R.I.P. WFB

So Warhammer Fantasy Battles is dead as far as the American tournament circuit goes. I'll miss it. I'm disappointed I never got around to painting and fielding my White Lions, Savage Orc Boar Riders, and a number of other units I was planning on painting.

Alamo GT was an excellent event. There were some new twists on some scenarios, some new faces, and some faces apparently not seen for a while. I finished fairly low on the board with a 1-3-1 record. I should have won another, but I made a bad decision in game 4, and never really had a chance in games 2 and 3, though I later found that my opponent in game 3 fudged a few rules, one of which mad a major difference in the game. I'm going to assume it was an honest mistake.

On Kings of War

Went to the big KoW bash at Tabletop this weekend and got in a couple of games. One was at 1000 points and one was a team up with 2000 points to a side (1000 each).

1) Wow. It's an easy system to play. The rules are simple and straight forward.
2) Movement is important. With only the chargers attacking, being the one who charges is vital.
3) Flanks and rear charges are right the hell nasty. With double or triple attacks, a horde of trolls deals our 36 or 54 attacks. On Saturday, I used a rear charge from a five elf unit of cavalry to rout a horde of beast-men with a rear charge.
4) While there are special rules, there seems to be no dominant special rule that negates whole armies.
5) As usual, I need to paint more. While I can throw down about 3000 points of painted elves in WFB, I can only get about 1500 in KoW. With orcs and goblins, I've got about 3500 points painted, but only about 1000 each in KoW as they are separate armies. With the allies rule, I can use some of one in the other, but only a quarter of the total.

Oh well. Back to the table.

Hard Army, Soft General

I'd hoped to beat my previous performances at BB, with a total of 3 wins in 15 games, but it was not to be.

Game one was a lopsided affair against an grey and black (some priming had been done) Dwarf army. He had three blocks of 20, a block of 40, and two gyros. His plan was to use vanguard to get across the board really quickly, but he forted up in one corner of the table. So I put my troops in he center and my war machines in the other corner and made him come to me.

Between shooting and mangler squigs, the blocks of 20 were no longer combat effective by the time they got close enough for me to charge.  His block of 40 was down to about thirty, and were hard as nails, and managed to run things off from combat, but running off one of the three unit they were fighting was never enough, as they could never pursue.

Game two was against grey and black empire knights. six units of them. I simply couldn't keep up with them and was unable to stop them from going where they wanted when they wanted. He won by tying up my units in combat and taking out enough small stuff to get a win.

Game three was against a Dwarf list similar to game one, but it was cow themed and had a flying cow gyrocopter. It was awesome. I lost this game on deployment and a bad decision. I accepted a challenge from a named dwarf lord and lost my general, which made my trolls useless for three turns until they accidentally stumbled into combat. I'd also placed them to where they had to wait for space to clear to be useful. Even still this was a great game in that a few dice rolls at any point could have changed the course of the game and that my opponent was fairly determined that the game be fun for both parties.

Game four was a grey and black dark elf cavalry list and was a very movement dependent scenario. This game was going well until the final turn when part of the randomness of the scenario gave me one in the ear. We managed to finish the game because I loaned him some movement trays he had two in his entire army). VPs didn't matter, and the objectives moved. Right as I was about to grab the objectives with two units that he no longer had ways to deal with, both objectives randomly moved behind my troops so he could snatch them up with cavalry.

Game five was a beautifully painted Warriors of Chaos army that has killed me a couple of times before. The general was new, and I knew I'd need a good plan, good execution, and good dice to win. I had the first part. My one decent magic phase was turn six, when the game was essentially over. before that I got 4 or fewer dice each time. I also took a risk in double charging a unit of Skull crushers, hoping to wipe them out and blow through to the warriors. I left one with a wound and they charged me. In addition, I forgot about a flanking unit until it was too late. As it was, I lost the game on the last combat of turn six when he finally finished off my savages and the two heroes in it.

End result - 1-4 and a great time. I was (and am) annoyed that 3/5 of the armies I played were unpainted. Between the three of them, a total of one model was completed, and even it wasn't based.

I need to get better at playing, so I can play the more experienced opponents who have the painted armies.

Bayou Battles Report

Bayou Battles is in the books and once again, I took a savage beating. After a convincing win over a Dwarf army in round one, my orcs got their comeuppance again and again. Rounds two and four were against armies of small cavalry units, and I had no answer for them. Rounds three and five, I had possible answers, but bad deployment and bad decisions threw the games my opponents' way.

However, I took the opportunity to try out my recently inherited D40 and document the armies that caught my eye. Sadly, I know there are some armies I missed, like the cow/dwarf army from my game three and the ship-bound high elf army. There were also at least two beautiful tomb kings armies I missed and another wood elfe army I know of that's really nice.

If anyone recognizes an army and can put a name to it, please tell me so I can add a name. If it's yours and you don't want the photo up, let me know and I'll take it down.

My offering to Bayou Battles this year.

Dwarfs - Andrew Heinrich

Tom Dietzel's Orge Kingdoms Army

I'm not sure if he was going Dwarf or Chaos Dwarf, But I like the army. I don't know his name, but I see him at every event.

Ogre Kingdoms - Jeff Franz

Dwarfs - Tim Delmas

Wood Elves

Ogre Kingdoms - Ryan Smith Took second in Player's Choice and third in Best painted (Or maybe those were reversed.)

Skaven - Jeremy Lamonte

Daemons of Chaos (or Warriors maybe) - Scott Filgo

Lizardmen (Yes they look like Spartans, but they're apparently lizardmen).

Dwarks - Pete Reese. The blades on the gyros actually spin, and the barrels of the guns light up.

Skaven

Empire - Russell Helms Too second in Best Painted and third in Player's Choice. (If Ry'an's was wrong, then so is this one.)

Warriors of Chaos - Chris Cole (Not his army, but he was playing it.) The was my round five loss. The game was lost on the last combat of round six. Excellent game.

Ogre Kingdoms

Orcs and Goblins (Apparently with some lore of undeatch) Matt Reisch

Vampire Counts

Dwarfs

Daemons of Chaos - Jeff Swann The photo does not do the display justice, not that the photos do any of the armies justice.

Warriors of Chaos

Dwarfs - Julien Lesage

Orcs and Goblins - Nate Culver

Daemons of Chaos - Edward Oh - (Won Player's Choice and Best Painted)

Daemons of Chaos - Chris Davis

Dark Elves

Skaven

Skaven

Chaos Dwarfs

In the interest of tradition...

Bayou Battles is in four days, and as is tradition, I am going to be painting up to the last minute. I'd planned on having time to paint, but a last minute editing gig and a new job have vastly limited my painting time. (There was also some farting around done as well.)

So I had to prioritize. I'll save the siege crew for last, and if I don't get them done, my siege engines will be crewed by night goblins.

On the fun side, while we were in Africa earlier this summer (part of why I got less painting done than I hoped), I realized my Pentax box camera, while great for kayaking (it's waterproof), it is not ideal for what I want otherwise. My wife got a new 55-300 lens for her Nkion (D40), which left us with a 55-200 lens she would never use again. She also got AMAZING photos in Africa. Looking on Amazon, I found that a new D40X body could be had on the cheap. Long story short, what ended up happening was that she ordered herself an upgraded camera body and I inherited the D40.

While the Pentax is 10 MP and the D40 is only 6, I can already tell the difference in optics is pretty substantial.

Even if my army will not be as awesome as I want it to be, I hope to get some good photos of the armies at BB. If I do, I'll post them here.

Thoughts on the "Death of WFB" and the Birth of the "Age of Sigmar"

I never intended to get into WFB. I got into WFB due to my interest in 40K. I never intended to get into 40K. I got into 40K due to my interest in Mordheim. Mordheim was my introduction to tabletop mini games. Before that I'd used minis for playing D&D, but that was it. I usually borrowed a mini from a friend to be my character.

What made me finally get my own minis and start painting them and play games was a good group of people to play with. It started with one guy. He and I had some absolutely epic Mordheim campaigns, starting with 500 point (GC) warbands and generally retiring them when they got out of hand. I've still got some minis lying around that are missing an arm or leg, or have an extra head or tentacle.

Chauncey (real name, BTW), pretty much stuck to a couple of warbands. he had a pretty nasty witch hunter group, some tough Reiklanders, and a beastman warband that was coming along okay. I had just about one of everything. Reikland, Middenheim, Marienburg, WH, Chaos, Undead, Skaven, Ork, pirate, dark elf, shadow warriors. I had a warband for just about all occasions (most of them unpainted). Most of them I still have.

Part of me is wondering if any of those models might be appearing in an upcoming AoS army. For big games I still have way too many orcs and a whole lot of elves. but for a small game I may come out with any number of things. Who knows.

My wife refers to Mordheim as my gateway drug to miniature gaming. She's entirely right. I'm wondering now if Age of Sigmar will be that gateway drug that GW has been missing for so long.

No rest for the wicked...

Going back to school has shaken up my painting time. I must tap into that reserve of self-discipline that I imagine that I have and quit playing Total War when I get home at 9:00something and use that decompressing time to paint instead. I still need to paint some war machines (and crews), some boarboys, and a couple of characters before Bayou Battles. Making a decent display board would be nice too.

Wolf Riders

Here are the guys I started before our trip to Uganda. I'm running them as two squads of six with the intent of being chaff. After Bayou Battles, I'll likely add command to flesh them out at fifteen total.

 

Today's background noise started with the 1974 Three Musketeers, followed by The Quiet Man,  and finished with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I've seen all three enough that I don't need to see the screen, except when the good parts come up, like the epic fifteen minute brawl at the end of The Quiet Man. Tonight's painting beverage was pink gin & tonics. I never cared for neither gin nor tonic, but while in Africa I learned that combining them with a little lime and aromatic biters makes a tasty beverage.

Throwing Dice Again!

Late April through early may was spent getting ready for a trip to Uganda to visit my brother-in-law. Very little painting got done, and even less dice throwing happened.
Worth it.

We got to see mountain gorillas from about 10 feet away in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest.

We saw the famous tree-climbing lions of Ishasha.

We also saw rhinos at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary, as well as giraffes, more varieties of antelopes than I can remember, zebras, hippos, and some of the most beautiful countrysides I have ever seen.  

That being said, I'm back and got to painting again. Even better, I got to play again. I was planning on playing a big Triumph and Treachery game, but only two of us showed, so we played a regular game instead at 1000 points. 

He brought 10 ogres at 1000 points, 4 iron guts, 3 bulls, and 3 characters (L1 firebelly, l3 slaughter master, and one with a scythe I'd never heard of). I brought 30 savage biguns, a doom diva, two manglers squigs, a L3 savage shaman, and a black orc warboss. 

My plan was to use the manglers to soften up his units and then take them on with the savages by going wide. He set up with both units in the center. and went first. I was hoping he'd stay close together like, so I could manage to keep both units in front of me and not get flanked.

Apparently, bringing two manglers and a doom diva to a 1000 point game is a dick move (I only brought the models I'd planned on using for T&T). By the end of turn three, he had the slaughter master left, One of my manglers was down to one wound. Between the manglers initial hit, the doom diva, and good scatter rolls on the manglers, my savages never moved.

It was the third time I'd gotten to play with the manglers. Now I understand why the reaction the first two times I used them was to kill them first, no matter what.

Mangler Squigs

Here we have the first mangler I made after a bit of priming. I didn't like how the feet came out, so i broke them off at the arches and redid them with greenstuff. I added what I intended to be gore dripping from its mouth with greenstuff as well.

This was the second one, Like the first, the main body is sculpey with the eyes and front parts of the feet are green stuff. Rather than having Empire milita soldier bits hanging from its mouth, I used skaven bits to have one trying to escape.

Here we have the beasties with some paint on them. 

I gave up on the its of gore dripping from their mouths. They looked more like tumors hanging off the lips than gore. Maybe if the squigs weren't red it would have looked better. The process was fun, but my sculpting skills need work. 

All of the enthusiasm. None of the time

Since I traded off my tomb kings, I now have LOT of unpainted orcs. Aside from a bunch of black orc, savage orcs, wolf riders, spider riders, and boar riders, I picked up another doom diva and a couple of rock lobbas. Looking forward to working those into my list once they're painted. I especially like the named savage shaman (whose name I forgot). I'm working on a raised base for him. What I did not get was mangler squigs.

So what did I do? I decided to make my own. Sadly, I did not document the process well. To start, I ordered some 60 mm bases and bought some sculpey. Making the body of a big-ass squig was easy, but the legs, feet, and teeth were not so easy.

The first one came out passable, though i wasn't happy with the feet, and I made him with a closed mouth to solve the teeth problem. I inserted a human hand sticking out of one side of the mouth and a foot sticking out of the other, It came out...okay.

The second one almost got thrown away. The feet were awful, I baked the sculpey too long, and the whole thing sagged forward in the oven, giving the bending the poorly sculpted feet. Instead of trashing it, I broke the feet off at the arch and re-sculpted them out of green stuff. It was far easier to make squig toes and claws with green stuff than sculpey.I added a skaven head and hand sticking out of the mouth t round it out. It looked so much better that I repeated the process with the first one.

So I've finally got these two awesome squigs and no time to paint.

Goodbye old friends

I traded my tomb kings, over 3000 points painted, for a crap ton of orcs and goblins. Most are unpainted, some base coated, some finished, and one or two looking really nice. All those will go into the Simple Green. The only one that won't is the Arachnarok that I haven't gotten  yet. The original owner is having it painted. I can't bring myself to strip it if he's actually paid someone to paint it. If I take one to tournaments, I'll just use the one I have.

So now all I need for my Bayou Battles army is a second mangler squig. The first one is molded, baked, and has bits of greenstuff curing on him. I need more sculpey to make another. Making the mangler squig has me looking at how I can sculpt things for other models as well. For example, I used a scrap of the sculpey from making the MS to make a rock for a savage shaman to perch on because the model won't rank up otherwise.

I also learned something yesterday. When the carport is to full of cars, and other stuff, and you want to base coat models, DO NOT take them out into the alley and put the tray on the recycling bin. The wind will kick up and blow the tray and wet models into the dirt. So yeah, the goblin wolf riders went into the Simple Green.

I may have enough black orcs now to run the Black Orc Bock list at Alamo this year. I thought I had enough mounted units to do a cavalry based army, but I don't have enough spider or wolf riders to make the minimum core.

Getting Squiggy With It!

With the TKs on the way out the door, I'm taking a look at the Orcs and Gobbos. One model that's been missing from my waugh has been the mangler squig. The problem has always been the cost, not the points, the dollars. The models way to expensive for what it is. So what does a cheapskate do? HE makes his own.

A trip to the hobby store and we are on our way!

I started with a small block of Sculpey III. I went with white. No reason. I ripped off half of the block to form the body.

The body takes initial shape. This part was going EASY! I am the master!

The face begins to take shape. It turns out that teeth are hard to sculpt, so maybe I'm not quite the master.

Another 1/4 of the block plus a little and the legs begin to take shape. While legs are easier than teeth, neither are easy. 

90 minutes in the oven at 230 degrees (F) plus letting it cool overnight. Turns out the sculpey only truly hardens all the way after it's cooled. I added some bits for silliness and now he's ready for green stuff. to fill in some gaps and smooth out some bits. 60mm bases are on the way as well. Things are looking squiggy.

Screw That!

So I won't be going back to Lone Wolf GT. $60 for entry, another $100 for a hotel, and two tanks of gas is a bit too much to pay for the shittiest single tournament I've ever been involved in.

A major part of the problem was my crappy performance with my crappy army. I've got no one to blame but myself for the performance of my list. I brought a soft list and played it badly. The few times I did everything right were foiled by the dice. It happens.

Another problem was I get tired of looking across the table at unpainted models. All five people I played had unfinished models on the table. 3/5 had major parts of their army unfinished and two of those had 60% or more with little or no paint at all. One of them had 2/3 of his army based black with a splash of red and silver so he could get credit for three colors in judging. He admitted as much to the paint judge.

The number of people who had bad days or weekends due to playing against those displaying abysmal behavior didn't help either. I didn't have any bad games, I just had too few good ones. One spent too much time talking smack to the organizers to pay attention to our game and one was pissy the entire game because of the way the comp scores worked. Around me, however, I saw players tantruming and throwing fits because things didn't go their way in games they were winning.

Questionable judging was the final straw. The armies that took prizes for appearance deserved their recognition. Looking down the list, there were armies that were judged far more harshly than deserved while others were given far better scores than deserved. It seems being local or affiliated with the right club was an important factor in paint judging. Two armies that had unfinished models on the table actually scored better than mine for paint. That guy with the three stripes of paint? He scored one point less than me for painting. The models he had that were painted were nice. They  weren't based. So lesson learned - based coat with a spray can, smear a couple of blotches of paint, and go. You'll get scored at mid level. Or be local. That seems to matter.

I realize that much of this is out of control of the TOs, but that last bit is on them. Judging paint is thankless and subjective, but the scores from LWGT show a distinct bias or base incompetence. Either is inexcusable.

Either way, the event left such a bad taste in my mouth that I think I'll save the money and effort next year and stay home.

EDIT: Some of the bitter has faded, and I realize much of my bad time was brought on by choices I made. Still probably not going next year.

Skellingtons invade Ft. Worth

So here we have it. The major differences in this list and previous versions is fewer skeletons, no BSB, more Tomb Guard, dropping the hierotitan and colossus for three necropolis knights and adding a light council in place of the lvl 4 death caster.

I'm really looking forward to this weekend for a couple of reasons. First, I've never been to Lonewolf GT, I hear it's a great event. Second, I've never played a comped tournament. This should be interesting. I have no illusions of winning, but I hope to at least have some good games. Finishing in the top half would be nice too. Hell, winning another game at a GT with this army would be nice. Finally, I haven't dragged out the Tomb Kings in a while other than as Undead Legions, and this looks to be a list with possibilities.

Anyway, I hope to update as the weekend goes.

The Deed is Done...Mostly

It's six days out from Lonewolf GT and my army is entirely painted. (I'll post photos later.) What should I do with SIX WHOLE DAYS of prime painting time? Well five really, because Friday evening will be for travelling.

I also discovered that my army simply does not fit on the display board I was planning on using. So I guess I know what I'll be doing with my free time this week.

Edit: Screw it. I don't have the time to to the job properly this week, so the lid of the tub I'm transporting the army in will be my display board. That being said, I do have a plan for an appropriate display for this army now.

A week out...

A week out from Lone Wolf GT, and I'm still painting. It's not as bad as normal, though. Usually, be fore the first GT of the year, I'm still in a flurry of painting with at least a full unit or two to go. This time I've got three casters and a war machine to go. I'm about 60-70% done with the casters and 50% done on the war machine. The kicker in this is that my first GT of the year is usually Bayou Battles, in August, and I've debuted a new army at BB each year I've gone. This will be the first year I go there with an army I've played before. 80% of the army was already painted, so I'm rushing at the last minute this year out of laziness.

Also in fun news, I know my first round opponent is bringing Vampire Counts. I'm bringing a 16 comp list and his is 10.4 or so, which means I'm starting the game up 560 points. The self-appointed experts from the Lonehammer podcast predicted a win for me, 3-2. (Of course this means I will likely get tabled.)

A funny thing is that I was called one of the "best players in San Antonio" who they "just can't get to travel." I am assuming that Mr. Cox was either trying  to be funny or was badly, badly misinformed or confused.

Either way, I'm looking forward to the event. It will be my first one played under Swedish Comp, which is why I brought out the Tomb Kings. I was having trouble getting under the 16 point comp max with them, while I couldn't get over the 6 point minimum with my High Elves. I think I could have done fine with my Orc and Goblin army, but I haven dragged out the TKs in a while and they are eye catching.

Last minute painting...

It just wouldn't feel natural to be doing some last minute painting leading up to a GT. Threfore, in the two weeks leading up to Lonewolf GT, I find myself needing to finish three Necropolis knights, three liche priests, and a casket of souls.The necroknights are getting there, the casket is base coated, and the liche priests are have some primary levels painted in. Not the hassle of the first time I played TKs at a and had 60 models to go with two weeks left.

The joys of playing that kid who brags about playing a "fluffy" list.

So in my "getting back into 40K" attempt, I've fallen in with an escalation league that is designed to jump start newer players. For the most part, it has been lots of fun. However, I'm also running into the culture of people constantly trading in their armies for a "better" one, meaning one they can win with before the game even starts.

Last week I played a kid who was running Ravenwing, all bikes and speeders, with a couple of named characters to boot.  He'd managed to give his ENTIRE army a +2 to their cover saves, which meant that when they jinked, which they did every time they were shot at, they got a 2+ cover save.

His plan was to zip across the board and charge into combat on turn two, counting on cover and over-watch needing 6's to hit to guarantee he got into combat before he could get shot to pieces. That part of his plan worked really well. He explained that this was just being "fluffy" and was not, in fact,  gaming the system. (BTW, he started that conversation, not me.)

Once he started wounding models, the whining began. Necrons getting a 5+ resurrection protocol save was just not fair. Neither was boosting it to 4+ with a cryptek. It also wasn't fair that my base troop toughness was 4 (like his) or that I had a flyer. It wasn't fair that my flyer used a template that scattered or that my monolith did as well. Deathmarks? Not fair either because they are snipers and wound on 4's, except that one unit they can wound on 2's. None of it was fair.

Charging bikes up to the second and third floor of ruins. Totally fair. Gunning them down with overwatch? Not fair. 3+ armor saves on the immortals, totally not fair. S5 shooting? not fair either. And what the hell? Gauss cannons are AP3? How can that POSSIBLY be fair?

My favorite whine was that the when I told him the speeder I'd just immobilized with the previous volley of shooting could not suddenly declare a jink against the next volley of shooting. Not fair. Especially when the buddies he appealed to agreed with me.

The best part of the whole thing was that he whined so very much while winning the game, which was never much in doubt because he got into close-combat on turn two.

Last bit of whining? Once his bikes grabbed the objective, he couldn't ride off with it because of the rule limiting how fast the unit with it could travel. TOTALLY NOT FAIR.

Did I mention that giving the entire army a 2+ cover save is totally fluffy? I should, just in case, because he mentioned it every time he rolled a cover save and a few more times when he bemoaned losing it after a S10 AP1 template scattered onto the model giving the bonus.

Yeah.

Still not dead

So I've been away for a while.
I'd made the decision a couple of months ago to sell off my 40K armies since I hadn't played the game since Alamo 40K 2013. The game had let my armies behind, I wasn't a fan of the mechanics, I was having more fun with WFB. The reasons were numerous.

I'd already traded off my Orks (40K, not fantasy) as I'd never played nor even finished building the army. My Black Templars were my first army of any kind, and I wasn't sure I could part with them. Besides, I'd stripped most of the army because I saw how sloppy my original painting was and I wanted them to look better. That left the Necrons.

I began counting up what I had and trying to figure out what to ask for the army. That was my downfall. I found the unpainted models, the destroyer lord I kit-bashed from three different models. I love that army. I could not come up with a realistic price I would accept for it.

Then a new shop opened up and started an escalation league. I've always wanted to play in an escalation league. So in short, I'm back in, and having fun.

So earlier this week I took up the brush and got back to painting.

Painting drink of choice that night was a Black Cherry Melomel (fruit mead) I bottled in May '14. It's mellowed nicely and is especially good chilled.