Best Wife in the World!

So I need to get off my dead ass and finish repainting my marines (Black Templars specifically). My wife gave me a High Elves battalion box, some smaller boxes and an Alien Worlds punch card that is two punches from being complete.

 I plan to have it on the table by summer so I can get used to playing before Bayou Battles.

Yes, I am indeed a fortunate man.

Back to the Painting Table...

The second job at the home brew store didn't work out. It was fun and all, but the three days a week turned into 5-6 and started interfering with my day job. Hone-do projects and other stuff then took over, and today was the first day I could get back to painting.

I didn't get to paint, though. What I did do was pull out the models I plan on using for my BT army, make sure I have all the ones I want to use, and then take inventory on how to paint them. Originally I was just going to touch them up, but then decided to strip them and start over. They were my first army ever right before the original BT rules cam out in the Armageddon Codex. I was pretty proud of the paint at the time, but not so much anymore.

So, anyway, I'll be posting pictures of units as I get them done.

Getting Consistent, but not Really Good.

I've been to five GTs now, four fantasy and one 40K. I'm not as concerned about the lower rankings I'm getting due to battle points because my TKs and Necrons are weak lists. I have ideas on how to make them stronger. My orcs are a decently strong list already, I just need to get better at using them. Find a decent build and learn to play it. Sportsmanship will only be a concern if I start getting bad game votes, so no worries there that I know of.

Paint and appearance, though, I clearly need improvement on. My paint scoring has been pretty consistent, 16 and 16 at Bayou battles, with two different armies, and 56 and 56 at the two Alamo fantasy GTs with, again, different armies and with different judges. The lone flyer is the 59 I got at the 40K Alamo with my necrons. To me, the necrons are the weakest of the three as far as paint, but they are eye catching because they are a bright, shiny metallic blue. (Which I realize, painting them metallic damages my paint score too.) They are also unusual in that they combine old and new models yet somehow maintain the look of a single force.

So THAT is where I need to really focus on. Improving my painting and not rushing to get the army done. I was going to try to have a new army done for BB in August, but what I may do instead is try to pretty up my two existing armies, even though starting anew army is MUCH more fun than prettying up an old one.

To any who read this, if you are familiar with my armies and can tell me anything other than "get better at painting" or "slow down and take your time" which I'm already working on, I'll listen.

Alamo GT Day Two

Not all of my good fortune was used up on Saturday, just most of it.

Game 4
Warriors of Chaos
I tried castling up and slugging it out, but it was not to be.

He brought many smaller units a demon prince, a herald and some individual chariots. After the casket bounced and damaged 3/4 of the units in his army in one shot, he spread them out to cut that out. I was doing well, even killing his demon prince by wilting it down to T2 after it attacked the tomb guard, but bad deployment allowed he herald into my backfield where he killed my casket and a unit of something (it wasn't fully assembled, so I don't know what it was) killed my catapult. On top of that, my death caster misfired after miscasting a purple sun and killed him AND his entire unit. That hurt.

Credit to my opponent. After turn five, the outcome was obvious, but he insisted we play turn six ONLY because if I offed another of his chariots then his win dropped from 500 points and change to around 400, which would allow me to steal two of his points. I fell wound short of getting the chariot, but what the hell, it was a good game. I lost all of my cav, my death caster, the hierotitan, my herald, and my war machines. He lost some chariots, some cavalry and his demon prince. He got as small a big win as he could, winning by just over 500 points.

Game 5
High Elves
First time I played high elves and this is an army my battle plan would not work at. Their shooting AND magic was better than mine and had longer range. Still, I had a plan that after deployment looked good. I even got to go first.

On my first magic phase I miscast with my hierophant and dropped him by two levels, removing the ability to make the TKs move faster.

On her first turn, she used her repeating bolt throwers to mow down the unit my death caster was with as well as him.

My second magic phase resulted in the loss the hierophant's other two levels.

She spent the rest of the game maintaining her range advantage and picking off enough cheap units to take the win by about 550 points, along with three of the four objective points.

By the end of day two I was ready to box up the TKs until 9th Ed comes out. Their tournament record is 1-8-1. Screw that though. I spent too much damn time painting them not to play them. I need to get my butt back to work and paint up some more options to make them less of a punching bag.

My castle plan doesn't work if there is no punch. The TG is a nice deterrent now and then, but nothing else I have can really take out other units.

Gonna run Orcs for a bit in tournaments while I figure it out.

Alamo GT IX Day One.

Going into the GT, I knew I would be an auspicious day, for I was playing an army of skeletons on the Day of the Dead. How could I lose. Oh right, I was playing Tomb Kings.

For fun the organizer, the admirable Mr. Baily and his capable staff showed us our Swedish Comp scores. Mine came in at a 6.9, which shocked me. I must have a poor understanding of the system because I can only come up with 10.1 when I calculate it. No worries though.

I had learned from Bayou Battles that the best thing I can do with this army is to make my enemy come to me and devastate them with magic. (It's a great plan really.) I tried to put the plan into action. My one photo of the army did not come out well, but it is essentially the same list I played in Houston except switching the death caster from lvl2 to 4 and the Tomb King to a Tomb Prince.

Game 1
My opponent played Empire with a Hurricanium, a war alter, a block of halberds with a detachment, a couple of units of handgonnes, one had a caster embedded and the other had a Hochland long rifle. He also had a cannon, a volley gun and some knights.

He went first and did a little moving and then miscast a Shem's burning gaze, sucking his caster into the warp killing most of a unit of hand gonnes (with the rifle) and wounding his cannon.

From there I hung back and used my cavalry to redirect his until they were face up with my tomb guard and had no desire to charge any longer. His volley gun had never been in range so he began to move it forward along with his troops, (who couldn't make up the distance in time.)

After my turn three he figured out I wasn't coming to him and by then it was too late to come to me in force. By then I'd killed his cannon, the other unit of handgonnes and lost two of my five man horse archer units.

The end result was a rather unsatisfying minor win against a great guy who ended up winning the sportsmanship award for the weekend.

Game 2
I remembered to get a photo, and it did indeed turn out to be an auspicious day for the Tomb Kings, just not MY Tomb Kings.

Bone on bone action. On turn one he killed my casket with his and managed to do a good job of denying my magic. Our main units never engaged and his other stuff mauled my other stuff. After turn four we called it because he was never going to kill my big blocks and I was never going to catch up on points. He won by about 700 or so and got the strategic objective for a big win.

 

Game 3

Warriors of Chaos - Mark of Nurgle on just about every unit

I deployed poorly and he killed everything but the tomb guard and the tomb prince.  This was the only game that my big unit of skeletons died. With my build and his build, he would have had to make some major mistakes for me to even have a chance at winning this game. As it was, I still did some damage, just not enough to make tallying up the score an issue. Big win for him getting the objective to boot.

 

So on day one I'd already almost tied my battle points from Houston, so I was feeling good. I had three games that despite any outcomes had been fun and against great people. A winning hockey game that night at the AT&T center made the day even better.

Sadness and Alchohol Abuse

Since I've been moonlighting at the homebrew store, I've gotten the brewing bug again. I just kegged a black cherry cider, and now have a whiskey barrel stout and cranberry cider in carboys. My wife has gotten the bug again too and finally decided today to address the 20 or so gallons of wine and meads she had in carboys in our kitchen.

They had all gone bad. We had to dump them out. All of them. She'd been expecting it since they'd all sat for too long, so she isn't to broken up about it.

So now that we have al these carboys not in use, she's started a new cyser and I just started a cherry melomel. I'm going to do a metheglyn once I've done a little more reading on the matter.

One Problem Solved

My first army after getting hooked into painting and gaming by Mordheim, a total gateway drug, was a Black Templar army. I thought they came out looking pretty good. That was ten or eleven years ago.

My painting has gotten better, so while playing other armies, most of the BT's are going into the simple green to get stripped and start over. Some can be touched up, some can't.

One problem was my terminators and their original bases.

Yeah, many say it's okay to play the models on the base they came on. I have new terminators on big bases too, and I didn't feel like waiting for new bases to show up if I ordered them. So I cam up with a work around.

A poker chip and some green stuff worked decently.

Day Two of Working at the Home Brew Store

Leaving one job, grabbing food and heading to another job leaves me groggy the next morning. How shocking. The last time I pulled the "two jobs" thing I was 23. Needless to say, I'm not 23 any more, and it was killing me back then.  However, what I'm not doing is taking a full load of classes like I was at the time, and neither job back then was as interesting as home brew.

I have already learned a few things about brewing and wine making that I didn't know. I've also gotten some ideas about a few things I want to try in my next few batches.

More on that later.

Next?

After Bayou Battles, I put away the skellingtons for a bit to work on my original army, my Black Templars. Most of that involved dropping major portions of the army into Simple Green and starting over. The BT's were my among the first models I ever painted 11-12 years ago, after the GW gateway drug that was Mordheim  got me hooked into painting and such.

Suddenly, though, I have little time on my hands. In addition to working as a writing tutor, I just picked up a part time gig at a local home brew store. So painting time has been limited.

Since I have Friday off from both jobs, though, I'm going to pack away the BT's and drag the TK's back out. I need to touch some things up before the Alamo GT and don't want to wait til the last minute, again.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly of the Weekend

Don't get me wrong Bayou Battles was great. I loved it and plan on going next year.

The Good:
The people running it are awesome. Despite losing all five games, I still had a great time in all five games. I didn't witness any bad behavior, There were more FANTASTIC looking armies than I've ever seen before.

The Bad:
Hangovers on Sunday morning. Spending so much time getting your army painted you have never played that list or one like it before. It would have helped me in my first two games. The fourth scenario drastically penalizes slow armies and drastically benefits fast armies. Still nearly pulled out a draw, but it was a lot harder because my opponent nabbed all three objectives on turn 1.

The Ugly:
Being on a low carb diet while there. There is barely time for fast food for lunch, and we went to a Cajun place for dinner. Bad choice on my part, but I'm going back next year when I'm not on a low carb diet. Using Diet DP for a mixer late at night means I'm drunk and wide awake. better drink choice next time. Finally, seeing all these GORGEOUS armies makes me want to start a new one. NO! I've even planned out the  models I need. NO! I've got this great idea for a theme. NO!

What I really need to do is pretty up the TKs get to work repainting my Black Templars. They were my first army when I first started painting. I've stripped a bunch of them and plan on getting back to work on them soon. NO NEW ARMY...yet.

The Pillaging of Houston!

Okay, not so much pillaging, but when you go 0-5, you usually don't come home with loot from a tournament.

We arrived Friday evening, and before he broke out his paints to finish his ogres, and even before we cracked open the booze, Tom brought out the "care packages" sent by his wife. She even attached cards to identify them.

Just for showing up, we all got a "Bayou Battles X" pint glass. Andrew and I were drinking out of ours that night, while Tom finished his Ogres. He picked his up in the morning. I won a door prize as well, which I totally need!

In my first game I played Xavier, from the Wargamers of Arkansas. They gave their opponents beer mugs containing candy, salt and lime, and the following message. "An offering to a worthy opponent in anticipation of a battle well fought. May your death on the field be both glorious, and bold. ~ Compliments of WAR ~" Sadly, I'm on a low carb diet, so Tom and Andrew helped me out with the candy, and I'm drinking diet soda out of it instead of beer. For now. I can not say enough how much this meant to me as a show of sportsmanship and camaraderie. I am totally stealing the idea.

I'm not saying HOW a foam dart from someone's (Andrew) gun ended up behind the dresser with the TV on it, but in spelunking under the dresser to retrieve it, I found the dark fellow on the right and the barrel of TNT. At first glance, we thought he was a ninja, and were confused about how a ninja was going to remain stealthy using a barrel of TNT. More spelunking for the rogue dart uncovered the fellow on the left making us think, "Cool! A ninja AND a Pirate WITH DYNAMITE! You just can't beat that." Then we started paying attention and realized that the ninja was, in fact, a pirate, and while pirates with dynamite are cool and all, they are not as cool as pirates AND ninjas with dynamite.

Back from Bayou Battles X

Back from Bayou Battles X, and stinging from the savage beating I took.

Game one was a 500 point loss to Wood Elves. He brought a ton of 10 man archer units that stayed across the board and shot my two bone giants to bits over time, slowly but surely, and used his fast cav to get in my backfield and kill my Casket of Souls and Catapult. The casket detonation killed the remains of the two fast cav units, and purple sun got the eagle.

We both killed a number of models from other units, but I couldn't make up the points or catch anything with my slow movement.

Nice win to him.

Game two was a 180 point loss to Skaven. Neither of us lost our oil barrel, and I lost the game on the last turn as he killed my Casket with his poisonous slingers that snuck in behind me and my colossus with his doom wheel. I beat the DW back and chased it off twice, but couldn't catch it. The third time, it got me.

If either of those models survive, we draw, if both do, I win.

Game Three was a loss to Brettonians. The game was close up until the end, but he knocked small units and expensive single models to get me, 800 and change to 990ish.  What came out of this is that one unit of Tomb Guard with the razor standard and a tomb king in the unit can hold off and beat
 two units of knights with a lord and a caster and a reliquae knight.

Game four was a loss to Chaos Warriors.
VPs were only a minor goal, since we were only going for capturing three objectives. He used cav and ogres to get to all three on turn one. I took one away with a colossus, and contested one from turn two to turn five, but the dragon ogres finally wore down the skeletons and killed them on the last turn. His giant killed mine and took the other objective, also on the last turn.

Almost gave this one a bad game vote. I know the guy, I like the guy, but the constant whining and bitching every time I killed a model got old. Yes, purple sun sucks, but so do dragon orges, hell cannons, and hordes of chaos warriors. When you're winning a lopsided game, you don't need to whine to the other tables around us about how unfair my army is. I'm playing Tomb Kings for crying out loud. Put on your big girl panties and suck it up.

The reason I didn't go with a bad game, however, is that he time and again argued against his own advantage when scenario rules interfered with game or army rules. So I chalked it up to that just being how he plays and talks smack during the game.

Game five was a loss to Chaos Daemons. Khorn getting pissed at my opponent's army choices took my colossus down to one wound at the beginning of his magic phase, then he blew up his cannon on turn one as well. So chance gave us both one in the ear hole right away.

I killed a bunch of Daemons but few units, and he killed all the small stuff for the win. He used flyers and ambushers to get into my backfield and kill my war machines and Hierotitan (which was a near thing). I used my one wound colossus to mangle his bloodthirster/juggernaut things, but they got the colossus before I could drop that last wound. The colossus was a one wound champ, though. He survived so long because I kept dropping a hex on the bloodthirsters to drop their S&T. His two big hordes never got involved because I kept using spells to slow them.


So in five games, I only lost my big block of skeletons, general, tomb guard, hierophant, BSB, once each (in the same battle, actually). I lost the lvl 2 death caster twice.  Lessons learned: 1) It's hard to kill 80 skeletons, 2) TG are NASTY, especially with the TK's WS and the razor standard, and 3) standard of the undying legion wasn't that useful since I had so many other ways to get models back and so many other spells.

The colossus died every game, usually after absolutely violating at least one unit, or keeping a nasty unit busy and out of combat for most of the game. Lesson's learned: 1) He's a badass against most infantry, 2) anything attacking initiative messes him right up, 3) he's a shooing magnet and eventually even weak shots get through, and 4) he can't stand up to normal giants or S5 because of initiative.

The hierotitan also died every game, usually after spending most of the game making it hard for my opponents to stop my casting. Lessons learned: 1) He makes it hard to stop my spells, 2) his spells are marginally useful, 3) he is pretty good against infantry, and 4) but eventually they'll get him.

Had a great time, saw deserving people win cool stuff, and came home with loot myself, which will be addressed in a later post.

Not Quite at the Last MInute

 

I finished about noon today, but they're done. At least, they're done enough. I have some touching up and a few details I want to change, but I am willing to bring them to Bayou Battles like this. 

Almost there?

So the tomb kings are painted. Now to base and flock 140 models before I need to head out on Friday.

Is it too late to change back to Orcs?

I Still Hate Painting Skeletons

I have 80 skeletons, 35 tomb guards (fancy skeletons), 15 skeletal cavalry, and 2 bone giants almost done. I still need to get the siege models and crews painted and then the lords/heroes, and have four days to do it. I think my next army will be based on putting as few models on the table as possible.

I listened to someone last week complain about the number of models he had to paint for his army. I think the number was 65. Really? I have more than that in one unit.

I now HATE painting skeletons.

The worst part is that I'm not even done with them. The core block of warriors is 95% done. The tomb guars are about 60-70% done, and the cavalry are only base coated. Not to mention the command and artillery. 
I still have a week.

Land Raider, it's what's for dinner.

One of the few photos of my Necrons in action. Game five at the 2013 Alamo 40K GT. First, I loved my opponent's Shiner themed army. All the minis were based on Shiner beer caps. Second, the Doomscythe couldn't manage even a glance on the land raider, but the scarabs ate it right the hell up.

Next Army

Neither the paint job nor the photo are particularly good, but here you go. My next army. I plan on having them done in time for Bayou Battles in a few weeks, which is a problem, since this little guy is the only one finished. The rest of his unit is very close, but I'm waiting on green stuff to dry before I go on another base coating spree.

So Back to Minis

This represents my first attempt at using an airbrush last year. The Reikland Youngblood in front of him was painted over ten years ago and is just there for scale. Now the problem is going back and filling in the joints for the wings with green stuff and making it match the rest of the thing. Should have done it to start with but I was in a hurry to try out the air brush.

As of yet, I'm mostly using the airbrush for laying down base coats quickly and evenly. On bigger models, like the dragon or my trolls, I used it more extensively.

Yes, I Do Have Other Hobbies

I forget about this blog and then from time to time get reminded of it. I noticed this morning I claimed to be repurposing this blog for my hobbies, but I'd only posted about painting miniatures. So here. Proof I do other stuff.

Above is the beer most of my friends request when I am deciding what beer to make next. I didn't name it, but the name comes from the high alcohol contend, between 12% and 13% and the light, refreshing body and taste.

It is quite an honor, but...

Last weekend my Orc army took the prize for "Best Army" at a local WFB tournament. I appreciate the honor, the prize support, and the people who appreciate the seemingly endless hours I put into painting, basing, modeling, and converting.

The downer is that in my opinion, it was only the fourth best army there that day. Of the three armies I rate as better than mine, one won overall, so can't win best army, and the other two were either bought fully painted or painted via commission.

So the prize support went to a new army I'm working on, and while I understand fully that my paint needs work, I appreciate the reward for showing up fully painted, painting every last model myself, and not simply being satisfied with "tabletop standard." The satisfaction of looking at my army and knowing it's my own work is awesome. A little appreciation for it helps too.