Bam! Exalted!

Glad to see you back at it Wehr, she's at a great place thus far. Here's a +1 for woad and/or tattoos to tie her in with her people / zazz her up a bit - very yellow/orange pallet thus far, orb of raspberry sorbet not withstanding.

- Salvage

Now I want sorbet....

Great looking stuff!

Thank you sir! I actually have done some painting the past month, but haven't finished anything yet. I will post some pics up maybe this week.

First Jin's plog resurrects, and now Wehr's?? Fall really is the season of renewal! (Joking aside, I've finally returned to painting too, after a long sweaty summer of doing other things )

Excited to see what you're up to dude.

- Salvage

Yea, somehow despite not having a lot in particular to do outside of August, I didn't get a lot done. However, started playing a little Kings of War and also decided that it was better to make things than play Heroes of the Storm all else equal, and I got a bit done.



Goatly there is mostly done, just some touch up, some highlighting on the loin cloth, the gem on his... whatever that crotch armor is, and a base. Which will probably take me a month Still, gotta get my Circle up to snuff for full colored Hordes against RiTides fully (commission) painted Gator Men!

For scale, gaks and giggles there are two Wrath of Kings models, Sheal Han big sister and dragon legion officer. The big sister needs some more everything, but the general scheme is there. The officer is just base colors at this point, and not even all of them. Nice models though; if I had a regular opponent I would be slamming more paint on them for sure.

The last is one of the Alkemy models I am using to put together a little warrior monk for for Ronin. Again, no opponents so no real rush, but the models are tiny and fairly detailed and nice, so it is a good deal for me. I don't paint much far east stuff.

Thanks for tuning in! I have been hard at worked down in the birthing chambers, creating a new army or two for Kings of War. The Celt lads are being upgraded to fit that system (counts-as Orcs) as well as a forth coming Nature/Herd army with centaurs a-plenty, as soon as I sculpt up some human torsos for them. Wheeeeeee. Big question is whether I will get that project done before baby number two hits; seven months to go.

Oh, by the way, my wife and I are building another sprog, using period materials and methods. Slow, nauseating work, but mostly for her.

Also, holy balls, Salvage paints?! Things other than his own body?!

Holy balls, I painted some things. Well... finished some things, and did some color tests and work on other things.

Big problem lately is not having the time or energy to game much, so there hasn't been any clear and present motivation for getting anything done in particular. However, with RiTides threatening to have a fully painted army done and ready for Hordes action, and some fun with KoW happening, I have been building and getting stuff prepared.

So, things!




Fun with color balance! There's the Sorchimera and two Hordes heavies, Shadowhorn Satyr and home made Ghettorix. All are done and based, although I keep thinking I ol' Ghetty needs something else, maybe some runes on his ax, or blue war paint. I have decided to not do blue on the Sorc just yet, as I am not sure I want to and can't decide on a pattern, a combo that suggests I am best putting it off. Still really happy with how she came out... I need to get another for various other conversions... how awesome would that top look with like a ball gown of tentacles coming out the bottom?

Anyway, the Hordes heavies are the only two I need for my Cassius list. Where is Cassius? Well... partly done as seen here with some other odds and ends!



Coincidentally, how to take good pictures is apparently something I have forgotten. But there they are, Cass, Wurmwood, a Formor fiend leader, a random Red Box Game mini I picked up a few years back, a random bones barbarian and a Rackham Llanyff who is a color test for a small unit of them I am going to put together for Kings of War. Pretty happy with how the lot are coming out, with the barbarians pretty much done, the Formor needing woad, and Cass needing some touch up and detailing. I am a little bummed with him, as there is an awkward miscast going down the right side of his face and lapel (which you can't see in the pics) but it looks like there is serious scarring there. Didn't notice it till I started painting, so oh well. The meat puppet can deal I guess.

That Rackhame "Llanyff" on the left of the last pic - so sweet! Along with the RBG mini, you really bring out the best in that range - I think the details are too small for many other people to really capture.

I also Really like Ghetorix, and how you've used different skin tones on your various circle beasts (almost yellow on the goat, almost black on Ghetorix). There's only one thing I don't like, but I really think you should consider tweaking it - the horns! It's most noticeable on the ones on the side of the head (the others are so much smaller and I think are fine if you wanted to keep them) but the yellow is just too jarring for me there. Could at least the side horns on the head get more of a bone color, even if the others stayed yellow?

That's my only constructive criticism, as I absolutely love the rest but really hope you might consider updating that one.

Also, that's a really well done paint job on the orb!

Some really gorgeous stuff here. Nice work

Awesome stuff!

Always happy when this thread pops back up, glad to see you're getting a spot of painting in here and there

Those feels on not painting much because not gaming much

- Salvage

Thanks for the comments guys! I was going to tell RiTides that the yellow on the head dress for Ghetty was just the light and color balance, but looking at it again under different lights in the house, it really is a bit yellower than it should be. I used some old spray sealer before putting on the Testors to add some strength to it, and I am thinking it might have stained the color a bit. So that will be touched up.

Next on the docket is Prof Pendrake and the Nyss Hunters to help fill out the Cassius list to full painted status. This is the list:

Points: 50/50
Cassius the Oathkeeper (*6pts)
* Ghetorix (11pts)
* Shadowhorn Satyr (7pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Farrow Bone Grinders (Leader and 5 Grunts) (3pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Nuala the Huntress (2pts)
Tharn Bloodweavers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Gallows Grove (1pts)
Professor Victor Pendrake (2pts)

So far Cassius/Wurmwood are about 85-90% done, the Shadowhorn and Ghetty are pretty much done and... the Swamp Gobbers? That's it. So its a long bit of work from here, but what the hell. Gotta paint it all sooner or later.

So, if we're both fielding Viktor Pendrake against each other, is there some sort of temporal anomaly and only one of them can really exist in-game

There's a lot of grunts in that list! Heck, even some farrow bone grinders made an appearance. What do they do for it, btw?

Awesome about tweaking the horns . I Really love the black skin tone on that model, how did you do it?

Yours will have to be referred to as "Pictor Vendrake"; if you forget he forfeits his activation.
Alternately you can refer to him as Prof X, but with a -3 spd penalty.

And yea... lots and lots of bodies. So... many.... bodies. Mostly to feed souls to Wurmwood but also to swamp out objectives and zones. That is a lot of Def 14 and 15 models.
The Bone Grinders are handy, 1/2 point models to feed to the tree first turn (charge their own unit in the back) and then the leader can give Cass + 2" on Hellmouth for the rest of the game. Or flee and mourn the souls of his friends. Whichever. If the opponent brings lots of infantry with souls too, the Grinders can also act as a pretty decent lazor beam to tag high Def models with Confluence adding +1 to his Magic score for each other Grinder within 1".

Glad you like Ghetty; we'll see how you feel about him later He isn't as bonkers in this list, but man, in a Baldur2 list with Stoneskin and the wall, sitting at Def 16 Arm 22 vs melee... he's pretty disgusting.
His skin is mostly VJ German Grey + Paynes Grey highlighted to Sky Grey with just a touch of Dark Sand mixed in, then washed with Paynes Grey. The Paynes Grey gives him just a touch of blue to avoid being dull and grey, and the Dark Sand adds a hint of warmth in spots. He was sort of experimental so I didn't take photos unfortunately.

Very nice on Ghetorix! (Although sounds well beyond my abilities). I'll at least Try to avoid him in combat, as that's why Pendrake is in my list - buff a unit of Croaks to hit a warbeast and hopefully make it rain from distance!

Love the gameplan for the bone grinders too lol

Yea, the beasts hang WELL back in this list. It is sort of a strange list for me, but pretty fun. The infantry all is pretty killy and can really hold stuff back, and the beasts really just hang out to deal with some armor here and there. Ghetto can wreck a colossal himself on a good day, especially with Curse of Shadows from Cass. The Shadowhorn is there mostly to get behind things and arm lock them into oblivion. Little goat can hop behind the scariest jack and stop them completely, because you can't move when arm locked, and can't break it until your action, so even if you break it you pretty much give up your turn. Then he locks you again. Plus with his animus he can chuck models quite far and accurately, which is a pretty good trick for dropping casters and shutting up a beast or jack for a turn by tossing them out of control.
It is a super tricky, sideways list, so is a lot of fun to play. Between Hellmouthing your own teleported stones, killing your own bacon flavored souls, Strangleholding beasts/jacks, throwing them, and just making a giant board spanning forest to shut down movement, there's a lot of interesting decisions.

Battle report update! (Pictures will come a little later this week.)

I actually played a game! I drove up into the Maryest of Lands to play some Warmahordes against one of their local Press Gangers. Expecting until the night before to play RiTides and his lovely commissioned army I had slammed through a unit of Blood Trackers, Blood Weavers, two units of Shifting Stones + UA, Cassius and Wurmwood, Victor Pendrake and half painted some pig shaped soul tokens. Why I expected to play RiTides after only a month of planning is beyond me... hope springs eternal, the first step on the road to disappointment.

The second step is trusting a boosted Pow 12 to do 2+ points of damage to Arm 14, apparently...

So PG Charlie and I had set up a game. I took the Cassius list I have been planning for a bit:

Cassius + Wurmwood
*Ghetto
*Judo Goat
Nyss Hunters Max
Blood Trackers Max + Nuala
Blood Weavers
Bone Grinders Max
Shifting Stones x2 + US
Swamp Gobbers
Gallows Groves x 2
Pendrake

Fun list vs infantry heavy forces, and decent against Warmachine lists that don't run like 6 jacks.

Charlie brought Amon with 4 heavies, 2 lights and some heavy infantry, sisters and choir. Great.

Scenario is one with a rectangular central zone and two objectives. Which objectives are not really important, as it never came up other than Ghettorix setting himself on fire.

Turn 1: Circle goes first, with Trackers running forward to fill the zone, hunters behind them, weavers woven in between. Bone Grinders assume their low energy state of soul tokens, and everything else surges forward. Wurmwood is teleported up to toe the zone and Cass walks forward on top of a hill behind the piles of infantry and feats, shutting off the middle third of the board.
Amon grumbes about how awesome Cassius is, and runs everything forward as far as it can get into the woods. Importantly, the Exemplar Bastions get into the zone, engaging one Blood Tracker and sitting about 3" forward of the rest. Behind that line was the Bastion solo, and right behind him was Amon sitting on zero focus.

Turn 2: Well, I have a gallows grove that can see that Basion solo if I can just kill one of the bastions in front of him. And if I can see him, I can slam Hellmouth's into his delicious Def 11 and catch Amon sitting at 14 armor. The Blood Trackers get to work on their Preyed Bastions, slamming javelins into them remorselessly, dropping all but 2. They then reform to block up the zone and access to Wurmwood if things go pear shaped. Cassius activates, pulls 5 soul tokens off Wurmwood and warms up the hellmouth...er. I figure I will shoot one off unboosted, and if it doesn't hit I will go with plan B of hellmouthing a stone on the other side of the force that is surrounded by Sisters of the Flame and then unseen path Wurmwood back to be super safe. But the Hellmouth hits with aplomb, killing more bastions (but critically not the solo) and with boosted damage takes all but 2 damage off of Amon. Sweet baby cats! Sitting on 6 Fury, it is time to close this out! Hellmouth again, boost to hit, POW! Right in the solo's face! Solo dies, whatever, and it is time to boost vs Amon! Dice -2, 3 dice, what could go wrong?

Oh... right.

So now we are in "what the hell do I do?" territory. Cass walks back to be away from anything. Aha! Nyss Hunters! They can shoot things! So they stand on the hill and plink at Amon, but Def 15 and no CRA means nothing happens. Well, time to bunch up and hope nothing can get to Wurmwood.

Long story short, next turn Amon feats, kills all the girls and nyss in front of Wurmwood, some other jacks punch some other things, and the last heavy tramples in with 2 focus and Pow 24's down Wurmwood twice, doing 21 damage.

So yea, missed killing by 1, got killed by 2. One thing I did screw up, I probably could have used jump on Judo Goat to get him in front of some girls and stopped the trample. Killing the goat might not have been too tough though, and it would have left some empty space to the side of Wurmwood (where the goat was standing) to land the trample in.

Either way, a fun game, even if it was definitely not a list I would have chosen to drop Cassius into!

We got a second game in, a team game with each player having 35 points. Testicles of Menoth + Kharchev vs eKreuger and Vlad1. Too much to write up (or remember) but 3rd turn Krugs pulls an assassination gambit vs the Testicles who was leading from the front, via Goatly two handed throwing the Avatar into the caster, then shooting all the lightening at the Testicles. Of course, the boosted shot #3 does.... no damage, leaving the caster at 3 health. In this case, however, my partner had Behemoth waiting for orders, and one bombard shot to the balls later and the enemy were down one warcaster and one jack. Of course the Avatar and all the infantry still were there, which was a problem. The game went on for a while and we didn't quite finish by turn 3, but it looked bad and would have come down to an assassination attempt by our opponents on eKrugs and Vlad. If they would have managed to kill both, they win, otherwise Ghetto and my Stalker (who had failed to kill the Avatar the previous turn, somehow) would have finished the Avatar and eKrugs could have dominated a flag for the last two points we needed to win.
Stuff, things, it was a really fun game. Who cares how it would have turned out.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Why I expected to play RiTides after only a month of planning is beyond me... hope springs eternal, the first step on the road to disappointment.

Yeah how could you ever expect that after our working things out so last minute

Hope you're available for a raincheck next week, really want to break in the frogs and gators against your Circle! Do you have any pics of more of the WIP / completed stuff? That is a lot of dudes!

Bummer about the dice fail on your assassination attempt, but at least you made up for it in the next game

I didn't make up for it next game, I failed again! I needed Big B to close out the deal... so shameful :(

Definitely looking forward to next week! I will try and get all the new models out for a picture somewhere, though it might be a little tough to get THAT many models on a horizontal surface here at once... that kid seems to take up a lot of space.

I may have vomited a little in my mouth when I read that dice fail. You seriously rolled 1,1,1 when you needed 2,1,1 (or any of the 215 combinations available)? I would have hurled those dice through the wall, out of principle more than anger.

But all the same, yea for WehrRep! Also that spark to get lingering painting done! Would like to see the painted things too. Also a pictorial battle report between you and 'Tides. Make it happen, gentlemen.

In related news, have been thinking about my Skorne again (having moved apartments and packed/unpacked them all very recently), and how much I like the background, the characters (Makeda 4E), the derpy sculpts (some of them anyway) ... Kind of want to bust out my 35 pt Makeda2 list - especially now that my painted Animantarax is good?! - or my Mordikaar Tier 2 list that I painted Despoiler for and then retired before playing him

However I also want to use my limited gaming time for Malifaux, sooooooo maybe I'll just save WM/H for games on the road ...

- Salvage

Salvage!

Yes, trip ones. Literally any die could have not been a 1, and hey, no worries. But nope... Orboros was apparently out back for a smoke, and couldn't see fit to wurm it up a little for me.

Note that in the following game I also was 3 short on a boosted roll of dice - 6. Not quite as bad, but I only needed like a 9. The second damage roll was poor as well. They say boosted Pow 12s kill casters, but thus far that is all in the realm of theory to me.
I also can't believe Ghetto and a Stalker failed to one round the Avatar. Jin must have been fondling my dice while I wasn't looking, because that is Kim levels of dice failure there.

Awesome to see your blog back! Equally awesome to see you thinking Skorne! They are in a really neat place it seems to me now, with Incendiarii (and Croaks...) being really cool, the new bug critters being impressive, rerolls all over (I would trade lots for a reroll on a stick solo in Circle) and wierdo stuff like the Keltarii. Well, and the hydra looks awesome. You should totally rock that out! So I don't have to! I nearly bought 3Mak, Zaal and a dozen assorted Cyclops to run a few months back. It was just such a silly awesome list. It was mostly just the inability to choose a caster and imagining the baleful gaze from my own Archdomina that kept me from it.
I feel a little better though knowing that eKromac(!) is on his way to my house, with a Tier list that lets me run all 11 Argus I own and actually feel pretty good about it.

Speaking of road, being on it, and getting games thereby... when are you making it down to the slightly less frozen, more swampy south lands?




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Wheeeee! eKromac just arrived! He is currently soaking in the Simple Green vibro hot tub, so here's the lists I am looking at. The pairing I want to run for the next few months (years?) will be Cassius' list from above for anti-infantry and eKromac for anti just about everything.

eKromac- 50 points Tier 4
Kromac - (4)
*6xArgus - 18 points
*Winter Argus - 4
*Moonhound - 3
*Rotterhorn Griffon - 3
*Scarsfell Griffon - 4
*Ghettorix - 11
Shifting Stones - 2
Sentry Stone - 3
3x Blood Weaver Night Witch - 6

So, not ALL the argus I own, but close. The mix is a little off because I really want one more moonhound and don't care about the Scarsfell, but I don't want to be a point short either. I might pull the Scarsfell and swap in an Argus and the UA for the stones to get some more range on Serenity. Why? Because running first turn is going to put 11 Fury on the board.
I am also not sure how I feel about the Sentry Stone. Need it for Tier 4, but that just gives me a forest to plop somewhere. Granted, little Manikin sprays are pretty nice with +2 to hit from the Moonhound, and auto-hit charges on the feat turn is also nice if I can pull it off. I don't know that I will care much about the forest generation side though, but maybe the Rotter can accelerate a manikin, who will then charge something before exploding into trees to block LOS. We shall see.

I am just super excited to get eKromac on the table! Kromac was the first caster that clicked for me, and I have been waiting for him to get Rathrok and become a real beat stick of a caster, and it is even cooler than I could have imagined!




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Derp, forgot the Gorax in that list! I knew there was no reason to take a Scarsfell ever...

eKromac- 50 points Tier 4
Kromac - (4)
*6xArgus - 18 points
*Winter Argus - 4
*Moonhound - 3
*Rotterhorn Griffon - 3
*Gorax - 3
*Ghettorix - 11
Shifting Stones + UA - 3
Sentry Stone - 3
3x Blood Weaver Night Witch - 6

Sentry Stone might get dropped for a second Gorax, but we'll see.

Just got done putting Big Mac together, and it is a very nice little kit! Resin is nice, much better than the crap PVC they use, although it has some tiny bubbles in spots. The only problem spots are the head dress. Everything slots together really well, except the top of the head and the body have a strange gap like they didn't shape the body properly to accept the top of the head, and then the lower jaw doesn't quite line up. The little head dress mandibles then are a bit of a pain to get in there, but not too bad, having read a review before that suggested doing them last. Over all though, three spots that need a tiny bit of GS fill on a model that size and complexity is not bad at all! Well done PP.

Pics tomorrow.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Awesome to see your blog back! Equally awesome to see you thinking Skorne! They are in a really neat place it seems to me now, with Incendiarii (and Croaks...) being really cool, the new bug critters being impressive, rerolls all over (I would trade lots for a reroll on a stick solo in Circle) and wierdo stuff like the Keltarii. Well, and the hydra looks awesome. You should totally rock that out! So I don't have to! I nearly bought 3Mak, Zaal and a dozen assorted Cyclops to run a few months back. It was just such a silly awesome list. It was mostly just the inability to choose a caster and imagining the baleful gaze from my own Archdomina that kept me from it.
I feel a little better though knowing that eKromac(!) is on his way to my house, with a Tier list that lets me run all 11 Argus I own and actually feel pretty good about it.

Speaking of road, being on it, and getting games thereby... when are you making it down to the slightly less frozen, more swampy south lands?

I am not particularly inclined to buy new Skorne stuff - the bugs fell short for me when they took the lazy way out and had them scooting along on their butts instead of standing on spindly, hard to build, pins required legs - although I still may come good on my threat to make a double hydra 50 point list. That is one awesome model, which also happens to have awesome rules, is covered in spray templates, and is a hydra. Hard to turn down those arguments! With WM/H in general, I'm more curious about getting some play in with minis I've already painted for a game I mostly understand - unlike Malifaux and, thanks to N3, Infinity

Speaking of spamming things: OMF ARGUS SPAM!! I occasionally check in to see if people are running argus spam lists, and have seen a few here and there. Big fan of the doge swarm now that there are three (maybe more now?) varieties to choose from. Will have to see how eKroms juices them up. Anyway, do want to see this happen! Dare I say, 2016/7 = Couple Hydras vs Many Arguses??

(I'm sure I'll be down in the summer as usual, though always so rushed I only see half the people I want to )

- Salvage

Aye, yea the bugs were really disappointing for me too. I expected more like elephant/stag beetles, less... whatever those look like. I think counts as models are definitely in order there!

Sorry about no pics over the weekend. Saturday I just passed out, and Sunday I spent 4+ hours airbrushing, and my feet and back were just done. Buying the Storm Bringer a big set of wooden doll house furniture you build yourself seemed like a good idea. ~7 hours of work later I am reexamining that decision.

But...

Speaking of Argus spam!



Kromac's Dog Walking Service! Only 7 regular Argus, 1 Winter and 1 Moonhound, but not bad The models are comparatively simple too, so I will probably have them done painting for Wednesday.

Here's a pic of the big man himself! Because he is awesome.


In terms of other things I painted last week, first we have Cassius and Wurmwood:


Cassius, annoyed with the glare from the workshop lights (sorry about that, no real room to set up other than my workbench with a scrap of leather over my anvil) wonders "Where has my blood gone to?".

So he calls the Blood Trackers




When you don't know where your blood is and need it found in a hurry, Blood Trackers are your number one solution, for all your Blood Tracking needs.

Once found, consider using Blood Weavers service:


With just a bit of fresh, warm blood, Blood Weavers can produce the most luxurious of scab based apparel! Wow your next office party with a festive Sanguine Knit sweater or cardigan!

Rounding things out, Shifting Stones. You know, those Stones you cross the street in order to avoid passing too near. Not because you think they are bad per se, but just better safe than sorry.

Also, a back shot on the unofficial stones, because I did free hand, damnit


Pendrake was there somewhere too, but I am a little disappointed with him. I think the model looked better in my head than it did painted on the table.

That was the recent stuff. This is less so:


Ghettorix and my second stalker there. I whitened the color on Ghetto's head dress there, which you can't see at all, sorry. The Hashishin stalker there is a little old, but I don't know that I ever really posted it here. Like Ghetto, he is made from a Feral kit, with a little mask and a custom sword made out of card and GS. I really hate the official stalker model, and figured I couldn't do worse. I am quite happy with how Second Stalker here turned out though, with sort of a limber, ready to act look to him the official one lacks.
Here's another shot of his sword, which I am quite pleased with.



And that's all I've got! Go paint your own models! I have eKromac and a swarm of Argus on my desk for now

Your Circle minis are looking really nice, I like all the tattoos you've done on the girls.

I'd like to do some Hordes minis at some point, need to pick up some more for my Warmachine factions first though.

*PIC[T] 'SPLOSION*

Cheers for all that! Many things of yours I haven't seen. Also eKroms is a big boy! Just had to go read about him. Puppy pack makes more sense now, beyond just a spammy shtick.

Forgot to mention, the next WM/H stuff I paint might be a Skorne warband ... for Frostgrave Go fig - after CSM, Skorne are one of the few TTG armies that I read / care about the background for Enslave all the chilly wizard dudes and steal their treasures!

- Salvage

@Giraffe: Thanks man The Hordes models are nice, even if the faces on the Nyss and Skorne are super, super ugly. Well, ok, I don't care much for PP models in general, but Circle has some cool stuff

SALVAGE

Yea, the argus is a pretty good beast at 3 points, and with auto hitting charges at +2 str is pretty hard hitting on feat turn (Pow 18 Combo Bite, 20 with Primal). Plus Def 15 Arm 14/16 isn't bad for clinging to a zone or flag. I suspect that Argus Spam is going to be more of a fun/silly list than anything serious, but I expect a lot of fun

Secretly though, I am just jealous I don't have Dr Arkadius' new Tier to play with. That looks AMAZING.

Totally do a warband for Frostgrave! I have a bunch of Rackham stuff that didn't fit into my old WHFB army based and primed to use in Frostgrave, so excited for that! Come to think of it, I have a bunch of new stuff for that army (for Kings of War) airbushed that I never posted pics of. Maybe later.

But yes. Skorne band would be great!! Lots of nice models to fit the theme too, from little guys with daggers (thieves) to big armored dudes (knights). Should be awesome! I need to build more terrain for Frostgrave, probably mirroring Wyrmalla's cork board terrain that is so nice.

ekrom is such a nice model too, really stepping up their game. That left hand (just the hand) is separate, but sculpted all around save for the wrist. It is then almost entirely covered up, but it would make a great bit for something else. Just a great model all around, not too busy but nicely detailed.

Great job on the Stalker conversion - I actually didn't spot that it was a conversion at all til you said, which I think is a great sign of success.


Did you say you have an ANVIL in your workshop?!

That painted infantry looks great, you have been on such a spree!

Only one small suggestion would be to have the red hair pop a little more on the blood trackers - just one last highlight would really look cool on them

Last I had heard there were still no arms on those models (which I had assumed meant no paint!) how were you able to finish them all so quickly? Very excited to play against them this week!

@RiTides: Thank you sir I was motivated by your (well Ramos Azura's) painting up all those croaks and gators. You are right that they were in bits, but mostly as you had seen them last: based, primed with a little base coat here and there, but with parts broken off through use. Starting from bare metal might not have been too bad as I would have been able to airbrush the skin tones, but those girls were glued some 5 years ago.

The best way to get lots of things done fast: planning and assembly lining It helps that I have been painting that general scheme for 7 years or so now, but yea, I knew which colors I wanted to use before what washes etc, and just powered through many iterations of it. That's one reason why Nuala didn't get done with them: too many differences from the main models to be efficient. Plus I think I boned the primer on her and got it too thick. I am probably going to strip her and start from scratch.

You are right too, the hair does need a last touch highlight to bring it up a bit. Some pop more than others, partially an artifact of them originally having different color hair like the Blood Weavers. I decided that different color hair was too slow to do, and also since it was the only bright color on the models having each be different would break up the cohesion of the unit a lot. Now they are strangely samey in terms of hair color, but somewhat uniform.

Speaking of colors, the army is no longer called "The Circle Jerks" but rather now "The Fifty Shades of Brown."

@ Da Boss: Thank you sir! I am really proud of that Stalker, if only because the base model irks me so
I do have an anvil, but just a little 50lb one. Well, also a little 1 lb one, but you know what I mean. I used to do a lot of leather work and armor work when I was active in the SCA, so I have lots of stuff like that around. Handy when you need them, though a pain to have moved around so much the last 6 years


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In fact, it is time to change the thread title. It's been years since any of this has been Warriors of Chaos related. Now it is all Circle, and some Kings of War Orcs, for what it's worth.

Oh man, without "Woad" in the title I totally couldn't find the thread

I like the hair all the same (or very close) color as you have it, sets off the other colors in the scheme nicely and keeps it looking like a unit! The assembly line painting was super effective, I am really impressed!

And I just got a good look at the new unit of stones, those look great! Always love your tattoo / markings painting.

Edit: Argh, still couldn't find this thread, so might have abused my power and edited the title to be "findable" (feel free to change it if you don't like it, if course!).

NO! Years of work! The essence of who I am, reduced down to just one word by the MAN!

Who arguably did a good job

I am 9/17ths of the way through the argus swarm, so pics of them incoming. I might try and get eKromac done today too, but that might be a bit aggressive.

 RiTides wrote:
Oh man, without "Woad" in the title I totally couldn't find the thread

I like the hair all the same (or very close) color as you have it, sets off the other colors in the scheme nicely and keeps it looking like a unit! The assembly line painting was super effective, I am really impressed!

And I just got a good look at the new unit of stones, those look great! Always love your tattoo / markings painting.

Edit: Argh, still couldn't find this thread, so might have abused my power and edited the title to be "findable" (feel free to change it if you don't like it, if course!).

Oh. My. God.

Is that about the paint job, the abuse of mod power, or...

Really beautiful stuff here, will snap a few pics from our game tomorrow

Also looking forward to seeing the "argus swarm" take shape, do people actually field that many!?

Pics tomorrow morning after I slam some paint on the druids' bases and some flock/snow on them and the pups. Oh, I got a unit of druids + UA done today. I need some sleep

So, I haven't seen anyone run Argus swarm yet, I think because just about no body owns that many that are put together (as opposed to stashed in a box somewhere.) I just keep coming across starter sets and two player boxes, so I have 7 regular, 1 moon and 1 winter to run. Which are all now painted, never to see the table
Theoretically, eKromac can run like 16 argus at 50 points, with 3 Blood Witches to get to that tier level, and give eKrom 3 heart tokens to boot. However, "can run" should be read as "can't actually force to Run without causing Frenzy checks." I would probably pull 2-3 for Goraxes and 2 Shifting Stone sets maybe. And obviously take Ghettorix or a Stalker at least. Once the army can run first turn without Frenzy issues though, it is on its way to being good! It is just an amazingly huge amount of Def 15 Arm 14 meat, like 220+ boxes of that. Super obnoxious to remove, and backed up by eKromac and some other heavy to remove things. Seem legit, but I might just be wishing hard

Excellent, can't wait to see them! But yeah, I think a few Gorax plus shifting stones makes sense. Does Circle get access to the new gobber chef for fury management?

Circle does have access to the Chef, but not in eKrom's tier. In general though, I think Circle won't use the chef much due to a lack of truly cheap infantry (Wolves of Orboros are cheap, but not widely used) and the fact that Shifting stones can pull Fury off beasts within 1" for free anyway. So for 1 point more you get three stones that help with fury and can also teleport etc. Theoretically we could run enough beasts to need a Chef, but I don't know how many problems it really solves for us, given that our light beasts are generally not that hot (Rotterhorns are great, but can be run on Una for a points discount anyway.)

Models are drying and sealing now, pics in a little.


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Ok, quick outdoor picture of the druids. I don't have time to get to the basing and such before I head out for games today, so the druids and argus pack will have to wait for the really finished pics. Also, I kind of want to put one more highlight, or one deep wash, on their cloaks now.



Also, you'll note the strange base on the UA. He actually has a two part base, a 25 mm base with a ring to take it to 30mm. Ring not shown.

GAME!
Wednesday I met up with RiTides and Kyle, who I don't think is on Dakka, at Kyle's place for some warmahordes action and tacos. RiTides actually remembered that he brought a camera with him, so I will need him to provide pictures, but here's the two I remembered.

Lists were 25 points per person, with my having 50 + two casters.

eKromac + 4
*Feral 9
*Ghetto 11
pKrueger + 5
*Gorax 4
*Stalker 10
Blood Weavers 5
Blood Weaver Night Witch 2
Druids + UA 9
Shifting stones + UA 3
Shifting Stones 2
Lord of the Feast 4

VS

Harkevitch
* Mad Dog
* Rager
* Black Ivan
Mechanics
Demo Corps
Wardog? Doesn't matter.

Barnabus
*Wrastler
*Little Gator
2x Croak Raiders
Witch Doc Croc

They rolled first and set up, with each group on their own side save for some Croaks on the left in front of the Jacks. First turn, things ran forward, and pot shots were taken and missed.
Circle turn 1: ENGAGE BUNKER! Everything moved up, Druids clouded, leaving a stupid gap on the left which I plugged with Ghettorix. He is rocking Def 16/Arm 19 with Deflection, so he should be fine, right? Lightning Tendrils go on Blood Weavers who move up all spread out to jam and be stealthy all at once. eKromac is irritated I didn't give him a charge target and ambles forward with Aggravator up, also irritated I put the stalker on Krueger so Awakened Spirit is pointless. Off to a great start.

Harkevich is played by Irusk this game in the interests of having paint on things. Strangely, I was playing the least amount of "Counts as" with only the Nightwitch and a unit of stones not being official (although conversions take it farther).

Side view!

Kyle has nice curtains, and lovely hard wood floors. Rawr.
Yea... that is totally a picture of the ring representing the zone. Sorry.

So that is bottom of 1. Turn 2, the Gators start getting bored. How has no one died!? Barny takes matters into his hands/claws/paws (what do gators have?) and moves up to pop Feat, knocking down Ghetto, almost all the druids, the Feral, and 2 Weavers. The stones wonder what all the fuss is about, and make passing comments about how flesh is so unreliable.

Then the Croaks activate. The blue croaks on the left bunch up in the zone and proceed to light Ghetto the hell up. Even at Arm 19 he just gets torn to pieces. So, poop. Some random shots also kill a druid, along with Black Ivan scattering to kill a few.
On the right, the Croaks fail a lot. Not sure whether to advance into melee or back up, they pull an elaborate DDR routine of forward, back, forward, back. Eventually they decide to dance into a line and flick javalins at the 3 blood weavers that are not stealth. 2 die. Go team Def 14!

Other things happen, such as the Wrastler and Snapper realizing Barny is within 10" of a Feral sitting in a triangle of stones. They beasts, after snout palming pretty hard, trundle over to make a wall of meat.

So, Circle 2, and I have given up an 11 point beast and half my bunker. Great. Lightning Tendrils is upkept on the Weavers, and fury is leached, etc.
Night Witch activates, bit doesn't have a clear charge to a croak, so she runs up to be all leadershippy. Weavers activate, rocking killing spree, gang and reach. Oh, and electro leap. The 4 remaining girls proceed to Pacman through 7 of the orange croaks, clearing the zone. Rawr.
After hemming, hawing, and realizing I can't count, pKrugs activates, and walks forward. Duh duh DUHN! Ain't nobody ready for what happens. He cycles Lightning Tendrils to the Feral (RiTides believed Reach and Electro Leap was a base ability of the Weavers, despite my attempts to explain otherwise). Kreuger then Feats all over the faces of the blue croaks, killing all but 4, and killed exactly one Mechanic out of 4, much to my surprise. He then Primals the Feral.
Stones, predictably, put the Feral 10" forward across the bunker and on the flank of Barny's wall of meat. Feral activates, and the slaughter commences. Turns out Mat 9 Str 19 on 6 attacks (-1 Fury to shake knock down earlier) is really good against Barny. The electro leaps also wrecked the Snapper, while transfers killed the Wrastler. The Feral then turns his blood soaked gaze towards the Witch Doctor, in that unmistakable "Next turn, bub" manner he does.

The left was less exciting. Gorax slips up to toe the zone and the forest and primals the Stalker. The Stalker charges up, smashes the Mad Dog (shield guard jack) and a croak, then makes peace with his Wurmy god. eKrom moves to dominate the right zone, while the few remaining druids move up to block charges on the Demo Corps, and the Lord of the Feast wonders why he even got out of bed.

Blind-Khador Turn 3 is not exciting for them. Harkevitch charges the Stalker and maybe feats, putting some decent damage on the wolf. RiTides moves the Witch Doc to be more easily eaten, fails to Croak things (get it?) and gets a delicious taco. The Rager finishes the Stalker, while Black Ivan fails to do serious damage to the Gorax in melee. Yea, I don't know either.
Playing the "Killing the Lord of the Feast is like winning, right?" mini-game, Kyle, after being convinced by RiTides that it was a good idea, charges a Demo Corpsman at the LotF and soaks a Pow 10 free strike. Which rolls up to 25 damage, killing it in one shot. eKrom dominates, and we call the game.

After more tacos were had by all, RiTides packed up his army of SHAME and left, and Kyle and I threw down some 35 point action. I rolled a similar eKrom list:

eKrom
*Ghetto
*Stalker
*Feral
Druids
Stones + UA

Kyle rolled the Butcher 3 tier, with 3 light jacks, 4 wardogs and a warwagon thing. It was a quick game, with the same board and zones.
Butcher forward!
eKrom up the middle! Form bunker, HO!
Butcher FORWARD! Dominate the right zone asap! Accidentally snipe out 2 druids with warwagon (WTF?!)
eKrom.... uhm.... my bunker. Stalker and eKrom left zone! Everyone else, try and bunker right, with Ghetto toeing the zone and Feral sort of helping.
Butcher... can't see to the right due to druids, ambles to the left side of the right zone, slaughters everyone, going down to 1 Focus. Importantly, the jacks can't get between him and eKrom.

Kromac. Dear, sweet Kromac. Measures control; Butch is 11" away. (He also has his back to Krom, but I forgot that.) Kromac feats to go to Str 19 and auto hitting charge attacks. Kromac charges. [POW] 10 damage. Buy an attack, 5 more. Buy an attack, dead Butcher. Good times!




In hobby news, I am going to work on a unit of Skinwalkers here next, and write up a mini-article on assembly line/speed painting in the process. So more pictures, and lots more words. I know, I am surprised that there could be more words too. So that's upcoming!

Oh man, I got owned so bad! First game with the gators and it was a real learning experience. Need to not clump up my frog units, and putting my caster all alone on the center of this hill somehow seemed like a good idea at the time......



Even though I then tried to screen for him, it wasn't enough - his warpwolf easily teleported right next to my beasts below, and reached right by them with a reach spell he put up to kill Barnabas:



Very good learning experience, and it also showed me that I think even though he can be very good with the frogs, I don't really like Barnabas' style and will go with the warlock I had been craving running - Calaban with a Sacral Vault and Blind Walker

Btw Wehr, maybe you could size down your pics a bit, they don't shrink to fit the screen size for me so when there is a lot of text like the battle report under them it makes it hard to read with all the side scrolling! You can just select "medium" if you upload them to the gallery, like this:


Or for my pics above I just resized them in paint (saving as a .png) before uploading, and kept them full-sized but smaller than their native resolution.

Looking forward to seeing the skinwalkers! And arguses (argii?)

Ahh, thanks for putting those up RiTides! Your phone takes much nicer pictures than my 7 year old camera

Also, I failed to give a shout out to Kyle for providing a very nice table of terrain with all the fixin's (I just brought the stump forests there), as well as his wife making very yummy tacos. It was a very nicely hosted event!

(Are the pictures still huge? They are normal re-size on my screen.)


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Ok, hopefully that fixes the pics!

Hi again! This is part 1 of a two part article/tutorial I am going to do on assembly line painting. This first bit is about the planning and theory behind things, and the next part will be working through the process on a unit of Skinwalkers and the UA. I am halfway through painting them today, so probably tomorrow or Monday I will have them done and get the pictures in line. Not too many pictures in this part, just walls of text, sorry.

Speed Painting/Assembly line painting.

Painting models can be a problem. On the one hand you want your models to look really awesome, but on the other that can take a really long time, so the end result is many people have one or two nicely painted models and a lot of bare plastic and metal, with maybe some primer. The best answer to this problem I think is to learn to paint many models pretty well, pretty quickly, as it is better to have a fully painted table top quality army than an unpainted but potentially amazing army. The best way I have found to do this is what is called assembly line painting, going through a set of models and painting every part that is color A, then every part that is color B, then all the highlights in color C, etc. A lot of people avoid assembly line painting, thinking that the results will be sloppy and mediocre, and their army will look poorly because of it. With planning and practice, however, I find that assembly line painting will produce results that look quite good, certainly better than bare/primered models, and in fact serve as a good base for really making the models shine, if later you decide to go back and add some details. In other words, with a little planning and practice one can produce models that are table top quality in very little time, without making those models impossible to improve later.
This tutorial is going to focus on how to improve one’s assembly line painting by applying some principles of process design and industrial engineering to make the process more efficient. The key idea is that usually the act of painting models, like many human activities, is comprised of relatively little actual putting of paint on models with a lot of secondary activities like getting the paints, washing brushes, fixing the model you just broke etc. mixed in. To get the maximum efficiency out of the time you spend painting we need to plan the process such that we maximize the paint applied per unit of time while also minimizing the amount of paint we need to put on models. I am going to break this into sections, Planning, Tools and Techniques and the Process itself.

Planning
Like I said before, much of this comes down to planning. This is a nice thing to do in your car, on the bus, etc., as it can drastically improve the speed of your painting all while you are far from your brushes.

1: Plan the models: Certain models are better for this process than others, and certain groups are better than others. You want models that are similar in terms of colors to be used and general locations for those colors, as well as models that are not too blinged out (see color choice below). For instance, a unit of 10 regular space marines is great, as they are all relatively simple and relatively similar, even if some have special weapons or something. Adding a basic character model to those marines, like say the old captain model, isn’t too bad either, as he has only a little bit of bling that isn’t on the tac marines, and so you can still get him ~90% done along with the boys. Putting in a blinged out chaplain model with different colors and lots of other stuff won’t work well. Likewise, if you are painting a unit of Tharn Blood Trackers with all the browns on them, you might be tempted to throw in a few horses in the mix, but that probably would be a bad idea as even though the horses might also use the brown, the patters of highlights and shading might well be different enough to throw you off. In a nutshell, this works better for units of similar models, and characters/solos whatever should be done by themselves. These 5 Skinwalkers plus their UA will work fine for this, as they are all very similar, don’t have tons of fiddly details, and importantly the UA is also very similar to the base models. By comparison, Nuala the Huntress looks rather different from her Tharn Blood Tracker unit, and so is awkward to try and paint with them.

Don't try to do too many models all at once. As the models are not going to be getting done quickly individually, we are fighting boredom a little too. It is one thing to paint 10 pairs of blue pants in a row, quite another paint 30 or 50. Breaking things down into manageable batches where you don't find yourself thinking "If I have to paint one more belt I am going to murder someone," is important, and very much down to personal preferences. I like to do 5-10 at a time unless the models require very little care in painting and I can watch a movie or something.

One other thing to think about is whether or not to fully build the models. I almost always put them together because I am stupid and really like building things. I then deeply regret having to work around shields or weapons in front of the body, etc. In this case some of the Skinwalker’s halberds are a real pain. Ahh well.



2: Plan the colors: There are two components to this, knowing your scheme, and limiting your scheme. When it comes to knowing your scheme, you want to know which paints you are going to use, and where. Even your choice of primer is a part of this step, with dark primers being inappropriate for bright schemes, and being able to airbrush primer that is the base color really helps. What you don’t want to do is get halfway through painting a unit and decide that those paints just do not work with that cape, and have to start all over again. To this end, taking one model and doing a test of the scheme makes a lot of sense. Better to paint and strip one model a few times than the entire unit. In my case here, I have been painting this general scheme for like 8 years, so I am really comfortable with what browns go where and which greens to use, but I am not 100% on the skin/hair tone on the skin walkers, so I am going to paint one guy’s skin entirely before doing the other 5.
While doing the test run on the scheme it is a good time to start thinking about what is the minimum amount of different colors you can do on the model. This is important, because if you are doing a pattern of “base + highlight + wash” for every different base color, you are probably doing at least 2-3 colors per base. So if you models have 13 different base colors on them, chances are you are going to have 26-39 steps in the process. That is quite a bit! For instance, the first Blood Tracker test model I did had 13 different base colors on her, 6 of which were brown, 1 unique highlight (although sometimes the highlight was also a base somewhere else) and there were 4 different washes . Needless to say, she didn’t get finished! The end scheme I went with had 7 base colors, 3 of which shared highlights and all of which shared a wash. The process went from 13+10+3 = 26 color application steps to 7 + 4 + 1 = 12 steps.
Now, there are hard choices to be made here. First of all, note that I am assuming a single highlight per base color. That makes some fancier techniques out of the question (although clever washing makes up for it as described later.) Another important issue is that some little details like necklaces, trophies, little bling things might be a whole set of colors to themselves, and that might be bad. For the Blood Trackers have lots of little dangly bits, some of which might be bone, stone or metal, who knows. At the time of painting I decided that they were all stone, like their spear tips, to save time. Later I went back and amended some, but the idea is that when they needed paint on them the simplest way was best, even if it means ignoring some details. After they are painted, sure pick out little bits to make them prettier.

In the case of the skinnies here, I expect to use 7 color sets:
Armor & Axes – Light grey -> Black Wash (Debating on making the ax heads metallic)
Cloaks – Black Green -> Turf Green -> Maybe Turf + Dark Sand if it needs it ->Brown Wash
Cloak Fur – Sky Grey -> White -> Maybe Brown Wash
Lacing – Dark Sand or Orange Brown
Skin – Cork Brown -> Dark Sand -> Sky Grey – Light Brown Wash
Leather bits- Saddle Brown -> Cork Brown -> Brown Wash
Horns/teeth/claws – Ivory + some wash as appropriate.

So 6 base colors, some of which are used as highlights, and 2-3 washes. Not too shabby. The skin/fur is a little more complicated because I like living bits to be more detailed, especially with skin. I might add some blue woad as well if I can figure a place that makes sense. The little tassles on the axes, I haven’t decided on yet either. I might do a dark red to add some warm colors. As this is a minor part and depends a lot on how the rest of the scheme looks, I am going to put it off till the end. I primed these lads a long time ago, before I had the airbrush, and when I got that I played around with putting greens on their cloaks. The cloaks are a lot of their surface area, so accidentally that was probably a good move. The priming job isn’t so hot though…

3: Plan your equipment: This seems silly at first, but it is worth thinking about and having everything ready ahead of time. One of the biggest time wasters in industry is switching between tools, and having to search around for a specific brush or little cleaner for the paint nipples will soak up a lot of time and focus. So know what brushes you want to use along with whatever other random bits you will want and make sure they are all there, clean, and ready to go. I do 90% of my painting with one GW Medium brush that is ~13 years old, and then 5% super detail with a tiny brush, and then a somewhat larger brush makes up the difference. Lately I have been using pill organizers as palettes, although I use a wet palette when I am painting fairly regularly (more on that in the Tools and Technique section).

4: Plan your time: This is non-obvious, but really important. There are certain things you are going to need to do before and after every painting session: clean your brushes, find your brushes, gather your paints, find the model your toddler ran off with, take a leak, get a drink, find a movie to watch in the background, etc. You will do these things whether you paint for 30 minutes or 3 hours, so it is better to paint in larger blocks and minimize the time you spend doing things other than putting paint on stuff. If you are like me and your hands stop working well when you are tired, don’t plan on painting late in the evening; I waste lots of time screwing up when tired and then more time fixing the mistakes later. You gotta work with the time you have though, so you try and fit things to that time. I apply washes that go over a large area when my hands are shaky. If I know I only have an hour or so, I plan on getting a color done that doesn’t take too long per model, etc. Something to keep in mind is that washes need to be applied all at a go because you can’t let them dry and apply more to a spot you missed without leaving lines, so you can’t rush. Similarly, after applying the wash you need to give it a few hours to dry before touching it or getting it wet or it can screw with the coloring and finish.

Tools and Techniques
The tools and how you use them are about what you would expect, but planning on how to use them and when is important. Plus I want to go over them just in case I use terms that only exist in my head 

Brushes & Palette
When it comes to brushes, the general idea is to use the largest brush you can handle without making mistakes like getting paint where it shouldn’t be. This hits both the maximizing paint per unit time by putting more paint on the model faster, as well as minimizing the amount of paint that needs to be applied by cutting back on mistakes. Every brush stroke is an opportunity to screw up and get paint where it shouldn’t be, so fewer brush strokes leads to fewer mistakes that need to be corrected.
Now, over time the optimal size of your brush will change. I used to use a very small brush for just about everything because my brush control meant that was what maximized application while minimizing errors. Over time I moved to a larger brush that still had a fine point for most of my strokes. The important thing is to find the brushes that work for you while practicing using bigger brushes to be able to use them over time.
Another nice sort of brush to keep around is one you don’t care about much that you keep wet to wash off any mistrokes. You won’t see them before they dry all the time, but if you do that brush makes a nice little eraser along with a paper towel bit.
For a palette, anything you like works, although something that either seals or has some other method for keeping paint damp over time is good. It is nice to be able to make a quick correction with a previously used color, and the less time spent dispensing paint to replace dried paint, the better.

Paints
Whatever brand you use, it is worth getting colors you like as is, and don’t need to mix. Mixing takes time, and if you have to correct something later it will be tough to get the color right. If you do want to mix for a specific color, the best bet is to mix it in its own container, making plenty and dispensing it like any other paint.
Another thing you will want is some thinner. Thin your paints until they flow off the brush well while still covering nicely. Hitting that point without over thinning and getting them runny takes practice but it is a really useful skill. Too thick and you clog up your detail and take a lot of strokes to get paint down because it doesn’t flow off the brush, too thin and it runs all over and needs fixing.
Washes are something else. You can mix your own, buy GW ones or whatever, but in general washes are going to be a big part of the process in terms of effect, while being a small part in terms of time.

Techniques
There are 3 basic techniques I am going to mention, although I really only use two.

1: Base/highlighting – Normal consistency paint (thinned). Base coating is just getting the whole area the right color. Highlighting is adding normal consistency paint in a color a step or two lighter to certain points, edges, high spots etc. to make the details stand out a little. Edge highlighting, using the edge of a brush to apply paint only to high spots is a good trick to develop. Generally for this process the base colors and especially highlights are going to be a good bit brighter than what the final result will be, due to the washing process. Be sure to plan for that.

2: Dry Brushing – Applying dryish paint off a dry brush by swiping it over an area. The dry paint rubs off onto the high spots, leaving natural highlights. The problem is that these highlights are often rather dusty looking, and they tend to get all over the place. As a result, I almost never use this technique except on clothing and hair/fur, and dirt/rocks. It should not be used on smooth, consistent surfaces.

3: Washing – This is probably where most of the work really gets done. Washing is an application of a very thin paint, usually thinned with special thinner and some matte medium, over an area. The paint flows into cracks and crevices, adding lots of color to those lower spots while simply staining higher surfaces. This creates gradients of color that tie together even pretty sharp highlights to their bases, and gives the appearance of lots of blended colors on a surface.
I think of this as an additive process, as the wash doesn’t replace the original color but changes it in degrees. There is a huge amount of flexibility to be had here, as different bases and highlights will combine with a single wash to give very different effects, and likewise two different washes can make two areas painted the same colors look very different. Both save you time! The Blood Trackers mentioned previously are all washes with the same dark brown (Devlan Mud) which ties them together while still retaining different colors across their bodies. Often I will use multiple washes on a model, one for cloth in that color, one for skin, one for leather, and one for metals, as they go on quickly and add a lot of color variation and pull out details (assuming you didn’t fill up those details in the base stage by using too thick paint!)
One thing to bear in mind is that some colors are better for washing than others. Specifically, black is not a color you want to be washing with much, as it really sucks the warmth and brightness out of things, making them look flat and dull. It can be fine for grey metals, but anything with color will be hurt. On the other hand, a dark brown looks pretty good on just about any color, as does a Payne’s Grey (dark grey with navy blue). But seriously, don’t wash your skin tones with a black, they will just be ruined.
You can also wash small areas to give a hint of a color. This is generally called glazing, and won’t really be touched on here.

Next up: the Process itself!

That's a very good overview! Hope part two has lots of pics (and the size of them are fixed now )

Hella tutorial, +1 to call for more pics! Document those skinwalkers!

- Salvage

Ok! Sunday turned into EPIC PUTTERING Day as the wife and I reorganized/purged the basement. Got a lot of stuff put away, crap thrown away, and things found. Today I am planning to finish up the skinnies who probably only have 2-3 more hours of work (for a total of ~6-7)
First up, what happened Saturday as we start

PART 2: THE PROCESSESSING

So we had the plan set up the other day, what models, what paints, where things were going to go. Saturday I sat down to apply paint and take pictures.



Here's the primed and a little airbrushed skinnies ready to go, with the paints on the left there as described in part one, and the two washes I intend to use (Badab Black and Devlan Mud**.) Spoiler. in some ways they are going to look MORE primed before this is over, due to the use of a light grey that is close to the primer (which is why I liked that primer.)

** I do want to put a link in to Les Bursley's wash recipes thread. It is an awesome recipe for basically recreating the consistency and function of the GW washes with different materials. Big money saver, and the added variety you get is really nice. I still have a half dozen little bottles of the GW stuff to burn through, but I have used Les' recipe for a light tan color for my Rackham Stalker from a few pages back, and it was wonderful. So check that out!

As you will recall, I wasn't too certain about what I wanted to do with the skintones when I started, so I wanted to try a quick pre-wash scheme to see if it is roughly the colors I want. I used Cork Brown -> Dark Sand -> Sky Grey. Here's the result:



It is quite light, which is good since I plan to put a dark wash on it, and has some depth. Note that it is mostly the dark sand now, but I did put cork over everything first. This makes missing a spot with DS less of a problem, and more importantly allows some Cork to show through the thin spots and add depth.
Any road, I am pretty happy with the result, and now know what colors I am doing the skin in.

Now that I have the colors fixed (save for the tassels that don't really matter) I can plan out the order of the colors! You might have thought we were done with planning, but HA! You are never done! The order matters a lot here, as I am using the same color in multiple roles to save time, so whenever I can I want to do ALL the spots that need that color at once, whether it is base, highlights or clean up. On the other hand, some types of application are going to be messier than others, so I need to take that into account. The fur trim on the cloaks will take a lot of dabbing to get the paint into the recesses, and the skin is going to take some working around corners to get it all.
So the rough plan is this:

Skin - Cork then Dark Sand
Armor / metal - Sky Grey
Leather - Saddle Brown
Cloak - Black Green, Turf
Fur trim - Maybe some white highlights?
Leather Highlights / Skin Cleanup Cork
Stitching /Skin Clean up - Dark sand
Top Skin Highlights & Armor/Fur Trim Cleanup - Sky Grey
Washes forever.

So Step 1: get the first two layers on the skin:
Base


At this point on the Alpha I realized that backs of their legs were not covered by armor, so I went back and added the few bits of skin tone to the parts of their legs you can see.

Highlight


The camera didn't pick it up well, but there is still cork in the depths of the heads there. The camera apparently color corrected that as a shadow? I guess that is a good sign... photography isn't my thing.


Step 2: Armor and fur bases, which I apparently forgot to take a picture of, but they get a lot more light grey, as can be seen in

Step 3: Leather base


So this is where I left off Saturday. This took longer than I wanted due to fumbling with the iPhone camera and having to work around those damned axes, but it wasn't a bad bit of work for having a toddler and dinner in there. They look very far from done, but do not despair! This method tends to look bad till they are done and look good. An observant reader will see that there is paint is spots where it shouldn't be, and that's fine; it will all get cleaned up at once towards the end. I don't want to spend time cleaning up an errant brush stroke or two every few minutes when I know more are coming. Better to get them all at once.

Today/tomorrow I will finish up the cloaks, stitching on same, highlight the leathers and skin touch-up, correct the fur/armor mistakes with skin highlights, get to the washes and be done! I suppose I will also do the color on the bases... I usually leave that for the very end and hadn't thought about it so far.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Derp, forgot the Ivory for the little horns, and I think I am going to highlight the fur trim with that. I knew I had it out for something.

Alright, time to wrap this bad boy up! I got delayed there with holiday and family stuff, but I got it all done! Let's see!

As I mentioned, things needed tidying up before I get to the wash step. So some tidying, and some little highlights. First the Cork on the leather and to touch up skin:


Then a little dark sand on the skin to clean up.


I decided against more grey on the skin, as these were getting plenty grey as it is.

Next up, did the stitching on the cloaks. I used an orange brown instead of the dark sand, as I never really use orange brown and it looked so lonely there on the table.


Finally I filled in some little details like the ivory on the horns, some cavalry brown (a very red brown) for the tassles to tie them in with the hair on many of the other models in the army, and teeth, tongues etc.


And we are go for washing!

That's the brown wash just after application. Important things about washes in this process:

1: They take a long time to fully dry. Don't get them wet or you will have patches without color. Don't paint near them or they will flow into your area and mess things up. DON'T put on a second coat after the first starts to dry, or it gets all hosed up; either put all of it on quickly, or wait for it all to dry. Do not taunt Happy Fun Wash.
2: Washes (GW ones especially) look very different when they have had a lot of time to dry than when they do while wet. I don't know why exactly, but probably has something to do with the pigments still moving around a bit while damp.
3: Don't wash another area while one area is still drying. See point 1. Washes are really easy to get in spots you don't want, and you can screw up two areas of color at the same time.

All this makes washing a good thing to do right before bed or some other reason you need to stop for a bit. So I went to bed, and here is how the brown looked the next morning.


Ok, the difference is swamped by the lighting differences... but it's there! Really!

Now, I didn't take a photo of this really, but I was really messy with the brown for... reasons. So I had to go back and touch up the armor a LOT. Washes go a long ways towards defining areas and doing a sort of lining in, but get them into adjacent areas you don't want and that all goes to hell. So, after that dried it was time for BLACK.



I blacked in the armor, and added a dark streak down the middle of their wolf pelt things. Then I let that dry for a LONG time.

Lastly, all there was to do was fix some of the little things. I put some Scarlet highlight on the tassles, some Ivory dry brush on the fur bits to bring them back up to nearly white, as well as Ivory on teeth and bone bits, and Scarlet on the eyes. Cleaned up the bases, and boom!



Not too shabby! Especially for about 7-10 hours total. Hard to say because I didn't get as much time to just sit and paint forever as I might have liked, what with a toddler and holiday stuff, so how much time I spent painting as opposed to sitting near the models playing Heroes of the Storm is tough to say. All in all though they look pretty good and it was pretty easy. Some Dullcote (and decorations on the bases) and I think they would be in the top 50% of all painted models at any game store. More importantly, they are in a good spot to gussy them up later if I want to, maybe by highlighting the cloaks a bit to make them pop more, some woad... somewhere, and little things. The only regret paint wise is that maybe I should have done a true metallic on the ax heads, but the look fits the cast iron aesthetic the army has.

One thing that does bug me is the dusty primer job on the Alpha. I think the first time I drop him and something breaks he is going to get stripped and redone. It is kind of minor, but bad enough to really frustrate me that I didn't take care of it earlier.

So yea, that's that! Quick assembly line painting of a unit of large guys to a good table top standard. So get those models painted! GO! NOW!

Anyway, here's what's next on the painting table: Red Box Games Craven, which will be used as Skulks in my Kings of War Orks that look like Celts army.



Merry Christmas!

The step by step was great, could we see a pic of just one of the final product to see the detail?

And Craven!! That's awesome . I got the Jotunn from Tre just a few weeks ago finally, could you use it in that army? It is huge! If so just let me know, would happily send it your way in exchange for future services

I need more practice so am going to be seeing if the local Hordes night at the store right next to me (Family Game Store) is legit. Do folks play Hordes at Huzzah at all or is it more other games? I really enjoyed our game but realized I have no idea what I'm doing!

Merry Christmas and all the best to you and your family going into this new year

 Wehrkind wrote:
Anyway, here's what's next on the painting table: Red Box Games Craven, which will be used as Skulks in my Kings of War Orks that look like Celts army.

Damn but those Craven look the business! And I forgot you were messing with KOW too. Someday in the bright, shiny, time-filled future our hypothetical KOW armies should roll some dice at each other - currently lining up my first matches with my 'Abyssals That Look lIke Daemons of Tzeentch' army, as I backburner my 'Varangur That Look like Khorne Bloodbound' project and stupidly contemplate a 'Trident Realm That Looks like Cthulu Cultists' force

Cheers for the pro tips as well, particularly for washing. I may pass some of that on to my friends who are just getting into painting minis.

- Salvage

@RiTides: Thanks for the praise, and YES I will show some final pics here probably within the next few days. I might put another wash of black on their armor as it is a little lighter than I wanted, a bit lighter than the average armor in the army. I think it is due to a really old bottle of wash, and hitting the dregs of it.

I don't know what the jotun looks like, but I can always use more big dudes I have some giants from Rackham I mean to put together soon and use for... something.

@Salvage; Yea, as usual Tre hits them out of the park. Very sneaky and clever looking, even if I broke off like everyone of those daggers by accident We really do need to play some KoW! It isn't the perfect mass fantasy wargame I want, but probably the one I deserve at the moment. And it lets me put neat stuff on the table, so I will take it I even bought another 40 celt infantry, some archers, wardogs, naked druids and a chariot over Black Friday, so when I get the horses and all that put together I will have quite a large kingdoms of men army to field, not to mention paint.

Also... craven might get pushed for BIG MAC. Due to events I had sort of forgotten about him in my army bag, but he is now rocking the paint table, being all 3 times taller than the craven

Battle REPORT!
(no pictures, sorry :( )

This evening I was lucky enough for my buddy to come down for Late Night Warmachine at my place: after his kid goes to bed, and just before mine. Having just gotten my Argus Recon Guerrillas painted and based, it was time for a silly list showdown!

eKromac, 50 points Tier 4
Kromac +4
- 6x Argus 18
- Argus Moon Hound 3
- Winter Argus 5
- Gorax 3
- Stalker 10
Blood Weavers 5
Shifting Stones x2 4
- UA 1
2x Nightwitch 4
Sentry Stone Mannikins 3

His list:
eeButcher Tier
-Ruin
-Kodiak
-Kodiak
-Some damn heavy
3x Wardogs
Winter Guard Infantry + UA
Kov Joe
Yuri the Ax
Battle Wagon Engine thing.

Scenario was Incursion (3 flags). Table had some forests on the my left flank, a wall near the center flag, and a big hill on most of the right flank. I won the roll and elected to go first, and put my 3" forest near the hill on the right, about halfway between the two flags, intending to use it as a base for the Sentry and a hiding spot for Kromac in a pinch. Butcher apparently gets a 4" area of rough terrain, and he put it basically opposite my forest.

I set up Kromac dead center, flanked by 3 argus on each side, with the gorax behind them, Stalker on the left flank with the trees, the moony and winter argus on the right, and blood weavers + solos just behind Kromac on the right.
He deploys in a sort of refused flank, with the Winter Guard mini-star on the left only, stretching between the flags, the battle engine centered up, then Butcher on the far right directly across from that flag on the hill, his 4 jacks between him and the battle engine.
AD, my non-stealth stones go on the right, stealth on the left, and Sentry between right stones to hop into forest. Yuri goes on the far left by the WG.

C-1: RUN! I should have practiced my opening; having 10 beasts on the table is sort of a new thing for me. First thing I would have done differently was to run the argus' in the clear forward, then have Kromac activate and put the pathfinder animus on those that needed to get into the woods, then activate them. Instead the left flank Argus' put their own animus on and I had a lot of fury on the table. Plus side, I was 20" away from my deployment edge first turn, with the stones among them to pull some fury off with Serenity NOW. The Stalker seeing all the big stuff on the right, sighs and runs across. The Blood weavers, seeing all the little stuff on the left, run to the left. Kromac, after fixing some of his mistake by applying animi, drop Awakened Spirit on the Stalker, puts up Aggravator and charges the battle engine. The sentry stone, safe now in its little woods, has a manikin explode next to the forest to create a little line in front of the stones, while two manikins move up to the hill ahead of the argus (who went a little slower due to the woods and not really being able to put the stones where I wanted them.
K-1: The Winter Guard, hearing the howls from across the snowy expanse, and the answering howls from their own flank, grumble something about how they just wanted a quiet life, chopping wood and eating turnips, and trundle forward. Kov Joe threatens to shoot someone to toughen them up. All in all, they are a little concerned about how close the dogs sound, and don't really plow forward.
Yuri, on the other hand, has heard that dogs are good eating, especially the two headed ones on account of having double the amount of cheek meat. He charges at an angle at one of the Argus in the woods. He is, alas, about 2" short. No dog for you!
The battle engine moves forward to the edge of the rough terrain and wings a shot at a treeman. It misses, far off the to flank. Its second shot misses but moves into the middle of the right argus knot, putting two damage on the Winter Argus. I forget Hyper Aggressive, but probably for the best. The Jacks advanced at a "run", and Butcher mounted the hill will the flag, his two argus in front blocking LOS and 3 dogs behind.

C-2: Huh... so that's a lot of fury sitting around. Being a little rattled by that, I serenity off 6, leaving me at 5 to leach. Whoops. I don't count well after a long day. Kromac cuts for 2, and upkeeps Aggravator and Awakened Spirit. At this point I decide to go for scenario; I have dogs on the left that can hold the objective with the help of the Blood Weavers (the solos can probably eat the whole unit of WG I figure.) There are 3 dogs in the middle that can stall there, and a trio of argus flavors on the right that can slow down Butcher, at least for as long as it takes to dig his ax out of their spines. So on the right, the Sentry puts a manikin between butch and the flag to make trees, and the other moves past it a bit and pot shots a spray at one of Butch's argus. Silly in retrospect, but he missed. An argus moves to the far side of the flag from the forest and Butch, out of LOS, while the winter and moony back him up a bit. The stalker moves up into the woods with the sentry within the shifting stones, within port range of the flag (and thus within range of Butcher if he goes B2B with it to dominate.)
On the left, the woodland argus burns 3 fury to eat Yuri, because it hadn't occurred to me to cast Carnage with Kromac first. The other argus walks up to the flag, while the blood weavers run forward to block the WG advance.
In the center, I get a little risky and move Kromac forward in front of the wall and cast Carnage, sitting on two transfers. The 3 middle argus move ~4-5" forward to block access of the battle engine and jacks. Gorax moves up to cuddle with Kroms, and the stealth stones move up to prepare to toss Kromac somewhere, while being outside of 5" from potential battle engine moves. At end of turn I am poised to take at least 1 point unopposed, and possibly 2 (turns out the flag was knocked off position and Kromac wasn't in B2B, but whatever.)
K-2: At this point my opponent had gotten 2 texts from his wife that his boy was back awake and coughing a lot, so this had to be the last turn, and it had to be pretty quick. Starting from left to right, the WG moved up into a line and through weight of spray fire managed to drop all the Blood Weavers and one Night Witch. How about that... The battle engine charged an argus, putting it at 6 hp, then missed arguses left and right with its guns. Butcher (having put 1 focus on each Kodiak and 2 on Ruin) tries to remember what units do. After some suggesting from me that he probably doesn't want to move and attack with one argus before moving the rest of the unit, no... really, stop picking up dice... moves the argusi up to the right flag, while he energizers for 3 (moving the jacks nearer to my dismay) then walks 3/4 of the way around the moony and feats. He casts Impending doom, and my half planned brilliance reveals itself: the moony is pulled up, but there is not enough space between moony and the flag for the flag sitter to move past it, so he just stops. The winter then bumps into him, and not much else happens. Butcher, still trying to figure out just what the hell is going on, decides to kill a dog. Pow: 12 damage. He casts Flashing Blade, splinters a manikin and .... rolls 5 to hit Moony. Hmmm... casts again, rolls 4. Casts again, hey a 7! Rolls 8 damage. Casts again, rolls a 5. Moony it seems has learned to duck. Butcher sits on 0 camp, with a two headed dog sniffing his crotch.
Measuring control, he sees he can't quite get a jack into Kromac by about 2-3 inches, Ruin charges a central argus, getting a second in reach range. 3 Fury later those two are dead. A kodiak charges the Moony, rolls an 8. Whoops, just mat 6, try again. No, sorry, another roll of 6 won't do it. The last kodiak tries to kill the argus in font of the battle wagon, but also misses. (The last jack was so far out of position it never did anything.)
I get a point, battle wagon contests mid. I think Butcher's dogs contest right? Not sure how that works.

C-3: Well... time to close this out. I measure control, and yup, I can put Kromac 9" away and be in reach of Butcher. First though, silly things. The flag sitting dog on the right rotates around and sprays Butcher. Rolls a 10. After we try and figure out what Butch's def is (16 with wardogs I guess?) we realize that with Moony there in melee, a 10 + 4 Rat + 2 moony = hit. Butch is now Def 7. Kromac, scratches his balls, hefts his ax, and glimmers as the stones teleport him to Butcher.
"Wait, so Shifting Stones teleport within 8", not completely within 8"?"
"Yup... so effectively 10" for a large base, threatening 12" with reach. Like Kromac. Or the Stalker there."
"Well... that's really good."

It takes Kromac 4 boosted damage rolls after Feating to seal the deal due to poor rolls, but Butcher becomes just one more corpse token.


Thoughts:
1: 3 point Argus are kind of great. Def 17 on the hill makes them almost impervious to shooting, Def 15 makes them really tough to actually kill in melee. I think the best bit is that one never really knows how much to commit. The binary nature of Def means that a fully loaded jack can miss too much to kill, or splatter it in two shots and leave some Focus remaining. Which is nice for...
2: Sentry stones are ok. Kind of. I didn't teleport it early due to needing the stones forward to serenity, but it was ready to pull 1 focus off Butcher, had he left any. The forests were really nice, though the first turn one probably wasn't necessary as the battle engine didn't move as fast as I had hoped.
3: A whole army that moves Spd 7 save for 3 models is scary.
4: I originally thought that a better list would have removed 2 argus and put in a Rotterhorn and a second gorax. Maybe. Maybe I could pull the weavers for another solo to remove one argus for those two. On the other hand, I didn't really feel like I needed it. Argus are hard to remove and really claim some ground. With so many he could have killed 3-4 (no small task apparently) and I still would have won on points.
5: 4 jacks is too many on Butcher 3, no matter the discount. And he shouldn't have refused that flank so hard. He said that he was stunned at how far my army made it turn 1, and a little more on turn 2.

So, that list was a lot of fun! I need to try it in more serious/awake games, but it does seem to have a lot of potential. I didn't even get to do slam-bots or auto-hitting Pow 20 combo-bites.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Note: It has since been pointed out to me that my list was 51 points, not 50. Damned inability to count! I am shamed :(

 Wehrkind wrote:
Note: It has since been pointed out to me that my list was 51 points, not 50. Damned inability to count! I am shamed :(

Hahaha Oh man. You have the genius issue (for reference, Wehr is working on an economics PhD) - can solve crazy hard problems but not count!

I remember you mentioned your wife needed to count out bits for you when you cast them... and I've certainly been the recipient of over- and under- counted things from you . So, I would say this is normal, and that I will be counting your points next time we play

*L* Yea, my ability to count to 5 repeatedly is really questionable

By the way, I took the opportunity to snap a pic of the based models, like I promised like 4 weeks ago.


Not a great one since the light in my dining room is bad, but there you go. I will try and get another one downstairs at the painting table sooner or later, but man, that is a packed space now!

Ooh, really like the snow!

And is this eKromac's theme force? Someone commented on the PP Errata thread that it had survived the "culling" that just happened through PP's rules updates, which is good since I haven't heard about it being overpowered.

I may be running this as my second list, although it likely wouldn't normally be against Circle it might be fun to try as a dogs vs pigs matchup

Carver
8 x Battle Boar
4 x Splatter Boar
Gobber Chef
Bone Grinders

No, that's just the stuff I had painted over the holidays. eKrom's tier is up there in the battle report, the kicker being 1 point off light beasts. It would LOVE to be run against that piggy list I have no idea how that would work out, but probably not to the dog's advantage. I suspect that Battle Boars are too good at killing Def 15 with their boosted everythings.

Ah got it . And sounds good, we'll try it! Won't be for a bit though as they're in the queue, but I do have another (hopefully better, or at least easier for me to play well) gator list to try next time we meet.

Sounds like a plan! I also have a "good" eKromac list I can run too I might try out my Grayle T4 list. You know, before I really commit to building 32+ ____s of Orboros.

Well right now I don't think you need your "good" list since so far I have been pretty much a pushover. I would like to see the dogs vs pigs matchup but could face whatever you like for the next gators game!

Sounds like a plan! Who can bring more medium bases? WE SHALL SEE.

DOGS vs FISH!

IT HAPPENED. IT TOOK A LONG TIME!

Like 3.5 hours or so. I'll summarize; RiTides will have to provide pictures because he took them.

eKromac Tier 4
Kromac -4
- 5x Argus 15
- Moonhound 3
- Winter Argus 4
- 2x Gorax 6
- Stalker 10
Blood Weavers 5
2x Night Witch 4
2x Shifting Stones 4
Sentry Stones 3

Best list ever? No. It does make wins happen, inexplicably.

FISH
Rask
- Swamp Horror
- Bull Snapper
2x Croaks
2x Gatormen
Bokor + shamblers
Witch doc
Pendrake

That's a lot of sea food. Are frogs sea food? Are alligators? I don't know, but there are a lot of them across the table. Should be fine, right? Argus are good at clearing infantry... wait.

SCENARIO: Incursion (3 flags across the middle of the board)
So Kromac rolls a 6 like the beast he is, and takes first turn. There is a forest sort o near the middle flag and a wall by the flag to my right. More importantly, I happened to be standing in the middle of the 6' table, so I deploy pretty heavily on the right half the board. 2 argus, moony and the winter argus go on the right side of the woods to go after that flag supported by a gorax, stalker and kromac behind the woods with the blood weavers in front of them, the remaining battle group of 3 argus and the gorax towards the middle flag. One night witch goes out by herself by the left flag, another sticks the middle with Kromac. Stones are forward, Sentry sitting just touching the back of the woods. My Tier woods goes to the left of the woods by the middle flag.

RiTides, being more aware of where the play surface actually is, deploys pretty centrally, with Rask and his battle group in the middle, Pendrake behind him (oops) Bokor behind them (oops) witch doc back there somewhere. Each flank then had a posse, and croaks AD'd in front of them.

Circle Turn 1: So here's my problem: I don't know what to screen with, or for whom. Blood Weavers have stealth and Def 14, and are less valuable to shoot to death. However, there is a lot of good Killing Spree attacks there that can just pac-man a unit down. Argus are Def 15 with 21 boxes, but if they do get hit it will hurt, and all that boosted dart action will get its money worth. I opt for distance and a mixed approach; I figure if I can survive the bottom of 1 I can jam some croaks and see what happens.
So argus, moonie and winter get behind that wall, another goes in front of the woods. On the left some argus move foward and toe the tier woods. Weavers move up between some, with some behind. Tricksy bit, sentry stone sends two mannikins forward to pop woods around the dogs/weavers in the open. Now everything out front is between Def 16 and 19. Goraxes run up, stalker trots into the central forest, Kromac with him, stones move around to try and deal with all the fury on the table. 9 Fury sitting out there, ouch. The stalker has Awakened Spirit on him, and Kromac has Aggravator out.

Gators 1: RiTides realizes that Pendrake is on the wrong side to help the Croaks on the right. Things shift a bit, Fury goes on the right Gators, Inhospitable ground goes up. Which is actually a good spell, since only the infantry, Moonie, Stalker and Kromac actually have pathfinder standard. Wheeee.
Croaks on my right, the Pendraked ones, move up a bit, with 3 going forward to gourd. Gourds get thrown, and after drifts do a lot of nothing to the argus in the woods, but one pops over the three behind the wall. Darts fly! Darts miss! Def 17/19 is REALLY hard to land hits on, even boosted. One does tag the Winter Argus for like 14 damage, breaking his body.
On the left similar things are attempted, but without boosts nothing happens. The Gators then trot up to support croaks. Support in the 'You guys get hit in the face, we'll totally have your back' sense.
Rask had also feated, which was a good move.

Circle T2: So, that was nice. Croaks are scary but did little. Argus defense is pretty handy. (Last game Moonie soaked an attack and 3 flashing blade shots from Butcher 3 and lived... Def 15 is no joke!) Serenity from the stones pulls off the crazy amounts of Fury, leaving Kromac to top up and upkeep Awakened spirit.
Trouble is now that I am limited to running to engage, with some pointless sprays otherwise. I do a little of both. Weaves sent three girls into the middle of the lines while the rest hang back to counter charge next turn. The left most argus flings himself in, while the other two on the left play it a bit more cagey. The super left most Nightwitch makes a bad life decision and runs to engage two croaks. The gorax plays it safe and trots forward a bit into the woods over there.
On the right, the moonhound runs forward to engage and sit on RiTide's side of the flag. The argus towards the center moves up and engages. Kromac activates, heals a pip off the Winter argus, and does something or other to spend a handful of fury and moves to the front of the woods. Stalker walks up as well, stones move to have him and Kromac inside. The two remaining manikins move up and make a forest wall in front of Kromac.
The winter argus then moves up and sprays. First one catches two croaks and a gator. 6,6 to hit both croaks, kills them, 2,3 on the gator for 4 damage. Second spray kills two croaks, no gators. Final argus on that side moves over a bit behind the wall to counter next turn. Gorax trots forward, glad that he isn't likely to get smacked to death.

I think I also caught the bokor with an argus spray.

Gators 2: Turns out even with rerolls to hit, gatormen posse have a bit of a tough time hitting argus on rerollable 8s. I need to rely on pictures from RiTides here, but I think I only lose one argus on the right, and the ones on the left all lived (although the one that ran to engage got mauled pretty well). I lost the Night witch on the left as well, along with 2 blood weavers in the middle. Speaking of the middle, the horror and the bull snapper were pretty far forward, with Rask right behind about 2", and the bokor back there as well. Important plot point.
Also, Bull Snappers don't have Spiny Growth, one of the best defensive animi in the game, and so have to rile like, all the time. Don't know if you knew that.

I think the winter argus died too, but I will need to see the photos to confirm.

Circle 3: So, the problem as I see it is that I need to kill a HUGE amount of people to cap a flag. On the plus side, I think I can actually remove a lot of people this turn. But man, I wish the regular argus had a damaging spray.

The argus on the far left settle for some biting, while one takes the opportunity to spray the horror and Rask. Hit the horror and paralyze down to 7 (which was promptly forgotten). Basically other than that, the left just stays jammed. Stone try to teleport Kromac into the middle of some gatormen, but does not have space for him to land. I settle for the other side of the flag, but that does make the left side of the board a bit out of control.
There are two shamblers sitting in front of my blood weavers that need to go... in a small fit of cleverness the gorax walks up and double hand throws one into the other. Somehow only one dies, but better than nothing.
Kromac activates and Feats. Puts up Carnage, kills some gators and a croak, heals two on moonie, and camps 1 fury and one corpse. (It should be noted that at many times during the rest of the turn I forgot either the +2 Str from the feat or the +2 Mat from Carnage.)
The argus behind the wall charges some croaks and kills them, while Moonie charges a gator and kills then fails to kill another (whoops for forgetting.)
Blood Weavers charge in and kill a bunch too, with one putting some damage on the Bull snapper. On the right there is now 1 gator on 4 hp and 1 croak within 4" of the flag. Drat.
The stalker, however, now has a clean run at the horror and bull snapper. He puts his animus up for free, warps strength and POW! 3 fury later Horror is wrecked, bull snapper is wrecked, and Stalker sprints back to safety. Rask now has 5 fury and no beasts. But damn... there are a LOT of bog trog shamblers back there. Like, 15?

Gators 3: I am getting a little forgetful at this point, forgive me. On the left an argus dies and the other two get mauled some, but the lines stay where they are. The Witch Doc runs to get close to the left flag (4", we were thinking that he could control from 4" out.) Rask, now a little concerned for his well being, moves a bit and shoots the closest argus to immobilize him.
Bokor and company then go to town charging to kill all but 1 blood weaver, and I think Moonie (that might have been the gator man). Pendrake gave boosted rolls to the croaks on the left, but they fail to do much. Def 15: the struggle is real!

Circle 4: Upkeep awakened spirit, have some argus frenzy into shamblers/croaks. Fair enough. The stalker though has a good shot at trampling to Rask. I just need to get that damned single gator man out of the way, and make sure enough bog trogs die to leave him no call to sacrifice targets. The poor last Bloodweaver then needs to get out of the way... eats a free strike. The gorax then can stroll into the gap, and proceeds to punch the gatorman and two shamblers into the ground. Now the stalker can trample and only take one free strike from a shambler.
Stalker warps berserk, puts his animus on himself, and tramples over 4 shamblers. The free strike misses, and he proceeds to squish all 4 shamblers (needing 3's to hit due to them having Fury). His berserk attack kills one nearby shambler. Only one now is within 6" of Rask. Next berserk attack into Rask, boost to hit. Hits, rolls... 6 damage. Seriously? Dice + 1? Fine. Buy, boost to hit, hit... 6 damage. (or so... Rask has 1 hp left.)
Here I get a rare flash of cleverness, and have the stalker sprint around behind Rask (free strike misses). Why? Because now Kromac activates. He turns a little to smack the cheeky last frog who walked around behind. Kromac now has 6 fury 2 corpses. Primal Shock time! I can cast 3 times, boost twice. I need 6 to hit (point of origin in back arc) and a 6 to kill on damage (Str 10 vs Arm 15).
First shot, I decide to roll a hard 6 then boost damage if I hit. I roll a 7! YAY! Boost damage: enough! last Bog Trog dies (again).
Second shot, ok 6 to hit, then boost damage if hit. 5! Oh no...
At this point I am having flash backs to two previous failed assassination attempts chronicled above... I just don't have an answer if Rask lives, as I am running out of bodies and he will just swamp me with Bog Troggs....
Last Primal shock. Boost to hit. 3 dice.... 6! POW! Damage roll = enough.

Whew! That was a rough game, especially because it is just not the kind of list I would run mine into on purpose. Too many infantry, not enough high value targets to slam/combo bite. Key thoughts:
1: I gotta get better at not getting Kromac jammed behind my own stuff. That large base is really tough to move around while trying to also keep him screened.
2: I probably should have used the Sentry stone manikins more for sprays than forests, though that first turn forest set was key. Still, Rat 4 sprays with a moonhound could have done some work. I am still torn on the stone though, as teleporting it forward to facilitate sprays/enough manikins means my stones are not moving themselves forward, which means my dogs are probably not getting all that first turn fury serenity'd off. I might be able to work around that by taking Kromac to zero camp (he's Def 14 Arm 18... probably fine?) but it's risky.
3: I need to practice my opening more. This list is weird, and I shouldn't be noodling over how to handle the fury load and with whom to screen on the drive home from the game.
4: Argus are REALLY hard to kill if you can't boost on demand, and even when you can sometimes. 4 points hard to kill? Probably not, but at 3 points, yea that's pretty hot. Dodging gator posse rerolls like champs.
5: In the end, I got lucky to catch Rask out with no beasts like that. If he had played more cagey and danced more towards the middle it would have been a long slog to clear out the bokor and all the bog trogs before the left flank collapsed. I might have been able to win by domination before he did, but it was not going to be clear cut.

So, all in all, great game! Great opponent! Great looking armies on the table! Kromac is mostly done, though I am tempted to toss him in the Simple Green and start over due to being a little unhappy with his skin tone. My second gorax is only ~3/4 done, but is not too shabby already. And of course RiTides army is awesome on the table, a really great collection of models there.

He should totally upload pictures into this thread so you can see!

 Wehrkind wrote:
He should totally upload pictures into this thread so you can see!

HE REALLY SHOULD!!1

Then awesome report would only get more awesomer. Thrilled to hear about doge list in action, 'grats on the win! Take that you beautiful possibly-not-fish people!

- Salvage

Okay, here are pics of my demise but at least the armies looked good while doing it! Here is my favorite pic from the battle, with the rest shown chronologically below:







Deployment:




End of Turn 1 - Both armies ran forward, Croaks tried unsuccessfully to shoot Def 17 - 19 Argus (19 behind the wall). Rask feated to protect the gator army:




Circle Turn 2 - Argus ran forward to jam, killed quite a few of the orange Croaks on the left:




Gators Turn 2 - This picture is what has had me leaning heavily towards trying Maelok next time (that, and I love him!). The jammed Croaks stayed jammed, Posse tried to kill Argus with reach attacks over the Croaks but couldn't kill most of them. Maelok could have made everybody incorporeal and get the Croaks out of dodge!




Circle Turn 3 - Kromac aggressively teleports forward and almost clears out everything by the left flag, threatening to dominate it next turn. Right side continues to be a mosh pit! But what happened to the Gator beasts in the center? I forgot / ran out of fury to put up Admonition leaving the Swamp Horror and Snapper to both be taken out by the Stalker, who sprinted back afterwards:




Gators Turn 3 / Circle Turn 4 - This pic was taken just after Circle's next turn had started, and some shamblers were deleted. Rask had gotten a little too cute and moved down to shoot an Argus, leaving a nice 50mm-sized base opening nearby! See his predicament here:




Wehrkind very nicely trampled the Stalker in, killed enough Shamblers to keep Rask from sacrificing them, and almost killed Rask on his own. A few primal shocks later, Wehrkind rolled exactly what he needed to kill Rask on his last roll - a 6!

It was a fun game, but honestly a bit too much infantry for me to manage... I think Maelok's incorporeal on feat turn could really help me get unjammed. So, I'll be trying that next possibly against our Khador friend. Wehrkind has so far beaten my gators every time, but I'm slowly getting back into the hang of things! Thanks for the game and it's really great to play against a painted army

Awesome, thanks for the pictures and summaries! It really was a close game, with questionable decisions and dice on both sides. I suspect your favorite picture is largely due to the fact that you are about to erase a lot of my over committed army

Something the pictures make me realize is that I could easily trade an argus for a Rotterhorn gryphon, losing only a little jamming for a LOT of infantry clearing. Being able to fly up and delete 5/6 croaks there either before or after argus jam sessions would have really helped, and if he lived doing the same to bog trogs would be great. 4 argus + a moonie and winter argus is probably plenty!

That looked amazing, such lovely painted armies.

I think a Gryphon would be great for the army, Wehrkind! Certainly feels like you could go with one less Argus - although the sheer number of them is what kept me jammed up so long (on the right side of the board in particular).

Looking forward to our next game

<3

My babies look so nice all on the board... Nice to see they get along with the neighbors

Better luck next time, Tides! But at least you got to play against another gorgeous painted army!

Thanks for the Batrep and pictures

Those gators do look damned nice. I need to step up my painting game... the Bokor was distracting me all game... showing me those little teethy grins. Tease.

Thanks again for RiTides remembering to bring a camera/take pictures/post pictures. And choosing the venue (even if he couldn't find it). And bringing the terrain... What the hell was I there for?

Not dead yet!

...but it was close there for a bit. Damned near a month of everyone having the same cold. Still, afterwards I got some time to put some things together, and it seemed like a good time to do a huge conversion project on the Wold Wrath. Because I might play Baldur 2 sometime.

The main idea for the conversion was to swap him from being a hunched, murder gorilla to a more erect, contemplating murder gorilla. I cut the torso in the middle and spun the bottom 180 degrees to give it more of an erect posture, then cut the hell out of the arms and shoulders to rebuild them such that he was looking at his fingers while striding. Not because he is thinking "what's that smell?" Rather, I am sculpting some birds, squirrels and a handful of kodama to perch on various outcroppings, with the big guy looking at some of the critters playing on his fingers. A bit of a homage to Hayao Miyazaki.

So, after some base coating with the airbrush, I took the bits out for a coat of Dullcote. The paint kept rubbing off, because every part is really bloody heavy.
Also, a Pureblood and Tanith for a Journeyman league.


Also, I put together a Sacral Vault the other day, although the gators are still separate, along with most of the bling. The thing looks too busy stock, so I am going to be a little more picky in how much stuff I put on it.


Well, that's all the pictures for now! I am also working on a scratch build Grayle model with lot of sculpting, which has been a lot more fun than I had expected. So hopefully more pictures to come in the next few weeks as I go through the journeyman league and finish up some of these projects.

Love the big guy, and the vault is probably almost as big!? Will be especially awesome once you have the critters in his hand to be looking at, and moss all over

The Wold Wrath conversion is looking very impressive so far.

 Wehrkind wrote:
I am sculpting some birds, squirrels and a handful of kodama to perch on various outcroppings, with the big guy looking at some of the critters playing on his fingers. A bit of a homage to Hayao Miyazaki.

Great stuff

Excited to see you're still / back at it! You played Mk3 yet? I look forward to picking up the new Skorne book(s) and cards and giving the redux a shot, although I'm not quite inspired to paint more stuff red yet. Not with all the KOW plans I've put into motion

Anyway, dig it!

- Salvage

Salvage! RiTides and I did get in a game in last week, and well... apparently I forget how things work. None of the changes affected us too hard, except for the maddening changes to how concealment/elevation work (have to be completely within) It was a fun game with RiTides as always, just some really dumb mistakes on my part left me fighting uphill the rest of the game. For instance, when you are playing Morvahna with super recursion, taking the first hit then counter punching is plan. If Rask gets within 10" and feats to get the first strike, I don't need to try and kill everything. Letting Rask get the first strike IS THE PLAN! I have to admit, I am still a little angry about that... such a stupid mistake and it made the rest of the game so frustrating as I threw away two heavies. *sigh*
Though, goddamn, Arm 20 Skinwalkers are amazing balls.

I don't know what to make of Skorne in Mk3. Naaresh is looking better, but other stuff is odd. There is super gloom on the forum, some of which might be warranted, but it is still appealing to try.

Speaking of KoW, RiTides and I are going to throw some blocks on the table Thursday, so incoming faffle-report on that! I am pretty sure my army is terribad, but it should be fun all in all. I am just fairly certain that I don't know how to build lists for block games.

There is a Journeyman League at the store down the road starting this week, so hopefully I will be doing some more painting/building in the coming weeks. I hope to keep impressing GiraffeX Just gotta keep writing too :( So we'll see how it pans out.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Speaking of KoW, RiTides and I are going to throw some blocks on the table Thursday, so incoming faffle-report on that! I am pretty sure my army is terribad, but it should be fun all in all. I am just fairly certain that I don't know how to build lists for block games.

YESSSSSS, I await it. You using your Woad Crü as Varangrr? I am of course at your disposal should you need list help

Luck writing! Way to get gaming in as well. I no longer have the impending doom of having to write a book hanging over my head, and I find I struggle to find time to roll dice / flop cards

- Salvage

I am running them as Orks, oddly enough. I always find myself wanting to use Ork rules for Chaos lads, dunno why. Now that I don't have to use the 25mm bases for unit definition but can use cut movement trays, maybe I should take another look at the Varangur list.

-time passes-

Ok, so here's what I am coming up with, playing what I have around. Which is actually about infinite if I count things unpainted like the Reavers. The formatting will be weird; used http://kow2.easyarmy.com/ but I don't know how to get a text output...

Varangur (Evil)

Warband Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Horde(40) 5 4+ - 4+ 25 21/23 180
Warband
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Horde(40) 5 4+ - 4+ 25 21/23 180
Warband
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Horde(40) 5 4+ - 4+ 25 21/23 180 Crushing Strength (1)
- Exchange shields for two-handed weapons (gain Crushing Strength (1), but lower Defence by 1) 0

Sons of Korgaan Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Regiment(20)5 3+ - 5+ 20 16/18 220 Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (2)
Reavers Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Troop(10) 6 4+ - 3+ 20 -/14 140 Thunderous Charge (2), Vicious

The Fallen Large Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Horde(6)

8 3+ - 5+ 18 16/18 240 Crushing Strength (1), Height (1), Iron Resolve, Nimble, Pathfinders
Mounted Sons of Korgaan Cavalry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Troop(5) 8 3+ - 5+ 10 13/15 165 Crushing Strength (1), Thunderous Charge (2)

Horse Raiders Cavalry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Troop(5) 8 4+ 5+ 4+ 7 11/13 115 Nimble, Piercing (1), Throwing Weapons (Axes), Thunderous Charge (1)

Magus Hero (Inf)
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
(1) 5 5+ - 5+ 1 11/13 85 Hero (Inf), Fireball (12), Individual, Lightning Bolt (4)
- Fireball (12) 25

Chieftan Hero (Inf)
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
(1) 5 3+ - 5+ 5 14/16 160 Hero (Inf), Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (2), Elite, Individual, Inspiring

King on Chimera Hero (Mon)
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
(1) 10 3+ - 5+ 10 18/20 310 Hero (Mon), Breath Attack (10), Crushing Strength (3), Elite, Fly, Inspiring


Seems like it might be fun. Probably better than the orcs, come to think of it. Their version is sort of similar:

Orcs (Evil)
Ax Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Horde(40) 5 4+ - 5+ 25 20/22 205 Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (1)
Horde(40) 5 4+ - 5+ 25 20/22 205 Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (1)

Morax Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Troop(10) 5 3+ - 4+ 20 10/12 140 Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (1)

Greatax Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Horde(40) 5 3+ - 4+ 25 21/23 240 Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (2)
- Dwarven Ale 10

Skulks Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Troop(10) 6 5+ 5+ 3+ 8 9/11 75 Base Size: (25x25mm), Bows (Range 24"), Crushing Strength (1), Vanguard

Trolls* Large Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Horde(6) 6 4+ - 5+ 18 14/17 190 Crushing Strength (2), Regeneration (5+)

Gore Riders Cavalry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Troop(5) 8 3+ - 5+ 8 10/12 120 Crushing Strength (1), Thunderous Charge (1)
- Blessing of the Gods 25

Krudger Hero (Inf)
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
(1) 5 3+ - 5+ 5 12/14 130 Hero (Inf), Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (2), Individual, Inspiring

Krudger on Slasher Hero (Mon)
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
(1) 7 3+ - 5+ 10 16/18 235 Hero (Mon), Crushing Strength (3), Inspiring
- Wine of Elvenkind 40

Godspeaker Hero (Inf)
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
(1) 5 3+ - 4+ 2 10/12 75 Hero (Inf), Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (1), Fireball (9), Godspeaker, Heal (2), Individual - Heal (2) 10

WarDrum Monster
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
(1) 5 4+ - 4+ 3 -/11 80 Crushing Strength (1), Great Thunder, Height (1)

Varangur (Evil)
Sons of Korgaan Infantry
Unit Size Sp Me Ra De At Ne Pts
Regiment(20) 5 3+ - 5+ 20 16/18 220 Base Size: (25x25mm), Crushing Strength (2)

Both sort of do the same thing, and really both probably suffer from a lack of chaff to redirect enemies. Is that still a thing in KoW?

Help me Dark Lord Salvage! You are my only hope!

Nooo, don't help him

Looking forward to trying out KoW, we'll have to get Polonius over sometime too, he's a veteran at it!

 Wehrkind wrote:
Both sort of do the same thing, and really both probably suffer from a lack of chaff to redirect enemies. Is that still a thing in KoW?

Yea, chaff is still important, particularly in objective games. But they do fairly similar things to WHFB: ablative deployment drops, warmachine hunting, mucking up enemy charges (you don't really redirect as much as block charges), etc. A change from WHFB is that KOW chaff is better at opportunistic combats - in WHFB, your five warhounds could flank that block, but really what will those 3-5 attaks do? Versus your tundra wolves doubling their attaks in KOW, or tripling in the butt.

I could try to make up some more stuff about chaff, but I rarely make room for it myself. 2k is so tight that I plonk for hordes first, support monsters and characters second, and never quite get to much chaffing

On the lists, they really are quite similar. The Varangrr feel a little stronger at first glance? But really just because I know what the minis look like and have faced a lot of the list's elements before (Chimera Kings being my absolute bane, particularly with regen or +1 DEF). It's smart and cool to torque the list over to Orcs, and there's some fantastic support in that list (WarDrum!), I just don't have much experience against Orcs. Like none.

- Salvage

Good to know I am not too far off base I am pretty excited to get the Sorchimera on the table, and will have to find points for Regen or +1 Def.

The main problem with Orcs is that 25x25 bases make hordes REALLY wide. The last (only) game I played I found maneuvering was sort of awkward. I will have to see if I have some 20x20 horde bases around... or have RiTides cut me some

Ok, quick technique update here. RiTides and I played, he posted a pic, it looked cool. I learned things, etc. I also painted a thing, Tanith the Feral Song, for the journeyman league, didn't win best painted, was sad. All that for later though.

I learned something new today.

For a while now I have been using my Dremel rotary tool with a black nylon polishing brush to buff and clean metal models. I read somewhere that it makes the models hold paint better as it takes off any oils and other crap left over from manufacturing and constantly caressing them before wistfully replacing them in the box to collect dust on the shelf. I don't know that it does help the paint aspect, but damned it if doesn't make them look really pretty.
Anyway, I was buffing the tools on some burly men today, and for some reason I saw a half primed metal model and thought "Let's put the nylon to that!" I don't know what I was expecting, maybe remove some paint or something. Turns out it didn't. Even though it was a really light airbrush priming that was only half done (it was a model being primed as I had extra drops of paint I didn't want to waste) the paint stayed on, about 90% anyway.
What did happen though is that the paint job got polished smooth. Glossy smooth. Intrigued, I picked up a 90% base coated model and gave it a whirl. Buffed the paint to a gloss, and only pulled off a tiny bit on one edge (and another edge where I bumped the model with the spinning chuck...).

I then tried it on a pvc Wrath of Kings werewolf. There the paint came right off, along with a little plastic, but I kind of expected that since the nylon will abrade away pvc. I tried it on a resin model, and as long as I was gentle it didn't take off any paint. I didn't have a HIPS model to test it on, oddly enough.

Still, that was quite interesting! It never occurred to me to try and polish paint jobs before. Honestly, it probably won't again, except in the case of a dusty application of spray primer. I don't have any models facing that calamity around that I can see (except for my Warpborn Alpha from a few photos up) but as soon as I get some time I will try that out. Just having a solution to dusty primer syndrome would be great.
I also want to try it out on some faces where the paint and washes had some build up that left noticeable marks. Again, I can't think of any models off hand that have that issue, but I know I have some around here somewhere.

Anyway, just was kind of excited about this new application of a favored tool, and had to share!

That's interesting! Not quite sure of the best application but another example of dremel solving any problem, even one you don't have yet

Cross posting for the win! Put this in the Dakka Society of Painters thread.


Ok, dug out my box of mid 90's models, and snapped some pictures. When I say mid 90's, I mean it; I was collecting for the Battlesystem Skirmishes game, which was printed in 1990. Also, I was 10, so be kind




Some tiny 25mm guys. Those are all 20x20 mm bases. Also note that I had discovered black washes as a technique at some point, and, well, moderation is not my strong point.




Mighty monsters! Gnolls and bugbears! So big they require a 25x25mm base! That red haired bugbear was one of the last things I painted before I stopped for about 10 years, and the other bugbear is one of the first things I painted.

Also, note Billidum the mighty hill giant there! Rocking a 50x50 base, he towers over everything. For all you young guys who wonder why the hell every game puts monsters on a 50x50 base in the rules despite no model actually fitting on it, well, blame scale creep and unwillingness to change the standard expectations of rule sets older than you are.



I actually remember his name: Brilliante. (Actually I remember every named character's name, except for that Gnoll back there.) I am not sure about the scaling of the horse, but it was really cool at the time to have a model in both mounted and dismounted form.


So that's the old stuff, here's some new, and a mix.



Tanith there was painted the other week, the barbarians over the past year or so. Looks like I still like really dark schemes, but in my defense, Tanith was lighter before I sealed her. Not sure what happened there. Note that the RBG barbarian and Bones girl there are a lot closer to the old 25mm scale than Tanith.



Billidum also skips leg day. Skipping leg day has apparently been a tradition since... ever.
I am really tempted to repaint Billidum there and use him as a counts as Mulg.



Anyway, a little closer look at the newer stuff.



I think I am going to strip some of the 50-60 odd models I have from those days and do a direct comparison. I probably have enough for a decent Kings of War army of sorts. Some of the models are pretty cool, especially some tiny goblin wolf riders, and some human lancers.

Also, here is a small mod I did for RiTides the other week. Rorsch got a new barrel on his pig iron, and the minotaur replacing Brine got chain wrapped fists instead of a sword and shield. They came out pretty well! Better than the pictures I have for them did


I'd have sword I had a primed picture, but I guess not. Those lads should be painted up by RiTides' painter soon; hopefully he will cross post here

Absolutely love the big minotaur conversion for Brine

A nice trip down memory lane, but yeah, you got a Lot better at painting . What's that sweet RBG mini on the right going to be used for - a character of some sort for the barbarian hordes?

That's a good question. I had him around when I was going to start painting skin baring barbarian things, so he and bones girl there were just one of the practice models, alone with the lanyff I have been using as a Blood Weaver Night Witch. I suspect he will hold a place as some sort of champion in an eventual historical celt army for KoW or something. Really at this point it is less of what he is for, and more a question of "Which of the 2000 other models he would look good with will I make into an army first." Maybe he will be a Frostgrave character? Who knows.

Wow is that conversion crazy! I love it, haha!

Really cool to see your old work. Shoot, at 10 I think I was still sloppily assembling car models (no primer, barely cleaned stuff... man it was a mess xD)

Always neat to look at old projects like these and see how far you come as a painter.

Thanks man, glad you like it Doing stuff for RiTides to get passed along to you has been a good exercise for me, keeping me active. All that fur for boar men has been great practice for the barbarian queen I am working on

And man, while I didn't have primer back then (or know about it apparently), whatever the hell I was sealing those guys with might as well be a 2 mm thick layer of glass. After 2 hours in the sonic washer, I had to resort to acetone to strip off some of that crap. Looking forward to giving them a new coat!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Huh just realized I missed a few...



I love those tiny little kobolds there... I have like 20+ of the old metals around. Those will be sweet to get on the table. Someday.

Those old AD&D orcs are pretty nice too. I need to get some new paint on those lads too.

What's your usual go-to method for stripping - sonic washer with simple green? I assume acetone is a "metal only" method.

Yea, 480 seconds in a sonic washer with Simple Green concentrate does the trick on 90% of models I find. Leaving them in there over night covers most of the rest. It is also good for cleaning mold release off stuff, and cleaning glasses I find.

Acetone is metal only, though come to think of it I should test out how it works on the resins I use. At 1$ for a shampoo bottle size, acetone is a really great tool for it.

Wow, that's so fast - I always just let it soak in simple green overnight. Will have to try the ultrasonic cleaner!

Quick battle reports time. I got two games in last night at Huzzah's journeyman league. Lists were 50 points. I ran:

Tanith
-Pureblood
-Stalker
-Gnarlhorn
-Argus
-Gorax
Reeves, min
Stones + UA
Lanyssa Ryssal Mah Nyssyle

First game was against Menoth. Old guy just like me, learning his army and Mk3. We played on 1 hour death clocks just to keep ourselves focused on time, which was a really good plan I think. He had something like this:

Reznik 1
-Jack with two flaming fists
-Jack with Mace and open fist
-Little jack with spear, shield and arc node
-Little jack with flame thrower
-Big OMFG character jack
Choir
Some caster dude with two body guards
Some solo that reduced casting costs
Wrack
That bloody fething book (more on that later)

The scenario was a 12" circle zone in the middle to control, with the caveat that only battle groups matter for control/contest.

I took second turn, because I have played Menoth once.

Menoth 1: His unpacking was a little awkward, but the jacks mostly ran forward, then realized he forgot to have the choir passage them, so rewound and did that (I completely missed which choir thing he picked). Generally everything just scooted forward.

Circle 1: I moved up a little more carefully than I might have, getting just about every beast toeing the zone, with Admonition on Goatly, Scything Touch on Stalky, Reeves on the right flank, Ghostly in the middle with Goatly, and just about everyone within the stones. Then I remembered that I had a gorax in my list... called in the mulligan and had him "deploy" and walk up, which actually put him where he was supposed to be anyway. Frank's a good guy.
Pro-tip: Choir will always put Passage (no non-magical shooting) on every damned thing. Don't move your Reeves forward to shoot the flamey jack without putting the Pure Blood's animus on them first. Derp. Fortunately I was smart enough to spread them out well.
Lanyssa earns her paint job by zapping one of the weapon master body guards down to 1 hp.

Menoth 2: Reeves payed the price for my mistake, but only one actually got killed. More Passage, jacks moved forward to get all up in the middle of the zone.
Caster man sprays Lanyssa, catches his wounded body guard, kills him, then misses Lanyssa. It was funnier for me than it was for him, but still pretty funny all around. You could distinctly hear the sound of a "World's Best Boss" mug smashing to the ground.

Circle 2: I figure it is feat turn. I can Argus slam robo-mace, Gnarlhorn slam fisto-roboto back into the character jack, follow up and smack him down, then have the Stalker zip over and kill the flamer jack. Should work out, right?

Well.... Argus slams like a champ. Tanith activates, pops her angry stick shot into fisto-roboto (I am really loving that thing), flicks Affliction on it, Primal's the Stalker, puts Wraith Bane on a Reeve (Learning!) camps 1. Goatly slams forward for free into Fisto, hits, does a ton of damage from collateral extra dice. Then I am informed that the book prevents knockdown. Well... poop. I think about it for a bit, but figure the Gnarlhorn is a goner anyway, so he follows up and just beats the piss out of fisto-roboto, leaving him with just a few boxes, and no cortex. Reeves fiddle around putting some damage on the flamer jack. I then realize that the Stalker will be out of Tanith's control if he charges (so not used to 6 Fury casters), but fortunately the stones can teleport Tanith over a bit to fix that. Stalker charges and.... misses a 6. A few bought attacks later and the thing is dead, but the Stalker is full and can't Sprint, so he's flapping in the wind.
Lanysssa, feeling froggy, charges over to try and kill the other body guard and block a charge or move to the argus or gnarlhorn. Her luck runs out and she fails to hit.

Menoth 3: I am definitely losing a number of beasts this turn, because nothing is knocked down, but there is that annoying Shadow Bound and crippled jack blocking things up to the Gnarlhorn. This turns into a rough order of operations exercise for my opponent, and we have both used about 40 minutes of clock. He needs to try and pin my gnarlhorn down despite admonition, kill the Stalker with either Reznik or the character jack, and tie down my caster.
Mace-jack walks up to the Gnarlhorn, who Admonitions back a bit, keeping the Stalker in his counter slam area.
Spear and shield jack charges my gorax, does a little damage, and gets Tanith in spear range.
Shadow Bound jack is no longer in combat with anyone, gets repaired, still does nothing (I think he messed up there somewhere, as I don't understand why all that happened like it did.)
Next though is the killer mistake: Reznik activates, tries to cast Brand of Heresy or something (boosted everything vs a model) on the Gnarlhorn, but missed. Which hardly matters, because Rez then charges the Stalker, only to be counter-slammed by a Primaled Gnarlhorn. It comes down to me rolling a 6 to hit (Mat 6 + 2 vs Def 14), Gnarlhorn connects for lots of damage, follows up, and that's pretty much it. He calls the game there, as Rez was out of Focus, knocked down, and nothing could kill the goat before he Frenzied for lots, and then Reeves would pick Rezzy apart if there was anything left.

We decided to play it out if he hadn't screwed that up, and had the character jack walk up first to engage the goat and stalker. Character jack Threshers, smacks down the goat hard, tags the wolf for a little. He then buys on the wolf, but even with back tricks can't kill him. Rez charges the wolf and kills him with 1 Focus to spare. That would have left me in a bad place, but fortunately I never had to figure it out!

All in all, fun game. Some points:
1: Admonition on a Gnarlhorn is fun.
2: I am getting better with Tanith, but I need to practice her feat turn more. I don't know that I did a lot wrong, but I felt that I could have done a lot more right, like toss a Rift out there to slow down enemy jacks.
3: I need to remember that Menoth just denies things like knockdown and non-magical shooting. I also need to remember I can fix that shooting business.
4: I want an infantry screen, and maybe Reeves are good for that.
5: Lanyssa needs to not be on a flank. (She got splattered by the weapon master.) Her move and Hunter's mark has a better range than any of my beasts can charge with it, so there is no reason to have her out there.

Game 2: Cryx

The next game was with the battle box Bane caster.
Bane Witch Agathia
-Slayer
-Slayer
-Jack with harpoon
-Jack with gun
-Bone jack
Full Mechanithralls with Stitch things
Min Banes

His deployment was odd. Bone jack and mech thralls were off on one flank, banes on the other, with the heavies all stacked in the middle.
I had first turn.

Circle 1: I move up cautiously, putting everything either behind a wall, a stone or a Earth's Blessing Gnarlhorn (can't be pushed or knocked down etc) to avoid the harpoon. All except for the Argus who was up in front of the reeves, just out of range of the banes.

Cryx 1: So, this was surprising. Caster allocated a bunch of focus to the harpoon jack, cast Hellwrought on the shooty jack for +2 armor, then feated and failed a charge forward. His whole army was Stealth, Ghostly, and at the end of their activation his battle group could teleport 3'.
Mech thralls and company run up into a woods on my left in tight formation. The harpoon jack moves forward, takes a shot at my argus with boosted to hit, then rolls a 2 for damage so it doesn't crack armor, and he isn't pulled. Whoops. Banes run forward, because what else can they do? They engage the argus and one Reeve.
A slayer runs forward to engage the argus and the same reeve. He might have attacked and missed, but really he did nothing.
Another Slayer runs forward to engage my Gnarlhorn. I admonition to the right, he teleports to follow. Ok.
Shooty jack runs forward to just a few inches behind the slayer and Gnarlhorn. Ok....
Bone jack scoots forward with Mech thralls.

Aaand.... that was it. Ok...

Circle 2: Well. Alright. I don't know why all that just happened, but I can deal with it.
Gorax puts Primal on Goatly. Goatly activates, walks around the slayer to engage him and the shooter jack, and throws the slayer into the shooter. Shooter can't be knocked down, but both take some damage, and Gnarlhorn buys a head butt into the slayer.
Tanith then activates and feats, putting a Shadowbind shot into the knocked down Slayer and the shooting jack. A Rift takes out 3/4 of the Mechthralls and the stitch thrall things. Admonition goes back on Goatly, and I think I put Affliction on the shooy jack just in case, before camping 1. (I wanted to afflict the banes, but was just out of range.
Lanyssa hunters marks the knocked down Slayer (so much insult to injury, I know).
Stalker charges the Slayer, claws him to death with the charge attack, then slams 4 sword shots into the shooting jack, leaving him on 2 boxes. I am debating whether to Sprint away and soak a free strike, but then I realize he had moved his jacks so far forward that my Stalker was actually still inside my shifting stones triangle. Stalker buys an attack and kills the jack, then the Stones port him over to the right behind a wall and still in the stones (important plot point).
Argus barks to slow down banes, and combo-bites a chunk out of the Slayer.
Pure blood walks over, barks really loudly, and knocks off a chunk of slayer and two banes.
Reeves forgot about stealth and didn't shoot anything.
At this point I broke off the staff arm of my Shifting Stone UA. I then ended turn.

Cryx 2: That didn't go like my opponent expected. He was pissed about the Argus thing, and apparently didn't realize I had Rift on the caster, but really I wasn't sure what his plan was with those jacks as it was. Anyway, the Harpoon jack moves over a bit to be out of counter slam range, closer to the Slayer, then tags and pulls the Gnarlhorn over to him, putting some pretty significant damage on him. The Stalker kills the argus after some work and bane help, with one bane killing a reeve (just one, thanks) and another bane engaging the Gnarlhorn who Admonitions away. The bone jack charges him for some more damage, but not much. Mech thralls stagger out of the woods, put one damage on a stone, miss Lanyssa, and flop on the Goat.
The dice were not great this turn, but even if they had been, I was fine trading the goat and a stone and Lanyssa for whatever. And it was about to get worse.

Circle 3: Well, this wasn't going to be pretty. Goatly Frenzies into the Bonejack and smacks it pretty hard. Or was dead. I don't recall actually... hardly matters.
What did matter was that there was a bane ~1.5 inches from both jacks, who were both within ~9" of the Stalker. Those who play Circle on a regular basis know where this is going...
Tanith activates, boosts a Angry Stick shot into the bane, Shadow Bind's both jacks and kills the bane. Something else happens, with her... maybe Rifting down a few more Mechs.
Gorax activates, Primals the Stalker, then walks over to kill two Mechs. Reeves kill all but 2 Banes.
Then the magic happens. Stones teleport the Stalker with Primal and Scything Touch up. ("Wait, so he can charge through guys?" "Nope, Stones teleport.")
Stalker activates, warps Strength, and proceeds to slam effectively Mat 8 Pow 22 (dice + 5) shots into Jacks sitting at Def 10. Both jacks die, Stalker puts on Sprint to move over and threaten the caster.
Pureblood does.... something or other, probably kills a bane.

Cryx 3: Basically on tilt now, my opponent tries to figure out what just happened, and what he can do now. He runs his chicken jack past the Stalker, realizes he would take a free strike, adjusts and runs him past a Reeve, who then free strikes the chicken to death. Mech thralls, flail on something, to no effect.
He decides that the Stalker has to Frenzy either the Gorax or Super Reeve there, so long as he clears LOS, so the caster moves out of LOS but still in the zone (I think one CP was scored all game) and a bane charges Super Reeve. Then misses. That Reeve's name is now officially Christopher.

Circle 4: Stalker frenzies into Christopher, and like a naughty horse, puts him on the ground hard. Tanith moves up, boosts a Shadowbind into Agathia, then camps 3 Fury. Gorax mosies over, Reeves put a few shots into Agathia, Pureblood as well. She is still sitting on ~5 hp.

Cryx 4: Agathia goes for the assassination, and actually comes really close. He forgot to shake Shadowbind, but in any case charges Tanith, then spends 1 to teleport behind her. It is now 6's to hit, dice -3, 5 focus. Hits 4 times, misses 2, with Tanith transferring all but one hit.

Circle 5: Tanith turns around, and smacks a fully boosted Angry Stick strike into Agathia, gets the crit shadowbind, and wins forever.

So, that was strange... I really don't think that jam with the expensive things strategy was workable. He almost pulled off the assassination, but with 3 transfers and plenty of healthy beasts it was super unlikely, even with better dice. He blamed dice and not knowing about Rift and how crazy Stalkers are, not playing since Mk1, which is probably fair. He had some really bad rolls, but honestly not where they mattered a great deal (for instance, even if he broke the stone with thralls, the stalker still had the charge. I just would have had to move things out of the way a little more.

Also, honorable mention to the now one armed Stone guy. I don't remember when, but at some point after losing his arm he smashed down two Mech thralls and the bone jack with a crit Stone Hammer, first one EVER in like 5 years. He didn't kill the jack, but did kill the thralls for funsies. He then charged the bane that was trying to kill Christopher and put him in the dirt with boxcars for damage. So he deserves to get his arm back, and hopefully has served as an example for the rest of them.

Things I learned:
1: Cryx jacks are squishy, but a little hard to hit. But really squishy.
2: Banes are annoying.
3: Shifting Stones are still good, but perhaps only against newer players.

I enjoyed these a lot, with things like imagining your expression finding out about the book . Congrats on the wins, looks like you're doing well in the league!

Glad you liked them That was indeed a learning... experience

I am doing alright, but only have like 7 games in 4 weeks, so it is sort of irrelevant. I got my ass handed to me in the first week by a Khador player, and in the second week by a merc player. In my defense, the merc player even pointed out that having Ossrum in the starter box with the option of taking Alten and Kell Bailoch the second week was absurd. He rather trivially removed the Pure Blood from 16" away top of turn 2. Didn't even know what to do... pretty sure nothing other than keep him > 20"?

All in all the games have been good, a really pleasant crowd over there, even when they are feeding you your teeth

So hi. Got a birthday party tomorrow, then some other work for the weekend, so it will be quiet(er) here for a bit, but I wanted to share some pictures of what has been happening.







The first two are sort of obvious. That last one is a character from WoK, then a... tree monster from Mierce and of course a character Lanyff from Rackham. Oh, and a little familiar dude there.

The big guy on the left is looking sweet

We'll see how you feel when he grabs a hold of your lizard and chokes the gak out of it.

er..... gator man. When he gets a hold of your gator man.

It kind of bugs me that he looks down so much, but he has big claws and horns, so Riphorn he is! I have another model I might use, but I have a ton of work to do on it, and this dude fits the Drune look nicely.

 Wehrkind wrote:
I learned something new today.
...
What did happen though is that the paint job got polished smooth. Glossy smooth. Intrigued, I picked up a 90% base coated model and gave it a whirl. Buffed the paint to a gloss, and only pulled off a tiny bit on one edge (and another edge where I bumped the model with the spinning chuck...).
...
Anyway, just was kind of excited about this new application of a favored tool, and had to share!

I am probably too late with a suggestion, but this reminds me of a few airbrush-using scale aircraft modellers who like to pre-shade their "toys" using a generous amount of wash, something we (toy-solder crew) call "dipping". With large, weakly curving forms of ships and aircraft it is important that the wash do not pool too much, quickly finding all recesses and leave as few streaks as possible. To achieve that these modellers are arguing for polishing the basecoated plastic/resin, some going as far as recommending metallic base for everything. This may or may not be helpful, but it is something I've remembering when reading about Your new use of dremel tool.

Thank You for Your battle reports! I am still Mk3-deprived and am looking at the new game with anticipation and fear...

That's really interesting! Leave no tooth to grab wash on the raised/flat bits, but some tooth in the gaps and recesses. That I will have to try soon. Thanks for sharing that.

Glad you like the battle reports. Should have some more up Wednesday after Tuesday league. Which reminds me, I need to fix the paint peeling off the gnarlhorn,It split and peeled off the corner, like it was a victim of thermal expansion of the armor.Kind of a new one for me.

Thoroughly enjoyed the batreps Wehr, ridiculous recounting as expected And happy to see you're more solidly back on the hobby train now, between gaming and painting things (mostly brown, as promised).

In my extreme gaming angst - seriously, I've been bouncing between KOW, AOS and MFX so crazily that I'm getting nothing done for anything, except continuing to buy models and chase dreams - I've finally started looking into MK3. I'm not overly aware of the changes for Hordes, beyond animus = spell, but the ones for WM seem pretty cool? Emphasis on big things fighting is always a win for WMH, IMO. I don't think I'm quite ready to jump back in, but I look forward to buying a new Skorne* book when I'm able to, and still threatening to double down on the Hydra when it ever ships

*I've researched Skorne MK3 just once, and mostly encountered tales of woe. Interested to see how things shook out - though I have a strong feeling I'm finally moving away from eMakeda, she having gone more infantrymachine than I'm interested in 3Makeda ftw??

- Salvage

Glad you liked them! I should have some more this week, from tomorrow's game night and a confirmed Thursday rumble with RiTides' gators! Or Pigs! Should be awesome and pretty, so will try and take lots of pictures. My list should be fully painted, or 90% so, and RiTides' stuff is Ramos Asura work which looks great.

I am pretty much with you hobby wise now, and trying to make things that will work for both. I actually commissioned RiTides to cut me a mess of 20mm round bases, mostly because they will fit onto any other base I want to use the model on depending on the system.

I did get really excited for this Grayle army. Here's the list, roughly;

Grayle (custom build from so many bits and some sculpting)
-Riphorn (angry wolf there)
- Stalker (old fancy Rackham stalker)
-Gorax (fun Rackham wulfen with chain wrapped hands)
Reeves (Drune archers)
WoO full with UA (Drune marauders with spears)
Morraig (Drune raider with sword)
War Wolves (I actually plan to sculpt these myself, because I can't find good and proper sized wolves for less than I make a day)

Last few points will be either Skinwalkers or Death Wolves. Should be a fun looking army, and most importantly I will get to use some models I really love the look of on the table.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Should be a fun looking army, and most importantly I will get to use some models I really love the look of on the table.

Amen. Is Circle cav now good in MK3? Actually, aren't there both wolf cav and goat cav? I ask as Ferox have gone from hideous models and bleh rules to hideous models and awesome rules.

Spent the morning catching up on factions I don't own but have often been fond of - Ret, CoC, Cephalyx - to see what 50 points would cost / look like. I may well do that monstrosity-heavy Cephalyx list I wanted to do when they came out. A hot 10 gribbly models, easy to take on the road and punch people in the face. Though kind of $$$ for what it is ... (Ret is more interesting to me than CoC, but both factions suffer IMO for having no infantry I really like, though less so Ret. Ret's biggest downfall is being filthy elvses )

Anyhoo, excited for the pretty throwdown, will stay tuned!

- Salvage

Circle cav is.... odd. The wolf riders are better in some aspects, and worse in others. Getting WM on their melee attack and impact attacks is really nice. Going down to Def 14 instead of 15 (instead having Annoyance for -1 to melee attacks while engaging them), but not having Stealth, and not having Prey really hurts them. No prey... wut? So they are sort of odd ducks, being fast and hitting hard, but only on 1-2 models per rider, and only at Pow 9 weapon masters (both with melee and assault throw). At roughly the same price as a Warpwolf they don't have the staying power to want to throw them into an infantry unit, and while they can do about the same amount of damage on average to a heavy as a Feral can, unless it is a colossal getting them all on it is a neat trick. Plus they are less survivable than any Feral.
I am going to try them, especially with Baldur1 who can buff Str and Arm, and no longer removes charging (a Spd Debuff no longer prohibits charging! Probably one of the biggest Hordes changes). I am not too optimistic, however.

The wolf riders have a solo coming who is interesting, but still a little pricey. Her main trick is that she has Jump, so can put a javelin pretty much anywhere she wants. Once.

The Druid cav on goats are actually pretty interesting too, being able to cloud themselves and pew pew a fair bit. Their Mat isn't stellar, but they get a free spell if they kill in melee, and boosted Charge attack rolls, so really they can butcher infantry from range and on the charge, prancing away 3" after. Theoretically they can drop ~ 15 infantry on the charge with good/lucky positioning and average rolls. 14/15 is a really respectable defensive stat line when you can cloud yourself for 16/15 on the advance.

Which leaves Morraig. I think he is good now, or better at least, just a sideways move. He doesn't do CRAZY damage on the charge, just really quite good damage, having lost Weapon Master. In exchange he gives Wolf Sworn (so basically every non-Tharn, non-Druid infantry) +1 to attack rolls. Now that Reeves are good and Skinwalkers are still good, that's awesome, and he Flanks off any Wolf Sworn as well. So really he seems a fair bit better, being a little more useful than he was before. Plus, Mat 8 Impact Attacks.

Now, mix in Grayle with his giving Wolf Sworn the ability to see and move through each other, and that is a pretty fun combo. Put Storm Rager on Morraig, and he can slam through the line hitting at Pow 15 +4d6 after all his expendable buddies have dinged up an enemy, then dance back 5", while rocking a 14/17 defensive line from the back. (14/19 with Storm Rager).

Now, is all that infantry the best thing to run in Mk3? I have no idea. I haven't seen a ton of anti-infantry, and everything in the list can bang up Arm 20 pretty well, one way or the other, though CRA/CRM, mini-feats, gang, flanks, free charges, etc. It would be a bit uphill, but I think I would actually like to run that list against Jack spam, as boxing them in would be pretty easy all told.


I want to play with Skorne a bit too... Naaresh is looking pretty hot these days!

Cephalyx looks like fun, but is pretty pricey if you don't build your own dudes. Which... I kind of want to make some out of old He-Man toys now...

I don't know about Ret. I just can't get into their aesthetic. CoC looks a lot better I think, but I still can't get myself to clean off my models. So... so bad in the mold lines.

What stuff have you been building, anyway?

 Wehrkind wrote:
*CAV RUNDOWN*

Thanks for that! Learned a lot, particularly that Morraig doesn't just buff wolf cav, as I assumed he did, ala other cav solos ...

I want to play with Skorne a bit too... Naaresh is looking pretty hot these days!

Oh yea? I converted and painted Naaresh back when, ran him a few times and went back to eMak. I really dislike characters who shout about being assassins but are weirdly pillow-fisted in combat, which Naaresh seemed to be to me. Not much idea what he does in MK3, would assume it's still about getting smacked for Str/Arm, movement tricking around, spamming some attaks and hopefully being healed?

I don't know about Ret. I just can't get into their aesthetic. CoC looks a lot better I think, but I still can't get myself to clean off my models. So... so bad in the mold lines.

Fun Fact: I owned 50 (old) points of Syntherion (thanks MM Black Friday ) but sold it at a loss once I realized how bad the restic was on some of it. Was going to make a quick metal + wash + OSL job into a grueling buildageddon.

What stuff have you been building, anyway?

I'm stuck in this quandary about what to bring to Crossroads next month, kicked off by them raising the KOW points from 2000 to 2500. That 500 points throws off the various 2k projects I've got in the air for KOW, as well as the gentle rebuild of my Nurgle Things. So much so that I looked at switching to one of the other systems at the GT. To whit, my options are/were:

1) Play KOW with Nurgle Things (requires building/painting some characters, a monster or two to make 2500, possibly rebasing 170 models if I feel inclined)
2) Play KOW with new Ogres army (unassembled ~30 model 2k army based on Puppets War robots, along with spammed AT43 giants to make 2500)
3) Play AOS with Tzeentch Daemons (rebasing to round bases, finally building/painting Lord of Change!)
4) Play AOS with new Wolfen army (rebase / repaint of plastic Wolfen, courtesy of MM)
5) Play MFX and lose my damn mind (add a few toys to my Mei Feng crew)

Least amount of work would be #5, but a single game of MFX makes my head hurt, let alone time sensitive competitive play! #3 isn't a ton of work, as rebasing sucks but is pretty simple, and painting the LOC + a few horrors is cake. However the more I play AOS, the less I think I like it. When I lose, it's against an experienced player and I feel just how weak my blue gribblies are. When I win, it's against a new player and I feel like a dick as my daemons blow everything away with shooting / magic (which is exactly what they're supposed to do!) So likewise #4, which would be quite a bit of furious work but ultimately an exercise in speedpainting and airbrushing, is unattractive. As much as I'd like a fresh new project.

So of the KOW options, I'm fighting to convince myself to just do #1. I've got a list I don't hate that involves adding just a handful of models I like (Moar Apostates of Darkness!). As much as I wish I had a multi-based army ready to go, I don't, and I don't like the 2500 lists my Ogres are bloating up to. Triple giants is cool, but not what I had envisioned for the force. And another problem for #2? My TGG2 chicks are hitting much sooner than expected, and they're headed for a Trident Realms multi-based army themselves

The only models I've painted this summer have been Mei Feng and crew (after a year of waiting!), and a Dragonborn for D&D, who came out pretty sweet Though I can add 'too hot to paint or model' to my list of excuses. Not VA hot, but still easily sliced through my weak motivation.

- Salvage

Morraig doesn't buff any cav, just Wolves/Reeves of Orboros, Skinwalkers, and Grayle of all people. Oddly, War Wolves are not Wolf Sworn either, which I see people screwing up in battle reports a lot. The Tharn Wolfrider solo buffs Wolfriders, and that is it, and not quite enough I think.

I suppose merging 1 and 2 is out? Put some abusive Ogres in with the Nurgle lads? I mean, I will NEVER turn down using Apostates of Darkness, love those guys! But if time and effort are a problem, the ogre shooting dudes are dead killy. A giant never seems too bad either. So, I mean #1 is probably the best over all thing, but worst case admixing works.

Then again, I might be a bad person to give advice. Most of my hobbying lately is a fight between random crap and getting just one model done for a list that is built around needing just one more model done.

Great to see you scheming about MK3 and KoW, Salvage!! I'd love a game of both if you're ever down this way, or just to follow your endeavors like with Wehr's in the interim

I'm trying a crazy list against Wehrkind this week for my inaugural game with pigs, we'll see how it goes!

So, today on "Shop Talk with Salvage" our topic is Kings of War, and army types.

Salvage, thanks for joining us.

Now, you have a variety of army options available, the result of many years of model collection and converting.

For instance, your Nurgly army is at least 10 years old, having seen the beam ridden basements of East Texas. With the switch to the new rules system, what army list are you using to field them, and why?

Now, your Ogres have at least as ancient a pedigree, some having been primed and sealed in said basement. I assume you are running them as Ogres in KoW. Is this new list with robots and giants completely separate, or a complement to the original whitey ogres of the early 2000's? What's that list look like? Were there any difficult decision made there?

Finally, your boys in Blue, and the wolves that love them. Are they married to AoS, or are they considering a dalliance with KoW as well?
The boys in blue in particular had served you well in WHFB 8th ed, so what keeps them from taking the field in KoW?

We look forward to your insights!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, RiTides, this is the list I am running Thurs:

Baldur 2
-Feral
-Ghettorix
-Woldwarden
-Megalith
Sentry Stone
Sentry Stone
Shifting Stones + UA
Shifting Stones
Lanyssa Ryssal
Alten Ashley
Blackclad Wayfarer


Plan accordingly! I hope you can crack Def 16/Arm 21 in melee! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Mmm, that's tasty! Not sure I can, to be honest, but bringing the same list anyway - we'll find out . I think it's going to be a bit like an irresistible force meeting an immovable object!

Is this thing on?

*Salvage leans in on groaning table, taps mic with powerfist; it explodes, eliciting hearty laughter as external vox are powered up*

Anyhoo, great to be here Wehr. Yes, the army redux has been a grand rite of Warhammer generalship for some decades now, made much more interesting this time around with the AOS shake-up and well-timed KOW redemption. But you wanted an army breakdown, so let's break it down ...

*the lights dim as a projector is flicked on by an amphibian-something lurking in the shadows; Salvage stands up and begins slowly pacing*



Thanks Tides. So Army 1, my Nurgle Things, was a Skaven army for the entirety of 7E-8E, and an army I rebuilt repeatedly but still kind of hated in the end. But! I've been using them in KOW as Ratkin *cough* Nurglekin *cough* and really enjoying them. Amazing to have an army that doesn't just blow up all the time! In fact, the Nurglekin have done quite well for me, and the faction is certainly strong, even my weird version of it (made up of as many Blight as comp packs allow). My niggling problem with the army is that it's not multi-based, meaning it takes forever to unpack and repack, and that having so much of my collection out at once makes clear how inconsistent the basing is ... at least to me. I think buffing them up and rebasing the old greenies for Crossroads is a worthy endeavor. Note that I've never considered rebasing them, possibly because having around 200 models of various sizes means the army can accommodate a wide variety of games, which seems important in today's volatile mini game market. Next slide.



Army 2, my Ogres, are indeed gods damn ancient, having been built when the army premiered, although not painted until mid-7E (when they sucked pretty hard). The paint scheme on these lads was so painful to replicate (i.e. labor intensive layers of craft paint) that I never mustered the numbers needed for serious 8E gaming, so they really only saw the table for rare small games. Until AOS. In the year leading up to the GHB I almost exclusively played my Ogres, as they could easily fill up any of the various comp systems and also wrecked faces on the tabletop. It has been great to get them out again, and honestly I'm not sure why I haven't played with them under the GHB. Possibly because Ogres might be too good - first turn tabling is a real thing with them - and possibly because I've been more interested in seeing what the DOT can do, as it's very obvious what the Ogres can do.

While these Ogres aren't headed for KOW - partially again because of not wanting to paint more of them - I am a fan of the Ogre list, and have had plans to do a Boomer-spam Ogre army using my pile of Puppets War robot snake things for many months now. That should still happen, although I'm getting distracted by other, sexier KOW projects. Next slide.



Army 3, my Daemons of Tzeentch, always kind of sucked in 8E, and frankly they're doing mostly the same in AOS. When they work, I feel a little dirty, but thankfully that isn't too often! Using them in AOS, however, may be the only way I keep playing with these models in the near future, hence my considering round basing them and sticking with it. When KOW first came out, I just assumed I'd run the DOT in that game, using the Abyssals rules. It's not a terrible list and certainly reps the shooting aspect of Tizz well - 3-4x Flamebearers + 2x Tortured Souls + 2-3x Efreets + Arch Fiend / Lord of Change + Chroneas + Molochs for Grinder - but I haven't been too excited about it. Though now that I write it down, it is kind of neat, if still center-less.

*Salvage pauses and gingerly strokes his beard with a non-powerfist guantlet; he picks up a vibroquill and makes a note on the back of one of his techslaves*

Maybe that's a strong enough reason not to rebase for now. That and not really enjoying AOS - though I'd still like to do a round based army for it, because it's soooo easy to do. Thinking either that Wolfen-as-Warherd army or using the snake robots as Leadbelcher-spam Necron Ogres? The latter of which seems extremely me, and ought to troll the 40k Refugees / Tabletop Babies that mostly play AOS.

So apart from the Nurglekin massage and maybe running the DOT, what do I actually have planned for KOW?

*gestures to the gatormanbearpig running the projector*



Despite myself, I ended up buying about $350 in Lust Elves from the TGG2 KS, with the intent of using nearly all of it in a Trident Realms list. The list isn't particularly strong - and the faction is arguably amongst the weakest, or it sure seems that way in the few reports I've read and in my experience punching Daemonettes-turned-fishpeople in the face - but it fits the models well, which is more important to me. 2000 points looks like this:

Naiad Wyrmrider Centurion
Depth Horror Eternal
Naiad Envoy

Naiad Wyrmrider Horde
Naiad Wyrmrider Horde
Depth Horror Horde
Depth Horror Horde
Riverguard Troop
Riverguard Troop
Riverguard Troop

Coral Giant / Kraken

Night-Stalker Butcher Horde

Fairly different from my Nurglekin, which is a mixed arms hordes army that is virtually immune to wavering, and should look stunning. Plan is to grow my airbrushing + washing skills, to try to cut the build time down to six months instead of the two years it took for the Tizz guys. Oh, and since every army of mine is color coded, it's looking like this one is purple, as I've collected a weird number of purple shades in the last year ...

*Salvage stomps over to a chair waiting on the stage, but stops halfway to sitting down when he catches a techslave quietly waving her hands in warning; he thinks better of it and stands instead*

Happy to answer any questions, except those from IT about how I should really log out my google account at work before searching for 'green poop' or 'sexy purple fish'

Nice, Salvage! I'm totally going to use Gatormanbearpig, too (actually have a sweet bear planned to use as Lug, to run an All-The-Lessers list!).

From your thorough presentation, I can see your quandry. Watching Wehr take out a single model at a time to put on horde bases was nuts . KoW really wants multibasing!

I think the real question is a combination of what do you have time for, and what are you excited enough about to get through? I like the robot army idea a lot and it should also hopefully be fast to paint! But for Crossroads, it seems like your choices will be limited to Daemons or Nurglekin with rebasing, right?

Ok, promised battle report, then response to Salvage tomorrow.

Really great game, which was nice since I slept about 5 hours and had been running around to various appointments all day. I was shot to hell. My opponent was a newish player with a really nicely painted army, and just a pleasure to play. He had a rough game dice wise, not to mention learning the game, and he was just awesome. So two thumbs up for him!

65 journeyman

Tanith
-Pureblood
-Stalker
-Gnarlhorn
-Gorax
-Wild Argus
-Moonhound
Reeves Max
Sentry Stone
Shifting Stones
Lanyssa Ryssal

Beth Maddox
-Charger
-Firefly
-Lancer
-Ironclad
Storm Strider
Stormblade Captain
-Stormclad
Stormblade Infantry + UA

Set up Cyg
Strider behind woods, Lancer and Charger on my left flank on other side of woods, Maddox in the center, Stormblade Captain and Clad in middle, Stormblades, Charger and Firefly on the right flank.

Circle set up Wild argus on left, gnarlhorn in front of stalker, then Tanith and gorax. Pureblood and Lanyssa in the woods, moon hound then reeves on the right flank. Stone AD in center, Sentry stone in front of Reeves.

Cyg 1: Maddox puts snipe on Strider, Assail on the Iron Clad, and moves up to put Dauntless Resolve on the Stormblades. Jacks mostly trundle forward to set up ranged shots. The Strider did not have LOS to the Gnarlhorn, as my opponnet did not realize he couldn't see through forests.

Circle 1: Argus trots out farther on the left to benefit from a hedge wall. Pureblood and Lanyssa move into the woods ~3.5" in. Tanith puts Admonition on the Gnarlhorn, Scything Touch on the Stalker, then moves up a bit. Stones deploy forward into triangle,and the Gnarlhorn runs to be just on the front line of that triangle, with the Stalker behind him a bit. Gorax trots up near the stalker. On the right, the moonhound walks up to a manikin and bites him to death. The sentry stone activates, pops forward a few inches, and spawns a new manikin 6"; forward. The stone rolls 1 Fury, two manikins walk forward, and the new on aims and sprays into the Stormblade UA. He fails to actually kill anything, and the Stone makes a forest. The Reeves move up behind that woods.

Cyg 2: Not liking that whole spray thing much, the Charger walks up and puts a round into the front manikin. The stormblades then charge the stone, which is out of charge range but within assault range. The stone goes down, but the stormblades are super clustered. The Firefly backs up a little, the Stormclad and Captain forget to activate. On the other flank, Maddox casts Onslaught and moves behind the Strider. The Strider walks forward a little to get LOS through the woods, and puts two lightning shots into the Gnarlhorn's face. Two Pow 15's later and... the Gnarlhorn lost 3 hp. This was the start of the dice problems.
The Lancer and Ironclad move forward a bit, staying out of slam/charge range of the Gnarlhorn.

Circle 2: Well... that wasn't so bad. Feeling froggy, the Argus trots far to the left behind the hedge, just at the edge of Tanith's range. Tanith activates and Feats, putting Affliction on the Stormblades, flicking a Rift at the Lancer that misses, then backs up to be out of range of most non-sniped retaliation, on zero camp. The Moonhound slams into a corner of the Stormblade Brick, dropping two. The Reeves activate and move up a bit before liquidating the Stormblades. The Gnarlhorn advances a bit more, within charge range of the Strider, and pops his animus. For reasons. The Gorax then moves up and blocks LOS to Tanith from the Strider. The Pureblood... he might have moved up a little to see out of the forest enough to see the Charger and bang him up a bit, along with the Firefly, but still be out of LOS of the Stormclad. Lanyssa moves up a little, pops Winter's storm, but is a little out of range of the Stormclad, but still hidden 3" in the woods. The Stalker begins to wonder why HE isn't in a forest, warps prowl, and runs over to hide next to the Pureblood.Stones port to the left to keep the Stalker and now Pureblood in their area.

Cyg 3: Trading a 15 point unit + UA for a 5 point Sentry Stone was not ideal. My opponent decided to play a little cageier and force me to advance out of the woods a bit and into his guns. The charger pops a few shots out but fails to hit.The Firefly puts a shot into the Moonhound for 3 damage, then electroleaps kill two reeves. The Stormclad moves over a bit to be within charging distance of the Pureblood should he move forward, but out of charge range. The Strider slams two more shots into the Gnarlhorn for... zero damage. Both hit, but he rolled 3 for damage twice. I offered to let him use my dice. The Lancer, feeling saucy, charged the argus behind the hedge, and predictably missed hitting effectively Def 16. The Gnarlhorn, not feeling much affection for canines of various stripes, declines to counter-slam. The Ironclad shuffles a bit to be able to hit the Gnarlhorn if he gets aggressive. At some point Maddox puts a lightning spell into the Gnarlhorn, but doesn't damage. The Goat is made of STEEL! WELL GROUNDED STEEL.

Circle 3: Well, I want that Strider dead. He can't keep rolling 3's for damage forever. Can he? So, Tanith starts up again, puts Primal on Goatly, then strolls into the woods and camps 2. The Gorax walks towards the Argus and puts Primal on him. Getting the boys lathered up. The Argus strolls around the Lancer across the hedge to get him into melee range, then combo-bites his shield off. Goatly then paws the ground and charges the Strider, just getting to within .5". He headbutts a mighty... 8 damage off the Strider. Then gets pushed back an inch. Crap. Forgot to have Lanyssa put on Hunter's Mark to put him in BTB, and at least get 2 attacks out. Hmmm. On the right flank, the Moonhound runs forward to block the Stormclad, and put the Firefly and Charger in +2 attack range. The remaining Reeves move forward and smash two Pow 16 CRAs into the Firefly, doing serious damage. The Pureblood then walks to the edge of the forest and barks with great vigor at the Charger and Firefly, wrecking the Firefly and knocking the ax and cortex off the Charger. All the boosts, bitches.
The Stalker, seeing his job mostly due later, strolls up to the edge of the forest as well, ready to charge a Stormclad if needed.

Cyg 4:My opponent has an opportunity here. Maddox's feat gives all of the models in her control area +3 Pow on melee weapons and Beatback. Ouch. She allocates a lot of focus out, feats, and moves up a little. The Strider, now sporting a mighty power token from the gentle head booping delivered by Goatly, charges the Pureblood, getting the Stalker in melee as well. Goatly, perhaps sad that his playmate left, although only 2" away, Admonitions a bit, then counter slams the Strider. Smashing his head right between the Strider's hind legs, he nuzzles 3 more damage into the battle engine, and bounces back another inch. My cats do exactly the same thing to each other, only Rogies doesn't get a power token to boost damage with when Pudding Cup checks to see if he wiped properly. (Pro-tip: He didn't.)
So, the Strider, newly amped up with his life decisions, boosts to hit his charge attack, and smashes ~11 damgage into the Pureblood. He then revs up the lightning glow ball and ZAP! 7 more boosted damage, and a slightly staticy Shifting Stone. Working up the generator again, the Strider fires a MIGHTY BLAST... somewhere over the horizon, rolling a 3. Always with the 3's with this one.

Somewhat disappointed, the Ironclad decides to get revenge on a puppy. Because he is a monster. First, however, he charges the Gorax, pummeling him down with hammer and fist. With one bought attack left he swings into the Argus, putting 18 odd damage on him. Woof.
The lancer then spins up, strolls over a little, then stabs the doggie down, pinning him to the turf.

The Stormblade Captain Fancy Pants, encouraged by sounds of puppy kicking, sends the Stormclad slightly laterally into the Moonhound. Turns out Def 14 is a bit hard to hit, but still he puts about 8 damage on the pup. Captain Fancy Pants himself decides to finish the job, rolling way, way too many dice on damage and splatters poor Moony across the battlefield. The Stormclad then repositions over roughly infront of Captain Fancy Pants, who hopes to change his pants in peace. (As it turns out, it is after the Jack's activation that it gets to move, not the Captain's. I didn't notice that till now, but it hardly mattered.)

The Charger did... a thing? Missed some, and I think actually hit and failed to injure a Reeve, rolling a 3. (Around this time we determined that there was an Indian Burial Ground on the end of the board he was rolling on.)

Circle 4: Well. Lost a bit more than I thought I would. Still, this can work. First, the Gnarlhorn frenzies and boops the Strider again, but this time for a respectable 8 damage or so, putting the engine on 3 hp. The Pureblood takes a Threshold check on 1 Fury, but is down like Charlie Brown. That is to say, he doesn't murder anyone in a frenzy of unchecked frustration, like say a young girl in a blue dress. Tanith activates, spends two to heal the Pureblood's broken mind and body, walks a little deeper into the woods, then cracks her knuckles and gets to work. Whipping out the Angry Stick, she smacks the Ironclad and Shadowbinds him. (Which in retrospect I totally forgot about when it mattered.) She then pours the rest of her Fury into a boosted Affliction on the Strider, which lands nicely.

The Reeves, encouraged by Tanith's ability to hit things in melee, do a mix of aiming and moving forward to get the Stormclad into range. Four aimed shots into the Strider put the last damage boxes on him, and he collapses, freeing up the Pureblood and Stalker. The rest put some Pow 14 shots into the Charger and put him down.

The Pureblood, now all properly frothed, decides that he can get a charge in on the Stormblade Captain and avenge his buddy the Moonhound. My opponent, dear fellow that he is, pointed out that I could use Lanyssa to Hunter's Mark the Captain, seeing as how she had done nothing all game, and suggested I do that first. What a spot! Lanyssa activates, strolls forward, and promptly misses the spell. Well, nice thought. Pureblood warps all beastly and strong, charges in, boosts to hit, and smashes the bajesus out of the Captain. Turns out rolling 17 for damage is really unhealthy for that guy. Surprised to have some free time, the Pureblood rips off the Stormclad's shield arm.

On the left, the Shifting Stones stick the Stalker in the Ironclad's face. 3 rolls of 6+ later (forgetting Shadow Bind) the Stalker is staring at a pile of wreckage, and Sprints back behind the stones into the woods.

Cyg 5: At this point it is over, but if you are going down, take some twenty foot tall anthropomorphic animals with you! Maddox puts 3 focus on the Lancer, 3 on the Stormclad (forgetting she couldn't) and charges the Pureblood to put it in the dirt. And rolls a 4 to hit. The Stormclad activates, screams "You're not my REAL warcaster!" at Maddox and smacks the Pureblood for 5, who is hanging on by 1 box. The Lancer, ready for some inuenndo largely inappropriate for a mixed company game store, decides his lance will pierce the Gnarlhorn's heavens. Which would have been some great justice, but he can't roll more than a 4 to damage. Even on 3 dice.

Circle 5: FINISH HER! Tanith gets psyched, heals the Pureblood for 2, then decides to risk his life William Tell style. Firing up the Angry Stick, she boosts a shot into the Stormclad, Shadowbinding the jack and Maddox. The Pureblood, having recently read the interwebs on a friendly shifting stone, gets fancy. Warping Ghostly, he walks around to the other side of the Stormclad, and starts the long production process that is Power Attack: Throw. Boost to hit, makes his roll of 3. Strength check, 10+2d6 vs 11+1d6... 18 vs 17. Whew. Finally, aim at Maddox, boost to hit. POW! Right on the noggin. Even put a damage on the Stormclad.

So, now I have a knocked down enemy caster in range of 8 Reeves. The lads form up, combine fire, and roll a 2. Lol, good thing they have two shots! Another 2. Wut. It now occurs to me I might be able to fail this assassination. The Stalker can charge and just make sword range. Lanyssa can make that more likely... but can she hit?

Well, ok yea, she can. Rolling three 2's in a row only happens in PC Bloodbowl. The Stalker now has plenty of distance, and two shots the unfortunate Maddox.


Notes:

Great game, and a really great opponent. It was his third or fourth game ever, and he had a fully painted and good looking army he did himself. He even painted all the arcs on his models, which brought a small tear to my curmudgeonly eye. It was a long game due to rules questions, but we had a great time. If nothing else, he was remarkably stoic about some really, really gakky dice. Something like 40-50% of his 2d6 rollswere <5, at least late game.
1: Sentry Stones require a little more care than I am used to. There is a ton of potential there though.
2: Storm Striders are not 19 points good.
3: I am actually quite happy with the list. I might put in a Gallows grove on the way to 75 points, and maybe some war wolves, but really I don't feel like I am wanting for much. Alten Ashley I suppose.
4: Cygnar jacks are actually pretty dodgy at Def 13, squishy at Arm 16-18, and accurate with Mat 7 Rat 6 just about across the board. I am not used to getting hit by Jacks that often without boosting.
5: Winning "Best Painted Solo" for Lanyssa did a lot for my mood. It is possible I desire more affirmation than is healthy

edited for formatting issues

There was a formatting attack on the first part of that bat rep!

Nice work, and congrats on the painting award for Lanyssa . In that pic last page the blue skin really looks ace!

Oh... hell you are right. Let me see what I can do about that. Copied from a .txt doc, I wonder what happened there.

I will get a back shot of Lanyssa. The view is much better from there! You can really see the layers of blue and purple on her cape.

We are back! Thank you, Dakka, for once again taking time from your busy day of reading the internet when you should be painting, or heaven forbid, working, to join us here, for what has been a fabulous conversation with that scion of slaughter, that prince of the play mat, indeed, the very Master of Malevolence,

all the way from the Alban-e'val!

Boss Salvage.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Is this thing on?

*Salvage leans in on groaning table, taps mic with powerfist; it explodes, eliciting hearty laughter as external vox are powered up*

Anyhoo, great to be here Wehr. Yes, the army redux has been a grand rite of Warhammer generalship for some decades now, made much more interesting this time around with the AOS shake-up and well-timed KOW redemption. But you wanted an army breakdown, so let's break it down ...

*the lights dim as a projector is flicked on by an amphibian-something lurking in the shadows; Salvage stands up and begins slowly pacing*



Thanks Tides. So Army 1, my Nurgle Things, was a Skaven army for the entirety of 7E-8E, and an army I rebuilt repeatedly but still kind of hated in the end. But! I've been using them in KOW as Ratkin *cough* Nurglekin *cough* and really enjoying them. Amazing to have an army that doesn't just blow up all the time! In fact, the Nurglekin have done quite well for me, and the faction is certainly strong, even my weird version of it (made up of as many Blight as comp packs allow). My niggling problem with the army is that it's not multi-based, meaning it takes forever to unpack and repack, and that having so much of my collection out at once makes clear how inconsistent the basing is ... at least to me. I think buffing them up and rebasing the old greenies for Crossroads is a worthy endeavor. Note that I've never considered rebasing them, possibly because having around 200 models of various sizes means the army can accommodate a wide variety of games, which seems important in today's volatile mini game market. Next slide.

Yes, yes, many a player has faced that dilemma, most not nearly so illustrious as you. In fact, I myself have faced that very problem.

No, no it is true. Every man faces that decision someday. The decision to maintain a free and unattached, yet unwieldy lifestyle, or hunker down, tie yourself to the wheel, and adhere to one only. Do the gains of certainty and efficiency outweigh the risks of being dashed to the rocks right along with your chosen? Who hasn't faced this dilemma, and who hasn't chosen incorrectly before? I know I have.

But friends, there may be a solution!

I have been told, by a very close, very reputable source whose name just escapes me at the moment, that hot glue does wonders, just wonders for bonding loose bases to multibases, and doing so in a way that is reversible with just a twist of a putty knife. Now, you know me, and you know I love to keep my options open, isn't that right ladies and gentlemen? And now, now it seems we can

DO

JUST

THAT!

Army 2, my Ogres, are indeed gods damn ancient, having been built when the army premiered, although not painted until mid-7E (when they sucked pretty hard). The paint scheme on these lads was so painful to replicate (i.e. labor intensive layers of craft paint) that I never mustered the numbers needed for serious 8E gaming, so they really only saw the table for rare small games. Until AOS. In the year leading up to the GHB I almost exclusively played my Ogres, as they could easily fill up any of the various comp systems and also wrecked faces on the tabletop. It has been great to get them out again, and honestly I'm not sure why I haven't played with them under the GHB. Possibly because Ogres might be too good - first turn tabling is a real thing with them - and possibly because I've been more interested in seeing what the DOT can do, as it's very obvious what the Ogres can do.

While these Ogres aren't headed for KOW - partially again because of not wanting to paint more of them - I am a fan of the Ogre list, and have had plans to do a Boomer-spam Ogre army using my pile of Puppets War robot snake things for many months now. That should still happen, although I'm getting distracted by other, sexier KOW projects. Next slide.

Hmmm yes, that is a problem. Too good for AoS, too few for KoW. Here we truly see your greatness. Not to be confused with mercy for the weak and deserving of death, but truly not wasting the time, resources, indeed even the thought that would be required to sully his boots with the unworthy ichor of the feeble and cowardly. There is only outwards to the great unknown, and upwards to greater victories!



But still, one sometimes wants to explore the known, the reliable, they familiar path well worn, yet still capable of surprising us. The question, for all of us at least partly mortal, is finding the time. Where do we find the time? Time to build more warriors. Time to adorn them with the glorious panoply of war. Time simply to array them properly in order to deliver the most massive destruction we have come to expect of THE BOSS!

Why, it would be nearly impossible to field greater than 60% of a proper army with just the meat on hand. At best we would need some manner of unreliable allies, some feeble sewer rats, newly ejaculated from the muck and slime of the very womb of disease and filth itself. Only then, could they hope to take the field with hope of doing honor to their lord and master, our dear friend Salvage.

And yet...


And yet is this not exactly what we can do? Does our glorious conquest not only need, but indeed become even more glorious when we execute it with but a plurality of the brave soldiers we might field? Is this not itself written down in the tomes and laws of war, that we need but a fraction of the solders we might possibly cram onto the field?
Further, even if we should fear lest the weak and bedraggled tide of our enemies overwhelm our mighty soldiers, do we not have allies who would stand beside them? Not only stand, but surge forward in a veritable tsunami of pestilence and destruction, threshing the masses from our foes as chaff from the grain , so that we might feast upon their very nutriment?

WE DO! MY FRIENDS, WE DO! AND BY THE DARK GODS, WE SHALL!

Army 3, my Daemons of Tzeentch, always kind of sucked in 8E, and frankly they're doing mostly the same in AOS. When they work, I feel a little dirty, but thankfully that isn't too often! Using them in AOS, however, may be the only way I keep playing with these models in the near future, hence my considering round basing them and sticking with it. When KOW first came out, I just assumed I'd run the DOT in that game, using the Abyssals rules. It's not a terrible list and certainly reps the shooting aspect of Tizz well - 3-4x Flamebearers + 2x Tortured Souls + 2-3x Efreets + Arch Fiend / Lord of Change + Chroneas + Molochs for Grinder - but I haven't been too excited about it. Though now that I write it down, it is kind of neat, if still center-less.

*Salvage pauses and gingerly strokes his beard with a non-powerfist guantlet; he picks up a vibroquill and makes a note on the back of one of his techslaves*

Mmmmm mmmhhmmmm

Maybe that's a strong enough reason not to rebase for now. That and not really enjoying AOS - though I'd still like to do a round based army for it, because it's soooo easy to do. Thinking either that Wolfen-as-Warherd army or using the snake robots as Leadbelcher-spam Necron Ogres? The latter of which seems extremely me, and ought to troll the 40k Refugees / Tabletop Babies that mostly play AOS.

So apart from the Nurglekin massage and maybe running the DOT, what do I actually have planned for KOW?

*gestures to the gatormanbearpig running the projector*

Isn't that something folks? The way he uses his little claws to press the buttons? It is almost like he thinks he's people.

Despite myself, I ended up buying about $350 in Lust Elves from the TGG2 KS, with the intent of using nearly all of it in a Trident Realms list. The list isn't particularly strong - and the faction is arguably amongst the weakest, or it sure seems that way in the few reports I've read and in my experience punching Daemonettes-turned-fishpeople in the face - but it fits the models well, which is more important to me. 2000 points looks like this:

Naiad Wyrmrider Centurion
Depth Horror Eternal
Naiad Envoy

Naiad Wyrmrider Horde
Naiad Wyrmrider Horde
Depth Horror Horde
Depth Horror Horde
Riverguard Troop
Riverguard Troop
Riverguard Troop

Coral Giant / Kraken

Night-Stalker Butcher Horde

Fairly different from my Nurglekin, which is a mixed arms hordes army that is virtually immune to wavering, and should look stunning. Plan is to grow my airbrushing + washing skills, to try to cut the build time down to six months instead of the two years it took for the Tizz guys. Oh, and since every army of mine is color coded, it's looking like this one is purple, as I've collected a weird number of purple shades in the last year ...

*Salvage stomps over to a chair waiting on the stage, but stops halfway to sitting down when he catches a techslave quietly waving her hands in warning; he thinks better of it and stands instead*

Happy to answer any questions, except those from IT about how I should really log out my google account at work before searching for 'green poop' or 'sexy purple fish'

Now, I am not going to lie to you, but when I first heard about your plans...



It did. That is a fascinating strategy for an army, and I cannot wait to see what manner of hell spawned monstrosities it contains. Five hordes of beautifully airbrushed troops? I'd say be still my beating heart, but I am afraid it has yet to start back up. An evil elf themed Kraken? Well, call me Phil McKraken, because my chitinous orifices are all wet! WHAT DO YOU SAY LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!?



Now, that said, what experience do you have with your tools, such as an airbrush? Has it seen the light, or been out of action in a box for a while, if you know what I mean? I know I get asked on many occasions:

"What is Boss working on? Will there be a new destructive army debuting in 202016? Will Hell itself open up and offer us real orange juice popsicles dipped in dark chocolate?"

My friends, I don't know. I simply don't. We will have to wait for this tall drink of Hateorade next to me to fill us in! So, please join us next time on "Wirtschaft mitt Wehrkind!"

Wow, you've got his tone nailed

Thanks for the bat rep formatting edit, too!

Wehr, I ... I ... that was glorious @_@

*Salvage's optics well up with a viscous black fluid, which begins to flow down his alabaster cheeks, making its way through the multifarious cracks in his ceramite faceplate. A techslave offers his master a facial tissue; instead, the veteran of a thousand wars hefts up the wretch himself, drying his eyes across the craven's back. The smeared fluid settles in the techslave's scars, phosphorescing briefly into eldritch runes that distort the camera feed and cause the craft services minion backstage to spontaneously void his bowels. Salvage visibly composes himself before continuing, smeary makeup significantly more smeary now.*

 Wehrkind wrote:
Now, that said, what experience do you have with your tools, such as an airbrush? Has it seen the light, or been out of action in a box for a while, if you know what I mean? I know I get asked on many occasions:

"What is Boss working on? Will there be a new destructive army debuting in 202016? Will Hell itself open up and offer us real orange juice popsicles dipped in dark chocolate?"

I used my airbrush recently to lay down the grey base for my white Dragonborn ...

*Salvage gestures at Tides, who uses a tail to advance the projector but is otherwise quite focused on a humorously overlarge sandwich that has appeared from somewhere (presumably craft services)*



Horrible vidcap is horrible, but what can one do? Sadly the airbrush stopped working when I went to see how it handled white, and I have a feeling that the paint may have been the culprit, as until recently my only white has been a craft paint . I have a nice jar of P3 white now, which I'll be able to thin out better in the future. Regardless, it was typical of airbrushing for me: I get about 5-10 minutes of superb painting experience, then it clogs up, has to be cleaned and then ends up boxed for another handful of months. A very frustrating device, and I have a worry that I may have angered it last time I took it apart, as some of the mechanisms are not quite situated.

Having talked it out, I'd like to massage the Nurglekin in the coming month, and then I think paint up a new one-off Malifaux crew, as that seems to be the game most of my club still plays. I'd also like to get my Arachnaroks done for my Ogres and get back to stomping AOS with them, but I think my only build goal is to get TGG2 moving once it arrives, for a Spring / Summer 2017 debut. Plenty of other things to build, but I need the focus, and have honestly missed painting, between hobby ADD and the heat.

Anyway. it's been a pleasure Wehr. But before I go, I must say: those eyebrows are truly fetching. If my tertiary heart didn't already belong to Slaanesh, I'd say I was in trouble ()

[Cheers for the temporary multi-basing advice, and the suggestion of allying ftw. A clubmate noted that it might be time to recut my foam to accept horde trays and just keep the green poops magnetized to them instead of to the 8E-sized trays they currently live on. My new trays are steel, so those nurgs ain't going nowhere!]

Glad you lads enjoyed it! It took me like 2 hours, but I thought it was worth it I am super tempted to dress like that and do my first class in that style, just to see how many kids come back for the next class

That dragon lad is looking nice! Airbrushing is such a low pain way to do white. The craft paint might be the culprit; I find it clogs up mine too unless I up the pressure a LOT.

What are you using for thinner? I have been using Vallejo thinner, along with a drop or so of VJ Airbrush Lube. After I empty a cup I add some of the latter again and move the needle to keep it going. I am not entirely sure what it does... it feels like watered down KY, so my guess is it reduces sticking in the nozzle, but sort of just dissolves once sprayed.
At any rate, I find the VJ thinner works fine to thin down VJ paints from the bottle, so long as I keep the airbrush wet. I periodically have to jam the needle forward if it gets some gunk in the way that keeps it from going all the way forward, but that is rare and probably not appropriate


Automatically Appended Next Post:
PS: I look forward to seeing the green poops on the table! I am off to shake things up with RiTides in Hordes, so I will try and take some nice pictures to share!

 Wehrkind wrote:
What are you using for thinner?

I got some Liquitex Airbrush Medium when I started, have been using that. Am getting pretty interested in Vallejo Air colors recently, since I discovered they have some really lovely browns O_O

I am off to shake things up with RiTides in Hordes, so I will try and take some nice pictures to share!

Do the thing! And show us it! (*secretly roots for gatormanbearpig*)

Finally, sad news: I'm back to messing with Robot Snake Ogre lists for AOS I sooooo want to speed build this Counts As army and then paint it Rusty AF

- Salvage

Ooh, I really like the paint you've got going on that dragonborn, Salvage!

Had a fun game against Wehr, thanks for your patience during my first game with pigs! I got some nice in-game pictures and will upload those over the weekend

Here was what I took, Carver boar-gasm!

Carver
- 7 Battle Boars
- 2 War Hogs
Rorsh
- Brine
- Battle Boar
Swamp Gobbers

So, 8 Battle Boars and 3 Heavies... since I'm trying to speed up I'll probably dial that back to just a few battle boars and more heavies (and maybe a unit) in future games but it was cool to try the herd!!

Here's a shot I took beforehand of my list, with a Road Hog moonlighting as a War Hog and no swamp gobbers:



Thanks for the great game, Wehr!

Awesome list! So much porky muscle And damn, do those battle boars look particularly sweet en masse

Looking forward to the recap!

- Salvage

It was a great game, lots of fun. Best picture goes to Lanyssa in the middle of a three way pork butt sandwich.

I am wrecked today though, so a write up will have to wait till tomorrow, unless RiTides wants to do it.

Awesome

Good to see them out on the table!

Alright, so battle report.

Lists were 75 points, scenario was the one in the book with 2 12" circles, that didn't matter.

Baldur 2
- Ghettorix
- Feral Warpwolf
- Megalith
- Wold Warden
2x Sentry Stones
Shifting Stones with UA
Shifting Stones
Black Clad
Lanyssa
Alten Ashley

Very compact list, designed to exploit Def16/Arm21-22 in melee warp wolves.

RiTides list was as above;

Carver
- 7 Battle Boars
- 2 War Hogs
Rorsh
- Brine
- Battle Boar
Swamp Gobbers

All the pork.

RiTides won first turn. Set up in a line with big pigs towards the middle, Rorsch and Brine's BG on my right.
I set up with Sentries on the flanks, Lanyssa and Alten on the right, Wolves in the middle with Baldur, Warden and Megs just outside them. Black Clad over on the left a little.

Pigs 1: Carver cast's Mobility and Batten. All the pigs run forward save one. They get really far.

Circle 1: The wolves decide to demonstrate they can run too, pounding up to the 22" line:



Baldur trots up, puts a wall in front of them then Roots of Earth on both. Megs tramples up a little behind and to the side of the wolves, killing a Manikin, popping the animus and putting Roots on himself. Woldwarden does likewise, without the Animus.
Sentries activate, poop out a manikin 6" forward, then teleport up. Some sprays happen, with other manikins running interference. Shifting stones move around to pull off fury and heal the Wolves after the initial alpha.
Lanyssa and black clad walk forward a bit. Alten Ashley aims because he can shoot forever, tags Brine right in the face, and rips off his mind with the auto damage. Repositions off to the side a bit.

Pigs 2: Bad things happen. Carver activates, casts Mobility and Batten, moves up a little, then Feats. Two little pigs primal the big war hogs, then kill two manikins. The big pigs activate, and thanks to my over aggressive positioning, are able to charge Ghettorix and the Feral and get past the edge of the wall. No Def 16 for you! As a result, my warpwolves dissolve in a red mist of piggy fury. Brine charges forward to kill the Warden, but on 1 die to can't reliably hit Def 10 even with Primal (wishing I had put on Roots of the Earth and his animus instead of trampling... which it actually occurs to me wasn't a constraint because Baldur can make them do power attacks and charges without forcing) Anyway, the Warden is smacked down to 9 hp, but holds on. A bunch of other piggies move on forward and kill manikins or jam stuff up. I think maybe the Black Clad dies of fear or something here.



Circle 2: Well... I feel like a complete moron. Something about playing RiTides always makes me throw away at least 2 heavies turn 1 for no good reason.
Plus side, there are really only 3 enemy heavies on the table, and with Roots of the Earth Megs can be Arm 22, Warden 21, and Baldur 20, so if I remove them there isn't a lot that can reliably threaten me. That is easier said than done, but as they will certainly frenzy next turn I have some time to deal with it.
The right hand Sentry Stone activates, puts out a Manikin forward to spray Rorsch, A few points of damage are put on him thanks to boosts.
Warden activates and heals 1. I wanted to Crevasse the Manikin to put another spray into Rorsch, but I was out of range of the spray. Instead he boosts two initial attacks into Brine, lands the resulting combo-smite, and bashes him back into the battle boar. Alten walks forward and puts a round into Rorsch for some good damage that is transfered to R's little pig. Lanyssa moves up behind the front battle boar there to put an Ice Bolt into Rorsch, but misses a 6.
On the left, Megs moves over a bit, then lands a throw to pound that Warhog into a boar, putting him in place to frenzy on the little boar in front of him, which Megs softens up a little before Rooting himself.
Baldur activates, puts up a wall between the remaining warhog and the warden to block the frenzy charge, Feats and camps 4.

The left Sentry pops out some manikins and has them move to block some charges.

Pigs 3: I assume RiTides is pretty optimistic at this point, although nearly his entire army is going to Frenzy, either from Primal or not being able to clear Fury.
It isn't as bad as it might have been, however, as the other reason I needed to kill that Manikin was so that Brine would Frenzy into the Warhog, but instead he kills a manikin. Whatever. The left Hog doesn't kill the Battleboar, but hurts him pretty well. The right Warhog actually does manage to engage the Woldwarden by charging laterally past the wall, but doesn't do any real damage. The far rear boar there frenzies into a Swamp Gobber but can't hit Def 15.

Here's a picture of the scene turn three, and one with Lanyssa in a pork butt sandwich:



At this point, RiTides considers an assassination, but it is pretty unlikely. Instead he focuses on grinding down my forces, casts Batten and tries to get what little pork he has left in position. Nothing that is activating can crack Arm 21 on pretty much everything, but Lanyssa dies to pork farts on the right.
Rorsch retreats back towards Carver after healing Brine for 1.



Circle 3: Now things need to happen. The Warden moves up to combo slam the warhog into Brine to keep them tied down. He boosts two hits on the way in, then fails to roll a 4 on the slam. Great. He puts up Roots of Earth on himself and his 11 hit boxes.
Ashley activates and puts down Brine.
Sentry stone over there activates and puts up a manikin to spray and do some damage to things.
Baldur now charges the left warhog, but boffs his charge attack at dice -3, and after a lame bought attack Roots himself and puts a wall up between himself and Carver as well as blocking off the pig a bit (who can now only walk 2"). Megs moves up and punches the pig but doesn't kill it, then roots himself and leaves a spot open for Baldur to transfer to. (Apparently Baldur can't transfer to Megs when he is full of Fury anymore.) The sentry stone tries to jam things up, as do the stones.

Pig 4: Well, since that didn't go well, Carver has an assassination run. He puts up mobility and charges Baldur, getting over the wall and behind big B, suffering a free strike but transferring it. He then rolls very badly, and only does ~9 damage to Baldur, who is still sitting on one Fury:



A lot of hemming and hawing later, the right most Warhog is Primaled by a Battle Boar, then tramples past a stone into melee range of Baldur (RT note - this hog was out of view to the left in the above pic). The Warden gets a free strike at dice -3, and does 3 bloody damage. Shame is his forever.
The hog buys two attacks, and the second puts Baldur in the dirt.

Notes:
1: I need to learn to use the wall better. It is super powerful, but if I get my wolves too far forward enemies can charge past it and get them anyway. Arm 21-22 is scary on Def 14, but not unstoppable.
2: Related note: Carver's feat is scary as all hell. Turning every beast into a weapon master is a horrifying possibility that I had not really grasped when we had started.
3: Sentry Stones are awesome, but probably could have been used more centrally this game to limit access to the wolves.
4: Probably anything is better than the Black Clad. Recalling that my wolds charge for free, I really only need Lanyssa as only two beasts care. I will probably replace with a Night Witch.
5: Alten Ashley is the bees knees. 4-6 auto damage on beasts is great, especially on those beasts with one short spiral. Adding Grievous Wounds so that they can't heal 1 to fix the spiral is great. Re-positioning 3" afterwards is great.
6: Seriously, I need to remember that Baldur lets those wolds do whatever for free.

Your pics weren't showing up Wehr and I had more, so I interspersed them into your report in chronological order, actually seems to work out really well . Also an excuse to abuse my ABSOLUTE POWER...!! *coughhackwheeze*

Only a few things that were off - Alten Ashley SHOULD have finished off Brine, but Rorsh got so scared he ran back and hid behind Carver, neglecting to dump Fury, and his Battle Boar frenzied into Brine and killed him the next turn . Also, the Blackclad died to a Battle Boar since Carver's feat gives Overtake, so it was able to pacman back to him.

Overall - Holy crap, that was a lot of bacon! If not for Alten being an absolute boss, the left Wold probably dies and there just wouldn't be enough left to hit back after the feat turn. As it was, I felt you got really unlucky not to kill more of the heavies with your retaliation - but ARM 21 from Carver makes the War Hogs kind of crazy. If you had killed them, there wasn't much that could have dealt with the Wolds or Baldur - the Battle Boars basically can do damage for one turn on Carver's feat, and after that can only really hurt infantry. As a result, I think I'm going to run a much smaller herd in the future but it was fun to try this. Thank you very much for the game!

 Ramos Asura wrote:
Good to see them out on the table!

Hopefully more to come I just have to get faster! The army looked and played awesome, and Wehrkind was happy to see his conversions painted up! I have needed some last minute additions, mostly heavies since somehow I had you queued up for a ton of lights (that's why Rorsh & Brine are in there). I think ideally I'll have about an even number of heavies and lights in my lists. Some folks are running all heavies, but Pigs thankfully have some really good lights so they'll be seeing the table

Oh damn, how did I forget the team kill of Brine!? That was hilarious. I think you might actually have killed more points of your army than I did. Neither one of us really lost many points, once I got done feeding your pigs a light wolfy snack. I think I killed what, 1 battle boar? After the wolves you killed Lanyssa, the Black Clad, and 4-5 points of stones and uas? Assuming Brine is like 15 points by himself, that one pig frenzy killed more points than either player's deliberate actions

Lol, yeah that was pretty... umm... un-epic of Rorsh & Brine . Alten Ashley kicks butt and you used him very well! Almost makes me think I need a Totem Hunter in my lists to go get solos like that, as I think I'll be seeing a lot of them... but Alten with reposition still majorly out-threats the Totem Hunter's 14". Still might make him stay further back... will think about it.

Killer report, sorry to see your cunning plan with the uber-wolves didn't pan out, Wehr. But everything looked awesome as it went down Also, here's a +1 to the new Megs sculpt, soooo much better than that old, scrawny freaking out rock monster

Seeing those pigs doing their thing, I'm reminded that late MK2 I actually started a counts as Arkadius crew, just because. I'm now very excited to dig that out and get to airbrushing / washing! Thanks guys

Also, here's a thing that shouldn't necessarily make much sense:

 Wehrkind wrote:
Lanyssa dies to pork farts on the right.

- Salvage

LOL awesome I think I need to get that silk screened on a shirt for RiTides

It was a good game, even if I subconsciously love to give RiTides >40 point leads turn 2. I am working on getting the list fully painted, mixed in the queue with the Grayle the Drune Domina list and getting my battle group finished up for tomorrow's league night. I should have pictures of that finished pile tonight, after some actual school stuff. Pretty metal Pureblood!
The pictures will be terrible as usual unless I steal the wife's phone, but I will see what I can do

One thing I am thinking I will change in the list is to remove the Black Clad and the Stones UA (who doesn't do much I need given the tightness of the brick) and replace them with the Efaarit scouts. I think those snipers plus Ashley will really let me shut war beasts the hell up fast. I believe that if I can remove/subdue all a lists heavy beasts I can sort of coast to victory on unkillable heavies/caster. Plus with all the hot Crevasse and other sprays going on, not to mention Murderous on Ghetto, I can slaughter a mess of infantry, so weapon masters or other heavy hitters shouldn't worry me much. Being a counter punch style list, a second source of threat extension probably doesn't matter a great deal compared to spot removal of dudes I don't like. Plus the Efaarits actually work against jacks too, and being able to scalpel out a cortex would be nice on occasion.

I am thinking RiTides, we ought to make an Alten Piggly model for you

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Seeing those pigs doing their thing, I'm reminded that late MK2 I actually started a counts as Arkadius crew, just because. I'm now very excited to dig that out and get to airbrushing / washing! Thanks guys

Salvage, you totally should!! Pigs are legit now and you'll love running Arkadius. He is more straight forward now (can choose your frenzy target with the feat) as well as able to run a greater variety of lists, although you'll want quite a few heavies for sure. He's got shenanigans with his needle giving all boosted rolls to the next attack, so sprays can become nuts. And crazy threat ranges, of course!

Only major downside - no pathfinder. Just have to move at half speed through terrain and hope his crazy threat ranges make up for it. I'll be bringing Dahlia & Skarath with him most likely, who do have pathfinder. Lastly, if you take Lanyssa her speed boosts gets a double tap on feat turn

Wehr, I do appreciate you "spotting" me points on turn 2s, you know I'm rusty . Loved your list, especially wolds trampling mannakins! I think the Efaarit Scouts are a cool idea for it, too

Regarding Alten, I've got some barbaric looking humans mixing in with my pigs (as lesser warlocks / etc) but haven't found a model I like for Alten for my theme yet, although yours looked like a great fit with your force. If you think of any possible candidates let me know!

 RiTides wrote:
Pigs are legit now and you'll love running Arkadius. He is more straight forward now (can choose your frenzy target with the feat) as well as able to run a greater variety of lists, although you'll want quite a few heavies for sure. He's got shenanigans with his needle giving all boosted rolls to the next attack, so sprays can become nuts. And crazy threat ranges, of course!

Only major downside - no pathfinder. Just have to move at half speed through terrain and hope his crazy threat ranges make up for it. I'll be bringing Dahlia & Skarath with him most likely, who do have pathfinder. Lastly, if you take Lanyssa her speed boosts gets a double tap on feat turn

I was interested in Arkadius because I just wanted beasts (being turned off if Infantrymachine) and he seemed quite underplayed and tricksy. Looks like in MK3 (which seems waaaaay battlegroup focused, at least for the WM side), the doc just got better, with tweaks to the needle gun and his feat Not to mention more lights to choose from than he had 1+ years ago. The tiny research I did this morning suggested the worm was good with him, guessing the uber-spray as well as pathfinder, etc.

Wehr, happy you're doing the Scouts, that has to be the strangest unit/model in the game, and virtually unseen, at least to me.

- Salvage

I think the view of the army assembled on the table top and in action has moved me towards Minions more than Privateer Press ever did! Thank You! A very solid and unified look for what should be a ragtag plate of porky stuff, but even better that way. More menacing.

And a battle reports are fun (if somewhat winding) reading too! Where are new cards when I need them... :(

@ RiTides: Happy to serve Have you considered these guys from Dark Age?


I have a set in the basement, and they are bit big for 40k stand ins, but probably just about perfect for PP scale. Especially with your "Ripped Like Jesus" pigs.

@ Salvage: Yea, the scouts have such a Tatooine, post apoc vibe it is sort of shocking. I would really like to see more of the Efaarit in action, like a light cav unit or something. Main sadness is that they are like 34$ retail, 25+ if you get them online. That is a little shocking to me. If I win best battle group tomorrow, maybe I will splurge

Run pig monsters! DO IT. I am building up a piggy army myself, focusing on Helga and just how silly she is. Every attack is a slam? Ok.

@ Wirecat: Glad you appreciated the report! I usually write them up the day after, or in this case two days and a medical procedure after, so I am relying a lot more on general feelings and painful memories to fuel the narrative. Concise has never been my writing style... you should read my academic papers

 Wehrkind wrote:
Run pig monsters! DO IT. I am building up a piggy army myself, focusing on Helga and just how silly she is. Every attack is a slam? Ok.

Yessssss, I always thought Helga was kind of silly in general, but in a way I'm all about.

Man, DAKKACON 2017: RETURN OF THE D could end up with a startling number of quasi-Farrow armies in one big cuddle puddle

- Salvage

Just name a time and place, Salvage! * ** ***

All those "*" caveats aside I would dearly love to game with you and Wehr all together again. If you're passing by this way we definitely need to schedule it, or if we all can in fact make the same convention . I'm hoping to have a booth at several next year and would love to game in the evenings and recruit you guys as volunteers during part of the days



* As long as that time and place is AdeptiCon, or possibly GenCon or Nova 2017
** This assumes Wehrkind can come with
*** Also pending whether family is coming with

Admittedly, aligning at the same con is probably the way to do it. Most tempted by GenCon I guess? Because other friends getting interested, late summer is easy to do, and so on.

- *Salvage's scheming face*

That might be something I can do someday... maybe next year?

I think Salvage just needs to come to NoVA and visit his family, but really just visit me.


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Ok, quick battle group pictures. A bit improved due to using a better camera, a little worse due to having to hold a horribly fussy baby...







Pureblood is new, rest are updated and patched. The arguses got a lot of rework.

While I am at it, Lanyssa and work in progress "Alten Ashley"



Off to league night in a few. Wish me luck!

Wow, they look so good! Alten Ashley had no paint last week, right?

Really love the Pureblood, that's exactly how I'd envision it! Nice variety amongst your wolf tones, too

Glad you like 'em! Alten was bare primer last week, sort of accidentally painted him over the weekend with extra paint from the Pureblood. A few details and highlights here and there and he is done! Love that model
The Pureblood is funny, I have been painting so much white lately that I kind of don't remember how I did his. I think it went from English Uniform (sort of a baby-poop green-brown-grey) to ivory, with white streaks here and there for super highlights. I kind of wish I had written that down, I find it oddly pleasing.

Bought an Efaarit tonight. I always impulse buy when I win a game Watch the hell out, piggies!

My poor pig damage spirals

That's really cool, I think the Efaarit is a very well balanced model ability and points-wise. You don't see it as often as some more OP things, but I think it's a great compliment to Alten Ashley and will get more work done than what it's replacing in your list.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Bought an Efaarit tonight.

*oontz oontz oontz*

Battlegroup looks great, but biggest props on the Pureblood. Really dig the brown-white, lovely tone. My whites end up being cold grey-whites, which I'm ok with but definitely suits reptiles (which for some reason I'm always painting white) better than mammals. Also, the metal Pureblood is suuuuuch a great sculpt, way up there for me. Picked up a used one for cheap recently, stripped and waiting in a pile for whatever the hell he ends up doing (the original plan was to be a Cygor in my Wolfenherd AOS army ... which might still happen )

- Salvage

Efaarit should be a good time, yes. Game against Cyriss last night really demonstrated how much Alten does not do a lot vs Warmachine, although he did some decent plinking here and there. An Efaarit would have been so, so good facing all that arm 16-19.

I will do a fuller write up tonight, but for highlights of Tanith vs Syntherion:

1: Wild argus is sad, he has nothing to bark at. Instead he spends 3 turns out of control tying up Angels.

2: Reeves live the dream, putting 20 shots needing 3's to hit into an Afflictioned... whatever the jack with the knock-down robo dong is called. So much rolling. Removed the entire right side of the thing.

3: Goatly moves up to threaten 2nd turn, get half killed by shooting, wisely retreats to get healed by stones, and lives out the whole game!

4: Lanyssa landed 2 entire Hunter's Marks! 2! That ups my lifetime applications of Hunter's Mark by ~ 40-50%.


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Also, thank you Salvage! Every time I read "Cygor" I keep parsing it as "Cybor", and thinking that is an odd target for that... I spent too much time playing WoW

Ok so battle report time.

75 points, whatever the dead scenario is.

Tanith
-Stalker
-Pureblood
-Gnarlhorn
-Gorax
-Wild Argus
-Moonhound
Reeves Max
2x Sentry Stones
Shifting Stones
Lanyssa
Alten

Cyriss
Syntherion
-Assimilator
-Corollary
-Diffuser
-Galvanizer
-Inverter (Dong-bot)
-Monitor
Transfinite Emergence Projector
Accretion Servitors
Attunement Servitors
Clockwork Angels
Reductors (min)

First thing to notice is that he is really thin on chaff and screens.

Anyway, Andrew set up the table, with two large hills making a valley that was open to us on both ends, with two large forests at each mouth and a long strip of woods in the middle of the hill on my flank. As a historicals player, I really appreciated the layout, as it brought to mind two forces fighting over a pass or trade route. As a Circle player, I appreciated having terrain big enough and well placed enough to actually make us of the Prowl that half my models have, and never can take advantage of.

Cyriss won the roll, decided to go second. I set up with the melee elements of the list, Wild Argus, Gnarlhorn and Stalker at the base of the left hill with Alten ahead for sniping. On the right hill went the reeves, pureblood and moonhound. The center held Tanith and the stones with Lanyssa, and the two Sentry Stones were a bit to the right of center, to screen the reeves.
Cyriss set up with the angels on my far left, then the assimilator, monitor, diffuser and a smattering of floating balls that shoot goo at the base of the left hill. The Transfinite Emer... the TEP was on the far right behind the strip of woods, supported by shotgun robots and dongbot. Synth was in the middle with the corrollary, and the galvanizer was set to stroll behind the TEP and repair it. In retrospect it was sort of a strange deployment, with the TEP and the main melee strength facing down my ranged elements, while his ranged elements were facing a lot of hill and forest. He probably could have won a shoot out with the assimilator and monitor vs my reeves and pureblood. Anyway...

Circle 1: Alten moves up, misses a pot shot at an angel. Tanith activated and put up Admonition on Goatly, Scything Touch on Stalky, the trotted forwards, being super careful to be >3" from the edge of the forest. The stalker runs up behind her on the right, and the shifting stones spread their cold, stony embrace around them both. Goatly, secure in his admonitioned ways... is that a word? Anyway, he tramples forward to kill a doddling manikin and take position on the hill. The Argus runs up along side of him, because that is what dogs do.
On the right the Reeves put themselves 16" from the TEP, eyeing the treeline, while the Pureblood tramples forward killing another manikin. The Moonhound runs up, Lanyssa runs gets forward to the edge of the woods, and the gorax remembers where he is and walks forward towards Tanith.
Oh yea, Sentry Stones poop out new manikins, port forward ~18" from the TEP and the manikins move forward to threaten the woods. Grrrrr wooods.

Cyriss 1: TEP runs forward to being just inside the woods. Shotgunbots run forward to flank it, and repair bots cluster around it. Dongbot strolls behind it to support, but not very convincingly. No one wants Dongbot sidling up behind them.
On the left, the Angels slam forward to flank, the shooty bots shuffle forward a bit to the bottom of the hill and edge of the forest. Synth puts up Synergy, Hotshot on the Assimilator for ground pounding goodness and dumped two on the Corollary. A word I have never learned to spell, despite doing far too many proofs in my life.

Circle 2: SPLINTERS FOR THE SPLINTER GOD! The Moonhound runs forward to get as many shotgun bots into his 5" +2 Rat aura, as well as blocking the TEP's ability to threaten the center (Read: shoot Tanith in the face). The Sentries activate, manikins spray, and there are now a few fewer repair droids and 2 Shotgun bots looking sheepish on the other side of the woods. Not to mention a line of stick men blocking the TEP from moving more than 2" forward. The Reeves, amongst relieved sighs from not being lazored to death right now, decide that the stick men have things in hand, and stroll to the right flank a bit, well out of TEP range, then shoot a flare bot.
Lanyssa, in a rare fit of cleverness, strolls forward to put the TEP exactly within 9", and puts up Winter Storm so that it can't clear the forest and threaten much of anything, except for her and two sentry stones of course. The Pureblood moves up next to her and pats her on the back.
On the left Goatly swaggers forward a ridiculous amount, sitting right on the edge of Tanith's control and about 11" from the Assimilator. The argus, deciding he might have found cheaper pussy somewhere, quotes Cheech and runs way the hell out of control to cuddle up to two Angels.
Tanith sort of wonders what to do with her life, and just parks at the edge of the forest. Stalky, having rather more ambition, and strangely effective estimation of distance, moves up to 2.8" from the edge of the forest, peeking towards the TEP. Stones... I might have forgotten them. Alten fails to shoot an angel, but def 16, whatever.

Cyriss 2: So, the TEP needed to move forward and kill things, so some manikins needed to go away. The two shotgun bots move about, realize they can only spray 3" into the woods, and so end up just clearing 2 manikins. The TEP moves forward as far as possible, about 2", and turns slightly to cram 3 servitors into it's right arc for 5 dice shots (uh oh). Upon inspection, it seems I managed to be a good player, and no more than one model can be hit by a given spray. I have no idea how that happened. Two LAZORS are blasted out, one at each Sentry Stone, and 11+5d6 vaporizes them, picking up the last manikins. The Moonhound wonders idly how he avoided all that, but does not question Lady Tamora.
Goatly, however, rapidly begins to question his life choices. First, a floating ball hovers his way, then splatters warm, glowing goo all over his face. This is followed by a sharp pain as a smallish robot says "Ooops, dart in your neck". The Assimilator, after considering the ins and outs of being Admonitioned, decides to just shoot the gak out of the now splattered and disoriented Goatly. The Monitor, thinking he smelt something good going on, strolls up and plants a saw into the goat's face as well. After this brutal assault, Goatly puts hit loin cloth on straight and counts his 11 remaining hitpoints.
The Angels on the other hand love their little puppy, and caress it with loving Mat 6's.

Circle 3: The argus decides the angels are not too bad, and controls his fury. I fondle my feat token, trying to decide the course of events. Time passes. I have a lot of enemies in range of arc nodes I decide not to feat, contingent on Lanyssa being good (having had a few feathers nearly singed off her cape from the Sentries getting melted to either side of her. ) I measure things out again, and the Stalker can get in on the TEP with Hunter's Mark, and the Pureblood can back him up. Otherwise I will need to Affliction the TEP and have the Reeves pepper it and hope the Pureblood can finish it off with a super bark.
So Lanyssa... don't roll a 3. And she doesn't! It is ON.
Alten, plinks a shot into the TEP in case things go pear shaped and it attempts to heal. Stalky revs up, warps strength, realizes he really ought to check to see if he can see 3" out of the forest since Hunter's Mark no longer lets you ignore LOS, and is GOOD! He smashes into the TEP and rolls poo. He manages to kill the thing at dice +1 with 1 Fury left, then Sprints back to relative safety. (New 1 Fury, cast after kill Sprint is really nice).
The Reeves, sensing the barbecue is not likely to happen now, pepper the remaining shotgun bots with bolts, while the Pureblood meanders up to get a better look at the wreckage.
Tanith, suddenly with a lot of time on her hands, heals a few off the Gnarlhorn, then discovers she's got 'em, and proceeds to smoke 'em.
Goatly, for his part, recognizes that a better sense of distance would really help his personal issues, and runs on back towards the rest of the line. The Stones teleport up around him and Tanith to start putting people back together.
The Argus gets a little too frisky, and humps off an Angel's leg.
Moony, largely forgotten, chases after from flying springs from the TEP, moving back to my side of the forest.

Cyriss 3: Well, fewer models to move these days. Dongbot moves up around the bottom of the forest to the middle of the valley. The Spatter Balls float forward, one splatting a stone next to Goatly and getting both (and opening up some emotional wounds) while another moves up and tries to drift one into Tanith, and gets a little on her. The Assimilator moves forward only to discover that my instinct for putting things in the right place continues, despite forgetting to measure ever, with the goat and Tanith ~.75" out of range. The little dart bot moves forward a bit, shoots at the Argus, misses, and puts a dose of Spanish Fly into an Angel. The Monitor strides forward, confident in his 13" range and ability to ignore Stealth, and boosts a shot to hit Def 15. Not thrilled to be tagged at dice -2, Tanith braces for impact... and doesn't bother to transfer the 2 damage that result. The Galvanizer dances over between the two shooty bots to get ready for fun times next turn.

Circle 4: It is always good when your opponent kills more of his models than yours during a turn. Now I am staring down a lot of Synergystic robot, so something has to work. Argus continues his love fest with the remaining Angel, moving around to be slightly closer to everyone else at least.
It is definitely feat turn (which is often a tough decision with Tanith). The Shifting Stones go first to heal the goat and Tanith. The Moonhound moves back into the bottom neck of the woods to get all the jacks in range. Tanith activates, feats, pops Affliction on the Dongbot, Admonition on the Moonhound, then moves up a bit to fire off an angry stick shot at the Assimilator. And rolls a 3. Awesome. She then puts Primal on the Stalker and camps 2.
Lanyssa, unlike Tanith, can apparently hit the broad side of a barn, and puts Hunters Mark on the Assimilator.
Stalky, does what Stalky does and kill the assimilator with 1 Fury to spare then Sprints back to block LOS to Tanith. The Gorax runs next to the Stalker, the Pureblood ambles over that way, and... Goatly does something stupid I can't remember. Maybe just moves up? He wasn't in position to counter slam anything at any rate. The Argus kills the last Angel, while the Reeves run around on the hill to shoot some things sometime sooner or later.

Cyriss 4: Hey! Synergy is a pretty good spell! Let's use that! Oh! And FEAT! The dart bot charges Goatly, and surprisingly enough doesn't manage to claw him convincingly at dice -11 to damage, but does connect for Synergy. He also boosts a dart into the Stalker with the help of the last goo ball. The Galvanizer revs up and charges the Stalker, putting a few damage into it with a crit Grevious for kicks.
Dongbot, now filled with delicious focus, charges the Stalker, getting just at 2" and taking a free strike from the Moonhound for nothing. Moony does do something clever, sort of, and uses Admonition to block the direct charge lane from the Monitor.
Dongbot, having reached his target, ratchets back "The Dozer" and with a boost lifts the Stalker about 3 feet off the ground, then drops him right back down, 14 hit points shorter. The next hit didn't do much, leaving the Stalker on 4 boxes. He swings at the Gorax, and somehow misses.
The Monitor does just barely have placement to charge the Stalker, and goes in, but the Moonhound apparently learned where to bite jacks, and took 7 boxes off him. The monitor proceeds to remove the Stalker, and put a saw blade into Tanith for 8 points.

**I am getting pretty fuzzy at this point**

Circle 5: Well then... better get out of there. Gorax activates, Primals, and moves over to beat the ever loving piss out of the Galvanizer, freeing up Tanith. Tanith activates, puts Scything Touch on the Pureblood, waks up the hill and Shadow Binds the Monitor.
The Reeves, strangely all still there 5 turns in, realize they must be dreaming. Walking through the forest and around the hill sides, they live that dream, pouring 20 bolts into the back side of Dongbot, needing 3's. We decided just to keep track of what shots don't miss. 20 rolls later, there are 20 filled damage boxes on Dongbot. The Pureblood then decides that ALL BOXES MUST BE FILLED, warps strength and 3 Fury later finds out how Reconstruction works as the Dongbot puts himself back together 3" away.
Goatly gets some revenge on the Monitor and puts him in the dirt. Also, the wild argus chooses this time to Frenzy into the dartbot, and the moonhound helps, but can't put him down.

Cyriss 5: Dongbot tries to kill the Pureblood, and doesn't, but does kill the Gorax. Dartbot does little.

Circle 6: Goatly kills dartbot, Pureblood kills Dongbot, and we just stop because it has been like 3 hours.

Fun game, not only because losing 36 points out of 100+ while pretty much defeating your opponent in detail is fun, but because Andrew is a good guy and was a great sport the whole way through, despite his dice turning off on a key turn. Fun game, another good learning game for both of us, which this league has been really nice for.

Stunning report, Wehr. I legit had trouble navigating this cup of coffee whenever Dongbot would do anything

Also, between crushing through Battle Angel Alita and revisiting Zombies Vs Robots recently, I am way more in tune with robots doing derpy things than I probably ought to be

- Salvage

Glad you enjoyed it! Cyriss is a really cool faction, hindered by terribly produced models. Andrew's army looked really nice, painted in a very standard scheme that does the models great justice. Even the, from across the table you really can't stop but get a Battle Angel Alita meets Rocky Horror vibe. Dongbot really can't be parsed in a different way, especially with his little whip arm and surrounded by floating balls that shoot glowing goo at their enemies. Literally, that is what the fluff says they do.

I honestly want to build mine now with more tanks of fluids and hypodermic needle bits, like the whole army is just an ambulatory medical experimentation lab run by Glados. I think that would really fit the clockwork, process driven aspect of the army. Downside, it would require way more model clean up of horrible PVC than I want to do, like, ever.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Dongbot really can't be parsed in a different way, especially with his little whip arm and surrounded by floating balls that shoot glowing goo at their enemies. Literally, that is what the fluff says they do.

*chokes on some water, wonders why he's always drinking something when he visits this thread?!*

Downside, it would require way more model clean up of horrible PVC than I want to do, like, ever.

Man, I really hate that feeling of dreams and schemes popping because of modern mini material issues

But speaking of awesome and unusual Convergence armies (there aren't a ton that do totally different things), check out this Junkyard CoC! Love this army - and speaking of the dongbot, he's converted his to actually be ratcheted back and ready to properly bone things

- Salvage

... ok, that right there is amazing. Wow. Stop trying to convince me to clean off all those mold lines!

I have been knocking around ideas for a Cygnar full conversion counts as army with shooting action, as well as rebasing some of my Imperial Guard + Inquisitors to be a Khador list. I think both those plans are going to take a back seat to getting Grayle's army built, and doing a bunch of conversions for RiTides. Because I have been slow as hell lately, and will classes starting up in a few weeks I won't be getting faster :(

God though... I love that filthy CoC.

 Wehrkind wrote:
Lanyssa, in a rare fit of cleverness, strolls forward to put the TEP exactly within 9", and puts up Winter Storm so that it can't clear the forest and threaten much of anything, except for her and two sentry stones of course. The Pureblood moves up next to her and pats her on the back.

I recognize this trick! And you have some great lines in there

 Boss Salvage wrote:
But speaking of awesome and unusual Convergence armies (there aren't a ton that do totally different things), check out this Junkyard CoC!

Oh man, that's so awesome! Takes an army I'm really not into the aesthetic of usually, and made it something I'm totally envious of!

I keep wanting to do a rusted out army of some sort... maybe my Dropfleet stuff. Can spaceships actually be rusted, from being in atmosphere maybe? Obviously hazardous to one's health, but still

Ninja'ed by 11 seconds

Hmmm, atmo should weather ships a bit, especially as the transitions are murderously hot. I think you would get more burn and scorch than rust though.
On the other hand, there should likely be rust around ports and airlocks due to slight leaks of air. If the ship is not terribly well maintained there might be more.

How are the Dropfleet ships supposed to work? Are there shields? Do the smaller ships "park" inside the bigger ones? In the latter case the smaller ships would definitely rust, along with being on the surface. Since a small bit of rust wouldn't matter much (assuming the hull is a few inches thick) it would be pretty normal to have a thin layer.

Those are all good questions . Maybe weathering and not actual rusting will work. Looking forward to testing that game against your BFG ships when it comes in!

Ok, I am back! Haven't gotten a lot done lately, mostly work stuff. I did some nice conversion and builds for RiTides that I will post up here a little later when they are tested and ready. But for now, a battle report from last night, the final night (sort of) of the league!

I played the list I had been rocking:

Tanith,
-Pureblood
-Stalker
-Gnarlhorn
-Argus
-Moonhound
-Gorax
Reeves MAX
Shifting Stones
2x Sentry Stones
Alten Ashley
Lanyssa

My opponent was the same guy who just trivially removed my Pureblood with snipers week 2, with a more jack heavy list now (he didn't build for the league this week)

Ossrum
-Avalancher
-Rockram
-Rockram
-Driller
-Driller
-Blaster (spray bunny)
-Blaster
-Sylyss
Thor
-Avalancher

So, that's a lot of high arm, high speed, pathfinding boxes on the feat turn. He's a pretty cagey guy, and also fun to play against, so it was going to be a tough and fun game!
Scenario was The Pit, with a 12" circle in the middle, and two flags off to the sides a bit. I actually remembered to take 1 picture this game, so you can see the terrain there, but the key part as a fairly large forest right in the middle. My opponent set things up, so don't blame me for it He also won the roll for side/start, and had me go first.

I deployed with the shooting elements and support on my right, the goat and argus to the left, with Tanith, Stalker, Gorax and Lanyssa in the middle. The Sentry Stones made a screen for the middle/right and left, and Alten deployed to try and snipe off Thor, being otherwise kind of useless.
Dwarves deployed in a wall of steel, somewhat to the right of the board facing my shooting elements, most likely to try and dominate his flag for points while I tried to break through his armor.

Circle 1: I ran a lot of things. Admonition on the Goat, Scything Touch on the Stalker, and Tanith moved up near the woods. A sentry stone put forward a screen of manikins and pooped out a forest to block LOS to the Stalker and Tanith, sitting on 2 Fury (important plot point). The left stone never likes to make Fury, but moved to the left and pooped out a forest while manikins hung out by the fence with Argus and Goatly. Alten moved up into the right hand forest out of LOS of the dwarves, hoping to walk forward 6" next turn and pick off Thor.

Dwarf 1: Fire for effect went on the far left Rockram, and Snipe on Thor's Avalancher. The Avalancher moved up with Tuneup, missed a shot at Stealthed Alten, but still caught him in the blast and ended his time on the table. Otherwise, pretty much everything ran up.

Circle 2: I moved up somewhat cagily, not putting anything too far forward, except for the largely pointless Argus, and the moon hound on the right. Tanith activated and used her feat, getting Affliction on a right hand Driller by the flag (see pic), flicking a Rift at him that didn't damage despite boost, then was teleported by stones into the woods, camping nothing. Manikins moved forward, making a line at the edge of the woods, and the reeves put 8 boxes into the driller (they were a little too far back, for fear of 4" AoEs.)

Dwarf 2: Here's the picture after the Dwarves Powered up and Allocated. As you can see by the stacks of focus, things are about to go down.



Ossrum went first, used his Feat (a pulse, so super strong!) to give his guys Pathfinder, + Spd and +3 Armor. He also Energizered to get everything forward 2", then walked over to Dominate his flag on zero camp, but Def 14 Arm 20.
On the left, the leftmost Rockram was just .5" out of gun range to the Gnarlhorn (my positioning remains strangely accurate) so had to move up and shoot a fully boosted shot at him. He rolled a 6 on 3 dice. Ok. The Avalancher on that side then moved up and boosted a shot into Goatly. He also rolled a 6 on 3 dice. Apparently Goatly learned something from his last encounter with Cyriss, namely "Dodging." The argus, however, was to pay the price, as the Avalancher's shot drifted into him for about 8 damage.
In the middle, one driller used his speed and pathfinder to trample up to the Stalker. He missed hitting a manikin, then got Counter Slammed by an, again, surprisingly well placed Goatly (who admittedly could have Admonitioned wherever he needed to be to make the slam work.) The Driller got punted backwards just 1.5" because we forgot Grandslam, narrowly missing that manikin again, and sat down for the rest of his turn. The Rockram then trampled in, but with only 1 focus left failed to hit the Stalker.
On the right, the gun bunnies moved forward and sprayed the moonhound and some reeves, nearly killing the dog and dropping 3 reeves. Thor's Avalancher shot at the Pureblood, but missed forever, and repositioned back 1" behind Ossrum. The Driller, sporting a nice collection of vintage crossbow bolts, strolled over and put his eponymous drill through the Moonhounds skulls.

Circle 3: So, that wasn't ideal, but it actually wasn't so bad. The jacks are now really, really hard to harm, but are also knocked down or otherwise debuffed. More importantly, Ossrum is like, right there. I spent a few minutes measuring lots of things, and it looked good for an assassination. Which is good, because otherwise I didn't think I could chew through all that metal in the middle and the right. Tanith upkept Scything Touch and Affliction, then cut for 2 Fury in case things went pear shaped.
The Shifting stones teleported themselves out of the way, I think somewhere clever, but it wasn't important. Tanith walked up, around the Rockham and Sentry Stone, to be 9" from Ossrum, and boosted an Angry Stick shot into him, putting down Shadowbind, and boosted damage took off 2-3 hp. We realized after that he could have used the Avalancher to Shield Guard the shot, but being within 1" of Ossrum, the caster was still in the AoE for Shadowbind, and just would have avoided 2-3 damage. Had I been able to flick Affliction over I would have, but only had 8" range. I think I could have put Bleed into him now that I think of it, but I didn't think of it.
Next, the Sentry Stone Tanith had just walked around activated, rolled up 2 more Fury (4 total), then teleported forward to get in a good command spot. Two Manikins could aim, the other had to walk forward. The two aiming manikins shot and hit (needing 5's), and boosted damage for ~4-6 damage total. The third Manikin missed his shot needing 7's... I don't know why I didn't boost his to-hit.
Next, the Pureblood walked forward towards Tanith, putting a Spray into Ossrum. Fully boosted he hit, and did 8 damage, exactly the number needed to tag the dwarf!

Woo hoo! That was nice. It was actually a pretty solid win too, as my opponent pointed out that all of his dice woes happened on the left and middle, none of which would have had any impact on the assassination. Plus, even if he had shield guarded off 2-3 damage, I still had 7 Reeves to walk forward and CRA 2 Pow 15's into Ossrum, Lanyssa for Frost Bolt, and all my beasts on the left and a Sentry to mess up those jacks. If the assassination failed, it might still have been a game. So a good game all around!

Thoughts:
1: Terrain is neat! Especially now that the rules specifically say to put it towards the middle.
2: Getting better with Sentry Stones, and they are still awesome.
3: Guessing threat ranges is getting a lot easier for me, but I need to be more conscious of premeasuring and the like.
4: Poor Alten... putting you in the woods instead of on the other side was dumb.
5: Jack heavy armies are really prone to assassinations with Tanith.
6: I want to play Ossrum now... he can just do everything it seems

Nice spray assassination, I am hoping I'll get to experience that with some Road Hog action . And sweet dwarven revenge!!

Yes, I know I'm reading this a week late, also busy

Not dead! Just busy. Oh my god, busy.

I did do some work for RiTides before NoVA the other week, so I am going to finally post those here before I forget again. Mostly it was building some Mierce goat men, but swapping their heads with PP Slaughterhouser heads and then sculpting the join. Also, taking one of Mierce's big gators, removing his hands and axes, and giving him open hands to be a wrastler.



Here you can see a group shot of the piggies, with poor half painted Morraig there being dwarfed by them. They are big buggers! Very intimidating.

Closer ups:



And a gator! In an unusually good photo.


I really wanted to have his right hand pointing, like he was hanging from the turnbuckle and calling out his next victim, but RiTides has developed PTSD regarding pointing hands, so open hands it was. From a Crocodile Games model, who'd have thought?

I gotta say, I am pleased with how everything turned out, but this little project really lowered my opinion of Mierce a great deal. I have some metals from their KS and they are all really nice, but these resin models were a mess. The goat men had all sorts of spots on them where the molds tore, resulting in either filled in detail (look at the hooves... that is after trying to carve them out) or bits of resin impinging on the model, resulting in divots or just straight up holes in models that needed to be filled in and resculpted. This is in addition to some beastly mold lines on some. RiTides fortunately had ~12-15 bodies to choose from so I could take the least bad, but even the least bad were really pretty bad. Considering the premium those models go for, their state was unacceptable. Looking through the bits we didn't use, they weren't much better, especially the big banner that wasn't even fully poured! The last 10-20% of the flag (away from the pole) was just two big bubbles with whisper thin scraps of resin showing where the ends should have been.
What made it even more infuriating for me was the fact that most of the problems were the same on multiple models, which means the one batch came out bad and they just kept using the bad molds again instead of replacing them. One error slips though, that happens. When it happens twice and clearly from the same bloody mold that needs replacing, that is just awful. At something like 150$ for 10 in the KS, that is very disappointing.

Then there was the gator... ugh. He was worse. The last quarter or so of his tail was partially hollow, due to a chunk of silicone being lodged in it in a very obvious way. It was also cracked in another spot as a result. Literally about 1/5th of the volume of that tail part was silicon waste. In the head as well, the left cheek had some chunks of torn mold floating in the resin that had to be removed and resculpted. Those parts should not have gone through QC if they were halfway attentive, and for the price they should be at least that!
Annoying, but not offensive really, were the teeth on the guy. They are super thin and delicate, and broke off if you sneezed near them. Honestly, since his head comes in two separate parts from the body those parts could have been metal and been much better. If you are going to sculpt something in resin, you can't have long, super thin little bits protruding like that. That was exacerbated by the fact they came to me loose packed instead of individually wrapped in bubble wrap or foam. That might be on RiTides, but all my Mierce stuff has come in little baggies and no other padding, so I don't know if he deserves all the blame. I ended up having to replace a lot of teeth with shavings of sprue and credit cards, which was less than ideal but worked out I guess.

But yea, I don't know if RiTides is going to ask for exchanges on those gabrax or the gator (probably not on the ones that are not fixed and built) but Mierce definitely owes him some. I find myself a lot less willing to buy any Mierce stuff unless I either go over every piece in person before I buy, or have a full refund (including shipping) guarantee from Mierce. They might have that of course, I haven't bought outside of KS from them.

Anyway, I did a little work for me, resculpting some hair on the previous Grayle build:


It is impossible to see with the crap photo, sorry.

What you can see, however, is the really nice model holder I recently received! Kilcin here at Dakka noticed I had interest in a model holder KS, and sent me a PM to see if I would like his. I did! Then he did me an even better turn and just sent me two of them for free! I haven't had the chance to paint with them yet, but they are very nice for some light sculpting, and I am super happy.

So Kilcin, you are an officer and a gentleman, and I really appreciate your generosity!


Next thing in the pipeline for here is a big pile of Drune spearmen and archers to go with sorta-Grayle there, as well as another version of sorta-Grayle and a big angry wolf. Sooner though, I will probably put together my Efaarit scouts. Also! I am hacking apart RiTides' gor-come-Farrow from before and giving them pig irons in their hands, based on the lovely guns made by Victoria Lamb. So, I will try and post some pictures of those minor conversions soon. Like, before November soon.

Very nice work on the pig and gator conversions, Wehr! Sorry they were such a pain cast-wise, I didn't even realize that about the gator. Thanks for restraining yourself on the pointing hand, I do have pointing-hand-itis from basically every chaos dwarf character EVER being in a pointing pose

 Wehrkind wrote:
I really wanted to have his right hand pointing, like he was hanging from the turnbuckle and calling out his next victim, but RiTides has developed PTSD regarding pointing hands, so open hands it was.

Man, I unashamedly love me some pointing hands. They almost always end up shooting lasers or something in game too (thanks Boomstick )

I am pleased with how everything turned out, but this little project really lowered my opinion of Mierce a great deal.

Slaughtergors look great! Really solid, ala the razorboars you did earlier. Nice work dude. Also sorry to hear about Mierce suckage, one would certainly hope for more given the price point, though I can see how the demands of their multiple backed-up KSers could push them to cut ever corner they could to fill orders. Spending a little of that KS money on some QA or extra mold production would definitely seem to be in order! Though this does convince me to keep waiting on my Mierce snakeman army a while longer

It is impossible to see with the crap photo, sorry.

Chick Apostate, yesssssssss Funnily enough, I'm just finishing up my own copy of this gal tonight, along with her bros, to hang out with Bregan in my Nurglekin army at Crossroads GT this weekend. Going to be a rough week of exhaustion, being busy with life, making the most of the break in humidity to seal things, and painting whenever possible to get the army back on its gribbly little feet just in time to learn how little I know about KOW and how much I suck at death timers ........

Which is to say, cheers for the update Wehr, keep it up!

- Salvage

Where are you posting pics / recap of that event, Salvage!? If you don't have anywhere else in mind, I volunteer Wehr's thread (although would be happy to read up on it elsewhere, just make sure you link it here if so!). Good luck on the final prep, event sounds really fun so hopefully worth it

I'm all about cluttering Wehr's thread with my junk

 RiTides wrote:
Where are you posting pics / recap of that event, Salvage!?

I'll likely write up a tourny recap for the KOW section. Contemplated trolling the Warhams batreps forum ... but it's the AOS forum now, so nm Will probably be kicking stuff up on my instagram through the weekend too (@boss_salvage ) Ain't got no time for prep tracking, and sadly won't be completing the rebase (~160 Nurglings suuuuuucks), so the army will be a little hodge podge yet, but will be 100% painted.

- Salvage

Sounds great, looking forward to hearing how it goes . And honestly that's the scale of army KoW is perfect for - although 160 nurglings is still crazy! Are you going to multibase one day / are you doing so on new things already, or staying with individual bases?

 RiTides wrote:
Are you going to multibase one day / are you doing so on new things already, or staying with individual bases?

Not this army, though they've got new steel Shogun trays that their magnets really lock down into, so they'll probably live in them from here out. Very much want to do a multibase KOW force, and that should be my TGG2 Not-Lust Elves army next year, though who knows how long it will take for all those minis to arrive. In the meantime, I'll be trying to finish the rebasing here, but mostly want to do a 'counts as' MFX crew* (much as that scene seems to hate 'counts as' and conversions in general) next, and see about doing a round-based AOS Not-Ogre army

Plus way more dartgun repaints than I really need right now

- Salvage

*Of mostly PP gatormen

We've come full circle when I'm doing counts-as for PP gators and you're using PP gators for counts-as Malifaux (although I've seen there's not much of that in the 'faux, either).

How do you transport your army if leaving them in the trays, btw? Trying to figure that out for my multibased abyssal dwarfs...

 RiTides wrote:
We've come full circle when I'm doing counts-as for PP gators and you're using PP gators for counts-as Malifaux (although I've seen there's not much of that in the 'faux, either).

I know right

How do you transport your army if leaving them in the trays, btw?

A bunch of years ago when I magnetized my Nurglings, I gutted the foam cells they were living in and made space for 4x5 or 6x5 trays (going from 2 cases to 1 in the process), so they could just stay attached in vaguely how I ran them in 8E. Except now I just run Blight hordes, which require kind of a long time to put together, even if KOW doesn't use model removal (blessed be!). So I guess the plan is to widen the foam cavities to accommodate the big horde trays, as the smaller WHFB trays really have little value for me anymore. ()

Also this thread belongs to the green things now, Wehr. You'll have to find another one for your chicks and farm animals

- Salvage

 Wehrkind wrote:
Not dead! Just busy. Oh my god, busy.

I did do some work for RiTides before NoVA the other week, so I am going to finally post those here before I forget again. Mostly it was building some Mierce goat men, but swapping their heads with PP Slaughterhouser heads and then sculpting the join. Also, taking one of Mierce's big gators, removing his hands and axes, and giving him open hands to be a wrastler.

Good do hear - busy is so much better than most other... alternatives. Pigs look good, menacing... but maybe too lean for what they should be? These bodies make them look more like tharn rather than basic slaughterhouse minions. Not necessarily bad, just... unexpected!

Glad to see you guys are keeping the lights on while I am away Please, feel free to pull up some chairs, change the thermostat and put on some music. Hell, I probably have a few Mike's Hard Lemonade bouncing around since the last time we gamed in the basement, Salvage

Totally post your army stuff here! My secret wish is to have all my friends' stuff I follow just show up in one place anyway, and since 1/2 of RiTides hobby things pass over my desk, we are almost there.

Plus it will give me something nice to read when I get a few minutes away from work and kids.

And funny you are mentioning farm animals... the next big conversion is going to be a counts as Morraig from a Drune Raider, which means I also have to build a standing version of him. I am thinking I will have to abuse the concept of a "war kilt" to make that happen, but we'll see!

(I am mostly excited about making the counts as Death Wolves from two of the Character Lanyfhs and the one I did before as a Nightwitch (I have proper models for that now, should I need some). The pictures that follow are not mine, rather from Chest of Colors.



I am pretty excited to get those models painted and on the table, seeing as I have owned them for about 10 years and never got to do anything with them.

Back to the studio, and Salvage and RiTides!


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*note* I might swap up the Deathwolves line up based on ever getting a chance to look at the little box of Kingdom Death stuff I have. There are some leather armor sets and I think a Primal Huntress in there. (I suppose I could also finish painting the half done actual for real Death Wolves on my table downstairs, but really, why do that?)

The Morraig sounds really cool! Looking forward to seeing it amongst your several hundred other WIP conversions / paint jobs

Only on the inside!

So... between dissertating, moving, new job, new kid, plague, new job, moving, new job, still plague, I haven't done much gaming in the past few years. And since my main motivation for painting things is preening in front of my friends over how pretty my army is, I haven't really painted anything much either. It didn't help that PP kind of bombed WMH with Mk3, either.

BUT, it turns out that the billions of Reaper Bones figures and terrain I bought through kickstarter are really good for my three homunculi to play with, and they have been steadily demanding their favorite models get painted. Along with working from home full time, that has got me at least half assing some models.

So, without further ado, enjoy some WIPS (some more than others...)

First up, a "Princess in a Dress" (I can't explain to a 5 year old what a courtesan is) and a "Bad Guy with a Rock"



(Apologies for the pic quality... I am using my wife's iphone 10 and I have no idea how to do so well. Plus we are moving again in a few months, and I don't think we ever unpacked the light box.)


Both models are Bones Black, from the KS circa 2018. The material is pretty nice, a bit easier to clean than the original although a lot more brittle. (I have the mammok guy and he was broken in 3 parts when I got him despite being individually packed.) As much as the little mold lines are killing me now, they are all but invisible on the models, and scraping/filing them off is a lot easier in the new material. There are still some of the expected Bones issues, like "Where are the bones in her left hand?" but over all, the quality is there and they are pretty quick and easy to paint. She took a while because I was messing around with that dress forever. She's gotta be PRETTY, damnit!
One thing that bothers me a little more than it should with the courtesan is her base... why is she standing on what looks like a disused, rundown cobble stone road somewhere? The cyclops has a relatively orderly stone pattern on the base, but she is apparently being coquettish out on some forgotten rural byway. Maybe she doesn't have bus fare and is trying to get home after a particularly wild bender, but still, it is odd. As usual, "what the hell is this?" translates into "going to be unfinished till I figure it out" so there she is.

Wehrkind's baaaaaaaaack!

 Wehrkind wrote:
And since my main motivation for painting things is preening in front of my friends over how pretty my army is, I haven't really painted anything much either.

Hey, I resemble that remark

BUT, it turns out that the billions of Reaper Bones figures and terrain I bought through kickstarter are really good for my three homunculi to play with, and they have been steadily demanding their favorite models get painted.

It's hard to think of a more noble reason to slap paint on minis, especially one's endless ocean of Bones. The couple looks really good, especially if you're as out of brush practice as I suspect you may be!

Hah, yea I am feeling pretty weak with a brush, although I wonder how much is having gotten spoiled with very sharp detailed models. Sometimes I feel like I am freehanding basic details on the Bones that a wash would have picked out cleanly on hard plastics.
Plus side, I had been working on the airbrushing, and that's gotten a bit better, as the wormy below shows...



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One thing I did do a bit more over the past years has been to work on terrain. Thing 1 asked for a "Winter Wonderland" terrain set, presumably so that Elsa would materialize on the board. Well... she got snow on a realm of battle board at least. Lots and lots of baking soda and glue snow. I also filled in the skull pits (which even a 6 year old decided "Look really silly.") with glue to give the impression of iced over water.
Then she also wanted some "nice forest woods places" for trees. Some old train table tops made the base for that, and I'll give her credit, she did a good job with painting on the glue and flock!

End result here (with Thing 2 having just gotten done playing.)


Thing 2, for her part, did a nice job hot gluing trees to the 3" disks they are attached to. I am still a little shocked no fingers or hair got burned...

(Side story about terrain: One time I was down stairs here working while Thing 1 was doing her world building with the tiles. I turned around, and she had all the tiles and parts separated by a few inches.
Dad: What happened? Aren't the tiles staying put?
T1: No, there were earthquakes.
D: Oh yea?
T1: Yea. The angel made the world together, but all the people kept fighting. It made her cry, so she made earthquakes and broke up the land so they wouldn't be able to fight anymore.
D: Wow. Did it work?
T1: Not really.)

I also experimented making a river table section, routing out a river from 3/4" plywood (bad idea, should have just used tiers of 1/4 or something, huge mess) putting in contours with spackle rocks and sand, flocking, then pouring clear boat epoxy for the river. I am both very happy and super angry with it. Plus side, looks nice! Downside, I did the entire thing save the epoxy in my garage (too cold outside for epoxy) and as soon as I brought it into the basement it started to warp a bit. I clamped and weighted the thing down to my dead flat workbench thinking the epoxy would help keep it flat. NOPE. It is starting to flatten a bit now, months later, and I hope to be able to heat flex it out in the sun later in the year, but I could scream when I see the thing bowed ~1/2" on each end. I wanted to make some more tiles like this, but until I get the damned warping thing taken care of I can't bring myself to. Apparently getting good wood, even plywood, these days is damned near impossible.





Secret bonus, downstairs here is my office and spare bedroom. Turns out you can store terrain boards under a queen sized bed very nicely! I am going to try and make a rolling rack system with that in mind for the future...

Really cool river. I love your water effects.

Great terrain with the river there!

Thanks guys I am really happy with the look of the river, and even more so if I can get the bloody thing back to flat. The boat epoxy is a little pricey (I think there is probably ~25-40$ worth of it on there) but the effect really is cool. My girls wanted me to put little scale gold fish in there, and actually... I am kind of disappointed I didn't. I have about an equal amount still around, and my dad uses it for making barn wood table tops*, so I am thinking I will make a matching piece that is a shore edge with little estuary. Make a nice little region for a fishing village or coastal city/castle for aquatic raids. I have the village sets from Time of Legends: Joan of Arc demanding to made into a cool little aquatic scene. I will try and make some WIP pictures or videos of the process if I do later this summer.

I have some more Bones wips up in the gallery, and I will bring them over today or tomorrow when I get burned out from work and need a break.



*(It took a lot of time on the phone to explain to him what I meant when I said I was making a "river table"... No, not that kind, like for models... no seriously, I don't need any live edge boards dad, thanks... I know, the cherry you just got cut at the mill is lovely, but not for this...)

Well... yesterday I had a solid 7 hours of back to back meetings. So I painted an ettin and a grub.



Now that I can torture myself with hi-res magnified images, I can see the mold lines I missed on the grub (which are entirely invisible otherwise...) as well as some touch up on the ettin. Already though I knew I wanted to do something with his skin and its... plasticy?... look, as well as some washes to bring down the inside of his little off the shoulder fur number there. Still, not bad for a days work while ostensibly working. He was grey in the morning.

The grub had been in process for a few years, mostly being a target for air brushing layers of color practice, seen here along with a naughty puppy:


Here is more of a queue sitting on the base of my monitor for a year:

You can juuuust see the grey ettin photobombing the back. (Took this pic a few days ago) This lot constitutes models I find kind of interesting (Oni warrior and minotaur) my 7 year old daughter's favorite (Sophie the succubus) and the armored girl that reminds me a bit of my 5 year old but that she is deeply indifferent to. Sophie in particular is annoying, partially because she is Bones v1 so has very soft detail, and partially because she is rather... lightly armored. I vacillated between painting the skin as a body suit or just tights, or skin a few different times. Unfortunately, despite having the observational skills of a lamb with fetal alcohol syndrome, Thing 1 has really sharp eyes for details and right away noticed that the skin tight body suit didn't look right and complained. So, stripper armor (or bathing suit armor?) I guess it has to be. I think this summer I am going to try and work with her to develop brush skills, because she is arguably a better artist at 7 than I was at 10, and I might be able to get her to paint the Bones portion of the pile of shame for me. She will already clip and clean tiny spaceship parts from Ban Dai kits like a pro; the only thing holding her back from making tiny space ships herself is that the glue gives her a head ache. I must have killed those brain cells a long time ago, because I don't even notice glue anymore.

Other crap!
DINOS



ELEPHANT MAN with scale courtesan (he's another air brushing guinea pig)


ICE GIANTS


I really like these guys, and they are the models that really sold me on Bones long term. So I am being more careful with them and taking longer. Plus they are neither female or mostly naked, so the girls don't care about them much.

And that's all the pictures for now. I have some Secret Weapon/Bones cave and mine tiles I am finishing up and will post some pics of that soonish.