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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’ll write a painting guide when I have the energy. I just completed this guy in a four hour painting marathon. I probably put three hours painting into it before today, not to mention the building time! I think he’s turned out pretty well. I’m looking forward to seeing my opponents’ faces when I put him down on the battlefield!
Owen
PS The base isn’t quite finished. That can wait until tomorrow!
After spending so long building this miniature I finally started applying some paint to it this evening. It really is huge. I’ll write a painting guide when it’s finished, but for now here’s a side-by-side shot with Iron Lich Asphyxious. It gives a sense of just how large this miniature is!
I got my first two 
