The Wutang Clan

As my life slows down some from the chaotic Fall of getting back into teaching, coaching football, and playing a pretty sweet Rugby team, I find myself having some time to get back into an aspect of the hobby that I have grown to really love, painting and modelling. Of course, this painting and modeling time is despite the best efforts of FIFA 10 and Modern Warfare 2 to keep me from the hobby.

If I was a dedicated and smart hobbiest I would spend a couple months fleshing out my Dark Elves, and getting a few of those units done that I want to play with, as well as getting my magantized bases done. However, I find my motivation crushed by the fact that my painting has really improved since I started them, and to go back now is just frustrating. Plus, I am super excited about my new project, so I just want to start it in hopes I might use it this summer at the Battle on Beale. That being said, I am sure I will do a few things here and their with the DE's to mix it up, and I will post those, and I hope to keep getting a game in every blue moon or so with them, and I'll post the reports, but for now, this blog will be mostly dedicated to my new fantasy project...

The Wutang Clan - an Ogre Kingdom's Army

To date, I have a few bulls painted up, and a start on some Iron Guts. I will post pics of those soon. For now, I will post some pics of my current project, coverting a Tyrant and Maneater. My theme for these guys, as you might guess from the name, is to play on their semi-Eastern ties in the Warhammer world and go with a martial arts theme. I also did sort of a skull-esque face paint for some 40k orks years ago, and really liked it, so I'm carrying that over as well. My goal for the theme is convert the weapons to look more eastern in origin where I can, and to have bases that will also carry this over, as my army will have no large center piece model - rhinox riders are illegal where i play, I hate giants of all kinds, and not keen on the scraplauncha model. Obviously, my characters and units will also have a Wutang theme to them. Hopefully, it will all pull together and not look like crap. On to my first WIP shots.

The base for my tryant will be the paymaster maneater. What I don't like about the model is that it seems a bit smaller to most tyrant models. However, the more I thought about that, the more I liked it as many kung fu movies have a smallish, unimposing master who in reality, is an ass-beater. Also, I love his flowing coat and stance. I am going to canabilize some models to kitbash him together. I hated his left arm, and so on the right you can see I cut it off and attatched a sword. This sword is a bit small and unimpressive, so I've since cut the sword off and made it into a boa staff, more befitting a kung fu master i think. Think Hells Wind Staff!!! Those pics to come. My additional plans for this guy is to use the hunter's head for his head and either do a custom gut plate (greenstuff) or use the tyrant gut plate with horns.

Next up is a maneater converted from a tyrant!

I really liked the girth and stance of the tryant box, but I didn't like his weapons. The one handed sword was great, but the hammer didn't do it for me. I hated the two handed weapon even more. This project is not just about making an army, but really pushing myself painting and modeling wise (which still isn't that great) so I came up with a decent idea. My plan is cut up the two handed weapon, leaving just fits, and model this guy up to look like he's in a threating Kung Fu stance. I will then put a weapon on his back to show what he should be carrying, since he is a maneater after all. I cut up the two handed weapon (top left) and have begun filling and cutting away the excess. I think my life would be better if I knew how to use the Dremmel Driver left at my house... haha. Anyway, I will try to get this banged out and more pics up by the weekend, but you can see the right hand (upper right pic) is starting to look ok.

that's all for now. Comments, critiques, and suggestions always welcome!

Dark Elf - Skaven Battle Report

I got a chance over the Holiday to play my buddy RPA and his Skaven using the new book. I was also running some new stuff as I had, in an attempt to power up my DE a bit, brought some new toys I never fielded before, mainly the manticore, hydra, and Cauldron. This led to a LONG game as we both had a lot to look up, but it was also very interesting and a good learning experience.

My list was:
Dreadlord: manty, regen armor, Crimson Death (always S6), 2 nullstones (MR2)
Hag: Cauldron, D3 A's, BSB
Sorceress - level 1, 2 dispel
Sorceress - level 1, 1 dispel
Assassin - manbane S is always 1 higher), extra hw, D3 A's
15 warriors
15 warriors
5 Dark Riders
5 Dark Riders
5 Dark Riders w/bows
5 harpies
8 shades
7 Witchelves
5 Cold One Knights
1 Reaper Bolt Thrower
1 Hydra

(arrayed for battle)

His Army, while not exact was something like:

Grey Seer on Bell w/ huge unit of clan rats

Level 2 Warlock

Level 2 Warlock

Level 1 Plague Priest in unit of plague monks

2 units of slaves

1 more unit of clan rats w/ plague mortar

6 plague censors

1 unit of gutter runners

Doom Wheel

Abonination

I would say this is a pretty powerful skaven build. Granted, the Bell may not end up being as optimal as the Furnace, but in this game, it was hard as nails and couldn't be stopped. He had the two destructive Rares and 11 powerdice, plus a bound. I think if he dropped the gutter runners and brought another unit of Censors, this could be a top tourny list, but maybe that's because we don't have all the tricks figured out yet.

My deployment saw me putting most of my army in the middle, with my Dark Riders out wide to flank. I also had major concerns about his Abonination, and put my hydra to might right flank to counter his drop. My manty went behind the hill to protect it, which given his lack of shooting was probably a mistake, especially with MR 2. RPA did a great job deploying, clusturing his troops in the middle, with the Abom and DoomWheel each out to a flank.

I got first turn and advanced my army up towards his. At first I sort of regretted this, but when his magic phase came later that turn, I knew I needed to get in his face. My magic was ineffective b/c he was generating too many dispel dice. In the shooting phase, I decided to pour fire into his grey seer and see if I could take him out. I"m still not sure if this was dumb or smart. The Seer is a large target on the bell, but is only hit on a randomized 6. Once he's hit, he has a 4+ ward (which sure felt like a 2+). My problem is I didn't put every shot every turn on him, and this cost me. I should have either left him alone or just focused on him. End result, no casulties or wounds from my shooting. In his turn he started his magic onslaught and I was able to avoid taking too much damage by good use of dispel dice and burning through 2 scrolls. He did make his slaves poisened, but no big deal there. He also advaced his Abom and Wheel, getting really nice 3D6 rolls for both, and this put pressure on me early. I think one of my biggest problems this game was not knowing how to deal with these two guys.

Turn 2 saw me move up again, now committing to releasing some magic pressure by trying to kill his mages before my scorlls were all gone. I moved my Harpies up to pull his Censors out of his line, as they were head straight at my shades in the woods. Then I made a big mistake. I forgot the Abom pivots then moves. SO I moved my Hydra out of the woods and past the abom to snipe him with my flame breath. Silly me! Again, I had zero magic go through, and I killed almost nothing with my shooting. I also forgot to revel my assassin, as he might have been able to do some damage. In RPA's turn, his gutter runners turned up. He charged his poisened slaves into my shades, and combo charged my WE's with some slaves and guttern runners with a warlock engineer, and charged my hydra with his Abom, In the magic phase he again throwing lots of heat in my face with wither and warp lightning. I avoided most of the worst of it. In his shooting phase, his Doom Wheel rolled well and blasted a unit of dark riders. During combat, my shades held off his slaves, but the new slaves blow up and do d3 wounds took 2 of my shades out. My WE's performed well when the sole remaining witchelf used her cauldren granted KB to take out the Warlock Engineer and then made her stubborn test to hold.

The Hydra-Abom combat did not go well. The impact hits plus 3D6 S6 attacks were too much for me, and I lost combat and died. You can see this epic encounter below, with my proxied carnasaur and his proxied GUO filling in for our models.

Turn 3 the tide really started to roll against me. I charged the Cauldron into the the two units being held up by the WE. I also hit the same slaves in the rear with my flanking Dark Riders. This put hte cauldron at risk to die from the Abom later, as it would, but its ability to face any direction and roll meant I probably couldn't avoid him anyway. I again failed to kill much with shooting as the Grey Seer ward saved again and agian... i don't think he ever took a wound this game. I won the combat, but was forced to pursue cross my own battle line from right to left. I also charged my assassin into the Bell and my Cold One knights. My assasin with his 5 hatred attacks failed to cause a single wound to the Grey Seer. My knight did some damage, but didn't break him and my assassin was forced to break b/c he was outnumbered by a fear causer. We weren't sure how to play this, as the CO Knights did cause fear, but since the Assassin is a seperate unit, we decided he probably did have to flee. Anyone know how to play that? So my assassin who couldn't do dick is now on the run. In his turn, he had a nice magic phase. First, he rings the bell and gets a 13, which means all my MSU units got rocked. Every unit I had on the board was in range and my T3 low armor meant that every unit took 1-2 causalties. He then drops the scorch template on me and takes oult 10 warriors. Man, the new template rules are harsh!!! Then the Abom charged my cauldron and smoked it as he again rolled 3D6 S6 attacks.

In turn 4, I had turned my Manticore lord towards his Doom Wheel on turn 3. I wasn't sure if I could take him, but I wanted the option. This is also where we both kinda screwed up. We thought the Doom Wheel moved like the Abom, which is crazy powerful. But it doesn't. Despite it's 3D6 move, since it moves like a chariot, I think it can only only charge what it can see at the start of it's turn. Anyway, of course my lord fails his manticore test, and is now frenzied, and must charge the wheel. This is going to be dicey. Again, my shooting and magic was ineffective. In combat, my Lord did one wound with his 5 S6 hated attacks and my Manty did a wound with his 5 S5 hatred attacks. Coming back, the manty took 2 wounds and we drew. not good. in his phase, he again hit me with magic, and rang the the bell to get, you guess it, another 13. So again my units got smoked and ALL his clan rats got to attack my knights, finishing them off. In the shooting phase he rolled S10 for his doom wheel which refused to misfire, and this randomized onto my lord, who died a horrible death. His wheel then ground my riderless manitcore to the ground, and it was game over.

Overall, it was slow but very fun and a good experience. RPA deployed his units very well, and did a great job using the rares and his massive casting dice to keep the pressure on me. What cost me was my inability to deal with those big rares. Also, RPA rolled very well, and never once had a costly miscast, misfire, or Bell roll. He definatly outplayed me, but a little better luck and he may have lost a key unit, giving me a chance to breath and play him to a closer result. All in all a fun battle, and I think the Skaven are going to be a fun and viable army going forward.

I

Alright, it's been a while, but since my life has slowed down some, I am trying to get back into the painting mode. Currently, I have a couple projects floating around. The first is sort of a side project, and that is bloodbowl. I am doing this as sort of a change-up. I think bloodbowl is a sweet game, and I'm pumped about it coming out for the Xbox 360. Anyway, I have collected a lot of models over the years, and I want to get some more painted up, and it's a nice change up when I get sick of just working on one army or the other. Here you can see a few High Elves I've started on, as well as a new bloodbowl ball I got off ebay. Not super high quality painting, and still very early in the process. Fun to do though.

My second project is revamping my Dark Elves. I found my build to be a little too non-competative. Thus I am revamping my list, and painting up a few things I didn't have before. Additionally, there was some touch-ups from my 6th edition to 7th edition elves I need to do as well, such as finishing my assassin and sorceress, as well as magnatizing my bases. It's sort of hard to get motivated to do the DE. I love them, and love the army, but since most of the army is painted to a standard that is not as good as I can now do, I find that zaps my motivation a bit. That, and I'm really excited to start my newest project, an Ogre Kingdom Army.... the Wutang Clan. Basically this will be an OK army with a loose martial arts theme. I am hoping to sort of stretch myself in terms of both painting and converting with this army. We shall see. Anyway, below is a couple of my Dark Elf upates. I am painting the second sorceress for my army, as well as begining work on my maticore, which will be the mount for my dreadlord. Both as still very much WIP. Comments and suggestions always welcomed!

More Angelic Goodness

Thought I'd throw a couple more pics up here real quick. The first 2 are pics of the lions that I used to represent Chaos Hounds. I am really stoked with them. First of all, my buddy Shawn gave me some great ideas on colors to use, and I think the pelts came out great. Secondly, I made a couple modifications myself from watching a show on lions, and those seemed to work. 3rd, these lions are metal, cheaper than GW white lions, and really allowed me to use the lion theme in this army, which blends really well with the angels.

Finally, we have a couple more pics of the big guy. You may notice a little bear metal on his head, this is from usage at the BoB, despite me spraying a protective coat on him. I will have to repair this soon. I am really happy with the overall look of this army, and proud to say it scored an 85/100 on appearance at the BoB. While the top armies are getting 95-100, that score did put me ahead of most armies, and for me, was a huge accomplishment. that is a huge score for me, and It was very gratifying after a TON of hard work. More pics to come.

angel's complete

Well, it's been a while. I apologize, but I think I can have a legitimate pass as I've been pretty busy. I was so busy getting this army ready for the Battle on Beale in Memphis, I had not spare time to even post on my blog. Every spare minute I had went into painting. The fact that I was working a summer job and getting married this summer [the weekend AFTER the BoB] meant spare minutes were tough to come by. Now I'm back from the honeymoon, and getting in the swing of things. I will try to get some army shots up, as well as a detailed BoB report in the next week to ten days. On to some pics...1st off we have the leader of the group. He's a Chaos lord of Tzeetch on Disc who is kitted out to bash big nastys' faces in. I love this model because of the dynamic pose, the huge wings, and the lion pelt he wears that ties him into one of the major army themes.

Next up is the War Alter. I am happy with how it turned out. I didn't have much time to work on it, as I started it the Saturday prior to the BoB. I used the carriage from the old Skaven Screaming Bell. I then added more green stuff to make the rat pelt look more like a lion pelt. On top I placed a Bret Sorceress modelled up to look like a statue. Originally the statue was a sweet stone color, but my brother wisely pointed out a gold statue tied this piece into the army much better. I added the Bret Grail Relequie peasent to give the model some more life. IN a perfect world with lots of time, I'd have added 2 more peasents and chains.

Finally we have 2 more characaters. The first is the BSB you've seen before. The second is the level 1 scroll caddy mounted on horse. I used the mid-level Vaulten model from the Storm of Chaos campaign from a few years back. Its a sweet model, and I regret not having another week or so to work on him, but it still turned out alright.

there you go, more pics to follow!

Under a month left

Ok, the crunch is starting to press in on me. I am making headway, but its going to be a tight run thing. I am pretty sure I can get in all painted with no problems, but basing, movement trays, and that stuff is gonna hurt. Add to that all the wedding stuff I have to do to make that happen the weekend after Battle on Beale and its going to be tight. This is definatly going to be my brother's Christmas and Birthday gift, the only question is, for how many years?

First pic is 2 completed angels that have been based. You've seen them before, but I included them for the bases.

Next up is 2 more angels. I don't know why except to show the chick Dragon Ogre is done, but nees based.

Ok, next up is very, very rough stage of Cav. I almost didn't put these up bcause a) i suck at cav and b) they are so rough, but i wnated you to get the idea, so here you go.

Another shot, this time of 5 Cav memeber unit.

thats all for now. Gotta get back in the basement and paint!!!

ok, the crunch is coming

Pressure mounting...

well, the BoB just keeps getting closer, so I put in some more work, and thought I'd share. I was actually pretty pumped b/c, with a little color advice from Shawn O, I think I got the lion fur nailed down. This is huge as many of the models in the army have lion fur on them, and 10 are actual lions.

first, you build the armies to play, so here's two quick shots from me and Driver's game last Wednesday. This first shot is me contemplating how to utterly destroy Driver's forces...

Clearly, the shot below is Driver after I have carried out said contiplated plan. I beat Driver in another game after this one on Monday, but he learned from his mistakes and smacked me around today (Wednesday).


First, my first real foray into green stuff usage. I think it looks very nice, but fur seems to be pretty easy to do. That does not, however, diminish my pride in this model. I scraped the massive chaos symbol of this dude's back and replaced it with fur.

Next a close-up of the lion fur with highlights. Its a little harsh from this close, but you get the idea.

and the coup de grace, a more "realistic" range from which to view the models. These guys are complete except for the shields and heads to be added. I am very, very happy with the results. What do you think?

More Progress... as the BoB nears

A couple quick picture updates today...

First off we have a little diversion I've been working on when I've had my fill of holy rightousness. This B.A. is going to be another character for my human bloodbowl team. I don't play much bloodbowl [thats an understatement, I've played once in the last 5 years] but its a great game and one I swear I'll get into. I should, I've got the better part of 6 teams, two pitches, and plenty of additional trinkets for it. Anyway, this is the "mighty Zug" model, but I haven't decided who he will be on my UNI Panther's Human Team.

Next up is the female angel I got. She is about 33% done, though her skin is almost complete. She will be proxied as one of the Dragon Ogres. She is off the the right of the base so she can rank up with that massive angel that I've painted already... which you can see in my earlier posts was the first one done. She is chilling next to my warrior priest. Not much done on him other than his weapon has been painted, as well as some skin work you can't see in this photo... ya good.


Close up of the female angel. I am happy with this model b/c the wings are going to be a lot easier to paint the the second angel I did.

Here are my warriors. Cloaks have final highlights... tough to see. ALso, weapons have been painted, and gold has been gone over. Also, I highlighted the black gloves and boots. Lots of small work here, most of which you can't see... I suck.

Here is my first angel, with a completed "tundra" base. Not sold on the base, i bought the stuff as a kit from Gale Force Nine. However, they included one set of brown flock that I think ruined it, so I will be omitting if from the future ones. I think this stuff has potential though, and I"m going to run with it. I will ultimately paint the sides of the base black, b/c I think that looks really good. We shall see.

Thats it. Just a quick pictorial update... hope you liked it.

Angelic Warriors

Well, I've made some progress. Here is the W.I.P warriors I have so far. Sticking with the angelic theme, you can see the predominatly gold armor, the blue accents, and the off white cloaks. Still in a bit of a conundrum about what to do with the fur, but I'm working on that. Heads will be added soon, see below. Also, you can see the Warrior Priest who will be running as the BSB with Banner of the Gods. Banner still to be added, probably planted in the ground behind him.

I am hoping to get another 5 done soon. I have ordered human heads to use with the unit, and they should be arriving soon. I also would like to get some basing done, to see how they are going to look. I will try to post some more pics this weekend, assuming i make progress.

Angels Come Forth

Ok, its been a crazy month. Lots of personal issues have stayed my painting hand quite a bit, but with the imminent approach of Battle on Beale, I have to start kicking this angel army into gear if I am wanting to have it ready for my brother to play by mid-July. That gives me two months. There is a lot to do in those two months, but I think I can make this happen.

I have almost completed the second angel for the army. What I need to do is make a list of all the models I need to complete the army, gather them up, and begin to construct them in earnest. Here is a couple shots of the mostly completed Angel who I believe will serve as a mobile, fighty character of Tzeetch. Additionally, I threw in a picture of the whole army for good measure. Enjoy.

DE vs WoC Battle Report

well, I suppose there are 2 distinct positives to your mom having a spontanious brain bleed. The first is that spontanious brain bleeds, while super scary, don't kill you, but the experience certainly leaves you and your family with a healthy dose of realism about the fragility of life, and preciousness of time together with those you love and care about. The second positive is that if you have siblings living overseas, these type of events tend to bring them back unexpectantly, and if things go well, as they did in this case, once the immediate family crisis has passed, the additional time they have in the States is bonus time you get to hang out with them. Thus did these events transpire to allow me the privlidge and honor of playing my Brother Joe [of "roll 'em up, roll 'em, em' up Jojo" and "thats just where we're at Brother Joe" fame]. Joe is here a short time, so this will probably be our only battle.

I was fielding my combat oriented dark elves that I posted here a while back. I am still learning how to use the new book effectively, and i have recently replaced my bolt throwers for mobile artillery in the form of two level 2 mages. Joe was fielding, for the first time, his Angelic Host Warriors of Chaos army. Obviously this army has a lot to still be done on it, so it was heavily proxied. Joe has posted many versions of that army on here, but this was the one with BA Chaos Lord on Disc, BSB on Disc with Banner of the Gods (125 pts) and 2 level 1 sorcerors. We were both excited to see how this army would play, and Joe was especially excited to get a little experience with the army prior to hillbilly.

The game got off to a great start by going absolutly old school, like 1998 old school, by taking place in the infamous Nietzel Dinning Room. we had 4 buildings, a nice forest, and a bridge to absolutly nowhere. the buildings were placed to my right in a diamond pattern sort of breaking up the right side of the board. The lone forest was to the left, in the middle of the battlefield. I won deployment, and joe started placing first. He planted a solid center from left to right of Mauraders, WarShrine, Dragon Ogres, Maruaders. Behind this was his BSB on disc, making this solid center stubborn. He misplaced his warriors and they ended up behind the marauders, and out of the main fighting action. His flank to my left had Knights, hounds, and sort of the left out warriors. To my right he had knights and hounds. His cheese dick move of the game in my opinion was starting his general perched on a chimney of the dwarf forge so that he could see the whole battle field with his flying movment. This guy was between the stubborn center and right side knights/hounds. I went for classic ben nietzel deployment of the warriors (with wizards) and blackguard in center, backed up by my chariot mounted BSB... which is really a unit i love. I kept my Cold One Knights in the center to support this group as a respone to his stubborn center placement, and the fact that the forest and buildings made a pocket in the middle that looked to be the crux of the fighting. To my left I placed some dark riders and chariot, and to my right i placed double dark riders out wide, my favorite. My harpies went behind my line. I plunked my shades behind building near his deployment on the right, so i could pop out and smoke his hounds, thus isolating his knights. I also dropped my general with my fast cav out right to put pressure on his general and/or the chaos knights out there. My dick cheese move of deployment was to pick up my knights to see if they could fit in a gap between the buildings. It was dumb, but i didn't place the terrain and was curious if they'd fit, i don't think it was very sporting on my part.

The game started with some jockeying. I went first and moved up to position myself for a big turn two. My two highlights were the shades popping out and making the hounds wish they'd come across michael vick on a bad day instead. I smoked them all. My sac dagger shadow mage also dropped pit of shades on Joe's Dragon Ogres killing one. Joe's turn he moved right into my face, with his only action being a crazy ass charge of his general right at my cold one knights. I had mistakenly told him I didn't have a banner, but oops, I had a banner and warbanner. However, we didn't count them as he wouldn't have charged knowing that. Despite that, he didn't do enough wounds (it was a dumb charge unsupported) and I won by doing a wound and outnumbering. He undeservedly failed a morale test, and fled. The first of many. In my turn I charged like a banshee. I sent a dark rider unit into his hounds, that were in front of his knights, and another into his other knight unit. Here's a fun tip, Chaos knights apparently get 2 attacks each and a 1+ save, so even if your fast cav with Str 4 on the charge, hatred, and a +2 CR from a rear charge can get them, pass on that. Especially if that unit has a Warbanner. [interesting rules question here. If unit A is charged by unit b in the rear, and unit A still manages to wipe unit B out to the man, at the end of combat, which was is unit A facing???] My other riders smoked the dogs, who fled into the knights, causing them to panic (yes they failed their reroll) but in hte interest of having a fun game, we ignored that panic. Anyway, my general and harpies also charged his mauraders to try to take out his fleeing general. It almost worked, but he stayed on the board by 2 inches, and set up an epic general on general battle in round 3.

The top of Round three saw all of our units in the center arrive for battle. I flank charged his Stubborn (I didn't know) Dragon Ogres who had been given the ultimate Shrine roll (4+ ward and stubborn) with my black guard and front charged them with my assasin. Poor placement of my assasin would give joe a chance to smoke my assasin, and prevent my warriors from charging later... dumb! Anyway, I did some wounds, but did not break the stubborn with a reroll DO's who had the BSB right behind them. The general v general fight went bad for me as my Lord's 6 Str 7 attacks only did 1 wound, and his flaming sword of multpilying wounds made a mockery of my regneration armor defense. I was scared of the sword, but knew his 20 inch range meant he'd find me sooner or later, so i figured the charge gave me the best chance of living. I lived, but the bottom of round three was gonna be all she wrote. I was killed. In the bottom of three he charged my Black Guard/Assasin with the Shrine (a real beast) in the flank, and had his maruaders hit my rear. My ASF BG and Assasin did well, but lost by 2. Luckily they held with their stubborn selves. Joe made a big mistake of moving his BSB behind my lurking warriors units to terror bomb them.

At top of 4, i passed all terror checks. My BSB chariot hit the mauraders in teh flank, my Cold Ones, who had been facing a builidng after repeling the general charged his DO's in the flank, and my warriors with sorceresses turned to face the lone BSB. In the magic phase I fried the BSB, and it was goodbye stubborn. In the combat phase, ASF, impact hits, and massive charges ended with a CR of 22-2 in favor of the elves. This blew the game open. I couldn't hurt his Shrine, he was still in the flank of the BG, but my 4 units overran him, and destroyed him. The overrun took my BSB into contact with teh warriors who were still struggling to make contact. They ended up smoking the warriors, especially in the top of turn 5 with help from the assassin. My BG ran close to joe's general, and he charged. He smoke the champ in the bottom four but they held with stubborn. With no one to challange in turn 5, my weight of attacks took their toll and finished him off. Meanwhile my harpies flew to strand his knights on teh left who chewed up my poorly spaced chariot, but this ensured they'd never play another role in the game. My remaining dark riders did the same to his knights on teh right, who would later fall prey to a 3D6 Str 1 no armor save magic missle that killed 3. In the end, I think joe finished with 7 knights still on the board.

It was a fun game, and much closer than the final tally showed. I think 3 things made a huge differnece for me:

1 - Joe had never played the WoC before and made some blunders in deployment and usage that he is sure to not make a second time. Nothing huge, but its tough to use an army for the first time, especially against a good book like the DE's

2 - My army is geared to fight an army like joe's. I am a combat army, he is a combat army. Virtually no shooting was done all game. Combat WoC is a really nice match-up for my dark elves. My experience with the army made me better able to take advantage of the combat heavy game we played.

3 - three key dice rolls went my way. I'm not saying all three were lucky, one was super lucky, one was sorta lucky, and one was as it should have been

a - super lucky - my harpies getting hit by a fireball that i should have scrolled in mid game. it killed 2 of 6, and I luckily passed the leadership test. This allowed me to fly behind his knights next turn and crush his spirit by march blocking them for the next 3 turns so they could play no further roll

b - sorta lucky - his general bouncing on my knights and fleeing. He probably shouldn't have fled since he was testing on an 8, but it was a stupid move for a general designed to kill big things and characters, so it was probably just desserts. still, this put his general out of the way for basically the rest of the game b/c i pressured the fleeing general.

c - expected - my black guard passing their stubborn leadership test after getting flank and rear charged. Elves should pass that, and they did, but if I fail that, my center collapses and he runs riot on me. In passing it, my BSB and CO Knights get in next round and that's all she wrote for his whole center.

sorry, kinda long. Ton's of fun though. Super glad we got to play.

Painting tan skin

Blair asked me how I painted my skin, so I thought I'd post that. While Shawn is certainly 1000x better than me, I thought that this might have a bit of merit as my techniques are sort of dumbed down from shawn's advice, so that any idiot (as demonstrated by my models) can use it.

What you need:
A eye dropper with clean water in it
a plastic pallette for mixing
toothpicks
the following Americana paints - available super cheap at hobby lobby
Black (normal black)
White (normal white)
Toffee (actual name)
Flesh (actual name)
Games Workshop's Ogryn Flesh wash from their new washes line

I use the pallette and eye dropper to water down my paint. Ususally I do one small squirt of paint and add one drop of water. I then mix completely with a toothpick. Shawn recommends the consistancy of milk, but I don't drink milk, so I just get it roughly close.

1 - I start by basecoating my entire miniture with black.

2 - I then dry brush the skin areas white, so this leaves the raised areas white, the recessed areas black, and the middle areas sorta gray.

3 - I then paint the skin with toffe, which has been mixed with water as above.

4 - after this dries, I go over the skin again with toffe. Usually I might add another drop of water to really thin the toffe down, before I repaint it.

5 - I then water down some "Flesh" paint and pick out the raised, high light areas. This is a paint that has a pinkish hue, but it'll look better once I tie it in.

6 - I then use the "Ogryn Flesh" was all over the recessed areas of the model. The new GW washes are really, really good and can be used straight out of the pot. I really like them.

7 - to tie it all in, I go back to the toffee. I use a really, really thin mix (2 drops of water to 1 drop of paint) and paint over almost all of the skin area. Just leaving the very extreme edges and crevices alone. I find that this sort of blends teh "flesh," "toffee," and "Ogryn Flesh" areas together nicely.

Thats it. Its not great, but it has really been good for my skill level. It doesn't take a ton of steps, and I've been really happy with it. I had not had any successful skin paint jobs until Ogres, so I am pretty happy, and I owe most of my success technique wise to Shawn's advice. Hope that helps.

Test Angel Completed

Well, I am proud to announce I have finished my test angel. Its not awesome, but I am happy with it. I think the blues, golds, and off white look fairly good together. Obviously she needs a base, but you get the idea. Feel free to comment. I also will throw in a nearly completed unit of 10 flaggelants... I need to buy some more of those guys asap.

GW vs. Privateer Press

The following was my response to a discussion held on "The D6 Generation" Podcast discussion the move of Warmachine to its new rules set, Warmachine Mk. II. Specifically, the guys were looking how this move was being viewed by the community at large, and how it impacted their GW vs. PP discussion in episode 1A. This is especially relevant as many former GW players have jumped ship to Privateer Press's Warmachine and compatitble Hordes "steam punk" minitures games.

my response follows:

I found your discussion on GW vs. Privateer Mk. 2 to be fairly interesting. I am a huge GW fan, who loves the universe and Fantasy battle game. I do feel upset however by many of GW's policys and practices in past years (I've been playing since '97). I don't play PP games other than M-Poc mainly b/c I don't live by any gamers right now, and when I do get a rare occasion to play, all my friends play GW games. So while I am intrigued by Warmachine/Hordes, its an outlay of costs and time that makes no sense for me currently. I spend enough time and money on WHFB and Necromunda for the 10 games I get to play a year, that I don't need to try to do it with a whole different gaming system. That being said, I do love to buy books and read rules, as well as look at cool new minitures, so I do own Prime:Remix and I recently bought a couple No Quarter Mags while on vacation in NYC. Interestingly enough, this was in response to me picking up the new White Dwarf to buy, and seeing that it was $9. I am so disgusted by how this magazine's content has been gutted and the price has continued to rise in the last 12 years, I couldn't stomache another dollar increase. I remember the glory days of Fat Bloke, Tale of 4 gamers, inserts, and when resigning a subscription got you a box set of minitures. Now I pay twice as much for a quarter of the content and perks. Thats not just inflation at work... but i digress. Or do I? I do see how PP runs things, the content the including in NQ (thats why I got it), how responsive they are to the community, and how they put out new content all the time. Its refreshing. In fact, I feel the White Dwarf issue is a microcosim for GW in general the last 12 years. I guess to me, when I first started it felt like GW was my buddy, the local butcher or pharmacist I'd go to that would ask about my family as he filled me order. Now, GW feels like Wal-mart. Granted, some of that is probably nostalgia, but I do think that people who assert GW has become this faceless corperation who does what they want, and has an attitude that consumers can take it or leave it have a vaild point. I also believe they have realized this, and working to correct it, just not very quickly. Having said all this, I probably seem to be a disenfranchised GW fan, ripe to be swept up in the PP frenzy, but I am not. Certainly some of it is the investment I've already made in GW, some of it is because my friends whom I play with (when I can) are barely even aware PP exists, and some of it is just how sweet and diverse the GW universe and model range is, but its more than that. Here are 3 main things I think you missed in your discussion, and they are reasons I think some of flak GW gets is unwarrented.

1 - Privateer Press is still a new company. This leads us to a couple issues.

First, they still have a great and dynamic figurehead in Matt Wilson. Mr. Wilson is the driving force behind his company, and its his ideas and commitment to them that have created and driven this company. He is still around, he is still the driving force. Not only does this mean that his creative genius is in full flight, but he also gives the PP fans a leader, a rock star if you will. Whose in charge at PP? Matt Wilson. If you love somethign about PP, thank Matt Wilson. If you are pissed about something, blame Matt Wilson. How about GW? I consider myself fairly informed in GW affiars, but I don't have the slightest inkling whose in charge there. Every army book seems to be done by somebody else. Warhammer and 40K are related and yet overseen by different people. I have no idea who makes decisions for the company policy as a whole. If I love something, who do I thank? If I hate it, who should be the object of my ire? It makes a difference. Jervis Johnson, Andy Chambers, and Rick Priestly are gone... its been 25 years.

Second, being new, Privateer still has a lot of great ideas, and you are seeing those in action. I'm not talking about just game ideas, but I'm talking about ideas on how to use the internet, how to market, how to fix problems. How to sell and do right by retailers in an E-bay/Internet discount world. GW started up over 25 years ago. They have to adapt to the internet and the evolving gamer and radically shift paradigms espeically at the corperate level. PP had to understand both of those and utilize them just to start up. They were born into the current enviroment, thats an advantage.

Third, there is no greater zealot than a convert. PP does benefit from a huge fanboy base. I have nothing against fanboys, I'm probably a GW one, but many of the people singing PP's praises are people who felt burned by GW and switched. There is nothing wrong with that, nor is it unusual, but if you've left one company for another, I think you going to be quick to find faults with the old and doggidly support the new. This can go both ways, but I think PP fans are probably a little too optomistic with their game, and bitter about GW's.

2 - 40k sucks. one of my gripes with this whole debate is a lot of people, and you guys espeically seem to focus on 40k. Now, I understand that. I know that Russ was a huge 40k guy, and this love affair bore the store and the DakkaDakka site, and so its only natural that you discuss what you know. I also know that the "steam punk" aspect of Warmachine gives it some basing in science fiction, but I think this is a mistake. Its a mistake to compare warmachine/hordes to 40k only b/c 40k sucks. It does. I've played both WHFB and 40K, and its not even close. Don't get me wrong, 40k's imagery, fluff, and models are so amazing, its almost worth it. I mean, I love science fiction a lot more than fantasy, but the game itself is terrible. The problem is scale the table isn't big enough for the range of weapons or speed of the models. Either the game needs to be brought down to a skirmish game, or it needs a size reduction, which is why Epic is so awesome. Warmachine works well b/c it plays at a size that 40k should be around. I think if you compare PP games to fantasy, GW comes out a lot better. Fantasy didn't need a complete rewrite (like I agree 40k does), its a great game. Is there some balance issues, yes, but overall its a highly competative game that will see a more skilled player win 19 out of 20 times. I think its easier to extoll the virutes of GW when you look at that game system, that plays beatifully in a the 2000-3000 point range on a 4x6 table, then comparing 40k which is not a good game. I want it to be. I would love it to be, it just isn't.

3 - Size matters i felt like you guys sort of touched on this, but then passed over it. Size is a huge, huge factor in this debate. GW is massive. Its a monsterous corperation that has a lot more people employed worldwide than PP. It produces 3 major miniture games that all independant of each other, and while using similar D6 mechanics and charts, are not interchangable at all. PP produces 2, though I'd call it more like 1 since while they use different mechanics (focus vs fury) they are interchangalbe and not unlike play an Undead army vs. a dwarf army. Within each game, GW has double the factions or even 3 times as many if you consider warmachine and hordes to be totally seperate entities. When PP does a release for everyone, they only have to release for 4 factions (maybe 5 if you count mercs). Compare this to GW, GW has to release for 12-14 armies. Not only is this a huge difference in terms of number of model and rules needed for a joint release, but also consider this. PP has four factions, so they only need to keep 4 distinct flavors to their armies. This isn't tough. GW has 13 distinct armies. It becomes much harder to keep these 13 armies feeling different in terms of fluff and rules. No one wants to buy the Tomb Kings Army book repackaged as the Vampire Counts book. There has to be distinction. This Distinction is easier to achieve when you produce all the units for one army in a book together. But it leads to long intervals between new armies. This lapse in "real time" leads to people departing and changing jobs, and so codexs and army books are being written by new people all the time it seems. This creates a lack in vision and clarity, as well as consistant language. I do blame GW for this to some extent, but its hard. Additionally, I know some people are upset their special army no longer exists or is supported. it sucks, and at times it has seemed dubious by GW, but again, this is an issue of size. As Russ has smartly pointed out various times, stores don't have the SKU room to carry more and more armies, especially for 3 systems. The Size of GW makes them much more inflexible and slow to change. Its not an excuse for all their transgressions (Slayer armies, no online store listings, White Dwarf Pricing, horrible retail support) but it does make things tough on them. The assertion that GW could easily switch to a card based system where all cards were released for 13 WHFB armies and 12-14 40K armies is unfair and honestly, in my opinion silly. I'd like to see them create decks of cards, but to try to do this 2 or 3 years out for a new army just woudn't work. I suffered for years with terrible dark elves through most of 6th edition and part of 7th, but its the price I am willing to pay to have an army level game with the diversity of options that WHFB has. I would love for GW to operate more like PP, but I wouldn't want it at the price of being reduced to 4 or 5 playable armies.

Necro Update

Played my first game of Necromunda with my Goliath Gang. Perviously, I had rolled up a Cawdor gang b/c while I loved the gang models for Goliath, I noticed on the forums they weren't very good in the long run. That being said, I came to the realization that I probably won't play enough for this to make a huge deal, so I decided to create a Goliath Gang. Additionally, this is the most fun part of the game anyway, and we realized in our previous game we had screwed up some of the money parts. My gang looked fairly similiar to the Goliath gang I posted below, but I dropped a heavy in favor of another ganger and bringing a hired gun - in this case a scavvy named "Dirty Harry." He was underwhelming, and I might go with a ratskin Scout - Tonto - for next game.

The game was very fun, but I have to say that my luck was not impressive. I had 5 guys take a wound, which wasn't unusual persay, but all 5 of them rolled a "1" to be knocked out of action on their first rolls! Thats 5 natural 6's following 5 wounds... ouch. We played a straight gang fight, and when I finally bottled out, I had 7 guys rolling on the serious injury chart. Highlights of the postgame festivities included my Leader losing an inch of movement due to a bum left leg. I also had a Juve drop a ballistic skill from 2 to 1... ouch. Get that fella a knife! On the plus side, I had a juve score 5 kills. That, along with his survival bonus, gave him 3 upgrades. He rolled pretty well getting +1 WS (yawn), +1 W (BEAST!) and the weaponmith skill. I also lucked out and found a Juve recruit for free from my settlement.


All in all, it was a fun game on great terrain, and we had an eventful and wild post game. Everything Necromunda probably should be! Below is 3 of my gang models. As I said earlier, I did not really paint these models. All I did was repaint the pants and paint a blue circle around the base. I saw Driver do this with his gang, in red, and I really liked the effect. The middle model is my leader, and I am painting him from scratch. He is still in progress, as you can see, but I'm happy with how he looks thus far. Comments welcome!

Angels - the beginning

I have finally begun construction on some of the angels for my brother's Warriors of Chaos "Angelic Host" army. The first model I have begun to paint is a test model of sorts. I need to sort out the wings, armor, skin, and additional colors in my quest to create a decent looking angel plan.

The wings are rough. I sought some help on the wings, and originally tried to paint them white, wash them black, and then highlight them white again. That didn't look to good. Driver came up with the idea of using gold to accent the wings, and i think it looks pretty good. I am going to have to get the angel totally done and take a look at it before I declare it decent. I am happy with the cloth. I painted it a sand color, washed it brown, and then highligthed it with sand/white and finally a very thin line of white. It is also not done, but i like its look for now. The skin and armor are both in very, very early stages, so please be patient with them and don't judge them to harshly.

I am hoping to finish this guy off by the weekend, solicite some advice, and then correct myself and begin the other angels next week. And here... we... go.

Necromunda

our little foray into Necromunda appears to be building steam. Mr. Driver has purchased some scenery, Mr. Finke is begining construction on his first foray into gaming, and I have bought and recieved my first "real" gang. Its a gang of House Goliath. I love the minatures, and fluff, so I decided to get them. Unfortunatly, I am reading on the forums they are worst gang due to their skill tables. Oh well, I'm not sure we'll play often enough for me to feel the ill effects of a less potent skill base. Anyway, here is list. I have based their names off of real nordic names from some baby name website, to sorta stick with the massive, weightlifter theme.

Leader - Thor - Chain Ax, Autogun, Bolt Pistol
Heavy - Aksel - Heavy Stubbor
Heavy - Oden - Grenade Launcher, Frag 'nades
Ganger - Torsten - Shotgun, manstopper shells, massive axe
Ganger - Balder - Autogun
Ganger - Bjorn - Autogun
Ganger - Asger - Massive Axe
Juve - Sigfinn - autopistol
Juve - Egil - Laspistol
Juve - Ull - knife
Juve - Hans - knife

I have very little idea of how this will play, but we shall see. The models I ordered came painted to an ok standard, defiantly playable. I am modifying them a small amount, and should have them done this weekend. I will post pics when I have them done.

Terror?

Terror is in intersting rule in Warhammer. Causing all units starting their turn within 6 inches of the bearer to take a panic test can be a huge boon to a side. The infamous terror bomb has been the undoing of many a warhammer general's best laid plans. This is all the more true for armies with low leadership such as Orcs, Skaven, Ogres, and even some Empire builds. In 6th edition, every army strove to have this strategium in their arsenal. Interestingly, the newest books in 7th Edition, which are the consensus "hardest armies around" seem completely uneffected, or at best mildly annoyed by this rule. The Vampire Counts and Deamons ignore the terror bomb while the Dark Elves massive leadership and liberal sprinkling of Fear causes seemed little troubled. What has happened is the terror bomb has become ineffective against the toughest armies around, while still remaining a potential game breaker against the weaker armies. So the question stands, in your tournament army build, how important is it to get a terror causer with high mobility into your roster???

a couple updated pics of the "Faithful" mauraders as well as a couple angel models. The two on the sides will be part of the dragon ogres while the one in the middle will be the deamon prince.