Hobby Status – 20101007

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Thought I’d spin back up on blogging by catching people up on where I’m at.

Hobby

Currently, I’m still slogging through my fifth batch of 10 clanrat/slaves.  This is… frustrating.  Through the entire month of September, I only managed to paint a single batch of 10 (which stands in stark contrast to August, where I was able to paint 30+ loathsome ratment, plus a table’s worth of terrain).  So, I think I’m ready for a break.

Once I’m done with this batch (I will finish these guys), I’ve got my Chariots of Khorne ready to go: assembled, primed, and waiting for a break in Skaven.  I expect they’ll truck along pretty quickly.

After that: I don’t know.  I love the Skaven models, but it’s clear I need to leave them be for just a little bit.  That my list is somewhat in flux doesn’t help.  I’ve needed to read the Killzone rules for several months, now: I have no doubt that’ll give me the ability vent some creativity on new minis without committing to 2,000 points of them.

I think the new Dark Eldar minis look very nice.  What’s interesting is that they very, very much make me want to do Necrons.  I look at them and I know, in my soul, that when they update Necrons I’ll be buying in.

Gaming

My buddy Mike is in town from sunny California this week, so we’ll throw down the Skaven vs. Druchii matchup we’ve been rocking since the mid-90’s this weekend.

In November, one of our members (Scott) will be running a 40K Escalation League.  I’m pretty excited about this: I love escalation leagues.  They’re a fantastic opportunity to start a new army, and they do a magnificent job of illustrating how the game plays at different point levels.  It’s going to give two of my non-wargaming, close friends who’ve been sloooooowly ramping up to play 40K over the past year a solid motivation to actually finish assembling dudes and putting them on the table to die for the Emperor.

I won’t be starting a new army.  I don’t feel it.  I’m still waffling over whether I’ll update my Dark Angels to be green Space Marines or if I’ll continue using my Khornate Daemons.  (I’m leaning heavily towards the Daemons, because I don’t feel like I’m “done” with them yet.)  It’s a little sad: one of the local stores is running a 20% off everything in stock sale (more on that in a later post), so I feel like I should pick up a new army… but I just can’t bring myself to do it.

The escalation league also means I’ll be tabling Fantasy for a few months.  I’m okay with that, because I still feel like I just don’t know what I’m doing when I play it… and I love me some 40K.

Hobby Blog Bankruptcy

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I’ve been offline here for a bit, for a few reasons… most of which have also kept me from keeping up with my RSS reader, Twitter, etc.

I plan to get back into the swing of things (both posting and reading), but I’m declaring hobby blog bankruptcy for the past two weeks.  If it was written in the past two weeks, and I haven’t read it, I officially missed it.

Topics I plan to touch on in the near term:

  • One of the IFL’s stores is moving to a newer, smaller, less gaming-friendly location.
  • I’m running a different kind of Skaven list
  • Hobby progress tracking via spreadsheet
  • Heralds of Khorne in chariots.

Hobby Progress – 20100922

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My slog through painting Clanrats & Slaves has bogged down pretty thoroughly.  Work and a pleasant upswing in tabletop gaming haven’t helped, either.

Here’s where I’m at on Batch #5:

The flesh is the really tedious part, so once I sit down with them again, they should cruise along pretty quickly.

I did find the time and motivation to finish constructing my second Herald of Khorne.  I’m telling myself that as soon as I’m done with Batch #5, I’ll paint these up.  I probably shouldn’t wait, though.

Finally, an eBay’d bitz order that I’d forgotten placing (and had gotten lost in the mail) turned up with some Stormboy bitz.  So, I started fiddling with them.  The result: DOOMROCKET.

The real tragedy is that I’d really like to trick out and convert up the mini.  It’s a Hero, after all, and I’ve got a ton of random bitz… no excuse to have him looking unique.  Except that the model is so detailed… there’s really not much I can do with it.

A Few Games of 40K

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This has been a good couple of days for 40K.

Saturday

On Saturday, I braved the drive up to Germantown to help test drive MVB’s NoVApocalypse format (the drive up was surprisingly easy; the drive back considerably less so).

I was paired up with Dameon Green who was running his Thousand Sons. His list looked something like:

HQ
Daemon Prince – Wings, Mark of Tzeentch
Daemon Prince – Wings, Mark of Tzeentch
Summoned Greater Daemon

Elites
Dreadnought – DCCWx2
Dreadnought – DCCWx2
Dreadnought – DCCWx2

Troops
Chaos Space Marines x5 – Aspiring Champion, Combi-melta, Melta
– Rhino
Chaos Space Marines x5 – Aspiring Champion, Combi-melta, Melta
– Rhino

Heavy Support
Defiler
Defiler
Obliterators x2

After some brief discussion about what he was bringing and the two lists I’d been considering, we decided I should play the following (the list I’d been considering last week):

HQ
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might

Troops
Bloodletters x8 – Fury
Bloodletters x8 – Fury

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne

So, basically, we were a pair of jerks running seven monstrous creatures and five close-combat walkers in a combined 3,000 points.

Game 1

Our first game was against Kevin Comer and David Gonzales.  Kevin was running a sharp looking Vostroyan First-born Imperial Guard list that was, basically, a lot of chimeras and three Leman Russ Demolishers.  David was running Dark Angels: terminators, predators, a dreadnought and some mechanized tactical marines.

There were two scenarios in play.  The first was to capture the three objectives running down the center of the board; only Dameon and Kevin’s units were able to do that.  Meanwhile, five of my units (both Bloodletters, both Flesh Hounds and one of the Princes) and five of David’s units (both Terminators, both Predators and the Dreadnought) produced Kill Points.

I had some odd scatters, which meant the game was mostly Dameon’s 1,500 points doing kind of an unreasonably good job defeating their 3,000 points (while my daemons popped in on the other side of the table).

Mid-game, my guys started getting more involved, and the tide started to turn.  Ultimately, we ended up tabling them (Kevin’s Lord Commissar wasn’t quite able to survive a fistfight with Dameon’s Greater Daemon).

This was a well-fought game, and our opponents were really great guys.

Game 2 

The second game of the day was considerably more intimidating: we were matched up against Joe O’Malley and Mark Aksel: Joe was running, basically, nothing but Blood Angel Rhino chassis and Mark was running Space Wolves.

Two scenarios, again: The first scenario was a tough one: non-vehicle models could “plant a flag” on one of four hills.  They only got one flag to plant per unit, and started accruing points for each round they remained on this hill after planting the flag.  Killing a unit that had planted a flag would produce the number of points that unit had generated -1.  The second scenario was controlling an objective in the center of the table.

I’m not kidding when I say they had a lot of armor on the table: Joe had eight ten Rhino chassis (three Predators, three Baal Predators and four Rhinos) and Mark had three six (three Razorbacks and three Vindicators); armor’s something I have trouble with.  Monstrous Creatures wreck armor, but it’s a poverty when a WS 10 Bloodthirster is hitting on 4’s (or 6’s).  Then, Chaos was fickle and sent me the wrong wave to start with.

I ended up camping out the Bloodletters in the ruins (not bunkers) near the objective and sending the Flesh Hounds into the parking lot.  The Bloodthirsters and Daemon Princes trickled in.

One of the Flesh Hound units was obliterated on the first turn; the second unit went after the Baals; trashing one and putting a serious hurt on the others.  One of the Bloodthirsters chewed his way through the Wolf Lords.  The Bloodletters did nothing, except hide in cover and wait to claim the objective.

Mark sent his Lone Wolves to plant flags and Joe had a Rhino Immobilize itself on a hill early on, so the squad riding in it planted their flag, as well.  Because of the unfortunate Daemonic Assault roll, we were never in a position to really drop flags. Because of our low number of units (actually, I wouldn’t say it was all that low, but theirs was so high), we wouldn’t have been able to sit around on the flags even if we’d been able to… so we conceded that scenario early on.

It looked like we might be able to pull off a tie, holding down the center objective, but an overly aggressive move with the Chaos Marines and their Rhinos exposed it to our opponents.  Even after six turns of what was a knock-down, drag-out fight, they were able to get enough models onto the objective to contest it.

Again, our opponents were great guys and put up a very tough, fun game.

It was a long day, but it was absolutely a really good day of gaming.

(Pictures are MVB‘s)

Tuesday

I met up with Austin to take a run at his newly-completed 23rd Necromundan Ash Waste Guard.

I’d realized, while waiting around for him to show up, that I hadn’t actually written a list for the day.  I dug through my bag, found one, and tweaked it a bit with the results of some lessons learned.  I ran:

HQ
Bloodthirster
Bloodthirster

Elites
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury, Icon, Instrument
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury, Icon, Instrument

Troops
Bloodletters x8 – Fury
Bloodletters x8 – Fury

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury

Heavy Support
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne
Daemon Prince – Daemonic Flight, Iron Hide, Mark of Khorne

He ran something like:

HQ
Company Command Squad – Plasmagun x2, Lascannon
– Chimera – Heavy Flamer
Company Command Squad – Meltagun x2, Lascannon

Elites
Psyker Battle Squad x10
– Chimera

Troops
Infantry Platoon
– Command Squad – Flamer x2, Meltagun x2
– Infantry Squads x40 – Commissar, Power Weapon x3, Lascannon x3
Veteran Squad – Plasmagun x3, Powerfist
– Chimera

Heavy Support
Leman Russ Squad – Exerminator x1, Vanquisher x1
Leman Russ Squad – Battle Tank x1, Executioner x1
Colossus x1

The above is certainly not accurate; I’m pretty sure he had more Chimerae, but it’s the gist.

We rolled up Seize Ground (3 objectives) with Spearhead Deployment.

Didn’t get the wave I wanted, but Austin insisted that I take it anyway.

Bloodthirsters came in first, followed by the Daemon Princes (hoping to get cover from the ‘Thirsters) and a unit of Bloodcrushers to provide an icon for the rest of the army.

By the end of the first turn, I’d lost a Bloothirster and, if I recall correctly, one of the Daemon Princes.  Then, the Flesh Hounds and one of the units of Bloodletters came in while the monstrous creatures that survived the initial salvo advanced and started slaughtering anything they could get their axes into.

The surviving Bloodthirster was a little too successful and too frightening in slaughtering Guardsmen: his opponents ran away, leaving him to suck up all the fire from the blob of infantry.  He didn’t last… the squad that ran away rallied, however.  I’d gotten down to one Daemon Prince, who started banging on tanks and then the Colossus.

The Flesh Hounds charged into the blob of infantry: miraculously, enough survived to kill a bunch of Guardsmen and win combat. Later, the surviving Daemon Prince, and a squad of Bloodletters joined them to wrap the squad up.  The first squad of Bloodcrushers was extremely intimidating… but fell in combat to a very tough squad of Vostroyans.

The game ended on Turn 5: just in time for my Bloodletters to kill the last of his Infantry Platoon and consolidate onto the objective (and behind the Daemon Prince for a bit of cover) while the late-arriving Bloodcrushers ran into range to contest one, maybe (but probably not) both of the other objectives (neither of which were actually held at the time).  Had the game pushed into Turn 6, it’s a tough call to say whether or not he’d have been able to eliminate my Bloodletters (my guess is yes) but it’s unlikely he’d have been able to push off my Bloodcrushers… so it would probably have been a draw.

As always, a great game with Austin.

Hobby Status – 20100910

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It’s been a week and a half since I last posted…. not too much going on, ’round here.

I haven’t been able to keep up my soul-crushingly-slow-but-totally-reasonable 10 Clanrats/Skavenslaves per week pace; too much other stuff going on (four days out of town for Labor Day weekend don’t help, for example).  I’ve made peace with that, though.

I did varnish 10 more Slaves, however, which puts me at 40 painted Clanrats/Skavenlaves (which is just shy of 50% of where I need to be) and at one full Skavenslave block.

That’s a milestone.  So, I took some pictures!

Of course, I’m making it sound like I haven’t been doing hardly anything, which is verifiably untrue.  Between all the Skaven I painted last month (31 figures) and all the terrain I built (8 pieces), I clocked 71 painting points last month.  That means August was easily my most productive month, by quite a bit.  (I log all of this stuff, a subject that really deserves its own post, I suppose.)

So, really then: go me.

Other than that:

I’ve been playing a game a week in our 8th Edition “Learn the New System” League.  I’ve lost dang near every game.  This means I really need to go back and reread everything Rhellion has posted about his Skaven to figure out what he’s doing that I’m not (besides winning with his Skaven).

I’ll be heading up to Germantown (ick) tomorrow to help playtest the NoVApocalypse format.  I’m looking forward to it: should be both interesting and laid back.  Also, I haven’t played 40K since the Whiskey Challenge the night before the Open, so that’ll be good.  I’ll be rocking the Khornate Daemons. My list isn’t completely finalized, but I imagine it’ll be something extremely like:

MAXIMUM KHORNAGE – NoVApocalypse
Daemons of Khorne – 1,500 points

HQ
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might
Bloodthirster – Unholy Might

Elites
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury, Icon, Instrument
Bloodcrushers x4 – Fury, Icon, Instrument

Troops
Bloodletters x8 – Fury
Bloodletters x8 – Fury

Fast Attack
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury
Flesh Hounds x8 – Fury

I’ve got 24 points left over, so I’m sure I’ll find a use for them.  Or I could swap out the Bloodcrushers for Daemon Princes or something.  I dunno.  It’s tricky to do a 1,500 point list (which is why I like the format, I think). Not thinking too hard about the list, though.

I’ll be skipping out on the 8th Edition League tournament: this past weekend really kicked my butt and I’m already committed to the NoVApocalypse thing… so I’ve got to find a weekend off somewhere.

Random Update

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I’ve been quiet here for the past weeks or so; mostly because I haven’t had much to say.  Instead, I offer you: a monkey riding a goat.

There were a lot of good suggestions re: the number-crunching dump from last week… though I’m not likely to implement any of them.  My spreadsheet-fu isn’t up to the additional levels of calculation required.  I might try throwing it together in a program (since that’s sort of my thing, professionally), I might not.  It’s annoying that I’m a .NET developer by trade, but have a Unix-based webhost for personal use; so sharing anything might be a bit tricky.

I’ve been painting quite a bit: I banged out six Stormvermin what seems ages ago.  Also, I painted another ten Slaves, got started on an additional set of ten, and assembled another ten Clanrats.  I’m trying to stage this stuff to keep things interesting.

Haven’t taken pictures because… my Stormvermin look like my Stormvermin (only based with grey and not grass) and my Slaves look like my Slaves.  Nothing really new to share.

Slightly disappointed by the lack of response to the terrain I built.  I’m quite pleased with it: finally got to pop the cherry on it last Tuesday (and the water features had an enormous impact on the game).  Someone commented that it “looked like tournament terrain.”  I’m sure it was meant as a compliment, so I’m happy to take it as such.

I picked up Space Hulk: Death Angel at Games Day.  Late last week, I muddled through a solitaire game, trying to get a feel for how it played.  The game got considerably more brutal every time I got a better grasp on a rule.  No joke: the terminators were obliterating Genestealers as they came on, preventing any of them from having the chance to attack.  As soon as some got through, though, it was a dead terminator a round.  I’m looking forward to playing it with other people, as I expect the game will be even more difficult.  Should be fun.

Skaven Number Crunching

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(This post was originally titled, “The case against ‘Horde.'”  That’s because, initially, I wasn’t convinced that deploying units in a Horde is the way to go.  I haven’t really run them, but my gut reaction has been that while, yes, they throw out a few more attacks, they do so at the cost of significantly increased points, as well as reduced ranks (and, therefore, Steadfast).

Also, since I started writing this, I’ve been talking with Torpored in the comments thread on one of Stahly’s posts.  (Are you following Stahly?  You should be.  He paints some beautiful stuff.)

I’m going to go ahead and begin by articulating the arguments against the Horde, then I’ll meander into the Mathhammer I’ve been working with.  Remember: Mathhammer the end-all, be-all, but it’s a good foundation on which to build reasonable expectations. (It’s also significant to note here, that this is incomplete/bad Mathhammer: it’s just straight odds, without accounting for the more nuanced statistical analysis I’m not really built for.))

Less Maneuverable

This is probably the most obvious problem.

Units, as a whole, are more maneuverable in 8th: what with marching made easier and charges greatly sped up and simplified.  Despite this, steering a unit 200mm (or a 250mm) wide unit is hard.  For example, unless you’re Mv 6, you cannot wheel 90° in a single turn.   The guy on the far end of the unit has to travel well over 12″ (nearly 15.5″) to get around.

I also find myself constantly getting in traffic jams, with units getting in other units’ ways.  Doubling the size of a block is only going to make that messier.

More Expensive

I’m a Skaven player.  I’m used to running things in big blocks of 25-30; that’s because I need the 5-6 ranks for Leadership, for Combat Resolution and for Steadfast.  Running in a horde doesn’t change that fact: I still need 5-6 ranks.  Except, in a horde, those ranks are twice as big, which means my unit costs nearly twice as much.

We’re talking turning a 151 point Clanrat unit into a 290 point unit.  That’s still cheap compared to a lot of armies, but we’re losing a banner (and Fortitude) and a unit to scoot around and flank with in exchange for a huge block of rats.

Not As Killy As You Might Think

So, I ran some numbers.  Assumptions made were:

  • I’m talking things vs. Skaven units.  That’s what I care about.
  • There would be enough models on both sides to claim full CR for ranks
  • There would be enough models on both sides for the unit to make its maximum number of attacks
  • The horded-up unit would get 7 files involved, rather than all 10, against a unit 5-wide
  • I ignore things like Hatred and the Always Strikes First reroll.  It’d complicate the formulae, making it harder to cut-and-paste.  Plus, these numbers are going to show things being fairly dire for the Skaven anyway.  They don’t need the help.
  • Both units have as full a command as possible (so, a champ with +1A and a standard where available)

That last one bears some explanation.  Against poorer troops, the Skaven should win.  Increasing frontage will only help with that.  Against the same troops, of course having more models will make a difference.  The real question is, “Will a Horde formation help my Skaven perform against better enemy troops.”  In that case, increasing the number of Skaven files striking will increase the number of non-Skaven files striking back and, because they’re better troops, having more of them striking back won’t make things any better.

So, 7 Skaven on 5 non-Skaven, stronger troops is about as optimal as we can hope for.  If things look bad here, they can only get worse.

I’m also looking at straight odds.  Statistics are far more nuanced than that, sure, but I’m lazy… and I think the straight odds are sufficient.

Initially, I plugged in Dark Elf Warriors (with Shields) and Chaos Warriors (with Halberds), both units I can expect to see, often.  The former should be marginally better (crap, I just realized I forgot to account for Hatred) with a higher WS.  The latter is inarguably better.  Higher WS, S, T, more attacks and a better save. Then, later, I added some other basic infantry, to see how they compare.

Anyway, the numbers:

This table shows the Combat Resolution (CR) difference, from the Skaven perspective, putting aside any other factors besides Static CR and wounds.  (No, no Charge / Flank / Rear / Height bonus.).  So, when the table says “Clanrats: Normal x Dark Elf Warrors w/ Spears = -0.67,” that means that the Clanrats should, by flat averages, lose that combat by about 2/3rds of a point. (Remember the assumptions, though.)


What does this tell us?

For starters: Stay away the hell from Chaos Warriors. For reals. They will wreck your ratty face off.

Spears do make a difference, sorta.  For clanrats, the increased attacks do offset the increased losses resulting from the lack of a Shield armor & ward save, which is surprising to me. You’re still losing more rats, but it works out for the better.

For slaves, it’s just more dead rats.

Horde also makes a difference.  But that doesn’t surprise me.  Of course more models attacking (11, really: 2 additional per rank, plus the extra rank) will make a difference.  But how much of a difference?  And is it worth it?

As far as how much of a difference: it depends.  In general, not very much.  About 1-4 points of CR… 4 CR is kind of a lot.  1… isn’t as much.  The tougher the opponent unit is, the smaller the difference is.  The better the Skaven unit is, the larger… but that shouldn’t surprise anyone.

How much are you paying for it, though?

The following table assumes that a non-Horde unit is 30 models strong and a Horde unit is 50 models strong, which seems reasonable.


Man, I don’t even think “Average” is relevant; not without including every unit in the game… and, possibly, without weighting those units by prevalence.  Clearly, this is evidence that I’m just screwing around with numbers and should walk. away.

I’m not even sure where I stand on my initial thesis.  Horde is expensive, not particularly super-killy, and less maneuverable, but it is somewhat more killy than nothing and ultimately (thanks to combat reforms and Steadfast) somewhat more resilient.  Since I’m not even sure where I’m going with this, I probably should just delete this post and pretend it never happened, but it’d be a shame to throw this work away.

So, anyone have any thoughts?

Cavern Table

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I finished this up about a week and a half ago, but I haven’t had the chance to take pictures of it until now.  (Actually, I snuck into work a mite early so I could set it up in a conference room and take pictures; the lighting in here, while a bit harsh, is probably the most thorough I’m going to get.)

I was really inspired by the Skaven vs. Dwarfs picture near the back of the new Warhammer rulebook.  They’re stabbing it out beneath the mountains of the Old World.  It’s clearly inspired how I’ve been basing my new rats (and slowly re-basing my existing ones).

Also, I’ve had a problem where I’ve lacked good, game-able Fantasy terrain… so I caught the bug to do a table’s worth of “cave” terrain.

There’s a lot of room for improvement here, I think, but it’s a solid start.  I can totally play on all of of this, now, and come back and revise/replace/supplement when I’m not so woefully behind on painting Skaven.

The table consists of:

  • 2x Hills
  • 2x Water Features
  • 2x Stalamite “Forests”
  • 1x Ruin
  • 1x Warpstone Boulder
  • 2x Walls

So, 10 terrain pieces, total.

All are painted the same way I paint my bases: airbrushed on Cryx Bane Base, Cryx Bane Highlight  heavy drybrush, Hammerfall Khaki drybrush.  In the case of terrain that’s styrofoam, I airbrushed on a charcoal craft paint: styrofoam is thirsty, and I’d rather have to suck up cheapie paint rather than P3 paint that I really should know better than to use on terrain.

For stone features, it’s painted the same way we painted the Rapid Fire terrain: Delta Charcoal airbrushed with a heavy drybrush of Delta Hippo Grey and a light drybrush of Delta Rain Grey (or was that Quaker Grey?).

Anyway, in case you haven’t noticed; it only takes three colors and very little time to get some really sharp looking terrain painted up.

All of the texture here comes from ballast glued down with watered-down wood glue which is then sprayed down with more watered-down wood glue.  Basically, it shouldn’t be going anywhere.

The Actual Terrain

These hills are basically the same type of hill Casey and I (and several others) ground out sweatshop-style for Rapid Fire last year.  They’re extremely playable: there’s not a lot of slope, which can be a problem.  I’m not thrilled with how they look (because there appears to be an inverse relationship between appearance and practicality when it comes to hills), so I might replace them with something else (maybe even the Citadel Hills) down the line.

I’ve had a bottle of Water Effects for years, unused (except a little on my Khornate display board), and the Mysterious Terrain rules are something I can’t even dream of trying to avoid… so I needed some water features.
 I cut some MDF with a 45° angle.  Then I built up a lip around the edges of the shape with drywall putty.  I reinforced the putty with a wood glue/water mix and glued down the ballast.  Once painted, I applied the water effects.  
The first feature got little putty “islands” which worked out quite well, I think.  The second one got way too much water effects.  Lesson learned: a few, thin layers goes far enough.  Too much and that stuff stays soft. 
These can either be used as “Rivers” (getting a roll on the terrain) or Marshland.
Speaking of Mysterious Terrain: I’ve got to have “woods,” if only because one of my friends runs a Wood Elf army.   I thought about doing a mushroom forest or something, but 1) mushrooms are disgusting and 2) stalamites were way easier.
The bases are shaped based on the base of the Citadel Woods, with areas for stalagmites where trees would go.  The stalagmites are just pink foam cut and textured with a wire cutter and weighted with nails in the bottom.  If I had to do it again (and I probably will), I’d mount the stalagmites to either bases or wooden disks: something to give them more stability and make the overall result a little more professional looking.
Anyway, the plan is to use these as Forests.
I’ve had parts of an Arcane Ruins set left over from my display board… and I can only have so many forests on the table.  So, I built a ruins feature.  Not the best, I’ll admit, but it’s playable terrain: the menhir aren’t attached to the base, and they’ve got spots indicating where they need to be returned to.
Sensing a theme here?  I want terrain that looks good, but that I can play with.  Nothing makes me crazier than terrain that looks good but makes actually playing the game on/around it miserable.
We can use this for any number of Arcane Architecture types.
Finally, I needed something to use as a Mystical Monument: a couple of weeks ago, we used a 6″x8″ graveyard as an Idol of Gork (or Possibly Mork) (don’t ask) and it was a disaster: these things are supposed to be much smaller.  So, I made a very large hunk of Warpstone that can stand-in for any of those (or use the Warpstone rules from one of the battle reports in the rules).
That put me at eight terrain pieces, which isn’t quite enough.  So, I ordered a pack of the pre-painted Pegaus Stone Wall (Round) walls: I figure three of them can count as an Obstacle when Placing terrain.  (Or two, if that turns out to be too much.)  They’re pre-painted, and showed up Friday, so I haven’t had the chance to do much with them.  I dislike the color, though, so I’m almost certain to clean up their mold lines and repaint them to match the other pieces of stone.
What’s Next
As I’ve said, there’s a lot of room for improvement here:
I can redo the stalagmites and put them on some bases.
I can replace the hills with something less playable but looks sharper.
I could make the Warpstone look more convincing.
I could do better, spookier looking ruins.
I’ve got plans to build some towers; that’s the real lack here.  I’ve got thoughts that involve beating up on a Bastion so it looks like it’s a Dwarven fastness hewn into the side of some stalagmites (and, even better, a Dwarven fastness hewn into the side of some stalagmites that’s been overtaken and befouled by Skaven).  (Maybe one of each.)
All of that will have to wait, though, since I’ve got a LOT of Skaven to paint.  This’ll get me by until I’m not as buried under Clanrats and Skavenslaves.

Games Day 2010 – Loot

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I didn’t spend too much at this year’s Games Day.  That’s probably for the best: I know I went out of control at my first one. :)

I did walk around Dan and Mrs. Abnett to pick up Blood Pact before things opened up.  I smiled at him, and still feel a little weird about not saying anything to them but… he was off the clock.  Given that he was going to spend the next eight hours talking to fans, the last thing he needed was another one starting the day off early.  He’s too nice a guy to have to deal with me that early in the morning.

The Fantasy Flight games booth’s presence was a very good thing.  It gave me the chance to snap up a couple of things I’d been looking forward to picking up: Deathwatch and Death Angel.
I hadn’t planned on picking up any resin, but impulse motivated me to ask fellow IFL’r Jeff P. to snag this year’s Forgeworld Games Day mini for me while he was going back through the Forgeworld line.

When I was on my way back from the bathroom, they announced they were selling Stompas for 50%.  I don’t need a Stompa: I don’t play Orks and I don’t really play games that involve superheavies… but I was right there and, for $50, I’m sure I can find something to do with a Stompa.  So, I snapped it up (and did so before they started making people WAAAGH for them… that’s how I really won).

Finally, we had some blisters left over from the Rapid Fire prize-support, and GW didn’t want them back.  So, we all picked out some: I kept some random minis that look like fun to paint (particularly excited about painted up the goblins), as well as a couple of Skaven minis.  Everything else is going to go into a bag and get auctioned off at the next Battle for the Cure auction as a Bag of Games Day Crap.

Games Day 2010 – Rapid Fire

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As I mentioned, the Iron Fist League ran Rapid Fire again at Games Day.  We were pretty hard to miss: smack dab in the middle of the convention floor, across from the store.

Setup
Setup on Friday went down quite smoothly: completely done in about three and a half hours.  I attribute this to Doug McN’s somewhat psychotic organization of terrain: he showed up with a truck full of terrain, all broken out by theme and table: two 4×4 tables per drawer.

After that, it was off to the Wharf Rat Oliver’s Pratt Street Alehouse with the IFL and WNPG guys to wait out traffic before heading home

Turnout
I’m still waiting on the result spreadsheets but I can speak, roughly, about how active it was.  Last year was insanely successful.  This year, we were still successful but less so.

Last year: there were no open gaming tables; while that was a mistake on GW’s part, we certainly profited from it… if you wanted to game at last year’s Games Day, you had to do it through Rapid Fire.  This year, they had open gaming and, it seemed to me, there were more club tables offering it as well.

Also, we had more tables than we did last year… plus, they put the 40K and Fantasy tables next to each other, which was great since it let us shift tables to the system that needed it most (40K).

So, turnout wasn’t as out of control as it was last year but most of our tables were occupied, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

For 40K, we had about 2/3rd’s the players.  Fantasy, surprisingly, was nearly dead.  It was much more active last year; we had barely more than ten players.

Prizes
I’d been concerned that we’d forgotten to talk to Game Vault, who’d very generously given us prize support last year, about prize support this year.

I had no need for concern, though, as Games Workshop hurled stuff at us to give away:

  • Warhammer 40K Battle Points: Killa Kans & Deff Dread
  • Warhammer 40K Longest Winning Streak: Chaos Predator
  • Warhammer Battle Points: Beastman Battalion
  • Warhammer Longest Winning Streak: Warhammer 8th Gamer’s Edition (minus the book)

They also gave us, literally, an entire box of blisters to give away.  So, we did: anyone who won three games in a row got a blister.  At one point, we had a guy waiting kind of an unreasonably long time for a game of Fantasy: we gave him a couple of blisters as a thanks-for-your-patience.