Here’s a photo from the middle of a great game I played this week -

My Marauder had used Combo Smite to slam Deathjack towards Tartarus and the Bane Thralls. Unfortunately I only rolled 1″ on the slam, but that’s another story. Anthony, my savvy opponent, saw the opportunity to cause a little mayhem. He loaded Deathjack with focus and used Shake Effect to overcome the knockdown. On his activation Deathjack trampled across the pikeman and wardog (who made his tough check) to make contact with the Juggernaut. He then proceeded to almost wreck it with additional attacks (bought with focus). Beautiful.

I remember when ‘jacks used to get bogged down completely by infantry. Thankfully that’s a lot harder to do now.

Owen

The Khadoran Avalanche…

Irusk’s attempt to blunt the early enemy advance had been less than successful. To add insult to injury he had lost the only Devastator in his force to a rare moment of impetuousness. Severius had brought confusion to the Khadoran ranks, something Irusk was not accustomed to and had managed to sieze the high ground. The first battle had not gone well.

Thankfully Kommander Sorscha had more success. Her army had halted the advance of the religious zealots and managed to deal a lot of damage to the opposing army. She had done all this with no loss to her own troops. This was becoming a small war and every loss would be felt dearly. She had done well.

With the momentum back in his beloved Khador’s favour it was his turn to deal damage to the enemy. Severius was again trying to push forward on his damne crusade. Now was the time to bring the Khadoran avalanche to bear. These Menites would have to retreat of be buried by it’s might.

With a win apiece things were close. I was marginally ahead in the campaign points and had sustained slightly fewer losses. Things start to hot up with Game 3 which is a 35pt game played using the Killing Field scenario. I had a win from the last game so I could nominate one unit to gain Advance Deployment. Peter’s Protectorate of Menoth army was led by Epic Severius as in the first game and I had Irusk commanding my force. I’m hoping to avenge Irusk’s loss from the campaign opener.

Game 3: 15pt / Killing Field Scenario

Peter’s force comprised a unit of Bastions, a unit Zealots and Monolith Bearer, a Choir, a Vassal, the Blessing of Vengeance, a Revenger and a Templar and was led by Epic Severius. My army was commanded by Irusk and contained a Marauder, a Juggernaut, a full unit if Iron Fang Pikemen and UA, a unit of Mechaniks, a unit of Greylords, the Great Bears, a War Dog and a Drakhun (with dismount). It was a toss up between the Great Bears and the IFP for my bonus advance deploy unit, but I opted for the IFP.

Killing Field has three objectives marked along the centre line and players receive a point at the end of their turn for each point they hold. The first to 7 points wins.

I had my IFP and Great Bears deployed on the left to contest that objective marker. The bulk of the rest of my army was in in the centre. Irusk cast Iron Flesh on the Great Bears and Superiority on the Juggernaut (which was upkept until the last turn). The advance deployed IFP charged up (through rough terrain) to take the left hand objective. The Juggernaut moved towards the right hand objective with the Mechaniks following close behind.

The Greylords moved up behind them. Meanwhile the War dog moved up behind Irusk and the Drakhun moved out in front of him. Opposite this main part of the Khadoran force stood the Templar, Vassal, Choir and eSeverius. Across from the IFP and Great Bears was a Revenger and a load of Zealots. I was confident that I could keep that flank, but my confidence would be short lived…

The Zealots moved up cautiously as did the Revenger. It arced Influence onto a couple of IFP and had them kill their comrades. On my turn I saw a chance to charge the Revenger with Great Bears. Unfortunately only one could make it in. His dished out a load of damage, but the bounce back pushed him out of melee range. Severius responded by arcing everything he could at the Great Bears and IFP. This coupled with the Zealots’ bombs wiped out the Great Bears and decimated the IFP.

On the right things weren’t looking a whole lot better. The Bastions advanced forward to take the objective on that side and the Blessing of Vengeance moved up to arc spells towards the advancing Khadorans. I had little to realistically counter them, so when the opportunity presented itself the Juggernaut moved into the arc node and threw it towards the Bastions. Unfortunately the throw went a little long and it landed behind them. The Greylords moved up to spray the Bastions, dealing some damage and then the Mechaniks ran between them and the Bastions.

In the middle the Marauder slammed into the Templar and put it on its ass. Unfortunately it only went back 1″. A few more inches and it would have been an unpleasant surprise for Severius! While the Templar was down the Drakhun charged in (with Battle Lust cast on it) to deal a load of damage. The War Dog ran forward to make Severius second guess his movements. Irusk moved up and popped his feat primarily to protect the warriors on the right flank. With my warcaster, a warjack and a Drakhun in close proximity Severius was under real pressure.

On the left the remaining IFP charged the Revenger and nearly totalled it. I sneakily left the standard bearer on the objective. At this point it was 4:1 to me. Peter responded by Hex Blasting Irusk for only a small bit of damage and then feating, hoping to pit my army against me. He began to advance one of my Greylords into a position to spray Irusk, but I opted to free strike him. Poor dice rolls conspired to ensure that that was all the feat really did. The Bastions charged the Juggernaut and the troopers on the right. They dealt some damage to the ‘jack, but tough rolls and misses meant the majority of the troops survived. The Templar stood up and moved to engage the Marauder. The Choir charged the mutt killing him.

Things were going south quickly. The flanks were collapsing and Peter was soon going to start picking up control points. I slammed the Templar back again, but failed to take it out. The troops an Juggernaut on the left took swings at the Bastions, but didn’t do enough to kill them. Having kept all of his focus he moved into a position to shoot Severius. Two boosted shots later and he was down. Game 3 to Khador.

Peter: Looking at the scenario for Game 3 I was fairly confident that I could win it. The combination of a large control area and Sevvy’s upkeep spell that gave an extra attack and damage dice seemed like they put me in a great position. Then I realised the spell had a range of self and things started to look a little bit shaky.

My plan was to try and contest all three of the objectives, so I had a Templar in the middle with beat back to shift things off the marker, and two Revengers with their repulsor shields to help keep things away from them. Zealots and Bastions were stationed on each flank as they could act without focus.

Of course, the plan did require me getting to the objectives first which just wasn’t to be. Owen got first turn, plus the bonus from the last game meant he could advance deploy a unit. Then Inhospitable Ground went up and I was going to be finding it very difficult to get into the middle of the table without setting myself up to be charged and destroyed.

In the end I took a chance at an assassination and left Sevvy out in the open and was punished for it, but I did take a few positives away from the game. Getting rid of the Great Bears was just fun, and clearing out a good chunk of Iron Fangs will hopefully limit the amount Owen can play outside his control area (I’ll quite happily send a unit of Bastions against a marshalled jack). I think the most important thing is that I only lost one choir member in the whole game, so I’ve now got lots of infantry choices for the final game meaning I can cover a lot more area than the High Reclaimer’s control area.

Owen: Wow, that was a tough game. Losing the Great Bears and pretty much all of the Iron Fangs is really going to hurt in the next game. Failing to take out the Templar and the Revenger was disappointing, but taking out Severius was quite nice! Irusk is a great scenario ‘caster, but when he needs to finish things he’s more than able. An outcome of the game is that Irusk has developed a bond with both of his ‘jacks.

My losses are starting to mount up. I can field a viable force for the last game, but it is going to be ‘jack heavy. This win puts Khador in the driving seat, but everything is still left to play for. I’m really looking forward to Game 4; the empire will either send the Menites packing convincingly or the Protectorate will gain a toe hold in southern Khador.

Owen

Update Game 4 can be found here.

The front of the final version of the Carnivean’s MkII card (previewed here) has revealed something quite nice – it’s Talons are now Open Fists.

Sweet! I feel a little better about the dodgy win I pulled against Lenny a while ago.

Owen

I’ve always been a big fan of Games Workshop’s Epic game. I’ve owned pretty much all of its incarnations over the years and currently have large Blood Angels and Eldar armies, but what does that have to do with Warmachine and Hordes. Well, Epic is for representing large scale battles with a single assault between a couple of formations in Epic being the equivalent of a whole game of Warhammer 40,000 (a game I’ve never been able to like). Epic brings a grander perspective to a battle than just the small scale clashes that occur between platoons. In some ways Flames of War has a similar perspective to representing battles.

Warmachine and Hordes are more than just skirmish games, but they certainly aren’t designed to scale to represent larger battles. That’s not a criticism, I love the fact that an individual warjack can double-handed throw an opposing model and aim it at an important target. Trying to represent that at a larger scale would bog things down. If you’ve ever played a 100pt Warmachine/Hordes game you know how things start to slow down as the time between turns gets longer. Epic Armageddon is about the movement of whole armies. Instead of being concerned about the movements of individual troopers you control larger formations of 30+ troopers (in six strips of five). They are represented at the 6mm scale, i.e. an human sized trooper is about 6mm tall. To alleviate the time between turns formations are (more-or-less) activated alternatively allowing the commander to react to events as they unfold on the battle field in a very fluidic manner.

How would this be great for Warmachine/Hordes? Since Superiority Privateer Press have been trying to given an impression of the scale of war in the Iron Kingdoms. 35pt and 50pt games are almost the ubiquitous standard and they are much closer to a skirmish game than a full blown strategic battle. The Forces of Warmachine books describe grand armies of hundreds of thousands of soldiers. Imagine playing a 1000pt game of Epic Warmachine with 3-4 warcasters on the field surrounded by 15-20 ‘jacks and large formations of troops, artillery and cavalry and you start to get an idea of what I’m talking about. This Epic scale would require a different rule set and it would be a challenge to represent the power of warcasters at this scale, but I think it would make for a great game. Imagine replaying the assault on Northguard in its entirety! How about trying to represent thousands of Khadorans moving into the outskirts of a city like Point Bourne? Hell, I want to play a game that looks like the cover of the Warmachine MkII rulebook!

C’mon Privateer Press, how about a strategic level game for the Iron Kingdoms?

Owen

What You’ll Need

• An old CD
• A small piece of card
• Some air-drying clay
• Some sand
• PVA Glue
• Flock
• Paint
• Black Spray
• Modelling Knife

Making the Crater

1. Score the CD using the modelling knife and then glue a small piece of card over the centre hole.
2. Create a doughnut (or donut if you’re from the USA) of air-drying clay and place it on the CD. Smooth the edges into a peaked ring. Leave this to dry for about 24 hours.
3. Glue the dried clay to the CD (even after scoring the CD the clay will not adhere well by itself). Coat the piece in watered down PVA and cover in sand. Leave to dry for a couple of hours.
4. Paint the piece to match your wargames table. Heavily watered down earth colours work well. When this is dry carefully spray the centre of the crater from about 45cm (1½’) directly above. Don’t spray too much. Dry brush this area with a grey paint.
5. Sparingly flock near the edges.

I made five of these in less than an hours assembly and painting time and they make for a great pieces of terrain. We usually count them as rough terrain for all models and providing concealment to models in the within the terrain or in an 1″ of an intervening edge.

Owen

The water tower and coal store terrain project distracted me a little and progress on the Commodore was slower than expected, but here it is now.

I received about 15 pirates (non-Privateer Press) from Ugo and they are fantastic sculpts. I’ve cleaned off a few Press Gangers and some of the models I received, so they are next on my painting list. They will bring my Privateer force to 35pts. I’ll use the additional models Ugo sent as another Sea Dog Crew unit for my jump to 50pts. I will probably add another ‘jack too!

Owen

Privateer Press have released their final PDF of the Hordes MkII model rules before the official release later this year. This is not the final word on Hordes MkII and we will not have that until the books are released. I had a look at the Legion of Everblight in this release and compared it against the 29th January release. The changes are mostly pretty minor, with a couple of spell changes and an adjusted feat being the highlights. Here are the differences I could see -

• eLylyth lost Lock the Target and gained Pursuit
• pThagrosh had the wording of Mutagenesis expanded
• eThagrosh lost the Elite Cadre
• Rhyas had the wording of Dash changed. Rhyas now also benefits from +1 Speed of the spell. It is strange that she is referred to by name in the spell text (i.e. not “this model”).
• Saeryn’s feat just got better. The non-magical caveat has been removed. She lost Sunder Spirit and gained Hellfire.
• Shredder gained Snacking
• Raek’s animus changed to Shadow Shift from Shadow Stalk
• Scather Crew ranged attack now causes Corrosion Damage

That’s all I spotted. Let me know if I missed anything.

Owen

After seeing this excellent video on the Iron Kingdoms at War blog I decided I’d dig up a few supplies and make my own water tower. With ‘jacks being used in everyday labour in the IK setting I decided a store of coal would also be useful.

The tube I used is wider than a Pringles tube (I can’t remember the specific brand) and I cut it in half to make the two towers. I used more-or-less exactly the techniques described above.

The coal is decorative stones mixed with PVA glue (and a small amount of water) and place on the top of the tower. I should have photographed a miniature for scale, but they are 6.5″-7″ tall and about 4″ in diameter.

I made a couple of minor mistakes (both of which are visible in the coal store photo). I should have undercoated the tubes black before sticking on the coffee stirers as the colourful artwork is slightly visible in places and near impossible to get a brush (or spray) at. The other mistake was not mixing black paint (or Gesso maybe) into the ‘coal’. Again it was a pain to undercoat.

Those small issues aside I think they turned out pretty well.

Owen

Gesso? What’s that? It’s the stuff that painters often use to prepare a canvas before applying paints to it. It comes in a variety of different colours, well at least white, black and grey, and is itself a water soluble acrylic. So, why would you use this stuff and not a spray? One word – consistency.

I find that sprays are prone to inconsistency due to varying climatic conditions and potentially over-spraying. I do most of my spraying in my shed (workshop) which can get pretty cold and is a dampish place. In winter it is too cold to spray effectively most of the time, so rather than just putting up with grainy or misty spray I decided to look for an alternative. That’s when a friend recommended Gesso. There are several different brands, but Liquitex came recommended, so that’s what I picked up.

(The models above are shiny as they are still drying. Gesso dries matt.)

Using Gesso is not for the faint hearted. It’s a gloopy substance that looks like it should never be put near a finely sculpted miniature. I water it down slightly, but as it goes on it still seems to obscure their details horribly. Here’s where a little faith is needed. As it dries it clings tightly to the detail. It dries in a few hours, but 24 hours is the recommendation. All of the detail is crisp and sharp and I find the process to be more reliable than spraying. The coverage is anywhere you can get a brush and the finish is a tough undercoat that will easily take your paints.

Anyway – that’s a long winded post to say, “Try Gesso, it’s great!”.

Owen

A saltier sea dog you won’t meet anywhere else…

I sculpted bases for the Commodore and its crew last night. I’ll clean off the miniatures and attach them today (hopefully). I got a text message from Ugo yesterday to say that he found twelve pirate miniatures (including a Goblin pirate!) during a Spring clean. He’s posting them to me, so I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in the box.

So, here’s the 35pt painting checklist I set for myself back in January -

• Captain Phinneus Shae
• Buccaneer
• Dirty Meg *
• Mariner *
• Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
• Press Gangers (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 9 Grunts)
• 2 Sea Dog Crew Riflemen
• Mr. Walls Sea Dog Crew Quartermaster
• Bosun Grogspar
• Doc Killingsworth
• First Mate Hawk
• Lord Rockbottom

That’s just leaves Dirty Meg and some Press Gangers to do from the original list. The Commodore has now also made it to the painting list. I think it’s time to start thinking about my 50pt army. I’d love another heavy ‘jack and I think more Sea Dogs would be great.

Owen