US Masters/ Best of the Rest 2022

Been a long time since I updated this. I though my first trip to the Kings of War US Masters was a good enough reason. To be clear, I didn't qualify for the masters team for the PNW, but with it only 3 1/2 hours away in Seattle, I was going whether I played or not. However, since there was a Best of the Rest tournament, I was happy to bring an army to play. The bonus of only playing five games instead of six was nice. 

First, I don't know if I'll ever get to go to another one, but I certainly hope so. It was a great time and a great atmosphere. BotR was more laid back than the Masters, but even the Masters seemed pretty laid back. 

Second, I was hoping for more presence from out of region. I don't recall anyone entering other than PNW or West Coast players. Due to players getting tapped as subs in the other tournament and other issues, we only managed to have 15 players, with a ringer player. Of those 15, seven of us were from the PDX area. 

Right at the end of 2nd ed. I started building an imperial dwarf army and never got a chance to enter an event with it before Covid. Post Covid, it's the only army I've been playing. 

My List:

x2 Ironguard Regiments with throwing mastiffs

x1 Shieldbreakers Regiment with throwing mastiffs

x1 Rangers Regiment

x2 Mastiff Hunting Pack Regiments with throwing mastiffs

x1 Berserker Brock Rigers with Potion of the Caterpillar

x1 Earth Elemental Horde

x1 Greater Earth Elemental

x3 Lord on a Large Beast

x2 Stone Priests with Bane Chant and Surge

Game 1 was against Kingdoms of Men played by Chris, one of those local to me. By the end of turn seven, I held four table sections to his one, plus his center, giving me the win and five scenario points. I expected attrition to be closer, but he only had a regiment and general on winged beast, and I had a regiment and three lords on large beast. If I remember right, final tally was 24/8, putting me in 3rd place.

Game 2 was against Undead played by Paul. This was my coming back to Earth game. Paul out played me in every turn. He got all but one objective and missed tabling me by the stone priests and a lord on large beast. Final tally was 24/6, dropping me back into the middle of the pack.

Game 3 was against Salamanders played by Blake. He gambled on some turn two flank charges that didn't pay off, trying to pop my Rangers, Brock Riders, and an Ironguard Regiment. All three held, and the flanking units got flanked/rear charged and wiped out. Late in the game he managed to get a regiment of Salamander primes into the rear and another into the front of the other IG regiment and only managed 12 wounds, then rolled a 4 to waiver them. This forced him to take another turn to kill them, allowing me time to get units over there to kill both units of primes with flanks and rear charges and take the loot token they'd taken from my IG. Final tally ended up 24/7. The best way I could describe this game was that he made an early mistake and his dice and mine made him pay for it. When my late mistake let him have the front/rear charge on my IG, the dice were more forgiving. This boosted me up to 4th place. 

At the end of the day, I was sitting at 2-1 and was happy with how the army was working. 

Game 4 found me against the ringer, which was one of the TOs Trident Realms army, piloted by Rob Phaneuf in between recording for Counter Charge.  The list he'd been handed didn't have a good answer for D6 dwarves, with almost no CR or TC and low defense. There was a horde with the Hammer of Measured force, and that unit was the only unit to kill any of mine, other than the archers that shot one of my mastiff packs off the board. Getting the hordes tied up in the center, fouled by my other mastiff pack, now being wounded on 4s rather than 3s due to HoMF, the center turned into a slog letting me get flanks on the hordes, the giant, and the hero on the critter. Also, Rob was generous with advice. I took the last of his units off the board in turn seven, taking the last look tokens. Final tally 25/6, putting me into 3rd place. 

Going into turn I had no chance at first, because even if I got a max win, because only if they both lost could I catch them both. As it was I'd need a strong win and a big loss by number two to even have a shot at second. I was matched up against Vern's Varangur. I managed to use my rangers to keep Vern's flanking cavalry out of my backfield long enough to push my D6 units to the center line. At the end of turn six, he'd gotten 6 units with 14 unit-strength across the board, and I was sitting at5 units and 11 US on his side. He rolled us a turn seven and failed to kill the Lord on large beast I hadn't gotten across the board, needing a five on the dice and getting snake eyes. I managed to kill that unit, reducing Vern's score to 5/11, but needed a 4 on the over-run to get that LotLB across the line, and rolled a 2, leaving me also at 5/11. Attrition was less than 200 points different (his favor, leaving us with a 17/17 draw. Had I managed the win, I'd have pulled off second place by one point, but I am happy to have kept a hold of 3rd place. 

All in all, it was a great weekend. I've never finished a five-game tournament ranked that high. I went 3-1-1and got 96 out of a possible 125 tournament points, for my best battle finish in a two-day event ever. I'll take it. 

A New DIrection

So I'm getting tired of Orcs. I'm getting to the point where they just seem unplayable. I'm not getting rid of them. In fact, I'm painting up a horde of Ax for Clash of Storms in August. After that, I think I'll quit painting Orcs for a while. They'll still be my go-to army while I work on the new one. I'm hoping to have the new army ready for Lone Wolf in the spring. (Assuming I can even go.)

Cascade Clash

My return to the table was not exactly triumphant, however, I cot to throw dice, move models around, and meet new people. I didn't play particularly well, but I managed to finish 11th out of 19. Numerically, it's the highest I've ever finished in a two day tournament.

I officially went 2-3 on the weekend, but one of those wins was against a bye. I wasn't happy about drawing the bye, but the TO decided that he didn't want anyone who traveled to sit out a game, so the locals took the hit. I can see his point and agree.

I didn't expect to do well as I hadn't played in almost a year and never with the CoK18 rules. Still it was fun and I was thrilled just to play again.

As is normal, I got the painting bug from looking at some of the amazing armies. I've decided to build a new one using as many Mantic models as possible. I've got about 1200 points of the new army so far and have a plan for the rest. I'm not touching it until after I get my Orcs ready for Clash of Storms. My goal is to have it ready for Lone Wolf 2019. I hope to make either LW or Alamo in 2019.

Better Luck the Second Time

So Deadzone was a flop with my ever-patient wife. I'd hoped she would like it as she had been a fab if Mordheim. Some of the most abysmal dice rolling I've seen in a very long time mad the game short and not fun.

Remembering how she liked Mordheim, I thought I'd get her to try Frostgrave, She was enthusiastic, and her dice were far less antagonistic toward her minis this time, We played to a 3-3 draw, but she cleaned up on the treasure rolls and got more XP from casting more spells successfully.

This looks promising.

Demo Game Failure

Moving to Oregon from San Antonio meant leaving our D&D group and everyone I knew who played tabletop war games. I've been itching to get back into Kings of War and Deadzone. I recently found that there are KoW players up here, though not many. I have yet to find any Deadzone players.

However, my wife and I both used to play Mordheim, that out-of-print GW gateway drug into miniature gaming. So I convinced her ti give DZ a try. I made up a couple of 100 point lists, Enforcers for her and Forge Fathers for me. It went poorly. To start with, the tactical dice were generous to me and rude to her. Then the d8s said, "Hold My Beer!" and tried to top them. Every shot I took killed a model. Not a single shot of hers resulted in a wound to mine. I left models wide in the open, with her models elevated, doubling her chances to hit. No luck.

Needless to say, after I killed the third o her five models in two turns, she declared the game over. I don't think I have a convert for this game.

Long Time No Write

The last time I posted, I was still living in San Antonio. Later that week she was offered the job she'd been going for in Beaverton, Oregon. So here I am, 10 months later, living in a suburb of Portland. I managed to get some painting done, at first, but when I finally found a job, it ate my life for the first several months. Add to that the general lack of Kings of War or anything Mantic in the state of Oregon, and I really had no reason to paint. Our role-playing group was gone, I had no one to play KoW or Deadzone with, and there was little reason for me to paint, as I had no purpose for painted minis.

A series of events unfolded recently to rekindle my interest in minis. I then found the PNW KoW Facebook group, found out about Clash of Storms outside of Seattle in August. Then, to my surprise, I found out about Cascade Clash here in Portland next month. So I'm signed up. I'll be bringing the Orcs out again, and I hope to have the Elves re-based and ready for Clash of Storms in August. As of now, I need to paint up my second War Drum and finish he base for my second orcling regiment. I Might need to make a display board as well, as I don't know if my current army will fit on the old one.

Defying Expectations

Aside from gaming and historic swordplay, another long-time hobby of mine had been shooting. While visiting the in-laws in AZ a couple of weeks ago, my brother-in-law and I went shooting for an afternoon, reminding me of how much I miss it. So when I got home, having left my sweet wife there to spend time with her new nephew and other, lesser noteworthy members of the family than a new 5 month-old nephew, I decided to visit the range.

There was a time when I looked more at home on a shooting range that at a gaming table or historical recreation event. Now, not so much. Jeans and boots have given way to cargo shorts and hiking shoes. The local sports team or NRA baseball cap had given way to the breathable, modern materials hat from REI. Rather than a modern black nylon shooting bag with Remington or Smith & Wesson printed on the side or the plastic case a pistol comes in,  my range bag is a green Craftsman tool bag.

Yesterday, as I approached the shooting line, the range officer approached me and began giving me the newcomer speech.

"First time here?"

"No, just first time in a few years."

He seemed to not believe me. "Need me to show you how the target carrier works?"

"No, thanks. If  I remember right, it seemed pretty straightforward."

He still didn't believe me, but was polite enough to not say so. He just kept an eye on me not so subtle-like.

Once I'd set my bag down, hung my target, and send it down range, I'd just gotten it to where I wanted it, which was half-again farther down than the people around me, (not being macho or cocky, just practical, which will be revealed later) he nicely came over and started to tell me how to bring it back in closer.

"If you wanna bring that back in a little, you just lower the riser and that'll roll back in."

"Thanks." I left it where it was."That's good there."

He stepped back as if to say. "Suit yourself," and walked a bit away as I turned and unpacked my shooting bag. When I uncased my pistol, which is a Ruger Competition Target Mark 2, He made a grunt as if to say, "Nevermind," and walked back to his usual position.

He was satisfied at that point that I seemed to know what I was doing, but I think I hurt some penises on either side of me. My first couple of shots were a little wilder than I wanted, but even then, I could have folded  a dollar bill in half and covered the grouping after the first twenty. This is less a testament to my skill than to the quality of my firearm. It's a very accurate target pistol with a heavy barrel and almost no recoil.

The guys on either side of me were shooting much louder and larger things, making MUCH larger groupings than mine. The guy on my right's reaction seemed to be taking more time to aim between shots. The guy on the left's reaction was to move his target past mine and all but quit hitting the paper. He even it mine once. Or at least someone who wasn't me did, as 22's don't make holes that big, at least not with one shot.

I missed shooting. I plan on going back again soon. When my sweet wife comes back, I'll take her with me, because she used to enjoy it too.

A Much Better Experience

I went into Lone Wolf with trepidation. I had an abysmal experience last time I went, intent upon never returning. I now have further evidence that much of my bad experience was my fault (not all of it, but more than enough to matter).

Day One started off with a very fun game against a Forces of Nature army designed to limit others ability to do damage and heal what little damage there was. It worked well. By the time I figured it out, my army was too badly out of position and damage to do anything about it.
It was a 20-0 victory for the Forces of Nature.

The second round came against the Empire of Dust. This one hurt, not because of losing 13-7, but because I STILL regret selling my tomb kings. It was a close, fun game, but I ended up losing it in the end. Too many of my high priced units died and not enough of is died.

Game three was against the Ratkin. the final score was 17-3 rats, and it wasn't even really that close. Once again I allowed my units to be singled out and killed one by one.  I held my objective, but that was about it. he got all the other points.

In the last game of day one I played the prettiest army I saw across the table all weekend. It was a gorilla themed Herd list. My opponent won 12-8, for my closest game so far. Again, I allowed my units to be killed off piecemeal, but part of that was confusing Stampede hordes for the humans that were actually on the bases. Thinking they were cheap human regiments, I let them get into position to charge my toughest units, where they slaughtered whatever they hit. Fun yet confusing game.

Day two worked out better, starting with a 20-0 win over an Ogre force that looked to be brutal, but was unable to survive counter-charges. In the middle of my turn at the bottom of turn four, my opponent yielded, giving me a 20-0 win. We could have played it out, but I was down a troll horde and a cavalry regiment. He had a warlock and standard bearer left. The warlock had been charged by the other cavalry unit, though we had not resolved that charge yet. I held all three objectives and had all of the bonus points available.

Game six was against another Empire of Dust army, for the only repeat army race for the tournament. Bad deployment cost me dearly in the first few turns, aided by some on fire artillery on my opponent's part. I managed to pull out a 10-10 draw anyway, and I am convinced my chances to win would have been good if we'd gone to turn seven,

I need to plan my army better, for sure, and play more as well.

As to the soft scores, I got the flat rate of 64 sportsmanship, which means I had no positive or negative feedback in regard to sportsmanship. Paint is what surprised me, I scored 59 out of 80, which is by far the best score I've ever gotten. I blame the rubric the TO created to let us point out to him where we had done blending, modeling, and converting.

All in all, it was a good day.

What to Do...

Lone Wolf GT is four days away, and I have no models to paint. All I'm doing is repairing models that came off of their multi-base and throwing together a display board. I'm at a loss. I'll post a photo or two once I've got the display board together, but the army is as follows:

Krudger on a Winged Slasher
Flagger w/ Diadem of Dragon-kind
2 Godspeakers
2 Morax Regiments
Greatax Horde w/ Brew of Haste
2 Troll Hordes
War Drum

Not a very complicated list. The idea is to go forward and smash.

Second Attempt at Deadzone

On Saturday, I played in my second Deadzone tournament. I debated playing Enforcers instead, but they were not painted, so Forge Fathers it was. My list hadn't changed at all, mainly because I hadn't done any painting since the last time. The only thing that changed was I started naming the minis since the rank and file look very similar. I decided to go with Norse names since the fluff gives the Forge Fathers a little bit of a Norse feel. So, taking the field for the Star Realm were Jarli, a Steel Huscarl, three Steel Warriors, Lodinn, Hrodi, and Balli, and two Stormrage Veterans, Bjorn and Valbrandr. The only one of these named after someone specific was Valbrander, named after a certain viking in the SCA who really would like to have a flamethrower.

Rather than post a blow by blow, I'l just give the high (low) lights and/or lessons learned. We had three players show up, playing Forge Fathers (me), Enforcers, and Plague, As I'd asked about Marauders before the Plague player showed up, the organizer threw together a Marauders unit so we'd have an even number. 1) Snipers suck. FF don't have them, but Marauders and Enforcers do. Two of them really suck. 2) Protect your leader. Losing tactical dice sucks. 3) Don't forget your special rules. My first two games (both close losses) change dramatically if I remember that my rank and file get armor piercing 1. 3) Zombies suck. At six points and no VPs, you can have a lot of them. my opponent in game two had 12 or 13. The only reason he didn't have more was he didn't own enough figures to do it. If the Plague player can make the zombies threatening enough, you HAVE to deal with them while he scores points. That was a vicious beating. 4) While flamers are not especially effective against many things, flaming a square full of zombies pretty much empties that square. Good for clearing off an objective, but that's about it. 4) None of the FF had surnames, but Valbrandr earned the name Minetripper by tripping the booby trap in three of four games. The only one he didn't trip was the one against the Plague when it was tripped by a zombie.

I ended up in third place (because the organizer refused to claim first as he was running the tournament) with a record of 1-3. My only win was in the last game where I played the Marauders again, who'd beaten me in a close one in round 1. Shawn, who organize the thing and was undefeated at the time, was a little to generous and magnanimous in the first turn, trying to promote fun and make sure I had a good time, which resulted in me killing one of his big nasties, a sniper, and his leader in the first turn. That and me remembering my armor piercing dominoed into a very lopsided win for me and the only loss for him.

All in all it was a fun day. I only felt helpless in one game because six space dwarves, even in armor, have a hard time answering anything that can put 18 models on the board. There's gotta be a way to do it, though. The enforcer player, also with only six models wiped him off the board the next round.

Decisions, Decisions...

So I've decided to jump back into another attempt at Lonewolf GT in April. I had a particularly bad time at the last one I went to and was pretty sure I'd never go back. I realized later that the majority of my bad time was my own doing. So, I'm trying it again.

The key question is what army. Do I play orcs? Goblins? Orcs with Goblins? Goblins with Orcs? Or do I play the Elves again? I've heard that the new Clash of Kings pack will be giving orcs a boost, but I haven't played the elves in since the KoW switch and I like that army too.

Need to make up my mind quickly and get back to painting.

Frostgrave - AKA Fighting and Fun among Frozen Ruins

Despite buying the book way too long ago, I finally got a chance to play a game of Frostgrave, and it seems like quite a good game. Is it the replacement for Mordheim I've been looking for? No, but it is still a pretty good game.

It's rather simple in its mechanics. Roll a d20 compare your result, adding your fight or shoot stat to it, to your target's roll with his or her fight stat added. Higher equals success, lower equals failure (or getting hit back in the case of HTH combat. Damage is simple as well. Take the modified hit roll, add the damage bonus, subtract the target's armor, and that is the damage. High hit rolls equal lots of damage.

The book suggests lots of terrain, and it is a good idea. My crossbowman had a clear LOS to his wizard on turn one, rolled a natural 20 to hit, ad 2 for hit shoot stat and 2 for his crossbow damage, and that's 24 damage. The wizard only has 10 armor, and 14 health, so he's out in turn one. The fact that he'd failed a cast and already taken two points of damage didn't help either. That shouldn't happen. We were playing with the optional critical hit rules, so the 14 damage was doubled to 28, not that it mattered. After the game, we decided that maybe the crit rule was over the top.

Crossbows and bows seemed the way to go with the less than crowded terrain, but that may change if the terrain is more dense and shooting lanes are harder to find.

The game ended in a draw, with each of us snagging three treasure tokens, successfully casting three spells each, and neither wizard killing anything.

The most time consuming part of the game was looking up rules and spells, which as any gamer knows, decreases the more you play the game. We started at about 8:00 PM and were done before 10:00, including figuring out experience and treasure. If we knew the rules as well as we did 8th ed. WFB or KoW, we could have played two games in that time, though adding terrain will likely lengthen that as it will take more than 1 turn to begin shooting and casting like we did.

So I May Have a Problem

When I bought the Deadzone starter box, I was drawn to two things. First, I had been looking for sci-fi based skirmish game for a long time. 40K Kill Team didn't quite fit the bill, as it was still a game of using the incredibly nonsensical system of special rules of whatever 40K codex the armies came out of. Like Mordheim, the rules for Deadzone are all in one book, which helps in learning the gameas you are not conastantly moving from book to book to look up rules. Expansions can be added or not, and you can make an effective strike team out of a single box of troops. For example, having never played a game, I was able to make a strike team out of the starter box that I took to a tournament and went 2-2.
 2) Space Dwarves are awesome, at least these are. They don't have the comic look that Squats did, as did so many models of that 40K generation, and the designs are fairly clean and well thought out.

So here we get to the problem. A week ago I decided to go to that tournament. I had five models assembled, so I drew up a strike team using those five models as a base and was able to fit in one more model, which I assembled that day as well. I based them Tuesday, and began painting Wednesday so I could have them painted enough so I wouldn't embarrass myself on Saturday.

Saturday evening and parts of sunday were spent binge watching Daredevil and assembling more Deadzone minis. I've assembled the rest of the boxed set, including terrain, and half of the Forge fathers faction starter as well, along with a couple of Merc models I picked up as swag at the tournament. I've also base coated the Enforcer models that came in the boxed set. Yeah I may have a problem.

Mantic Comes Through Again.

I went to a local Deadzone tournament today and I think I'm a fan of the game. I like the way the turns work with the players taking turns activating a model at a time. It keeps a first turn alpha strike from essentially ending the game before the other player even gets to play. I also am a fan of the command dice which throw a little curve into the game and add a slight bit more to the plate than standard turn by turn action.

What I think I really like is that the game has a feel similar to Mordheim, which was, by far, my favorite GW game. My entire strike force at 150 points consisted of six models. My last opponent only had five in his strike force. All in all, the game's a winner.

As it was, the forces of the Star Leaue, (know in common circles as the Forge Fathers) stood at:
Steel Warrior Huscarl
3 Steel Warrots
Storm Rage Veterans with a  missile launcher
Storm Rage Veterans with a flamer

Game one saw the good Space Drawfs get shellacked 16-0 by a Rebel force. I hadn't played a game yet, so I learned some harsh lessons in that first beating. 1) Teraton's suck. They can teleport into combat and mess you right up. Two of them mess you up even worse. 2) Command dice are vital. re-rolling the ones you KNOW you will not use is also vital. 3) Space drarves shoot better than they fight. Really. 4) Movement and managing it is important as well. 5) Lots of terrain is key. This game changes dramatically if he doesn't have enough cover to get to me without having to run across an open board.

Game two saw the Forge Fathers square off against the Enforcers of the Council of Seven. I improved to a 9-16 loss, but again learned some valuable lessons. 1) Elevation makes a difference. 2) Use of cover makes a bigger difference. 3) Objective are important, but eliminating the other side's ability to do damage is more important. I nabbed the major objective, but I left myself in position to get shot off the table getting it.

Game three was against the space rats, AKA Veer-myn. I put the last games lesson to good use and set up fire lanes completely covering my opponent's objective, which was a great plan. However, he used his big nasty HTH beasts to jump my closest models to that objective. Fortunate dice rolls not only allowed me to survive that rush, but to take out the two big nasties as well. He nabbed the VP for the objective by nabbing it and getting it off the table, but I won the VPs by wiping out the rest of his strike force while only taking one casualty. Final score was 18-9.

Game four was against an apparently renegade faction of Forge Fathers. I mean, clearly the RED ones are the good guys and the BLUE ones are the bad guys. This game was quick and bloody. We essentially traded off killing models. Fortunately I had six models to his five. The game literally came down to one model from each side that was already wounded. I happened to go first and killed his last model before he got mine. Final score was 15-12.

If you've ready anything on this blog before, you know that painted armies  (strike teams) are important to me. I won't begrudge unpainted models a a small shop tournament, but it was nice to play my last two games against armies that looked to be fully painted, though the Veer-myn player insisted he had more work to do. For that matter, my six models need some touching up as well.

While I'm not sure I'd want paint and such to be such a major factor as it is at big GT's, I'd like to see having a fully painted force factor in a little bit. Then again, I started miniature tournaments when fully painted was required to enter.

Trying Something New

After the frenzy of Getting an army ready for Bayou Battles, I'm ready for a change of pace.  With that in mind, I decided to try to paint some Forge Fathers from the Deadzone boxed set. First, I based them in black with Valejo primer using the airbrush. My experience has told me to let that stuff set overnight for best results. Iwanted a gunmetal finish, and had a bottle of Model Masters Gun Metal Buffing Metalizer specifically formulated for airbrushing. I wanted to test it out first, so I tried it on a couple of Age of Sigmar minis.

I liked the result, so I went ahead and sprayed the Forge Father minis; a Steel Warrior Huscarl, three Steel Warriors, and two Stormrage Veterans.

They came out brighter than I expected, and testing the dark wash on the AoS minis was a bust so I went with dry brushing the crew. This is about the time that I discovered what a pain the Model Masters paint is to get out of the airbrush. (Won't be doing that too much more.) That was also about the time I discovered what a "Buffing Metalizer" was. Apparently you are supposed to buff the paint when it's dry. The act of dry brushing changed the effect on the metal. I kind of like it. 

Above we see a little detail added. Who knew the space dwarves were wearing pants? It wasn't until I started dry-brushing the metal bits that I noticed that their leg armor doesn't cover their pants entirely.

Above is a little more detail added. Texture to the bases and a touch of Chestnut Ink added to the beards. (Yes I still have a tiny bit of a bottle of  Chestnut Ink.) Overall, the bases blend too well with the dark metal armor. I need to do something to differentiate the two.

Bayou Battles reflection

So Bayou Battle XIII has come and gone. Despite being the army I've played the longest, my orcs were finally done Thursday night. Below is what the creaming horde looked like.

What you see above is:

a Krudger on a winged slasher

a Flaggit with the Diadem of Dragonkind

two Godspeakers

two Gore Rider regiments

two hords of Trolls

two Morax regiments

a Greatax horde with the Brew of Haste

and a Wardrum

Results varied. 

In game one I came up against shooty ogres. This was the only game all weekend where I didn't feel I even had a chance. He shot up the units with longer range than his and charged the ones that didn't once they got in range. With no shooting to speak of, I couldn't do much. Big win for him.

In game two I came up against an ogre list designed to make me come across the board at me. Terrain and disrupted charges let me soak up a couple of charges I othewise wouldn't have and I was able to cave in both flanks. Medium sized win for me.

Game three was against a really great guy with his Empire of Dust. His shooting dice hated him. He missed with 16 of 17 shots with his three catapults, and the one he hit he retracted because he realized afterward that he was shooting at an individual and should have been minus one. It was a great game, but timely break test rolls on his part changed it from a very close game that I was probably losing to a blowout for him in turn six. This was probably my favorite game of the weekend and got my my second best game vote.

After game three I was done and ready for dinner. I forgot there was four games on day one. So when pairings were posted I was not really into the game or ready to play. I drew an Orc list that was pretty but had some questionable choices that should have been easy for me to exploit. I was able to lose the game pretty much on deployment. I deployed like I was facing a shooting army, not a face bashing one and paid for it. Big loss on my part.

After day one, I was about as down on the game as I ever was on WFB. I had 26 battle points in four games. My last game should have been fun, but I just wasn't into it. Food helped, and Sunday would be a better day. 

Then there was the Giant Bash. It was a rather toned down affair as far as Giant Bashes go, as we had a couple of younger players with us. I managed to be the last giant standing with a total of 1 wound left at the end and won a Darklands Scecchus, Servile Fiend of Dis, made by Mierce Miniatures. I suspect I know where that bit of prize support came from, and if you're reading this and responsible, thanks. 

On day two, I was determined to have a better time, win, lose or draw. For game five, a scenario that involved only taking loot and getting off the board with it or holding on to it until the end of the game, I made another deployment error and let my opponents Salamanders grab three of the five objectives in turn one. I grabbed the other two on my half of the turn and then he dumped his tokens back and let a skink (or KoW equivalent) unit grab them up and head for the board edge. It very nearly worked, but on turn five I was able to make a rear charge with the Krudger and grab the tokes back. So that one went from a close loss to a complete win in the space of one turn. If I'd failed to rout the skinks, they run off the table edge on turn six. This one got my best game vote, which was a tough choice. I ended up giving this one the nod because it really game down to a single charge. I rout them, I win. I don't, and he wins.

Game six was my first game against an Undead army. I expected this one to go badly for me, but the units on my flanks out-punched the units on his flanks and my big horde in the middle out-punched his. He failed three consecutive rolls for Bane-Chant to attack one of my units with one of his. I got so disgusted that I used one of my re-rolls to make him re-roll one of his dice on the third one, which he passed, letting him wipe out that unit. (Maybe too much altruism, but If he fails that again, the game gets even uglier and more lopsided than it ended up being in the end. As it was he had only his general and the scenario dragon left at the end of turn six, and I lost a unit of Gore Riders. No one got any bonus points.

So I got 26 battle points in four games on day one and 36 in two games on day two, for a total of 56. I'm pretty happy. I finished in 21st of 48 player, for the best big tournament finish yet.  I'm not sure, but I think this may be the first GT I've finished in the top half.  The big takeaway, now that I think about it, is that in six games, there was not a single unpainted model on the table. First time ever for a ft for me.

Now my big worry is getting more practice painting so I'll feel worthy of painting a beautiful model like Scecchus.

One Down...

Orc Boar Boyz Gore Riders

So my first multi-based unit for KoW is mostly done. I've got a couple more to go for Bayou Battles. I may, at some point, add shields to the ones who don't already have them. I may not. The guy with the shield in the center was intended to be a Krudger mounted on a winged slasher, but the spear didn't work with the mount, so he became part of a gore rider unit.

Odd Coincidence

I often use a movie as background noise while painting. It is an odd bit of coincidence that the movie I chose while painting the boars from the orc boar riders was The Advocate, which in the UK was released as The Hour of the Pig.  It turned out to be a bad choice as I kept stopping painting to watch the movie. It's been a while since I'd seen it.

Krudger on a Winged Slasher

Still needs some work, but here he is, my Krudger on a Winged Slasher. He just looks like a Warboss on a red dragon.

Restraint? The Hell You Say!

So my preorder Deadzone box came yesterday. The urge to jump in, dig out the new models and begin painting them is powerful. However, I still need three units painted for my Orcs for Bayou Battles. I also need to multi base those three units as well as some repairs to another unit. 

Any bets on how long I make it? I've opened  he box to make sure everything is there and that is it. 

Of course, I could totally play a game or two using Space Marines I already have as Enforcers...