Doubles write up Part I

The doubles is a bit of fun and I really enjoyed it last year so relished at the opportunity to go this year.  Luke and I teamed up, myself using my usual pSevvy 35 point list, whilst Luke took a themed tier 4 eKruger list.  Our exact forces were as follows:

Kruger the Stormlord                +5        Grand Scrutator Severius          +6

*Pureblood Warpwolf                9        *Blessing of Vengeance              7

* Warpwolf Stalker                  10        *Vanquisher                               8

Tharn Ravagers (max)                 6        Avatar of Menoth                     11

*Tharn Ravagers Chieftain          2        Choir of Menoth (min)                2

Tharn Ravagers (max)                 6        Exemplar Errants (min)               5

Lord of the Feast                        4        *Exemplar Errants UA               2

Tharn Ravagers White Mane       3        Temple Flameguard (min)           4

                                                            Vassal of Menoth                       2

Reserves:

Shadowhorn Satyr                      7        Exemplar Vengers (min)              7

Some photographs of our doubles army:

Luke's stunning Circle army led by eKruger

eKruger and Pureblood Warpwolf

Nick's Menoth

Nick's Menoth army led by pSevvy

Our doubles list wasn’t particularly optimised to work cohesively together, something we were aware of, but decided that we’d rather just play what we enjoyed win or loose.  As the event approached and the various nasty combinations began to be unfolded over the internet forums we felt that perhaps we should have colluded more, but in all honesty just having a laugh was our main goal!

The tournament was played using the beta Steamroller 2012 scenarios and ‘Death-clock’ time limit set to 75mins per team, if time expires then you loose.  Win conditions were scenario victory and double caster kill.

Below is a series of battle reports for the first day with a few photos of our opponents armies:

Game 1

Opponents:       Phil and Gav (Gatormen - Barnabas and Skorne - Xerxis)

Mission:            A flag too far (flank scenario)

Photographs:

Phil's Bloody Barnabas

Phil's Gatormen and warbeasts

Gav's Xerxis and Caterphract bodyguard

Gav's Xerxis led Skorne army

We were informed of the missions and our first round opponents in advance and Luke and I decided that as Luke had the faster army his forces would ‘attack’ and basically try and score scenario points, whereas my slower forces would advance up and defend the enemy scoring flags, this was actually a decent strategy in hind sight.

We went second in this game, but chose a slightly more favourable board edge, the first turn was pretty much manoeuvring as usual.  However on the second turn things heated up, of note the Vanquisher set alight 5 Gatormen in a shallow water feature – yes highly bizarre, but fire doesn’t go out in the watery areas of the Iron Kingdoms!  We brought our reserves on and charged Gatormen killing most of Phils heavy infantry and all of the Skorne Nihilators.  We were hoping to secure a cheeky scenario point this round, but couldn’t get past all of the intervening Gatormen right on the flank.

During the third turn, there was a huge amount of carnage and death on both sides, of note and Ironback Spitter threw Molik Karn towards Kruger, then the Wrastler used its Rise animus to stand him back up, allowing Molik to kill one of Lukes beasts, but not quite reach Kruger - yikes!  We killed Molik for his insolence and both sides took huge casualties.

Turn four was faster given that lots of models had been removed from the previous turns death and destruction.  The enemy reserves came on this turn and by a whisker the Feralgheist managed to sneak a cheeky control point, by now Luke’s attacking force had met Xerxis and had been on the receiving end of the Skorne feat meaning most of the heavy infantry and all the beasts were dead along with my Vengers.  Without much hope of scoring any scenario points we tried to score more Battle Points and got stuck into the enemy forces.

We had a fifth turn each and basically just killed even more of each others forces, I think we scored 76BP’s and Phil/Gav scored 69 – an utter bloodbath and great game to boot.  In the end lunch was fast approaching and we called the game here as there wasn’t much point carrying on and all our stomachs were rumbling; so a narrow defeat for the first game, but one hell of a great start fun-wise!

Game 2

Opponents:       Lewis and Moak (Cygnar - pNemo and Circle - pKruger)

Mission:            Gauntlet with Kill Box (centre scenario)

Photographs:

Moak's pKruger

Moak's Megalith

Lewis' pNemo

Lewis' Stormclad

Lewis and Moak are both seasoned tournament players and had a good combination of models which synergised well and both casters had a strong lightning theme and would be zapping our infantry with several Chain Lightning spells a turn.

We went first and manoeuvred up the field, as did Lewis and Moak.  On the second turn the Thorn Ravagers suffered all the Chain Lightning that the enemy could muster and many were dead or almost, though we had pressed hard on our scoring zone.

At this point we checked scenario conditions and both pNemo and pKruger were outside of the Kill Box which meant that Luke and I won on a double caster kill, Luke and I felt really bad as it seemed like a really crap way to win and offered Lewis and Moak the option to continue and forget about the Kill Box complication.  We did this in the spirit of the whole reason we went to the tournament, which was to have fun and as such we continued.

So our next turn saw Kruger feat and push back several enemy Circle and Cygnar forces allowing us to score a valuable control point as well as nibble out a few bits and pieces, but nothing too substantial.  The following turn Lewis and Moak realised they had to stop us scoring another point and flooded the control zone with heavies.

We attempted to clear the zone using Krugers movement spells as well as a long range charge from the Avatar using a cheeky Telekinesis spell to move the Menoth walking cathedral into range.  The bottom line was that there was just too much to kill and we failed to score again, we’d also left some of our heavies prone to counter attack in their turn.  As predicted we suffered heavy losses, all of the Menite jacks and offensive infantry died, as did the Circle forces.  I think Kruger might have also died at this point too.

I can remember that the final turn of the game saw Sevvy get angry, very angry…  He was the last man standing after Lewis and Moak had literally killed everything else – he dropped his upkeep spells, sent a devastating Ashes to Ashes into some bunched infantry, killing them and a solo scoring some valuable Battle Points, then charged a light beast (Gorax) and proceeded to beat it to death.  This last act saw a 12 point swing, which was pretty amazing for a MAT 4 Sevvy!!

All in all a great game and although we won after about 20 minutes, I’d rather loose like we did in an epic battle to the end, than win via our opponents daft mistake – Lewis and Moak said we’d definitely get their ‘most sporting’ vote!  So two losses, but a good stack of Battle Points and a CTRL point as well.

Game 3

Opponents:       Gary and Rob (Menoth - pKreoss and Legion - eLylyth)

Mission:            Incursion (dual scenario)

Photographs:     [None available]

Luke and I won the roll off for this scenario and opted to go second, choosing the more favourable board edge.  Gary deployed on our left and Rob on our right, I took on Gary and Luke; Rob with our set-up.

The first turn was all about positioning as per usual and the flag on our left between Gary and myself disappeared meaning Luke and Rob would have more pressure to win via scenario.  The game saw both Menoth forces taking pot shots at one another, my jacks protected from Kreoss’ Reckoners with the anti-shooting Choir hymn.  Gary had run the Zealots up with their mini-feat and anti-spells prayer meaning that scenario scoring was out of the question, however I did double shot this infantry with the Vanquisher to set them on fire as the mini-feat would not protect from that in the following Maintenance Phase.

Whilst Gary and I played cat and mouse, Luke and Rob got stuck into the action, Tharn were hairing across the table at full pelt and eLylyth used her feat to send out a tremendous amount of shooting, the Eyeless Sight ability of the Ravagore’s, slong with the Snipe ability on the feat turn meant poor eKruger died and sadly before he could feat and score a couple of scenario points – darn!

The following turns were mainly attrition as the Menoth forces collided and battled over the central objective, we knew with the loss of Kruger and his battlegroup the diminishing Tharn infantry couldn’t hold out long so we tried to score as many points as possible and finish off units where able to do so.  The game ended with a loss on scenario as we predicted, but at least we scored some points, hopefully enough not to be the bottom team!!

After day one we had lost three, but scored quite a few Battle Points as all of our games had gone the distance, however the primary separator for the tournament was CTRL points so our aim for day two would be to a) win a game, b) score more CTRL points which would hopefully mean we wouldn’t come last!!!

Part II will follow shortly with the exploits of day two as well as more army photos, so watch this space!

It's been a while...

Like the title suggests it’s been a while since my last post.  Some of my medical problems have gotten on top of me recently and painting has become quite difficult unfortunately, though this post will show what I’ve managed in the last month.

Myself and Luke teamed up for the Warmachine Doubles hosted at Maelstrom Games this weekend just gone, we took Menoth (me) and Circle (Luke), details of the event can be found here.  This event used the new 2012 Steamroller Beta rules meaning that the flank and Kill Box complications were used.  The new flank reinforcements rules meant that we each added 7 points to our main 35 point lists; these arrive as reserves in the Maintenance Phase from turn two onwards.  Flankers can activate the turn they arrive meaning something fast, shooty or both would be ideal choices, I decided to try out my Menoth cavalry as they are exactly 7 points and would give me something to aim towards with my painting.

I’ll concentrate on the painting of the Vengers for this blog entry and follow it up in the next entry with a review of the doubles as an event and some mini battle reports on how we faired during the weekend as well as photographs of all the armies on display.

Painting the Vengers

The Vengers are Exemplar Knights on horseback, they wear the same armour as their on-foot counterparts as well as share many similar attributes gaming wise.  I decided that during the construction of these fantastic miniatures I would paint the men separately to the horses, so I wouldn’t struggle to reach obscure areas with a paint brush.

The larger 50mm bases allowed me to slide some larger slate pieces onto the bases and in places give the effect of the horse standing on these which was something I like doing, i.e. taking a bit more time to make the bases stand out.

I chose the same colour pallet as the existing Menite miniatures and techniques for painting the white, purple, sanguine and gold common to all of the figures I’ve done so far.  I kept the horses skin fairly pastel so not to detract from the rider and armour plates.  Whilst painting the riders I opted to snap off both arms (at the super glue joins) and paint these separately, soon after starting these I realised I would struggle to get into the nook and crannies of the miniature – this decision worked out well.

As a unit they took me far longer than I anticipated painting; they were completed at 11pm the night before the tournament!  Below are images of the completed models:

Exemplar Vengers - Completed unit

Exemplar Vengers - POW 14 lance in your face!

Exemplar Vengers - Front view close-up

Exemplar Vengers - Side view close-up

Exemplar Vengers - Rear view close-up

Exemplar Vengers - Bases close-up

December Domination, after the dust settled… Part II

So  after lunch I was doing OK, with one win and one loss, I'd used pSevvy twice and was hoping to use my Kreoss list as well, but as I've mused previously I seem to be drawn to pSevvy every time!!  The next two games are written up below:

Game 3

For this round I drew Dave Thomas with his Skorne, he won the roll off and chose to go first with his Void Seer Mordikaar list.  Dave deployed a full unit of Praetorian swordsmen plus UA on my right flank, a full unit of Nihilators and Void Spirit on my left flank and the Warlock and Bronzeback in the centre.  He deployed his Razorworm via AD also in the centre.  I deployed the Errants opposite the Nihilators as they would deny the berserk attacks with their self sacrifice ability should I need to stop it.  The Avatar took the centre to face off against the Bronzeback and the remaining forces took the centre-right.

Dave did the inevitable first turn surge forward and I reciprocated.  The Errants just advanced and shot the Nihilators, but every dice roll bar one was just one short of hitting and even that failed to kill! – darn!

Dave got straight into the action on turn two knowing his Nihilators were in charge range of the Errants plus a bit more considering I had the range to shoot with several.  I lost numerous Errants to that combat, but the unit was still strong.  The Swordsmen ran to engage the Battlegroup, choir etc whilst the Bronzeback advanced and positioned ready to charge next turn.  The Razororm charged the Errants near the centre, but a crafty self sacrifice stopped the beast from Dragging Below and repositioning.  Mordikaar popped his feat this turn giving his whole army +3 DEF as well as Poltergeist.  During my second turn the Avatar generated a full four focus and I could see it was in charge range of the Bronzeback, though he would take a few free strikes including one off the Razorworm on the way in.  I activated the Errants first and managed to kill a couple of Nihilators, but missed a few because of the feat as well.  I did however manage to take two aspects out of the Razorworm allowing the Avatar to proceed relatively free from harm; he did so with impunity as he smashed the Bronzeback to pieces and then Gazed at Mordikaar, effectively preventing the Skorne warlock from advancing away from the Avatar next turn.  The Blessing, Gorman and Severius all fought the Swordsmen at close quarters and managed to kill off quite a few, but there were still a good half a dozen of them left and Sevvy really doesn't like being that close to the action...

Turn three was another explosive round and the Nihilators killed most of the Errants and the Praetorian Swordsmen managed to get into combat with Sevvy with their sidestep mini-feat , but he was unharmed.  Mordikaar was unable to escape the Avatar’s Gaze and would take a charge next turn.  Dave had managed to cause some damage with the Nihilators to it by getting three into combat; I’d certainly give away some free strikes should I attempt the charge.  During my turn I used the Errants'  Quickwork skill to kill one of the Nihilators engaging the Avatar to reduce the damage output from the freestrikes.  The Avatar only had two focus this turn and opted to walk into combat.  Mordikaar survived the encounter as the Avatar had insufficient attacks that turn and no Choir in range to buff him with the Battle Hymn.  Sevvy and co killed the remaining Swordsmen and repositioned defensively for the Nihilators who would be coming in next turn given the Errants could no longer hold them off.

Dave felt lucky to survive the Avatar’s attack and decided not to try his luck a second time and Ghost-Walked out of combat into a wood and some relative safety.  The Nihilators and Void Spirit killed off the remaining Errants plus Gorman and attacked the Avatar, Blessing and Vassal, which survived.  During my turn four the Avatar was again bogged down with Nihilators and only had two focus!  I opted to try a spell assassination and used the Blessing’s imprint to free itself from the engaging Nihilator and move within 8” of Mordikaar.  Sevvy arced a fully boosted Immolation into Mordikar and left him on three wounds.  He then arced a second unboosted Immolation, hit caused enough damage to kill the Skorne Warlock!

Game 4

The fourth game was against my good friend Andy McBirnie, whom I regularly game against.  He had his stunningly painted Khador army and had his pIrusk and Harkervitch lists.  Andy won the roll off and opted to go first with pIrusk.  Andy deployed the battlegroup centrally; Irusk, Wardog and his Spriggan.  He deployed the Winter Guard Deathstar on my right flank and the Kayazy on the left.  I opted to use the pKreoss list for this game and deployed my battlegroup central, along with my supporting Vassal and Choir.  The Errants advance deployed centrally too.

Andy’s turn one was a tactical surge forwards, careful not to allow the Reckoner’s too many juicy targets.  I wasn’t in range to shoot with anything in my turn so I made sure just one or two Errants were in charge range of the Kayazy to get them to commit, but not enough to take significant losses.  I also cast Purification and removed Iron Flesh from the Kayazy.

On Andy’s turn two he charged/ran with the Kayazy as I suspected, killing one or two and locking a few up.  The Winter Guard also ran forwards and locked up some Errants, the Spriggan advanced and Irusk manoeuvred to an ideal feat position and popped his feat.  On my turn I clarified Irusk’s feat and had gotten mixed up with the epic version’s feat, a bit of a revelation as pIrusk’s feat means his guys are immune to knockdown – I thought they automatically stood up should he pop it after I popped mine – d’oh!  So I had to alter my plans, but as I was jammed up the only thing was to attack with the Errants and jacks causing as much damage as possible and hopefully weather the following turn enough to make my knock-down feat count.  I did a fair amount of damage killing several Kayazy and Winter Guard, though Andy passed a good few 4+ tough rolls, Andy’s next turn would be the decider.

Turn three saw the Kayazy fully engage under Battlelust which was enough for them to by-pass the Errants Defender’s Ward ARM 18.  The Winter Guard took Bear’s Strength from Joe and Battlelust from Irusk so their combined melee charge was going to hurt one of my Reckoner’s; it lost its cortex and the right arm remained functional by just one box!  The Errants survived at effective DEF 16 as some Guardsmen were within 2” of the Reckoner and its Ashen Veil affected their ability to hit.  So I’d lost at least half the Errants, but I had my feat and one fully functional jack left and the other could still fight, albeit without focus from now on.  I loaded up the undamaged jack and used Kreoss first to feat and knock everything except Irusk and the Spriggan down.  The Choir went next and sang Battle  to the jacks and actually had an attack or two, but their ceremonial staff’s were no match for the Kayazy battle hoodies!!  The Errants moved into a cheeky position where they were engaging just one Guardsman and could Quickwork a second – basically they double-tapped the remaining Winterguard and a couple of Kayazy.  The loaded Reckoner killed the remaining Kayazy.  Auto-hitting in melee and DEF 5 against ranged is virtually impossible to weather when troops such as Kayazy depend on their DEF to stay alive.

Turn four was the turn after the dust had settled and I was looking stronger at this point as I still had half my infantry, all my support and two jacks, though one had no cortex left of course.  Andy attempted an assassination on Kreoss with the Spriggan’s guns, but the Menite armour held firm.  During my turn I had to be very careful that the Spriggan couldn’t Bulldoze its way back towards Kreoss and kill him, so I opted to charge the Spriggan with the Errants and did some damage, but not a great deal, one Errant however charged the Wardog and killed it, then shot Joe dead.  I was contemplating shooting the Spriggan with my intact Reckoner, but instead ran it into a place where it was wedged between Errants etc and couldn’t easily be bulldozed away.  Kreoss manoeuvred to take an advantageous position where he couldn’t be charged and cast Purification again to remove the Superiority spell on the enemy jack making things more difficult.  I was undecided what to do with the damaged Reckoner as Irusk was within assault range, but was hidden behind a wall and had Iron Flesh on himself!!  I opted to attack him anyway but at that point dice down was called.

Conclusion

So after four great games against four great opponents I had won three and lost one and came 4th, not bad!!  The overall standings can be seen in this forum thread, page 4.  

I enjoyed using pSevvy as always, however in hind sight pKreoss was a really good caster and would have done as well as Sevvy.  I seldom use Sevvy's feat as it does very little against Hordes and as a back line caster he has to move forwards to get more out of it, whereas Kreoss' feat can spell certain doom for hard to hit high DEF infantry as well as intervening models ceasing to block line of sight for ranged assassinations.  Kreoss' feat can be used defensively also should I get under too much pressure.

Thanks for reading :-)

December Domination, after the dust settled… Part I

Well it’s a couple of days since the December Domination tournament that Luke and I ran and I thought I’d write a brief review of the day, primarily from my point of view since this is a blog entry!

I wasn’t sure whether I’d be playing or not for this event as it really depended upon the number of people turning up and I was the first drop out should there be uneven numbers on the day.  Luckily for me my presence made the event even numbers so I got to play.  I took my Menoth to the event and used the following lists:

pSeverius

*Blessing of Vengeance

Avatar of Menoth

Choir of Menoth (min)

Exemplar Errants (min)

Exemplar Errants UA

Vassal of Menoth

Gorman Di Wulfe

pKreoss

*Reckoner

*Reckoner

Choir of Menoth (min)

Exemplar Errants (max)

Exemplar Errants UA

Vassal of Menoth

I’ve used the pSevvy list numerous times at 25pts, however the pKreoss list was modified from another 25pt list I’d previously used.

During the run up to the event several people had to drop out unfortunately, however there were fourteen attendees in the end and a very strong calibre of player too!  From an organisational point of view things went very well, Luke and I had set-up the hall the previous day and the paper work had all been arranged so it was just a case of getting people ushered to their tables in preparation for the first round.

Game 1

I drew Paul North from York as my first opponent; a chap I’ve met several times and gotten to know over the past few months, last we played it was Paul who took the win against pSevvy with his Skorne.  Paul was taking Circle this time and I chose pSevvy for this encounter, Paul opted for Morvahna and took the first turn.

Paul preyed the Blessing of Vengeance with his Bloodtrackers and advanced towards it on my right flank, the Bloodweavers took the left flank and advanced facing off against my Errants.  The Stalker and Woldwyrd advanced down the centre along with Morvahna and the shifting stones.  Morvahana cast the two big upkeeps: Harvest on herself and Restoration on the Bloodtrackers.  My first turn was fairly quick and I ran the Errants up behind a hedge making it as difficult as I could to stop the Bloodweavers inevitable charge.  The Blessing and Avatar ran full speed forwards and the Choir sang ‘no shooting’ hymns to stop the weapon mastered Bloodtrackers making scrap metal out of them.  Sevvy advanced and put up all of his upkeeps, Gorman hid him behind a smoke cloud just in case.

Turn two Paul sent in the Bloodweavers, but couldn’t engage too many Errants due to the hedge I’d tucked up tightly behind, but several died to them, some Bloodtracker javelins and spells from Morvahna.  During my turn two I tried to clear a path for the Avatar to charge the Stalker, who was lurking ready to counter attack, the distance was going to be a bit short but I figured the Blessing could push the Avatar 1” forward with his repulsor shield to get the distance, but then realised the Avatar was too wide to fit through a gap and would fail his charge due to the hedge the Errants were fighting behind!  Instead of this master plan I sent the Blessing over to my left flank and used pSevvy’s Ashes to Ashes spell to clear out half of the Bloodweavers, freeing up the Errants, the Avatar trampled through more Bloodweavers and Bloodtrackers and engaged the Woldwyrd, he bought a couple of attacks and slayed the light beast.  The Errants charged the Stalker and remaining Bloodweavers/Bloodtrackers in the immediate vicinity killing the infantry and putting some damage onto the beast.

Just before we started turn three, five minutes time was called, so it was unlikely we would both have gotten a full turn in so Paul tried to get as much done as he could in the time remaining.  He used the Shifting stones to teleport the Stalker into the rear arc of the Avatar and hit it repeatedly, mauling it badly but leaving it intact.  The Bloodtrackers charged Gorman, the Vassal, the Avatar and a couple of Errants, but dice down was called before he had chance to attack.

The result was a win to me as I had killed a full unit and a light beast, Paul had only taken the Avatar below half damage as far as VP’s were concerned.  I felt a bit bad winning to be honest as Paul felt a bit robbed on the time factor.  It would have been interesting to see what would have happened should we have carried on playing.  Until next time!!

Game2

I drew Brett Wilkie for game two, another York veteran and friend, we’ve played a couple of games in the past, all of which I had lost so wasn’t that confident at pulling a win out, but was determined to give it my best shot never the less!

I won the roll off and opted to go first with my pSevvy list.  I was facing down Kraye, a Stormclad, two Hunters and two Ranger units.  I knew my anti-jack shooting hymn was my best friend against the armour piercing Hunter shots so my jacks advanced full steam under that protection.  I was keenly aware that the Stormclad had an insane threat range having been caught by it on previous occasions – something like 17”!!  Brett gave my aggressive full speed push forwards a fairly wide birth, given his army favoured range whereas mine was more melee based.  The Rangers/Hunters sniped off two choir members and a few Errants, Kraye and the Stormclad kept back, positioning for a long range strike no doubt!

In my turn two I managed to shoot a couple of Rangers dead with the Errants and Sevvy arced Ashes into another unit killing a few more.  The Avatar managed to Gaze at a Hunter stopping it from getting too far away.  Brett tried to figure out a solution to save the Hunter, but it was too close and the Avatar was going to have it next turn!  The Rangers let Brett down big time as he rolled bad dice rolls after bad dice rolls, though the Defenders Ward spell was probably the main contributory factor here.  Kraye and the Stormclad hurtled full speed down the left flank and towards pSevvy (that was a 20” run for the Stromclad)!

During my turn three the Avatar trashed the Hunter and the Errants killed off a few more Rangers.  I almost sent the Blessing to run after Bretts abandoned objective, but angled it to intervene if the Stormclad tried to charge the Avatar, I also killed off more Rangers with an arced Ashes again.  I used Gorman to hurl a Blind bomb at the Stormclad but was short on distance by ¼ inch and deviated a full 6”.  Unfortunately I forgot the maximum it could deviate was 3” which would definitely have hit the jack, but it was my fault and I said as much during the game (I realised this during Bretts turn)!  Brett struggled even more so with the Errants again, but killed Gorman for his audacity to chuck Blind bombs at the Stormclad!

Turn four was the last turn and I knew I had to protect my objective as a cheeky control point would secure the match for Brett and I was too far away to get one of my own.  I protected Sevvy from any potential charges or shooting and placed the Avatar within 4” of the objective, but safe from the Stromclad to possibly win on attrition, or at least be close.  Brett planned his turn carefully and removed the Avatar’s enliven move as well as its vision with two well placed shots.  I had made a fatal error unfortunately as I didn’t quite understand the heavy cavalry rules that the Stormclad benefited from and unfortunately for the Stormclad charged the intervening Choir boy and continued into the Avatar, the Avatar got trashed and the Hunter used its light cavalry move to score a control point.  The game time was over at this point and Brett won fair and square (again)!!

After game two it was lunch and people were asked to leave their armies on display should they wish to be considered for best army.  Below are a few photos of those armies on display.

Andy Garrard's Trollbloods

Mark Coultas' Skorne

Nick Langrick's Menoth

Phil Shaw's Mercenaries

Part II will follow shortly with a brief synopsis of games 3 and 4 as well as a summing up of the event.

A bit of all sorts

Since the last entry I've painted up the Temple Flame Guard unit attachment, seen below; they were painted identically to the main unit in this entry.  The UA will add a bit more punch to the unit and a bit more survivability, the officer's mini-feat allows the unit to have +4 armour for a round as well as immunity to knock down and stationary causing effects.  The unit also get tactics: 'Menoth's Howl' and this allows them to cause terror and have continuous effect fire on their melee weapons.  I'll look forward to fielding these pretty soon!

Temple Flame Guard UA front

Temple Flame Guard UA rear

TFG Officer close-up

TFG Standard bearer close-up

 I recently purchased the Blood of Martyr's heavy character warjack with a view to getting Thyra up and running.  I thought I'd share a good tip for assembling a model where the contact joint is tiny and the risk of damage great.  I used thick super glue with accelerator spray to get a good bond in the gap where Blood of Martyr's  long tabards are joined to the chassis of the warjack.  Following this I filled in a layer of greenstuff behind this to further reinforce the joint, making a kind of wedge.  It is simple enough technique not to be a stunning revelation, but worth noting as without it problems would undoubtedly have occurred!  See photos below:

Regarding painting I'll crack on with the second unit of Errants next, though I'm not really looking forward to them as it is a really long winded job, but they need doing so I'll have to find motivation!

Gaming wise I'm looking forward to December Domination next weekend, details of this can be seen here.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Dirty Mercs

It’s been a week or so since my last entry, I’ve not been terribly productive since then as I’m currently recovering from yet more surgery, though I have managed to paint up a few models during my recuperation time.

I mentioned a few entries back that I was planning on expanding my Severius lists to the 50 point mark so I had something ready for tournaments of this size.  Of note Vapnartak in York, early 2012, will have 50 point lists on day two.  Though my lists aren’t finalised I set myself the task of completing the following to help bolster the painted force so far:

·        Exemplar Errants min unit

·        Temple Flame Guard unit attachment

·        X2 Choir of Menoth acolytes

·        Vassal of Menoth

·        eEiryss Angel of Retribution

·        Lady Aiyanna and Master Holt

I have already uploaded photos of the extended Choir and Vassal; however below are photos of epic Eiryss and Lady Aiyanna + Master Holt.

eEiryss front

eEiryss rear

eEiryss side

These mercenary allies were painted as close to the ‘official’ colours seen in the Merc faction book.  I used a very earthy pallet for eEiryss given that she has a background in stealth, camouflage and tree huggin', like those hippy Circle folk.  The cloak was the main feature and was painted using Camo Green as a base.  I paid particular attention to the epic base she stands upon, trying to make it look like and aged stone relic of some kind. 

Lady Aiyanna & Master Holt

Lady Aiyanna  front

Lady Aiyanna  side

Lady Aiyanna  rear

Lady Aiyanna  side

Master Holt  front

Master Holt  side

Master Holt  rear

Master Holt  side

 I used a mixture of P3 and Citadel paints.  Of note Lady Aiyanna's cloak was a reddish brown created by mixing Scorched Brown and Blood Red; I’ve found these two colours mix really well and create a very smooth transition.  Holt’s blue jacket was painted using the P3 Cygnar blues and washed with GW’s Asumen Blue.

So what about gaming?

Gaming wise these mercs are very useful, eEiryss is great for anti-buffing enemy units as her very high RAT and long range crossbow can remove enemy upkeep spells and animi; it also disrupts warjacks.  These abilities are very powerful in ensuring the enemy is weakened.  Eiryss can also be used in a last ditch ‘bomb’, she can run very quickly and possibly be placed within 5” of multiple enemy warjacks preventing them from receiving focus the following turn.  She has numerous other uses of course, but the afore mentioned ones are why she is popular amongst many gamers.

Aiyanna and Holt are a unit, though they are essentially two solos.  Lady Aiyanna has three main in-game effects, whilst not being offensive she can give herself and Holt stealth, commonly used as the pair advance up field.  She can ‘Kiss of Lyliss’ a model/unit which then suffers +2 to all incoming damage rolls for a turn.  When you start combining that with Choir buffs and Eye of Menoth etc suddenly attacking models can cause far more damage than anticipated.  Her final ability is to grant a friendly unit ‘magical weapons’.  This is of course situational, however when facing incorporeal models, or something which can only be damaged by magical attacks this ability is invaluable.  Holt is a gunfighter with the virtuoso skill, so very handy up close as well as from afar.  He has a very high RAT and two pistols, thus adding a bit more ranged threat to my Menite force.  His special ability comes into effect when either he or Lady Aiyanna are shot at; he can immediately fire at the attacking model and if a hit is scored the attacking model automatically misses, useful to burn out unwary enemies attempting to gun this pair down.

Regarding more ranged support; man I wish I could have a unit of Gun Mages... ah well!!  ;-)