Tag Archives: Warhammer

Rats for the Cure 2013

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Rats for the Cure Banner

Somehow, I missed that this year’s Battle for the Cure was scheduled for April 6 until just a few days ago.

It’s something that I look forward to every year, so I signed up and immediately got a bug up my ass about painting something new for it.

I’m a long way away from having a pink unit, much less a pink army, but a new model’s certainly progress, right?

Anyway, I’ve had the BaneLords Blunt-Claw model in my bits tub for a while, so I pulled him out, put him together, stuck a Bloodletter banner on him. Nothing fancy at all.

Rats for the Cure Warlord 1

Rats for the Cure Warlord 2

Rats for the Cure Warlord 4

Rats for the Cure Warlord 3

Hadn’t really thought through that it’d be basically a fat, gross naked mole-rat, but it is what it is.

I’m quite pleased with how the freehand on the banner came out. That’s probably the best freehand I’ve managed yet.

2013-03-31 16.51.53

20120714 CGL RTT

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Have I seriously not posted about the tournament last weekend? Time to fix that!

Last weekend was a CGL RTT: one of our members was going in for hip replacement a couple of days later (I had mentioned that our club is generally a somewhat older crowd, right?), so the goal was to cram in a bunch of games before he had to be off his feet for several months.

It as a 2,800 point tournament, and folks could spend up to 25% of their points on Scrolls of Binding. While I didn’t do this (the only thing I could really do with that would be to run the Fimir, and I’ve found him to be a disappointment), several folks did: I saw some stuff from both Storm of Magic and Monstrous Arcanum on tables. I reallylike this in the context of a local RTT: it gives space for folks to play with goofy, neat stuff like that and really doesn’t seem to be all that unbalancing.

This was a week ago, so details will likely be a smidge fuzzy.

I waffled about whether or not to take Empire or Skaven: I’m playing the former, but the latter is fully painted. In the end, I decided to run the Skaven: a tournament’s a tournament after all. It was, I think, the right choice.

2,800 – Skaven RTT List

Lords
Warlord (General) – War-Litter, Shield
Grey Seer – Ruin, Dispel Scroll, Talisman of Endurance
Grey Seer – Plague, Foul Pendant

Heroes
Chieftain (BSB) – Shield, Armour of Destiny
Plague Priest – Flail, Plague Furnace
Warlock Engineer – Doomrocket

Core
Clanrats x32 – Full Command, Shields
– Warpfire Thrower
Skavenslaves – Champion, Musician, Shields
Stormvermin x27 – Full Command, Stormbanner
– Warpfire Thrower

Special
Plague Monks x26 – Full Command, Plague Banner
Gutter Runners x6 – Slings, Poison
Gutter Runners x6 – Slings, Poison

Rare
Hell Pit Abomination – Warpstone Spikes
Plagueclaw Catapult
Warp Lightning Cannon
Warp Lightning Cannon

So, nothing terribly unusual for me, save for the second Grey Seer, the Catapult, and the swapping of Mortars for Warpfire Throwers (and I’ve already talked about those).

Game 1

Minor Loss vs. Phil’s Tomb Kings

Phil, as it turns out, lives nearby: on the other side of Manassas (in NoVA terms, that’s effectively next door). Given that we had a great game, I probably should try to roll dice with him more often. (This is a theme for the day).

He was running a monster-heavy list (Tombzilla? Sphinxilla?), and with so many enormously big bastards and such high Toughness scores… I just couldn’t break through it all.

2,800 – Phil’s Tomb Kings

Lords
Khatep (General)

Heroes
Liche Priest – Lvl 2, Dispel Scroll

Core
Archers x22 – Standard
Chariots x3
Chariots x7 – Standard

Special
Tomb Guard x37 – Champion, Standard, Halberds
Warsphinx – Breath Weapon
Warsphinx
Warsphinx

Rare
Caset of Souls
Hierotitan

Neither of us play very quickly, so we wrapped at Turn 3. It’s tough to say where the game would have been had we pushed on through Turn 4.

The key turning point in the game was when my Hellpit Abomination had rolled into his Tomb Guard to the front and stuck around; one of his Warsphinxes moved forward and stood on their flank… exposing its flank to the Plague Monks. The Monks charged it and, if they’d been able to beat it in combat, they’d have rolled forward into the Tomb Guard, gotten two combats in with their Plague Banner, and put Khatep in base-to-base combat with the Plague Priest. If I’d won that combat, man, I’d have gotten a very solid win.

It wasn’t to be: I don’t care how many attacks, rerolling to hit and wound… if you’re not able to successfully cast Bless with Filth on ’em, you’re going to have some trouble getting through T8. In hindsight, I should have gone for the Irresistible Force on it; that’s how key it was. Instead of blowing through the Spinx, the Plague Monks did some damage… but then took flank and rear charges from the two units of Chariots.

Game 2

Massacre vs. Bill’s High Elves

2,800 – Bill’s High Elves

Lords
Teclis

Heroes
Noble (BSB) – Great Weapon, Armour of Destiny

Core
Archers x14 – Musician
Lothern Sea Guard x40 – Full Command, Shields, Banner of Eternal Flame

Special
Phoenix Guard x30 – Full Command, Warrior Bane, Banner of Sorcery
Swordmasters of Hoeth x25 – Full Command, Ironcurse Icon, Gleaming Pennant

Rare
Great Eagle
Great Eagle

Scrolls of Binding
Great Dragon

Second game was against the Man of the Hour… and I felt pretty bad about it.

I went first and, before he had the chance to do anything, I’d Gutter Runner’d his Eagles to bits and used both Warp-Lighting Cannons to pop his Dragon. It goes without saying that this was a big deal. IIRC, due to deployment, I was actually even able to kill something like half of his Swordmasters with Warpfire Throwers, as well.

The scenario was a variant of The Watchtower, and although Bill started in control of it, I was able to (on a number of occasions), Curse of the Horned Rat the Elves occupying it… eventually converting Teclis into a loathsome ratman.

Bills only real defense was to spam Final Transmutation, which was effective in killing a lot of models (but not units) and making me really nervous about my characters (though he only managed to tag my Warlord after several tries).

In the end, I tabled him… and even though nobody likes getting tabled, I’m reasonably certain I made the process as pleasant as possible.

Game 3

Minor Win vs. Cody’s Orc’s & Goblins

I don’t have a copy of Cody’s list to post… and I was a bit preoccupied through the game, so I can’t recreate his list. It was a fairly standard O&G list: deep units of Night Goblins with Fanatics, some Mangler Squigs, a bunch of Doom Divers and Bolt Throwers; he also ran three Snotling Pump Wagons and an Ettin from Monstrous Arcanum.

Before the game started, I started to feel bad. GPC has some serious air conditioning issues over by the mini gaming tables; they have for years, and it’s persisted even after they fixed their AC system. The main source of this problem isn’t a bunch of gamers: it’s that there’s a kitchen restauant on the other side of the wall on the far side of the tables… the wall I stood next to all day long.

At first, I thought it might have been something from lunch… but in hindsight, I’m quite convinced it was heat exhaution: vertigo, nausea, headache, and a mad dash to the bathroom. Mark, who’s both a gentleman and a scholar, ran out to K-Mart to game some Pepto for me. It was not cool.

I figured I’d worked through most everything, came out and threw down.

Despite feeling pretty terrible, and worrying through the whole game about whether or not I’d have to run back to the bathroom, I didhave a good game; I’m not sure if I’ve played Cody before, and that’s a shame. There was a lot of back-and-forth but, by the end of things, I pulled out a Minor Win. Had we pushed on a bit farther, I think I was positioned to widen that lead, but there weren’t any huge, drastic events. (Like I said, I was preoccupied.)

Conclusion

Overall, despite getting sick near the end (which also knocked me out for Sunday), I had a great time! I had three fun games against folks I don’t normally get to play against, and that’s always a good thing. It’s something I really need to make of point of doing more of: it’s a big group ’round these parts, but I end up just playing against the same handful of folks… I need to broaden my horizons.

Anyway, between the VPs from tabling Bill and points from Players’ Choice votes (thanks, folks!), I ended up coming in second place overall (woot!).

Here are some other pictures of some of the really great armies I didn’t get to play against:

A Demigryph, FINALLY!

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If you look at my Hobby Status log, things are grim.  Nothing since April.  Pathetic.

That’s not to say that I haven’t been doing anything at all: I just haven’t been sealing the deal.  Not finishing anything.

And, technically, I suppose I still haven’t (that Daemon Prince assembly doesn’t really count, does it?), since I haven’t touched this sucker’s rider… but he’s negligibly easy.  As in the game, the rider’s hardly the point. :)

Anyway, I’ve been jammed up on finishing this test model for the Demigryphs.  I’ve been trying to make sure I’m happy with the paint scheme before I commit to painting another three of these guys.  It had been my hope to enter these guys in the Golden Daemon later this month, but I’m not sure if I’ll have them done in time.  It’s possible, but not likely.

Anyway, since I’m doing something of a a maritime-themed army, I wanted to paint these guys like the were sea creatures.  So, instead of a lion, I went with a seal.  Instead of an eagle, I went for a seagull.

I’m not sure I was effective with the the seagull side of things, but at the same time, I think adding those dark patches to the head would muddy things.

These guys are elite members of the Sons of Manann, hence the turquiose and white armour.  (Mrs. Rushputin: “I thought your Empire guys were blue…”)

Fun fact: I’ve said before that I’m doing zenithal highlighting on this army (and I’ve also said that I probably slap enough paint on these models to defeat the point).  Well, it’s even more stupid and pointless to do on these guys: the point of zenithal highlighting is to make the top lighter than the bottom, but the coloration of seals is deliberately the opposite: they want to look lighter from beneath and darker from above.  So, that means more thin layers of paint all around.  Good times.
I don’t think I’m going to bother with the rider just yet: I’m crackin’ on getting the other three birds painted up and then I’ll knock out all of the riders.
(There’s also a teeny bit to clean up on this guy, but I won’t point out where.)
Since I was so excited to get varnish on this sucker, I went ahead and took a couple of glam shots of him, ’cause that’s how I do). :)

These backdrops remind me that I need to get a new one printed off for this army.  This painting of the Danish coast (which I imagine maps well to the Nordland coast) by Johan Thomas Lundbye is a big part of my inspiration for the army, so it’s what I’ll probably use.

Mantic Kickstarter

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There’s less than 8 hours left on the Mantic Kickstarter!  Now’s a really great opportunity to get a heap of minis at a really great deal!

Don’t miss out!

Arcane Fulcra!

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I’m still rattling around, unsatisfied, with a Necron paint scheme that’s fast but isn’t terrible.  At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m just not going to bother.

As a change of pace, I decided to knock out the Arcane Fulcra I put together back in July, when they came out.

Painting notes follow the picture dump.

Magewrath Throne!

Balewind Vortex!

I tried a lot of weathering here.  For the most part, I think it worked out.  There were definitely some problems with the Throne, though: the verdigris wasn’t thin enough and it definitely obscured some detail.

For what it’s worth, I tried zenithal highlighting on these guys.  I don’t think it shows, though.

Brass
– GW Bestial Brown
– GW Shining Gold
– GW Burnished Gold
– Verdigris wash

Verdigris
I mixed GW Goblin Green, VMC Light Turquoise, VMC White, water, rubbing alchol.  No good ratios… just go thin!  I brushed it on heavily and then immediately dabbed the heck out of it with tissues.  I think this bridges a good gap between verdigris-as-stuff-that-pools and verdigris-as-exposure-to-rain, which is sort of what I took away from this.

Iron
– GW Tin Bitz
– GW Boltgun Metal
– GW Mithril Silver
– Rust wash

Rust Wash
This is a mix of GW Dark Flesh, GW Blazing Orange, P3 Armor Wash and water.  Again, it’s all eyeballed here.

Natural Rock
– Ceramcoat Charcoal
– Apple Barrel Pewter Grey
– Ceramcoat Quaker Grey
– Wash: 3:2:2:1 – Water : Badab Black : Matte Medium : Devlan Mud

Carved Rock
– P3 Cryx Bane Base
– P3 Cryx Bane Highlight
– P3 Hammerfall Khaki
– Wash: 3:2:2:1 – Water : Devlan Mud : Matte Medium : Thraka Green

In case you haven’t noticed: the 3:2:2:1 wash mix is my special sauce.  It turns the wash into more of a glaze, which makes the colors its washing over richer and more interesting, and cutting the wash 2:1 one color to another produces really neat results.

Also, this is a flip-flop from how I’ve been doing terrain.  With the rest of my stuff, the Cryx-based colors are the natural colors and the more pure grey is for carved rock.

Finally: hot-damn, I’m still totally in love with the Cryx Bane Base / Cryx Bane Highlight / Khaki progression.  It’s such an interesting, natural color.

I did miss a spot while keeping wash even, though: :(

Vortex
– P3 Meridius Blue
– VMC Light Turquoise
– P3 Arcane Blue
– VMC Light Blue
– Turquoise wash

Turquoise Wash
I really need to figure out how to replicate this, because I plan on using it extensively when I revisit my Tau army.  It’s P3 Turquoise Ink, a lot of water, a lot of matte medium and a little GW Asurmen Blue.

Bone
– GW Dark Flesh
– P3 Menoth White Base
– P3 Morrow White
– GW Devlan Mud

Anyway, what do people think?

Lopsided Rear Ranks

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In pulling together a “things that drive me nuts” post, one of the items in the list was “Lopsided Rear Ranks.”  The above unit’s an example of this: the models in its rear rank aren’t centered across the unit.

When I’d see this, I’d say something like, “Come on, man; you’ve got to center your rear rank.  It matters for supporting attacks, templates, charges.  You’re just supposed to be centered.”

Well, as it turns out I was totally wrong.

Removing Casualties (pg 5)
Some of the models in a unit (probably quite a lot of them) will die as the battle progresses.  When casualties occur, models are removed from the back rank of the unit.  If the unit is reduced to a single rank, casualties must be removed evenly from either end of the line.

You only have to start keeping things centered when you’re down to a single rank; until then you can pull from wherever the heck you’d like.  So, the above formation is just fine.

I imagine that means that if you want to shift guys to the left or right (without being charged in the flank), you probably need to make a Combat Reform test, but still…

Anyway, I just learned something new and I’d been doing something wrong: of course I had to share it.

NoVA Blow-by-Blow

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The Fantasy tournament was three rounds on Saturday, two rounds on Sunday.

I showed up on Friday to check in with two different lists printed out: one without Power Scroll (as it had been previously banned) and one with it (as it has been re-allowed shortly after it was FAQ’d). I decided, as I checked in, to use the one without Power Scroll.  I think that was probably the right move (and my performance backs that up).

Ratputin Rampages!

Lords
Grey Seer – Ruin x2, Plague x2 Talisman of Preservation
Warlord – General, War-Litter, Sword of Anti-Heroes, Enchanted Shield

Heroes
Chieftain – BSB, Shield, Armor of Destiny
Plague Priest – Lvl 1, Plague Furnace, Dispel Scroll, Talisman of Protection
Warlock Engineer – Doomrocket

Core
Clanrats x29 – Full Command, Shields
– Poisoned Wind Mortar
Skavenslaves x51 – Musician, Shields
Stormvermin x20 – Full Command, Storm Banner
– Poisoned Wind Mortar

Special 
Plague Monks x31 – Full Command, Plague Banner
Gutter Runners x6 – Poison, Slings
Gutter Runners x6 – Poison, Slings

Rare
Doomwheel
Hell Pit Abomination
Warp-Lightning Cannon

Of course, it wasn’t until Game 1 that I realized I’d left the Sword of Anti-Heroes on the Warlord.  I’ve been dissatisfied with it (because he’s never in base with an enemy hero!), and had thought I’d replaced it with a simple, always-on Sword of Might… but not so.  Fortunately, I think it ended up actually making a difference in my 4th game, so I can’t complain.

Spell-wise, I didn’t rely on 13th nearly as much as I normally do: thanks to Power Scroll’s absence.  I think this actually made my game better.  It did really help out a lot in one case (hello, Grimgor), but otherwise, the few times I got it off, it didn’t do a whole lot.  That also meant that I miscast all of once all weekend.  The only spell that stood out was, when I rolled it, Wither.  That thing made a huge difference.

The Seer continued going the Slave unit: I need to break that habit so I can become more aggressive with them.  The Warlock Engineer continued going in the Clanrat unit (though, in the last game, I put him in the Plague Monk unit.. he hopped out mid-game and won me the game).  The Warlord obviously ran with the Stormvermin and, in most games, so did the BSB.  I’m not really comfortable with so much of my Leadership relying on a single (relatively small, at 20) unit… but it’s the only arrangement that really seemed to make sense in most games and it really worked out when I did it.

The Storm Banner wasn’t useful in every game (two games had zero shooting), but it really made a difference when it was.

It’s interesting to note that, out of five games, four were open lists.  I am ideologically opposed to closed lists. They are stupid.  Real games of strategy, like go and chess don’t depend on tricking your opponent: they depend on you having a stronger game.  Until Fantasy ditches this idea of using “gotchas” as a strategy, it will never be as good a game as 40k.

Anyway, the only game with the closed list was the one I lost. This has nothing to do with my ability to process my opponents’ lists: I started the weekend wholly unfamiliar with the Lizardman book and really only familiarity with the boring bullshit the one High Elf player I’ve played uses as a crutch (Phoenix Guard deathstar).  My knee-jerk reaction is to find the correlation in deception: we’ve got a local player who uses a closed list to cheat, shifting banners and characters around to best effect because his opponents aren’t able to know any better, and the game that I lost (which I’ll get to) felt off enough that I wouldn’t have surprised me… but on reviewing his list (handed over post-game), I don’t think that’s the case at all.  I think it’s just coincidence.

Game 1 vs. High Elves
Christian G.

Lords
Archmage – Lvl 4,  Shadow, Book of Hoeth
Prince – General, Great Weapon, Armor of Caledor, Vambraces of Defense

Heroes
Mage – Lvl 2, High Magic, Trickster’s Pendant
Mage – Lvl 2, High Magic, Dispel Scroll, Skeinsilver
Noble – BSB, Dragon Armor, Shield, Banner of the World Dragon

Core
Spearmen x24 – Full Command, War Banner
Spearmen x20 – Full Command
Spearmen x19 – Full Command

Special
Dragon Princes x5 – Standard, Banner of Sorcery
White Lions x29 – Full Command, Amulet of Light, Banner of Eternal Flame

This was probably the best game I had all weekend.  Christian was a fun guy to have across the table.  Clearly, he outclassed my magic, but it never hurt too bad.  I dodged most of the nasty stuff except a Flames of the Phoenix on my Skavenslaves (17 dead slaves?  whatevs!) and then on my Plague Monks.

At the end of the game, I’d managed to get everything he had off the table save for two Spearmen and his Prince… netting a Major Victory.

Game 2 vs Orcs and Goblins
Frank W.

Lords
Grimgor Ironhide – General
Savage Orc Great Shaman – Lvl 4, Lucky Shrunken Head, Sword of Striking


Heroes
Black Orc Big Boss – BSB, Armor of Destiny
Night Goblin Shaman – Lvl 2

Core
Night Goblins x49 – Full Command, Spears, Netters
Night Goblins x20 – Musician, Bows
– Fanatics x2
Night Goblins x20 – Musician, Bows
– Fanatics x2
Savage Orc Big Uns x38 – Standard, Musician, Extra Hand Weapon

Special 
Black Orcs x36 – Full Command, Banner of Discipline

Rare
Doom Diver
Rock Lobber
Mangler Squig

Frank’s a good kid who’s relatively local: he and his father both played in the tournament I ran last month.  I’ve never played against Orcs & Goblins before.

As you can see, he dropped a lot of hordes on the table, and I was a little worried.  All of those Fanatics and the Squig were clearly supposed to worry me, but they didn’t.  From the get-go, he Hand of Gork’d the Mangler right in front of my Stormvermin, so I marched their Mortar over it.  My slaves sucked up his Fanatics.

From Turn 1, I whittled away at his Black Orcs with everything I had: 13th, the Cannon, and the remaining Mortar.  The turning point of the game went down with his Savage Orcs fleeing from Plague Banner-charged Monks who were then charged in the flank by severely whittled-down Black Orcs.  They didn’t break (obviously), though I don’t recall why I forgot to reform them, but they did kill enough Black Orcs to get the unit down to Grimgor and two other Orcs.  Before the next round of combat could go down, I was able to 13th the unit into oblivion.

Ended up with  Major Victory.

Game 3 vs. Lizardmen
Erik B.

Lords
Slaan – General, BSB, Light, Cupped Hands, Obsidian Amulet, Focus of Mystery, Becalming Cogitation, Focused Rumination

Heroes
Skink Priest – Lvl 2, Ancient Stegadon, Dispel Scroll, Ironcurse Icon

Core
Saurus x25 – Standard, Musician
Saurus x25 – Standard, Musician
Skink Skirmishers x10
Skink Skirmishers x10

Special
Cold Ones x10 – Full Command, Huanichi’s Blessed Totem
Temple Guard x16 – Full Command

Rare
Salamander – Skinks x4
Salamander – Skinks x4

This was easily the worst game I had all weekend.  (Not hard, given that all of the other games were pretty good, but still.) It started off on the wrong foot when he said he wanted to play closed lists (see above).  His wife (who was actually very nice) sat and watched the game the whole, but that meant he pretty much ignored me, quietly muttering to her when he wasn’t doing something in the game.  And every time I killed one of his models he did a whole “this is bullshit, I’m losing the game to this guy with this bullshit list” thing.  I get being disappointed/frustrated when things don’t go your way (see below: my Stupid Abomination), but I’m not exaggerating about this being an every time thing.

And then there was the cheating.  “Cheating” might be a strong word; I don’t know.  Maybe it was a lot of innocent mistakes, but I can’t help but feel like it wasn’t.  His Skinks were about 5mm apart when the correct formation (.5″ would have put him in serious danger of the Abomination.  He totally pulled the “I cast Speed of Light on these Saurus.  17″, so everyone in 12″ gets the benefit.”  He rolled, and took Harmonic Convergence and Curse of the Midnight Wind.  I know this, because I opened my box, rifled through the stack of cards, and pull those two out.  You can imagine my surprise when he said he’d taken Iceshard Blizzard.  Since I couldn’t prove that he hadn’t muttered such at some point before the game started, I let him get away with that last one, but called him on the rest.

Now, I’m self-aware enough to know that some of my peevishness about this mess is probably driven by sour grapes: I’d won two games, was doing well, and then I lost to this guy.  But he really was pulling stuff that wasn’t kosher, and if I caught him on the stuff above, what didn’t I catch him doing?  At the very least, even if it wasn’t deliberate cheating, it was full of stuff unacceptable and uncool in any game, much less a GT.

Anyway, the game was a slugfest.  The Iceshard Blizzard thing certainly made some sort of difference.  I forget if it was a Minor or Major Loss for me.

Game 4 vs. Vampire Counts
Douglas C.

Lords
Vampire Lord – General, Lvl 4, Lore of Vampires, Sword of Battle, Gambler’s Armor, Black Periapt, Talisman of Preservation, Dark Acolyte, Walking Death, Summon Ghouls, Beguile

Heroes
Vampire – Lvl 2, BSB, Lore of Vampires, Dark Acolyte, Avatar of Death, Drakenhof Banner
Vampire – Death, Forbidden Lore, Enchanted Shield, Dispel Scroll
Vampire – Light, Forbidden Lore, Cadaverous Cuirass

Core
Corpse Cart – Balefire
Crypt Ghouls x39 – Champion
Skeletons x29 – Full Command, War Banner
Zombies x40 – Standard, Musician

Special
Grave Guard x40 – Full Command, Royal Standard of Strigos

Douglas, as it turns out, is another relatively local kid who’s folks work not too far from where I live: it’s a very small world.  It was a good game that the scenario tried really, really hard to ruin for me.

Looking at the list, I’m sure you can imagine how things worked out.  I just dumped everything I had into his hordes and tried to wipe them out.  I was pretty lucky in being able to stymie his regeneration and do enough wounds to really keep ahead of what I couldn’t stop.

My Monks charged his Zombies and, not being willing to risk being stuck, popped the Plague Banner and tore through them: killing all but one (who decided to collapse).  I rolled into his Grave Guard where I tied them up for the rest of the game.  I challenged with my Priest, he accepted with his Lord: who killed the Priest pretty quickly, but wasn’t able to do more than a wound or so a round against the Furnace.

The scenario was this: give three units “Liquid Courage”: Stupidity and Frenzy.  Units with Liquid Courage get a secondary objective every time they kill a unit.  I gave it to my Abomination, who couldn’t really benefit in any way by Frenzy, but I figured he’d get some kills in, right?  Wrong.  He failed every. single. Stupidity. test. Even with BSB rerolls.  I had to count to ten and apologize; Douglas understood and let me be furious at the Abomination.

Fortunately, it didn’t actually make a difference: I killed everything he had… save his Grave Guard deathstar.  With the General and BSB in there, I only eeked out a Minor Victory, despite giving up something like 540 VP.

Game 5 vs. Lizardmen
vs. Luke W.

Lords
Slaan – General, BSB, Shadow, Cupped Hands, Dragonbane Gem, Crown of Command, Banner of Eternal Flame, Becalming Cogitation, Focus of Mystery, Focused Rumination, Higher State of Consciousness

Heroes
Scar-Veteran – Light Armor, Shield, Biting Blade, Dragonhelm, Dawnstone
Scar-Veteran – Light Armor, Shield, Cold One, Warrior Bane, Talisman of Preservation
Skink Priest – Heavens, Dispel Scroll

Core
Saurus x42 – Full Command, Spears
Skink Skirmishers x10
Skink Skirmishers x10

Special
Cold Ones x5 – Standard
Chameleon Skinks x6
Chameleon Skinks x6
Terradon Riders x3

Rare
Salamander – Skinks x3
Salamander x2 – Skinks x6

Luke’s army was gorgeous.  Easily the best army I went up against.  The colors were subtle, popped out and were extremely clean.  I loved it.

I was less in love with that big ass block of Saurus.  The Slaan, the Skink, and the one Scar-Vet all hopped into it: I knew I needed to kill that unit if I stood a chance… and I probably wasn’t going to be able to.  Becalming Cogitation locked down 13th pretty completely.

However, my artillery rolls were some serious bullshit.  Like, so perfect, I felt bad for them.

I went first (which had to happen at least once out of five games, right?) and dropped a S 10 Warp Lightning blast down the flank into the middle of the unit, netting 19 hits.  I threw the Abom at them immediately (despite the flaming banner) to do what he could while I maneuvered up my Plague Monks.  The Abom held in way longer than it had any right to, but that kept the Monks from getting in.  It racked up a respectable body count, including the Scar-Vet, before getting cut down.

The Abom and all of my shooting whittled the Saurus down to the point where the Slaan hopped out and ducked for cover and he moved the Saurus away to try to get them away from the Slaves and Stormvermin who were closing in.

It looked like it was going to come down to whether or not I’d be able to catch the Saurus… and then my Warlock, who’d hopped out of the Monks two turns before they caught the Stegadon in the flank moved off and popped off the Doomrocket I’d never had a good target for.  19″.  Just. on. top. of. the. unit.  Killed every single one of the Saurus, leaving the Skink Priest… who failed his Panic check and ran off the table.

This was my hardest fought, closest game.  It was completely down to the wire: if a few more rolls had gone his way or a few fewer had gone my way, it’d have definitely gone the other way.  As it is, I pulled out the most Minor of Victories.  Great stuff!

In the end, I went 4-1.  Four out of five really great games is nothing I would ever dream of complaining about.  It’s probably the best I’ll ever do at a GT, I’m quite sure.

W: Empire Advice

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I’ve got the percolation of an idea for a new army, directly inspired by this guy:

I painted him up a couple of years ago because 1) that’s one badass model and 2) I was working through how to achieve the bloodless skin tone I use on my Daemons.

I’ve got some work to do making the fluff make sense, but the short version is Sylvania-as-Empire / Stirland.  Basically, an Empire army themed to the tone and style of Sylvania.

The idea would be that I could play around with models I really like the look of (Vampire Counts), without having to play Vampire Counts (I don’t want to paint a billion Skeletons).  An upshot would be that I could, if the spirit moved use the same models in a VC army if I decided I want to.  It’d be fun to play around with conversions with Empire, VC, and Mantic parts.

I’d also like to be able to run a more varied, flexible army: with real shooting, access to cavalry and monsters (as mounts, I guess) and book lores.

The problem is: I know nothing about how the Empire plays.  I’ve played against them once, and that was editions ago when I was learning Fantasy.  I’m not sure I even begin to understand how to play Fantasy outside of a very specific loathsome, verminous context.

Scanning the internet for “Tournament Empire Lists” isn’t terribly helpful just yet; never mind that they all seem to involve a lot of Priests, which is something I’m not opposed to, but don’t want to use as a foundation for the army (since it’s all Castlevania’d up).  Also, though I’d like to play an effective list, I don’t want to play a dickbag list (we’re not talking High Elves, here! :D ).

So: rap at me.  What do I need to know about what works and doesn’t work with The Empire?  Where’s a good place to get more info about it.  Any thoughts?  Advice?

This might not go anywhere… but if it does, I’d like it to go in an informed, considered fashion.

Finished – Plague Furnace

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After more than two solid weeks of painting, I’ve finished the dang Plague Furnace.  Lesson Learned: do no assemble and play with complicated Skaven models for a year before deciding to paint them.  I mean, it still would have taken me weeks to paint, but it would have been much, much easier.

The Plague Priest came out great looking.

As did the crew.  One thing I need to point out: the Plague Monk closest to the center of the Furnace has an extremely strangely sculpted face.  It’s just weird.  Parts of it are clearly skull, parts of it are clearly not, and the transition between the two is very unclear.  I found the ‘Eavy Metal jobs not very helpful in figuring out what to do with it.

Ultimately, I gave him a face-melty thing.  One side of his face is skull, and the other side looks like his skin’s sloughed off.  Very happy with how it came out, considering what a pain it was.

Some of the non-ratty details.

And the model from each direction.  I’m extremely happy with it; definitely time well-spent.

While the varnish was drying on that, I set into doing of the more tedious, but necessary tasks for the army.  I finally repaired the Doomwheel banner that just barely made it through the Golden Daemons.

Not perfect, but screw it.  There’s about an inch of paperclip pinning this thing.

I also started rebasing some stuff, from a grassy base to my cavern-style bases.  I’ve got 12 Gutter Runners, the Grey Seer, a Mortar and 25 Stormvermin to do.  I’ll also either have to rebase about 25 Plague Monks or repaint them.  Since this is going to be tedious, best to do it in chunks.  So, I did the Seer and the Gutter Runners.

That puts me here, in really great shape!

Skaven Minis

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Man, that sucks.  They finally do a Games Day mini I can dang about… just in time to move the damn thing out of Baltimore and to Chicago.  What the hell?  Not fair!

Looks like I need to make an arrangement to have someone who will be there to pick one up for me.

In the interest of making this post a bit more than a quick gripe: has anyone else see Mantic’s limited edition Dwarf Engineer w/ Drill?

It’s a shame this thing’s 1) limited and 2) only comes with their £150.00 Grafe’s Iron Legion bundle… ’cause that thing would be the perfect base for a Doom Flayer conversion.  Amirite?