a lighter colour. I drybrushed the roof with a dark grey and that’s it!

So, that turned out longer than expected, but trust me, it’s cheap easy to build your own balsa houses. Go on, give it a go.

Owen

Shattered Grounds – Multi-player League Games

owen — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:55:17 +0000

Yesterday was a funny kind of Father’s Day… I didn’t see my daughter at all! She was staying with her grandparents on Saturday night and I was off playing little soldiers when she was brought home and put to bed. That said, it was still an awesome day.

I played two multi-player games for the Blasted Heath season in the Shattered Grounds league. There are two options when it comes to multi-player games – King of the Hill and Unlikely Alliance. The first is a free-for-all and the second is a cooperative game. If you’re playing in the league both are worth looking at as they reward the extra organisation with extra league points. If you’re not in the league then they are worth looking at because they are just damn good fun!

King of the Hill

This scenario should be pretty familiar to most players. You win by being the last ‘caster standing or the first ‘caster to get 3 control points. Warcasters/warlocks are awarded one control point for being on the central hill at the end of their turn (from the second turn onwards).

Our game was a four-way 25pt battle for the hill with Grissel, Xerxis, Venethrax and Goreshade (me) all competing for the win. Grissel fell early, so the game was only going to be contested by the remaining three. I played a very cautious game, mostly because of Xerxis Bile Thralls nearby that could seriously dent my army. We swapped Bile Thralls and managed to take out a few Skorne Swordsmen with them too. Venethrax made the first move for the hill and was quickly joined by Xerxis.

They traded blows, but didn’t wipe out each other. I saw an opportunity, but knew it needed to stick as Venethrax was on 2 control points. I moved Goreshade up, feated and sent the Bane Thralls to finish the Cryxian ‘caster. Xerxis had an awesome turn and managed to clear out six Bane Thralls – it was something to behold. He was now sitting on 2 control points. My turn came around and this had to be it. I positioned my Mechanithralls out of the way and charged Goreshade in. Smack, transfer, smack – game over. Goreshade wins.

The nice thing about this game is that all players get league points for playing the game equal to the game size, plus the bonus points (5pts each in this case). The winner gets the bonus points on top of that too.

Unlikely Alliance

This scenario is epic, not because there is anything particularly special about it, but because there are likely to be an awful lot of miniatures on the battlefield! It’s simply a ‘caster kill scenario with two players on each team. We had 50pts per player, so that was 100pts a side. It was truly magnificent to behold. We randomised which players were on which team and it ended up that myself and Anthony (Cryx and Cryx – sweet!) would play Skorne and Trollbloods (talk about an unlikely alliance!).

The thing I enjoyed most about this game was the talk-out-loud tactics that each team employed to coordinate what they did. For example, on turn three Anthony and I decided we’d pop both Deneghra’s and Asphyxious’ feats to try and take out Xerxis. This required positioning arc nodes, getting Hellfire off with a Skarlock to try and clear an Agonizer, moving Deneghra up, feating, casting more Hellfires, getting Asphyxious into position, casting more Hellfires (through a different arc node), feating and casting yet more Hellfires. That’s a little tricky to coordinate when there’s just one brain controlling the army, but try it with two brains! The great (an possibly horrific thing for Xerxis’ controller, Harry) thing is that Anthony and I needed to talk through that in advance and then communicate what we were doing through the turn. Harry saw (or at least heard) it coming, but could do nothing about it. The writing was on the wall for Grissel and despite a valiant attempt the might of two Cryx ‘caster (with fantastic synergies) was too much for the Trollbloods to overcome.

Not only was this a fantastic game, but everyone was a winner as far as the league was concerned. The 50pt per faction is actually counted as game two rows lower, e.g. 100pts. All participants get at least 8pts and the winners get 12pts. Nice!

I netted 19 points yesterday. A pretty cool Father’s Day present.

Owen

Two Beers, Two Games, Two Wins

owen — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:00:09 +0000

I got my first two Blasted Heath league games under my belt tonight. Harry came out to the house to pit his Skorne against my Cryx. I decided I’d give Cryx a go in the league as they are my third faction (behind Khador and Legion) and they haven’t received a whole lot of attention since I painted them up last year. It was tempting to run with the new shiny that are my Privateers, but that would have relegated Cryx to my fourth faction for sure!

Harry and I played two games this evening (over a couple of beers) – a 20pt game and a 35pt game. I decided to use Goreshade in the first game. He was accompanied by Deathjack, a Slayer, six Mechanithralls and six Bane Thralls. I’m not going to give a blow by blow other than to say I played a very cagey game and seeing Deathjack trample a complete unit of Swordsmen and later charge eMakeda (and crush) was a beautiful thing (photographed right).

Game two went well too. This time I used pAsphyxious supported by a couple of Arc Nodes, Deathjack, Bane Lord Tartarus, Bane Thralls, Bane Knights, Mechanithralls and a Skarlock. I had the opportunity about half way through the game to attempt an assassination by arcing Hellfire onto a furyless eMakeda. I hit her and did 10 damage. Asphyxious feated for 7 more focus and I rolled a boosted attempt to hit again. I didn’t get the 8 required! eMakeda survived another turn or two, but after Deathjack took out a Titan and the Mechanithralls reduced a Rhinodon to one wound the writing was on the wall for her.

Both games were great fun and Harry’s an excellent opponent. It’s a good start to the league for me and my attempts to get to know Cryx better. I hope I’m not relying on Deathjack too much, though. He’s fantastic, but at 12 points he’s pricey. Anyway, hopefully I can continue the winning trend tomorrow evening.

Owen

Malifaux Army Builder

owen — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:50:54 +0000

Malifaux crews are pretty easy to put together as there are so few models in each game. That said, I stumbled upon this handy online Crew Builder. I’ve only given it a limited test, but it seems to work well. It allows you to add models up to a soul stone limit and it automatically calculates the unused soul stones for your master’s total.

Owen