Warmachine and Hordes

In the last year the majority of the games I’ve played have been of Warmachine and Hordes, and I definitely consider it to be my main game. I currently have Khador, Mercenaries (mostly Privateers), Cryx and Legion of Everblight factions. Here’s an overview of my collection of models -

Oh yeah, I have a proxied Circle Orboros force too! As you can see I pretty much have everything painted that I own. In the last year the Mercenaries have seen quite a lot added to them, as have Legion. To Khador and Cryx I’ve added the odd model here and there.

In terms of play time Khador and Legion are still my primary factions and I think that will continue, though the Mercenaries are getting a decent amount of play. I’ve done well in competitive play this year with all three of those factions, so I think my standard of play is pretty good. I’ve also played a lot of campaign games, both physically and over VASSAL. I’m really enjoying Warmachine and Hordes and that is set to continue.

In the coming year I’d like to do a couple of things from a painting and modelling perspective – add the Gun Carriage and some more infantry to Khador is one of my main priorities. For the Gun Carriage I’d love to create a diorama base. I have some ideas – more on that in the next month or so! Legion is ticking over quite well. I see myself adding just a few bits to Legion when Domination comes out, maybe Kallus’ character beast and the Legionnaire’s UA. I’d also like to add some models to Cryx to do Skarre’s new theme force from a recent No Quarter. I don’t plan on expanding the Mercenaries this year, though I can seem myself adding a Freebooter warjack to complete the Pirate ‘jacks!

From a gaming perspective I’d like to increase my Press Ganger activity – family life has been pretty hectic with Ciarán’s birth this year, but I’ll hopefully have more time in the coming year. I plan to run the Journeyman Slow Grow League this side of Christmas as well as running a couple of tournaments. I’m going to keep up the campaign play as it’s just silly fun! I’ll probably expand the ANNIHILATION system next year, though I’m not sure what direction to take it in yet. One other thing I’d like to do is to reflect on how much MkII game time my Warcasters and Warlocks have seen. I definitely have my favourites, but I need to consciously try to use my less competitive models.

Next up in the audit: Malifaux!

Owen

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• Drake MacBain
  • Buccaneer
  • Nomad
• Alexia Ciannor & the Risen (Alexia and 9 Risen Grunts)
• Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
• Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 9 Grunts)
  • Mr. Walls Sea Dog Crew Quartermaster
  • 3 Sea Dog Crew Riflemen
• Bosun Grogspar
• Doc Killingsworth
• First Mate Hawk
• Lord Rockbottom
• Gorman di Wulfe, Rogue Alchemist

Now that MacBain is painted this list is ready to field. I think Alexia is an interesting addition to the army. The Sea Dogs are already pretty hard to kill, but when they do finally fail a 4+ tough roll (Rockbottom’s coins and Doc) a Risen is created! MacBain’s Fortune spell will probably be on the Sea Dogs (good for either their ranged or melee attacks) and Fail Safe will be on the Nomad, making it quite durable.

MacBain’s feat is pretty nice – It’ll probably affect 9-10 models (after the upkeeps are paid for), so that’s all of the solos if needs be. Another tempting target would be a few Sea Dogs blocking charge lanes! No knockdown from Bosun Grogspar will be a nice synergy with the feat.

High armour is my only real problem with this list, but Aiyana and Gorman can help with that. Aiyana can help with Incorporeal too. That said, I’ve no real solution to Stealth other than Rift and being tougher than my stealthy prey.

I’d love to squeeze another heavy in to this army to make good use of Energizer, but it’d mean dropping the Buccaneer and a couple of other bits. The knockdown range of the Buccaneer after Energizer is just silly!

I’m hoping to play this with timed turns, but with so many grunts that might be folly!

Owen

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Owen

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• Lesson 1: Synergy
  There are an awful lot of interdependencies between the solos and Sea Dog Crew units, so you need to plan out what you want the achieve with them. The Sea Dogs are a pivotal unit and you want them to be mobile, hit hard and survive.

  Mobility is the area Mr. Walls helps out most. He gives them Pathfinder and +2 movement on the mini feat. Coupled with Shae’s movement enhancements this can get the Sea Dogs moving amazingly quickly. Shae’s feat, Godspeed, allows everyone to move up 3". This out of sequence move can get the army that bit closer to the enemy. His Coup de Main spell gives the whole army (or at least those starting a charge in his control area) another movement enhancement on the charge.

  Hitting Hard is the realm of Rockbottom and Hawk. Object of Desire coupled with Gang ensure the Sea Dogs can throttle troops. Rockbottom again can again help here with his coins. Mr. Walls helps a little with his once-per-game mini feat. This feat does several things, but in terms of hitting harder the Sea Dogs become Fearless and cause Terror. The former can really help when they’re going up against an Abomination or Terror causer.

  Survivability is primarily the role of Lord Rockbottom and Doc Killingsworth. Rockbottom can grant them tough and Doc makes that on a 4+. Bosun Grogspar has a role there too as he can ensure the Sea Dogs closeby cannot be knocked down. Shae’s Phantasm spell can help the survivability of anything it is cast on.

  There are other synergies worth mentioning. Dirty Meg, as a ‘jack marshal, can obviously take some of the burden of ‘jack control from Shae. This can free up some focus for other uses. Dougal MacNaile is someone I don’t have, but he can obviously enhance the accuracy of any ranged weapon. I’m sure there are more synergies, but these are the ones I use a lot!

• Lesson 2: It all starts with deployment…
  This is true for all armies, but the Privateers need to deploy with their synergies and potential mobility in mind. For example, with the Press Gangers and Sea Dogs (with Mr. Walls) advance deploying you have to ensure they don’t outpace Shae (specifically if he intends to cast Phantasm on one of the units). I tend to deploy Shae to the front of his deployment zone with a lane for him to move through. I usually activate him first on my first turn, sometimes even popping his feat for a little extra movement!

  Likewise the solos need to be placed for best effect. Will Hawk be supporting the Sea Dogs offensive output with Object of Desire? Or will she be running up a flank to attempt an assassination run? Similarly, you need to pay attention to Lord Rockbottom’s ability to give out coins in the first couple of turns. Doc and Grogspar should be in close proximity to the Tough infantry (Press Gangers and Sea Dogs with a coin from Rockbottom) and solos.

  Don’t forget the ranged elements of your army – the Mariner, Commodore and Deck Gun (which I don’t use!). They may need lanes to shoot through. The Commodore in particular is a great denial piece and keeping your own troops out of it’s way is important!



• Lesson 3: Activation order and Charge/Fire Lanes
  This is the lesson that has taken me longest to get right. The basic rule is solos/Shae first, troops second. You need to think about what buffs, either offensive or defensive your troops will need. For example, I tend to think about what Shae is doing first, then Rockbottom, then the ‘defensive’ solos, then Hawk and finally the troops. Obviously the ‘jacks need to be considered here too.

  The reason this is important is that you want the units to have the buffs they need to hit with the maximum power. Rockbottom and Hawk help the troops to hit harder. Shae helps them to move faster (feat and Coup de Main) as does Mr. Walls. Doc and Grogspar increase survivability. The problem with all of this potential is that it is very easy to have units trip over each other! When they get in each others’ way they end up blocking charge lanes and fire lanes. This can be very frustrating and limits the punch, which can be formidable, of the army. Practice is the best way to mitigate this, but thinking about how you plan to fight your opponent will help – do you want to use Tough to ride out their offense (risky!)? Do you want to hit them with ranged attacks? If so, which ones? Is it all about the Sea Dogs’ charge?

  … and hundreds of other permutations.

I don’t claim to be the master of the Privateers, but I’ve learnt a few lessons and hopefully you’ve found them useful. Just writing them down is useful for me (and helps my poor head)!

Owen

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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

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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

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

Owen

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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.

Owen

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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

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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

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• 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

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And Fiona the Black -

Everybody –

Owen

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

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

Owen

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The Shae Tiers are in No Quarter #30 and have already been implemented on the Forward Kommander Army Builder. Here’s a quick 35pt list I put together -

• Captain Phinneus Shae
  • Mariner
  • Commodore Cannon & Crew (Commodore and 3 Crewmen)
• Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
• Press Gangers (Leader and 5 Grunts)
• Sea Dog Crew (Leader and 9 Grunts)
• Mr. Walls Sea Dog Crew Quartermaster
• 3 Sea Dog Crew Riflemen
• Bosun Grogspar
• Dirty Meg
  • Buccaneer
• Doc Killingsworth
• First Mate Hawk
• Lord Rockbottom

This is a Tier 3 list. I get all of the solos I want at a bargain basement points cost. My army will be lightning fast in the first turn game and I get a better chance of winning the starting roll. Sweet!

It’s good to be a pirate!

Owen

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She’s a pretty easy minature to paint. I started with the flesh – Tallaran Flesh, two watered down Ogryn Flesh washes and then added progressive amounts of Elf Flesh to Tallaran Flesh. Next up I painted the apron and blouse with Khemri Brown. I lightened the apron with Snakebite Leather and then added Bleached Bone for a highlight. The blouse is Bleached Bone over the brown and then highlights with progressive amounts of Skull White added. Her trousers were based Shadow Grey and I added Space Wolves Grey for the highlights. They were washed with Asurmen Blue. Her hair is Snakebite Leather mixed with Khador Red Highlight (an orange colour). They’re all of the main colours. Everything (apart form the trousers) received a 1:1:1 wash of water, Devlan Mud and Badab Black. It makes her look appropriately grimy.

I now have a 35pt force painted. I’d rather not field this many solos at 35pts, but until the Press Gangers are completed this is the only fully painted Talion Charter force I can field at this size.

Owen

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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

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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

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I picked up the Commodore today, so along with the Press Gangers that will round out 35pts of Privateers. I’ll probably tackle Fiona the Black and Dirty Meg then, and will consider adding another mercenary ‘jack.

Owen

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Mr. Walls is next on the painting bench.

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As with Holt (and several of the Privateers) the base still needs some ‘liquid’ and then a matt varnish.

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The base still needs some ‘liquid’ and then the whole miniature needs a varnish.

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Lady Aiyana is also on the painting table. I’ve started her by doing colours that match Holt at the same time as I was painting them on him, but I’ll wait until he’s finished before I tackle the rest.

Owen

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Make sure the base is cleaned of mold lines and venting, then start off by gluing the coin to the base. Use the hobby knife to cut a 1cm wide strip that is about 2.5/3cm long. If you cut along the grain the knife will go though it like butter. 3mm is a little thick for the wood, so take the blade and use it to slice the strip in half. This gives a rough finish and it perfect for the exposed wood. Make as many strips as you need to finish the base.

Glue the strips to the coin and cut a small piece of balsa to represent a spot for tying up boats. You could leave it there, but it might be worth coating the wood in heavily watered down PVA glue (1:1) to toughen it slightly. If you’re doing a ship deck you should cut the wood so that it looks like planks and fit them inside the raised edges of the base.

Owen

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