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Post by tkaic on Jan 27, 2016 18:23:34 GMT
Right, I meant to get this update PLOG underway before the end of Feb and so...will put a half baked first post on and then forget about it for two weeks. Then shove a load of pictures on. The Systems
I've started playing X Wing now (great fun), am fully immersed in Warmahordes with 3 factions (ok, Farrow have yet to see table time yet but I've played Cygnar & Mercs) and am even going to give AoS a bit of a run as I have a stack of Bretonnians I've been meaning to paint up for ages and never actually finished. Plus I'm still playing as much Magic as I can and sitting down to some Dungeon Saga when people are available. That's an awful lot of hobby! What I've really, really taken too over the past couple of months are low model count games. WMH requires about 20 figures for most of my lists (admittedly, some quite big figures!), X Wing needs three ships. These things can easily fit into a bag and it's just really liberating compared to lugging 2,400pts of Skaven to Wandsworth and back. X Wing
The great thing about X Wing, of course, is that it doesn't require any painting. None. Which is rather refreshing. Sadly, it does require a Pokemon-level commitment to getting expansions, not necessarily for the ships but for the various equipment cards that come with those ships. I've decided to go for the Scum faction (as DarkSphere had a good offer on the Hound's Tooth, one of the 'large ships' the Scum can field) and I like the idea of bounty hunters and rogues in space. I've played around with some list builders and my current fleet (A big freighter, a Y Wing and two Z95s) will be taking to the tables shortly. I may actually do some re-painting, even though I don't have to, because the pilot card for one of the Z95 options looks so darn cool. Sigh. Goal - develop a decent list using Bossk and the Hounds Tooth. WMH
I made a list of all the models I have, how many I've painted and what's seen table time. Surprisingly, I've actually managed to play with almost all of my Cygnar options, just the Nemos and Caine to try out. Mercs wise I've only tried one caster but have used a lot of the units with my Cygnar. Farrow...well, I have them. Learning a whole new mechanic while I'm still getting to grips with Focus management is a bit daunting. From my playing experience so far I think the game is best in a competitive setting; it's just too broken for casual play. Two lists allows you a shot at dodging the 'hard counter' list and the ADR format gives further resilience with a 'subs bench' you can use to alter your list. Goal 0.1 - Draw up two competitive lists with 2016 ADR. I'll be running eCaine (guns a'blazing) & Nemo3 (mad scientist) most likely but could easily change to eStryker (choppy choppy) or eHaley (everyone's second favourite Haley). Goal 1 - Paint units Goal 2 - Paint up relevant solos Goal 3 - Paint jacks Goal 4 - Paint casters Goal 6 - Play (and hopefully win) a tournament with two fully painted lists. AoS
The more I play Warmachine, the more I like the look of AoS. The dispersed formations and the independent characters are the same. The whole move/shoot/charge mechanic is different, in a good way. The scope for strange synergies is immense, and the jumbling together of the old armies in Grand Alliances means that I can run silly lists (Elf/Empire/Brett/Saurus cavalry anyone?) if I want or actually use, for example, Skaven and Warriors together to complement both armies. The tournament scene looks like it's coming back (SCGT will be a big test of course) but hopefully there's going to be a general consensus that whining about why VersionA of the Toy Soldier Rules is better than VersionB is never as much as fun as playing both, because that way you're playing games. Plus there's a big stack of Bretts who need painting. Goal 1 - Assemble and base (ROUND BASES? WTF?) a Brett army. But a Brett Army with extras I like the look of. If anyone's clearing out any flavour of Elf (Aelf even), Empire, Dorfs, basically anything that's not 'evil', I may be interested! Goal 2 - Paint that lot. Goal 3 - ? Goal 4 - Profit. 40K...and 30K?
Seriously Tom, stop it, it's too much. But I have a load of Space Marines (everyone has a load of Space Marines, I know) that are now joining the Ravenguard (turns out black is harder to paint than I'd thought but I think I'm getting there). Except the ones on wolves, they're still Space Wolves. Due to a keen eye on Ebay I may also have Necrons and an Eldar wraith army, but those are just wild rumours I don't need to confirm or deny. The Catachans are definitely in the loft though. Goal 1 - Paint up a Pinion Battle Company. Goal 2 - Explain what a Pinion Battle Company is. Goal 3 - Sadly concede defeat to some Forgeworld nightmare army, probably while my opponent mockingly describes my army as 'Pinion Battle Company? More like a Pinata Battle Company, am I right?' or something similar. To sum up
GW games have gone all free wheeling in their army lists, it's just huge. That makes it really hard to keep up with the various options and synergies so I'm going to just paint up stuff I like and throw dice with them in relaxed games. I've shot myself in the foot by picking Cygnar for WMH (and the even more underpowered Merc and Farrow factions) but it's hardly the weakest faction, there's a lot of potential there and I just need to unlock it. Next time...painted models, lots of painted models.
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Post by rolandmurat on Jan 29, 2016 11:58:29 GMT
If you want to use your existing fantasy stuff Tom you could give KOW a go. Its a massed ranks game rather than a skirmish game but it plays pretty quickly.
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Post by tkaic on Feb 7, 2016 9:27:16 GMT
February, vol 1
I've been busy. I spent the first part of January quietly painting away and boring everyone on the Eagle WMH WhatsApp with pictures of my painted models. I now have gun mages, rangers and trencher infantry all painted, good progress on warcasters and a stack of solos. I hadn't even looked at Ebay. Then in the last week of January, after a stressful and overtime heavy period of work, went a bit mad and bought some ogres and wood elves. Darn.
So, how am I doing on the goals? It's been very WMH heavy:
Goal 0.1 - Draw up two competitive lists with 2016 ADR. I'll be running eCaine (guns a'blazing) & Nemo3 (mad scientist) most likely but could easily change to eStryker (choppy choppy) or eHaley (everyone's second favourite Haley). Goal 1 - Paint units Goal 2 - Paint up relevant solos Goal 3 - Paint jacks Goal 4 - Paint casters Goal 6 - Play (and hopefully win) a tournament with two fully painted lists.
0.1 is half done. I've stolen a previously world beating list for eCaine and then swapped out some elements for others.
eCaine w/Squire & Hunter Gun mages w/UA & Hunter Max Boomhowlers Min Forgeguard Alexia & The Risen Aiyana & Holt Eiryss2 Gorman Rhupert Reinholdt
The original list had max Forgeguard, Ol Rowdy and Ragman rather than the gun mages. However, Caine makes gun mages better and two hunters gives focus efficient long range armour cracking at the expense of Ol Rowdy's durability and Counter Charge.
I ran this list at yesterday's Vaylentines event, won one game and lost two.
Game 1 - VS Madrak (Trollbloods)
Helmi played well and beat me on scenario, on one flank his Fennblades made short work of my Boomhowlers (forgot to activate the 4+ tough, because I'm an idiot. Didn't make that mistake again!) while Alexia then burnt through 16 Risen to inflict...8 boxes of damage on the Trollblood dragoon. I have never rolled so badly before.
In the end I lost because I can't roll a 4 on two dice when I need to. Bit of an oversimplification but eCaine was very unlucky not to take out Madrak with an assassination run - 19" threat is huge. I deployed badly and then spent the first two turns dithering over how to use Caine, shuttling him back and forth across the middle of the table without actually using those guns to achieve anything.
Lessons - Know your abilities and use them. - Caine needs to be shooting from Turn 2 onwards. With gatecrash he shouldn't be in charge range of any threats so can play very aggressively.
Game 2 - VS Legion (Lylth) Bloody Legion. Jan had Lylyth, 2 Ravagores and a bolt throwers, various stealth solos and a unit of Warspears. Eyeless sight meant the terrain was only effecting me and it turns out his entire battlegroup had stealth, so I could do nothing. With 2 Ravagores in the battlegroup and me running a lot of infantry...this wasn't going to go well. Jan won by rolling a string of 12s on 3 dice but I was never really in the game and don't think I killed more than a UA in the whole game.
What I should have done: Forgeguard were just a liability in this list, the unit was eaten by templates and snipers in seconds. If I'd had ADR then swapping them for a unit of Rangers would have been ideal. The Rangers could have run up and jammed the Ravagores while boosting Caine and the Mages True Sighted shots on the stealth solos. As when playing against Menoth I always think 'Go for the support', and then get tripped up in the game. I had thought to put Trick Shot onto the Hunters - so they could shoot a warbeast and then take out a Shepherd for free - but Stealth just ruined that plan.
My infantry brick should have camped on my own flags and the two Hunters should have taken on his Ogruns as (a) those things are tough and (b) they were the only target the Hunters could actually see. The two light jacks with Aiyana & Holt working together should have taken out 2 per turn easily enough.
Caine and my Rangers could have been scoring scenario points, pinning Jan's battle group back. Instead I just faffed around with both players kind of going for an assassination and Jan's working first!
Game 3 - VS Retribution First game against the pointy ears...and I won. Gun Mages finally came good, hosing down both shooty and stabby elf infantry. Simon had terrible luck with his Magehunter Assassins and lost the game because he fell into my cunning trap of using Caine as bait.
No, really, it was the plan. I even said the plan to Jan before it worked. In a 'this is so stupid it may just work' moment I decided to tempt the opposing warcaster out of a nice safe wood by putting Caine really far forward. I was trusting entirely in DEF17 to keep him safe from the only 2 viable attackers - Thyron himself or an Imperatus. Turns out that Thyron's feat gives boosted attack rolls. Ah.
Seeing a clear assassination possibility, the entire Ret army chipped in to remove the various models blocking the Imperatus from trampling through onto Caine, including Thyron obligingly jumping out of safety. The Imperatus trampled through and took Caine down to 3 boxes. It also set him on fire.
Just as planned.
With calm aplomb I rolled a 1, extinguishing the blaze and freeing up Caine to teleport 8" and stand next to Thyron before shooting him in the head.
Lessons learnt:
Don't mess with Caine.
Know what your opponent's feat is, or everything goes a bit close to the wire.
Next steps with the list: Use the solos better. Aiyana & Holt saw some limited play and Rhupert is always great but Eiryss & Gorman may as well not have been on the board for their effectiveness.
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Post by alec on Feb 7, 2016 11:57:12 GMT
Really good write up. Like the going mad on ebay part. I did that too often on trade groups and now recovered a bit!
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Post by tkaic on Mar 2, 2016 15:09:45 GMT
2 Months in...
Warmachine - I think I'm getting the hang of Caine2. He's really powerful but the stupid game mechanic of AOEs is still proving insurmountable. My matches against Legion have all ended in defeat and, frankly, there's no tool in Cygnar's armoury to deal with a lucky continous fire AOE. I was never one of the people who waxed lyrical over the balanced rules of Warmahordes - it's a pure rock/scissor/paper game - but the problem is there's no way to beat AOEs, they don't need to hit, just scatter a template (pure luck) over your caster and there's a 2/3 chance of losing nearly half your caster's hit points. Sigh. The fact that the Blightbringer throws out 2 AOE5 templates is just silly. My last three games have purely hinged on whether or not fire goes out which isn't worth playing a game for - no scenario points scored, no tactics, just 2 turns of seeing where some templates end up. So, where possible I won't play against Legion or Menoth at the club for the foreseeable. If it's a tournament then that's luck of the draw though and I'll just be gambling on the assassination run. 40K - After a great game against Stevo which came down my Lone Wolf whiffing his attacks against a plucky Scout Sergeant for 2 turns on the trot (no wonder he wants to die!) I'm glad there's a bit more interest in what's still one of the most fun game systems around. It's literally the opposite of Warmahordes in that it works best when you're not taking it too seriously. WMH needs the two list/clock mechanic to work whereas 40K falls down if you go for the power lists. My Ravenguard are coming along - 2 6 man scout squads, 1 tactical squad and some vanguard vets are done, one assault squad part painted. That leaves 2 tactical and 1 devastator squad to paint, plus a chaplain to join the assault squad and a bunch more scouts:
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Post by smurfwedge on Mar 2, 2016 22:08:11 GMT
Looking good there mate. Colour scheme is coming together really well
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Post by rolandmurat on Mar 3, 2016 8:24:18 GMT
Looking good Tom. It will be nice to see a bit more variety in the systems making a showing.
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Post by tkaic on Apr 24, 2016 14:39:58 GMT
Another month...another army So, as well as expanding my WMH collection just in time to find that mk3 is coming and will shake everything up, I've been doing a bit of hobby stock taking. I've sold the bretts and some of my other 'never actually going to happen' projects and set a new rule...play or paint something for an army every 3 months or sell it. 3 months is quite a long time and if I can't fit a game or at least some painting into that window, I'm probably not really that keen on it and am just hoarding! So...a dig through the hobby drawers turned up a load of old grey knights. Perfect place to start - should I clear them out...or paint them? Ok. I have a bit of a hoarding problem. I was working from home most of this week, which frees up a couple of hours a day not spent commuting. I got myself a large brush, some boltgun metal paint and one of the new 'terrain' paints (crackle paint by any other name) and set to. The models are suitably ornate and festooned in purity seals that picking these out gave the models a bit of interest and took them.up to the magic '3 colours' should I ever want to use them in a tournament. You remember back in the days before YouTube tutorials, Cool Mini or Not and so on when your child self slapped some primary colours on a space marine and felt all happy inside? I did that. A full army ready to play in under a week, total painting time of a couple of hours. I needed an extra HQ and so chopped up a deathwing Sgt from the dark vengeance set, added a force staff and a new head with a green stuff good to make a librarian. They're not that pretty but they're playable. With my 4 assassins formation also painted this clocks in at around 1750pts. So...who fancies some 40k?
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Post by tkaic on Oct 19, 2016 18:14:05 GMT
I played a game! Not actually at Eagle but once I've learnt Infinity better and Dave isn't in America we'll hopefully get more games at the club itself. In typical Tom style I've done some fluff for my new army. Pics to follow once the models are based!
"So tell me again why we're out searching this village while every other Grunt is taking the day off back at Charlie base?” Hank Carver idly tracked the sights of his heavy machine gun across another empty street, his usually mellow tones shot through with equal parts boredom and a sense of victimisation. “Same two reasons I told you the last twenty times you asked. One, we're the fresh meat and the boss says we need seasoning and two, Boon saw something out here.” Kurt Jones replied in his soft drawl. “Now zip it, Boon's signalling us.” A few hundred feet ahead of the small group of USAriadna Grunts a wiry Hardcase stepped out of the shadow of the wall ahead of them. Boon was one of the scouts for the local base, he'd signed up for a tour after his farm was overrun by Antipodes for the fifth time and never left. His woodcraft and tracking skills had kept him safe through a dozen missions, his deadly recurve bow had carried him through more than twice as many again. He made a series of sharp gestures with his left hand, then melted back into the shade. “What did he say?” asked Hank. “Something's up ahead. He doesn't know what it is, but it smells like trouble.” Kurt's voice had a new note of tension in it. “Smells like trouble. C'mon. He didn't say that. You're messing with me.” Hank tried a laugh, but his fingers were suddenly white on the weapon grips. He let out a sharp yelp as a hand grabbed his shoulder. “I'm not messing with you kid. It stinks up there. Now shut up before they know we're here.” Boon's eyes bore into Hank until the young grunt shamefacedly looked away. Once he was sure the point had been made a grin spread over the older man's face. “Don't take it too bad son, you can't be louder than that motorbike coming up behind us. Our Maverick liaison heard my radio report when I let Command know we've got something out here. There's a bird in the air and we can expect an Airborne dropping in to back us up as well. Time to get that gun of yours wet. First time in battle?” Hank grinned nervously and nodded. “Just make sure you shoot them and not me. If you get confused, I'm the one in the hat.” The last words seemed to come from the empty air as, once again, Boon melted into the landscape. Hank sighed and readied his gun. “You know what? I'm starting to think staying back home wouldn't have been so bad after all.”
So, this was my first game of an Escalation league and third with my USAriadna. My goals for the league are:
1) Only play painted 2) Try out a few play styles 3) Get a better understanding of how the game works beyond kill points
The last point will have to wait a few weeks, as the league's first couple of games are small points (120/150) and basic rules. Good place to cement some basics though and I threw some basic paint on my starting list: A variety of Grunts (the basic infantry), three with rifles, one HMG and one flamer. Airborne Ranger (he can parachute in) Maverick (bike riding shotgun wielding type) And “Boon”, my Hardcase (grizzled bow wielding scout who deploys as a camouflage token). I love this model and have two of them. The other one, Mills, is also painted but I felt that would be too much camo for a first game and so left him for a few week's time.
On the day I was drawn against Alexander, who plays Combined Army. His list was a horde of Morats (his basic infantry, couple of heavy weapon dudes) and an infiltrating thing who's name I've forgotten already. He deployed first, in an even spread across a board with quite a few wide fire lanes across it.
I gave him first turn and things started to go wrong pretty quickly. The infiltrator dropped a mine and scuttled backwards while various Morats advanced up the board in cover and tried some long range shooting. His last move forward brought one Morat into range of Boon, who jumped out of concealment (confident in his +6 bonus to hit against a -6 to the Morat) only to get shot down by a crit.
My turn 1 saw me park the bike before it could kill itself on the mine and bring on my parachutist. I failed to notice the sniper rifle wielding Morat guarding the table sector...as did Alexander. I then moved my guy forward a few orders into position to Rambo through his rearguard, before noticing the sniper. We rewound those orders and the sniper neatly slotted the Ranger through the eyes with another crit. I used my heavy machine gun Grunt to clear off the sniper and another Morat and that was the end of my turn.
Turn 2, Alexander sent one of his Morats on a long run round the table to get behind my force. The limited move of the US troops had really hurt me in the previous turn and I could only watch enviously as the Morat loped around behind my lines to shoot poor old Hank and Kurt in the back.
My Turn 2 saw me send the bike back behind my army to try and deal with the Morat. He rolled another crit and the bike went down. This was not going well. I moved up a heavy flamer equipped Grunt to try and control the midtable. He entered a gun duel with another Morat who made short work of the brave little American.
Alexander's Turn 3 and my army was now reduced to a couple of lowly rifle wielding Grunts. With orders to burn his HMG equipped Morat came up from the backfield and took on the Grunts in a series of one sided duels. Everyone was unconscious. It had not gone well.
There were a few activation order issues that I could have resolved better. Had I (or Alexander!) remembered the sniper Morat, I could have tried to clear him out with the HMG earlier, thereby freeing up the Airborne to do his thing. However, my main error was deploying the HMG in the open. I did this for the right reasons (board control) but it left him unnecessarily vulnerable. A Grunt in cover is as tough as most heavy infantry for other factions and I need to use this to my advantage in the next few games.
Next week I'll be dropping the bike and Airborne for a couple of longer range heavy infantry types. Controlling impetuous troops and timing parachute drops are skills I'll need to work on, but I clearly need to hone the even more basics first!
Hank slowly opened his eyes, wincing at the burning sensation across his whole chest. He groaned when he saw Boon looking down at him, a grin of white teeth stark against the dried blood clotting in the man's blonde beard. “Hey kid, you're not dead after all. Another minute and I was going to start going through your pockets. Looks like we got lucky and whoever hit us didn't hang around to finish the job.” Slowly the memory came back to Hank, the heat of his gun's barrel even through his thick gloves as he fired round after round into shadowy figures moving towards his position then the flicker of movement to his right and the sudden shock of heat before it all went black. Kurt had been shouting and firing off to his side and then, Kurt! Hank snapped his head to his left, where Kurt had been standing and saw burn marks on the ground, but no body. “Don't worry yourself kid, your friend's fine. He's off patching up the others, seems he remembered some of that first aid training you all got in basic.” The relief washed over Hank and with it, tears to his eyes. “I messed up Boon, I got caught in the open and didn't even see that thing until it was on top of us.” “Don't be stupid kid, I got pegged in the first moment thinking I had the drop on one of those ugly critters. Next thing I'm waking up with blood in my eyes and a crease along my skull. They're fast. Fast and well armed. And I've had a look at where they came from. With the blood and the slugs from your gun that're out there, I'd say you downed at least three of them. If it hadn't been for you, we'd probably not have had the chance to wake up so calm and peaceful like.” “What's our plan then? Back to base? Or do we follow them?” “We got our asses kicked kid, no need to go back for seconds. No one seems to have been seriously hurt although our Airborne friend won't be jumping out of any planes for a few weeks, busted his ankle pretty bad. The only thing that's dead is that damn motorcycle, thing's melted half to hell. Nah,I've called it in and told Control what happened, we're to head back to Charlie and get ourselves right. Couple of Ohio's are nearby and will be joining us en route in case of any surprises.” Message relayed, Boon stood up and sighed. “One thing we gotta do before we go though. Real important like.” “Yeah Boon? What's that?” “I gotta go find my damn hat.”
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