Ironhead Station

Over the last few weeks I’ve managed to get back to the painting table, and I’m making good progress on my Precursor Knights. The basecoat is done, and I started shading this morning (my favorite part!) They are coming along nicely, although I had forgotten how monotonous painting an entire unit + UA at once can be.

I’ve start to pick up the beginnings of a Khador army, so I’ve been doing quite a bit of pinning and gluing as a result. Cygnar will always be my main faction, and it remains my ultimate goal to have the entire Cygnar range fully painted and at my disposal. So, I’m going to pick up a second army (which I plan to play in naked pewter) to field while I leave my Cygnar on the painting table and not worry about packing/unpacking them every week. Once the Cygnar is done, I can turn my attention to the Reds.

So why Khador? To be honest, I’m a total fluff gamer. When I look at a new faction, I don’t look at the rules as much as I look for an army that has an aesthetic that appeals to me, looks fun to paint, and has characters and back-story that I enjoy - and Khador fits that bill. In fact, my initial army is going to be a berserker army lead by the Epic Butcher and full of things like Doom Reavers, Fenris, berserkers and extreme sculpt warjacks. This is going to be and army that looks imposing, and is as likely to kill itself as it is to kill my opponent.

When I need a break from unit painting, I’ve also been working on painting up my Space Hulk models. I’ve always been a fan of Space Marines and the 40K fiction, but never really could get into the tabletop game. Space Hulk seemed like a nice way to scratch that itch with a very small commitment. If you haven’t seen the game, the components that come with it are beautiful, from the models to the corridor tiles. The space marine models in particular are stunning, and almost demand to be painted. Instead of painting them all at once like I would a unit, I’m going to tackle each one individually, as they deserve that kind of attention. As far as the Genestealers (the alien models), I really don’t know what to do there – I don’t have a lot of interest in painting them myself… They might get sent out for commission work.

(It's too cold to seal him, so he's still a little shiny.)

Foodmachine is tomorrow at my FLGS. At this point I’m planning on playing, but I also feel like I’m getting sick. We’ll see how it goes. Oh yeah, and there are only thirteen days left until Christmas. If you haven’t started yet, it’s time to go buy some crap for the people you love. So get on it.

Labels: miniatures, wargaming, Warhammer 40K, Warmachine

It's hard to believe it has been a month since the last time I posted, but sure enough, November has come and gone, Christmas is on the horizon, and it is far past time for me to check in! November was a quiet month for Warmachine – there were no local tournaments, and in-between work and the holiday break I only managed to get a couple of games in. One of those was last Thursday, as did my part to help out with the Hordes MK II Field Test. This time around it was a battle of the Epic Old Men, with my eNemo facing off against Jen’s (Bobaferret) eDoomshaper. It’s been a while since I’ve played MK II, so it was a kind of clunky-but-fun game. Here are the lists we took:

My Cygnar Army (56 pts) Epic Nemo (+6) Squire Ol' Rowdy Thunderhead Lancer Journeyman Warcaster Ogrun Bokur Arlan Strangewayes Gun Mage Captain Adept Sword Knights (x10) Sword Knight UA Rupert Carvolo Stormsmiths (x3) Black 13th Strike Team

Jen's Pink Trolls (56 pts) Epic Doomshaper (+6 pts) Earthborn Dire Troll Dire Troll Mauler Mulg the Ancient Troll Axer Troll Bouncer Farrow Bonegrinders (x4) Feralgeist Gatorman Posse (x5) Troll Whelps

I’m not going to do a full battle report, but here were the highlights: We decided to play a “King of the Hill” scenario, with a 12-inch hill we had laying around. I went first and was able to push my Sword Knights into the middle early. I learned a lot about MKII Sword Knights this game – they are no longer the offensive powerhouse they once were, but when paired with the Piper (who can pipe “tough” every turn in MK II) they become one hell of a tar pit unit. With Flank and a change they can still do some damage (POW 10 + 4d6) but otherwise they are now much more useful for their staying power than their killing power. That being said, I had a hell of a time killing warbeasts, and knew I was going to have to go for the scenario win.



The rush for the hill. Some gatormen are going to die. Rowdy eyes Mulg.
At the bottom of turn three I was pretty sure I have victory locked up when I had a close call. Jen trampled her Earthborn through my line of Sword Knights and into position to deliver two Primal Shocks! (If you haven’t read MK II trample rules yet, do so now… It is far easier and more effective to trample these days!) Luckily eNemo had two focus on him, as the assassination attempt would have been successful otherwise. As it was, he survived with two wounds, and the game ended by scenario.



End Game: Nemo withstands two Primal Shocks FTW.
MK II still feels strong to me, and I’m excited to get on with it come January. In general, I still think it plays smoother and faster than the current version, and I like having less rules per model. Sure, models like Rowdy and Thorn were awesome, but the amount of rules you had to remember was just absurd. I like this way better now. Still getting used to some of the role changes in my army (like Sword Knights changing from offensive powerhouse to defensive tar pit) but I don’t mind them. I was starting to feel like some of the Cygnar units had gotten so strong that there wasn’t much motivation to try other things. MK II feels like it is pushing the game back to more of a combined arms affair, which I really like.

On a side note: I talk about Warmachine quite a bit on this blog because, well, I like it quite a bit. But the truth is, I’m a huge gaming geek and I like a lot of different stuff, and I’m probably going to start talking about more of that other stuff here. I’m a huge fan of roleplaying games, and at one point I had even talked about starting a separate blog for that. As it turns out, keeping up with just one blog is hard enough, so I’ll probably just be posting all of that stuff here. I’ll be using tags, so If you are only interested in following my Warmachine stuff, that’s easy enough, but hopefully you’ll find some other interesting stuff in here from time to time as well.

Labels: Hordes, miniatures, MKII, wargaming, Warmachine