The Carpasian Wars

Lip Beating - Severius hammers Thagrosh

2011-09-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Where I live the loser of a fight is often described as having "the lips beat off of them". This happened on Saturday night when Kenoth of Menoth brought a dead hard 50 point nSeverius list to the throwdown in St. John's.

His list had 5 jacks (Reckoner, Crusader, 2 x Revengers, and a Repenter) along with full units of Choir, Cleansers and Knights Exemplar, and the usual Menothian suspects.

I had 2 Carniveans, a Seraph, a Nephilim Protector, a Harrier and a Shredder, along with full Legionaires, 3 Warmongers and the War Chief, and 2 Shepherds.

We played ten minute turns. I won the roll off, and it had been so long since that had happened that I had forgotten how to play first, so I passed the first turn to Ken.

What I Did Wrong

Poorly Deployment

My deployment, the supposed reason I went second, was not good. I placed the Legionaires opposite the Knights (and a Paladin of the Wall). This was not the right thing to do. What I should have done was either deploy the Warmongers opposite these laddies of Menoth, or else I should have led everything with the Legionaires with the Warmongers behind them and opposite the Knights as a counter-charge unit. The Knights were a big problem for me and I had to deal with them properly ab initio.

Tactica Idiotas

My tactics were poor. This was displayed in my poor deployment, of course, but also in my decision-making during the game. On my second turn I slammed one Carnivean into a Revenger and Reckoner, knocking both down, and then charged the second Carnivean into the Reckoner after Slipstreaming it. Notionally, there is nothing too, too wrong with this, and neither was vulnerable to charging Knights on Ken's next turn (though there was a Crusader to think about), but throwing both of my heavy hitters into the maws of the enemy was perhaps not so wise. There is no magic to knocking things down any more unless there is a game-changing shooting attack to follow and, as it turned out, I nerfed the Carni's charge damage roll on the Reckoner anyways (I rolled a 1 and a 2 and didn't even bother with the third dice). By the end of Ken's following turn both Carniveans were dead. I got one back on the feat, but it was still very poorly done on my part. Interestingly, I had to actually back both Carniveans into the melees, arse first, which unerringly displayed in a figurative sense the position that I had put both of them, and myself, in with this grand, suicidal gesture.

Emotional Barbeque

I played this game standing up. I need to sit down when I play. I have way more fun and success that way. My dice rolling was absymal. The truth is I have to boost - not to make a 7, but to make a 5. My dice rolling is so crappy that for it to even out I would need to roll 5's and 6's for about the next 107 years, and that's just not going to happen. But I know all this, and my style has evolved over time, subconsciously I think, to take this into account. Here, I got into a fey mood during the game, after rolling shite dice for three rounds straight, so that in the end I just got a little moody, and when I missed my attack roll when charging the Repenter with my Seraph I started to lose interest in the contest. My final play of the game involved rolling a 3 on a Mutagenesis onto a Choirboy (I needed a 5) and I conceded. There is no need of this. I painted 4 Legionaires and a Protector for this game. I have always known that 1) you have to be good to be lucky, and 2) you have to laugh in the face of bad dice. I wasn't good, and so I wasn't lucky. And when I got unlucky, I forgot to laugh and to just have fun and think on how lucky I am to be able to have a game of Hordes every couple of weeks. I'll have to think on this.

Time Mismanagement

I knew I was going to have problems with time when I used all but 1:45 on the first round. I mean, this is not a hugely complex list. Every turn that followed saw me missing the play of a number of models. I missed a Vengeance attack with my Legionaires, and I missed their regular move altogether in the same, or another, turn. I think I played 1 Shepherd once in the last three turns of the game, and I think I played each of the Harrier and the Protector once only as well. Now this is something that I can fix with practice and, probably, with some list management. But it has to be said that I used to be better able to play Hardcore at 750 points with 7 minute turns than I was on Saturday night past at 50 points using 10 minute turns. I think I am getting old. Maybe I need to start at 12 minute turns and then work down from there.

What Ken Did Right

Ken was a fell opponent playing a dead hard list. So, an experienced foe using, with craft, a combination of Eye of Menoth + Choir + Jacks + Ashes to Ashes + dice rolling which invariably succeeded and, more often than not, succeeded with a plentitude of dice in the 4-6 range = a hammering to remember.

El Conclusion

I want a rematch! And, I need to play an army that requires me to roll 4's, not 5's.
I don't care what the faction is. Any suggestions?

Gaming Progress

2011-09-21T08:17:00.000-07:00

Von Moltke the Elder said that no plan will survive first contact with the enemy. And so it was. After initially playing 2 or 3 games with Menoth lists (nSeverius and Vindictus), and making the usual renewbie mistakes that have to be expected with a return after long absence to Warmahordes, I decided to play on the more familiar ground of my nThagrosh Legion list.

Successes, albeit successes still riddled with inexcusable errors, have followed with victories in my last three games, one against a 35 point Rhyas list, and two others against the High Reclaimer at 35 and 50 points.

My 35 point list is essentially as follows:

nThagrosh
Carnivean
Seraph
Shredders(x2)
Harrier
Legionaires(x6)
Warmongers(x3)
Warmonger War Chief
Forsaken
Shepherd

My 50 point list grows from that. I added a Carnivean and a Shepherd for the game and thought I had 50 points. Actually it turned out I had 43 points, as I had dropped one Shredder (which brings up the topic, for another time, about playing with point differentials). Let's just say that I get mathematically challenged when tired and rushing through the set up phase.

Anyways, to bring it up to 50 points I will either add a Nephilim Protector or 4 more Legionaires and 2 more Warmongers. All of these miniatures are on the painting table and only the 2 extra Warmongers are in any danger of not being completed this week. I will post pictures in the next few days.

Other thoughts occur to me. The Forsaken remains a profoundly psychological wargaming piece. It attracts significant enemy attention - i.e. focus and fury - and, because of that, it does not often get an effective Blight Shroud attack. Against the High Reclaimer Ashes to Ashes is the death of it. I did keep it back a bit in the Rhyas game and it removed a Raptor with boosted attack and damage rolls, so that is a consideration. But I could have done so much more if I had played it closer to the warbeast/lock scrum in that contest. Otherwise, while 2 Shredders are often said to be better than one, with nThaggie I wonder.

The other gaming I have been doing involves introducing a friendissima to Hordes. This has involved 4 battlebox games, with her playing Lylyth (which I have now painted for her) and associates, and my playing the Morghoul box. A rewarding experience it has been. It is amazing how much one can learn, or confirm, teaching the game to another, and I have grown very keen to play Morghoul again after, maybe, 4-5 years on my various shelves. Of course, I have lost every game, and that is as it should be.

In the last game I wanted to Trample into the Carnivean with my Gladiator as a Shredder was in the way, but my friend entreated me to advise her what to do, having picked up a gleam of wickedness in my eyes I suppose. I had to tell her to move one of her other Shredders into a position in front of the Carnivean that resulted in ending my proposed Trample short of the Carni. We did go through the whys and wherefores of it all, so the next time I shall show no mercy, though no doubt I'll still lose.

I highly recommend teaching the game. People often say that those that can not do, teach, but I think teaching helps with doing. Or something like that.

Back in the saddle again

2011-07-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

Colleagues,

So, after a long hiatus due to overwheming work and other things I am ready to start playing again. My main focus will be getting back into Warmahordes. My plan is to play multiple factions on an ongoing alternate continuous basis in the following manner. To do this properly I'll need to play 2-3 games a week. That cannot happen for the foreseeable future but I expect it to be at least possible by sometime early next year.

Khador - Harkevich (caster ordered - army is painted except for Harkevich and Black Ivan)

Menoth - nSeverius (caster and army almost painted)

Cygnar - nHaley and/or possibly Seige (a fair bit of work left to paint this army...I'll probably continue to borrow Jason's nHaley army for the foreseeable future)

Cryx - nDeneghra (have only to paint Deneghra - the army is fully painted though some elective rebasing and recolouring continues)

Retribution - Rahn (this caster almost painted along with a large Retribution force to accompany him...I have to model Discordia)

Skorne - nMorghul (painted, as is army - I may look at eMorghul here if do not need to buy much to go along with him)

Legion - nThagrosh and eThagrosh (both painted, as is army)

My goal is to become good enough at WM/H to at least vigorously compete at a major tournament next year. By playing this many casters I hope to learn their factions (my education in Circle and Trolls will no doubt continue apace from Ken and Jason). It would be nice if Ken were to do the Harbinger as I need to practice against her. As well, I would really like to learn how to play my Khador well against a Saeryn Angelius list, and I need to better learn how to play eThagrosh against pretty well everything. Finally, it would be a fine thing if Mark decided to play eSkarre (hint, hint, hint).

I don't want to buy much more in terms of miniatures at this point in time...money is tight, but unfortunately I think I absolutely have to pick up at least one Ravagore, along with a Scythean and a blister of Stingers. As well, Anyssa Ryvaal is a must have so that I can finally decide upon whether the Raptors are to be, or not to be. The reason I am concentrating on Legion is because it's the only faction I have where I can play two versions that I like of the same caster with anything approaching familiarity and comfort. That said, I might even look at playing Lylyth in the same light, though that could just be other peoples' meta talking at me from the warp.

Otherwise, I intend to paint a 15mm French HYW army for Impetus...I have the figures, but no camp yet. I also am definately going to complete my High Elven force for Impetus Fantasy. I hope to play this game on a larger table size than 4x4 as the miniatures are 28mm.

I've got the rules for Gruntz. If I get into it, which is not impossible to imagine, I'm going to cheap out more than a little on 15mm figures, and whatever tanks and walkers I decide upon.

Infinity and Dark Age are both on my list as well. Both games are entering the hallowed and familiar phase of the release of new editions. Infinity's has yet to be released, I think - I have a starter Pan-O force for that - and the new Dark Age rulebook has just been released this month for $20...a very acute loss leader indeed. I have a 50 point Dragryi force for that game. I played a demonstration game at GenCon 2010. Dark Age is a game that is an awful lot of fun to play.

To be clear, Warmahordes is my number one priority with Imptetus 15mm coming in a strong second. I'll fill in on everything else as opportunity presents.

Game on,

Keir

Aventine Late Etruscan 28mm Impetus Army NIB

2010-12-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

Here's what I have, NIB, never touched:

For the codes 1 through 5b I took a mix of scuta and hoplons.

2 x ETR001
2 x ETR002
2 x ETR003
2 x ETR004
3 x ETR005a
3 x ETR005b
2 x ETR006a with scuta
2 x ETR006b with scuta
2 x ETR007a(s)
4 x ETR007b(s)
3 x ETR008a
3 x ETR008b
3 x ETR009
3 x ETR010
1 x ETR11
1 x ETR12
1 x ETR13

These were retail 150 quid when I got them in June 2009.

There are 114 foot and 12 cavalry

CAN $150 plus $20 shipping in North America (excluding the north).

Pictures available.

Many more armies to come.

Let me know.

Warmachine on the Road: Haley goes to War

2010-11-14T18:01:00.000-08:00

I've always played widely amongst the factions, and lately, due to travel to Town where a good friend (Geektactica) has a Cygnar army I can play, it's Haley.

This is the scene at the end of the first round. Mark played very agressively, He had first turn and he started towards me all out right from the beginning. All I did was to cast Arcane Shield on the Hunter and on the Longgunners and Temporal Barrier, which caught only the foremost Boneturkie, though that was something. I also took out the arc node on that jack with a shot from the Defender. One of the moves forward I made was with my Journeyman Warcaster. This was thoughtless on my part and, as shall be seen below, led to a Turn 2 demise of that valuable soldier.

Here is Mark's army right up in my grille by the second round. Note how he has engaged one of the Satyxis Raiders with my Lancer...cunning fellow. He Hellmouthed the Journeyman Warcaster and two Longgunners into a sludgy oblivion and engaged one of my Longgunners with Bane Lord Tartarus. Thankfully they passed their terror test, but I guess a Command of 8 is sweet. Note to file to hide the Journeyman from now on.

Here is the scene after my feat turn. Notice the absence of the previously foremost Boneturkie on the lip of the hill on the left (that Mark had arced Hellmouth through), which I CRA'd into a wreck with three Longgunner shots. As well, note the reductions in the size of the Satyxis Raider and the Mechanithrall units (the Brute Thrall is gone too). What I did was put a focus on the Lancer, kill the Raider engaging it, and then arced Chain Lightning at the Raiders killing 4. I also got one with the Defender. This was absolutely critical to my survival. I'd think about engaging with two grunts in a similiar situation down the road when I am in Mark's shoes next, but it has to be said that his model placement was brilliant. The Raider unit was just outside Haley's 10 inch range so I had to arc in the circumstances. The Sentinal double-tapped the Brute Thrall. Oi vey, what a jack!

This skips a bit of the action, which was Mark's assault on the heart of my army with his Raiders, Mechanithralls (three he created with the Necrosurgeon), the Stalker, Tartarus and the Pistolwraiths. Essentially I survived, though I had only four points left on Haley, from a combination of Feedback and two successful combo-strikes on Haley (!) from the Mechanithralls. Anyways, when the dust settled eDennie was not incorporeal and I realized that my one and only chance to pull my nuts out of the fire was to take her out with the Sentinal. To do that I needed to kill two Satyxis Raiders engaging the Sentinal, Charger and Lancer as I needed to move the Sentinal towards eDennie by a couple of inches to get the shot in. It wasn't going to be easy as she was in woods. I had to put three focus on the Sentinal and cast Deadeye on it from Haley. Amazingly, it all worked. Even though I only rolled two shots for my Strafe roll, with Deadeye both hit eDennie, and with boosts both came in at a (fortunate) 28 point damage roll. eDennie only had one focus on her and was double-tapped out of the battle. Great feeling, and a great game. Mark was a fell opponent, and watching him play reminded me of the style of the Cryx player (Chuck?) who was in the Nationals against Flanzer in August. It all could have been so different.

Painted Khador Army for sale - The Butcher of Khardov

2010-10-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

Fullt painted and based Khador army:

Butcher of Khardov
Kodiak
Beserker
Beserker
Uhlans x 3
Greylord Ternion
Iron Fang Pikemen x 10
Iron Fang Pikemen Unit Attachment
Man of War Shocktroopers x 5
Eiryss, Mage Hunter

Here is the Butcher in all his glory:

Here is the full army side on (crappy photo):

Here is the Butcher showing his jacks off:

Here are the Uhlans:

Hre is the Greylord Ternion:

Here are the Iron Fang Pikemen:

So, 47 points, fully painted:

Price at the Warstore for the lot: US$293.00.

The painting of much of this army is excellent (i.e. the Butcher, Kodiak, 3 MOW ST, 6 IFP + UA, Greylord Ternion, Uhlans) painted by Verdigris Zombie on the PP forums. I painted the rest in imitation of the VZ's work, and my stuff only misses his by maybe 5%.

I'll take US$320.00 plus shipping at cost for the lot.

Keir

I'll take

Back from the Desert: Khador action on the road again

2010-10-24T07:43:00.001-07:00

I've been completely preoccupied with work for the last month and a half. It's one of those once in a career things, where everything else has to take seat on the side, if not the back. Wargaming ended up in the back. That said, I have wargamed on a couple of occasions in October. The first time I played a Haley army against a Morghoul led Skorne force run by Ken B. (commonly referred to as Kenoth of Menoth or, when playing Puerto Rico, Cornholio). There were no pictures taken but it was one of those games you always remember, filled with courage and event.

The second night of wargaming hapened a weekend later. I played two games, one against the Skorne of Kenoth again (this time with my Vlad list) and then a game between my Butcher list and Jordin's Vayl warband.

In the game against the Skorne I forgot everything I had learned in Haley's triumph of the week before. As well, I am growing increasingly disenchanted with Vlad the Dark Prince in this edition of the game. I actually can't figure out why, but I really like both the Butcher and Sorscha, and I want to return to the Old Witch. Anyways, here is most of my army in deployment (the Widowmakers are on the right flank - a misdeployment as it turned out).

This shows the Skorne force (except for only one merc solo) heading to my left flank, and it wasn't to get away from my snipers).

This is close to the endgame. Basically I ended up feeding my army into a choke point and, quite frankly, that's not my kind of game and it's not my kind of army. If I had IFP or MOW Shocktroopers on the table this kind of attrition battle in a bottleneck would be feasible, I suppose, but I was off my game, I had a thrown together force, and I played like el stupido. I conceded the game to stop the misery for both of us.

My second game was against Vayl. I'd never played against her before (or with her, for that matter). Jordin is a very capable opponent and has played a lot of games with Vayl, but as it turned out he just wasn't aware of the sheer brutality possible with a Butcher led, jack heavy, full throttled, blood frenzied Khador army. Basically I just moved towards him, waiting for him to come into range, and suffered away along the wait. On his first turn he had his Raptors engaging most of my Widowmakers (they were thus done for) and on his second he killed my Manhunter with the Angelius' shooting attack. But in the end, I still had the core of my force, and on the Butcher's feat turn on the first hit with Lola on the Typhon I did 40 points of damage (i.e. 23) and it died as I had damaged it previously with the Wardog. Vayl was dispatched by the Great Bears soon after that. Even then I missed with either 3 or 4 of the Great Bears' six attacks. My rolling had been subpar for the entire night, but you can't blame the dice. Here are the pictures (he had Vayl, Typhon, an Angelius, a Seraph, two Shredders, 3 Raptors and a Foresaken, I had what you see plus the Manhunter (the Widowmaker Marksman is with his cadre and died with them quite nicely). I have to say I learned how to play the Raptors from Jordin, and thanks for that, man.

Newest Project - Impetus Fantasy - High Elves

2010-08-28T05:42:00.000-07:00

So, in May of 1996 I saw the WFB 4th edition box in a store at the Yorkdale Mall in Toronto. That's what started all of this madness and it was the High Elves (which I didn't know at the time were all Jes Goodwin sculpts) that really grabbed me. It's 14 years later now, and those Elves are finally going to make it onto the table with my first Impetus Fantasy army. There will be other miniatures...I've had years to pick and choose. This first miniature, for example, is a GameZone Miniatures High Elven Lord. He will, in due course, be surrounded by his guard, like King Harold at Hastings. The style of this sculpt is very derivative of Mr. Goodwin's.

This is another heavy infantry base, like the king's above, 12 cm frontage and 6 cm deep. Here he is, a Jes Goodwin-sculpted hero. A great miniature, timeless really. His command of Elven spear will be added from the containers below shortly.

High Elven artillery, the rightly dreaded bolt-throwers of WFB. These are on a 12cm x 6cm base.

The cavalry, 5 of the Goodwin-sculpted Siver Helms in wedge formation on a 12cm x 8 cm base. I had to cut these off the GW cavalry bases they had been glued onto for years.

Here are the basic troops, loads of Elven spear and bow from the 4th edition box of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. If these miniatures are ever going to be improved upon by GW, it can only happen now, starting with the new range for 8th edition and the contents of the Island of Blood baxed set. Everything in between has been the makings of a sad panda, all dancing fools and smiling ponys.

Most of the miniatures above (excepting the Gamezone Lord) were sculpted and in production by 1993. It just goes to show that just because something is new doesn't mean it is better, though it has to be said that this is just my opinion.

Painting for Khador - Harlan Versh and his Trusty Rocketeer

2010-08-25T20:12:00.000-07:00

Here is the Illuminated One and his trusty sidekick. I just finished these tonight. Harlan Versh is going to be my go-to merc solo for a good while, and I'm going to play a Winterguard army for the next year or so.

Front view:

Rear View:

Painting Khador - Kovnik Joe

2010-08-24T21:23:00.000-07:00

I just finished this fellow. My inspiration to add him to my army was Mr. Flanzer's win at GenCon. Paints are GW Foundations, old Citadel metals, Reaper Clear Red, and a few other odds and socks. I have a full painted and based Winterguard unit + UA + 2 Rocketeers. I have one more Rocketeer to finish. I'll spray the entire unit with Testor's Dullcote then, and post a picture of them with the mortars and field gun.

Well, you know Dad, plans can't fight.

2010-08-20T17:46:00.000-07:00

So earlier this evening I'm playing a game of Warmachine against Patrick, who will be five next month, and he's just feated with Vlad to move his jacks (Behemoth, Destroyer and Juggernaut) into my grill on his first turn, and I realize that with Engine of Destruction I can charge with Feora, and I decide not to, instead muttering something about my plan for eventual world domination, and Patrick, hearing this, says to me: "Well, you know Dad, plans can't fight." And I stand, amazed, at hearing von Moltke issuing from the tabula rasa of the mind of my 4 year old boy.

By the way, I have to play Feora now as my Kreoss suffered from the fury of Patrick, or to put it as von Moltke would have, "No miniature with rules that upset a young Khardic lad will long survive the first encounter with the boy's main strength."

Postscript GenCon + New miniature projects

2010-08-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

There were a few things I forgot to say about GenCon, mainly because I had no pictures.

Fisrt, a big thanks to Matt Dipietro of Privateer Press for showing me and Ken his two-brush blending technique and some other tricks and techniques I filed away.

Second, it was very nice to talk to Ron Kruzie of Privateer Press about the fact that my four year old boy plays his painting video regularly (which is a little remarkable, though he just defeated me in a inter-faction Khador game about five minutes ago) and whether or not another video will be forthcoming in that series.

Third, Ken and me both played the Ex Illis demo. It was very nice. This company is Canadian (from Quebec) which is pretty inspiring.

Now for the pictures:

Here are my Dark Age Dragyri Ice Caste heavies. I picked up the Soul Warden from Cool Mini or Not at GenCon. I already had Lucky Kai (the biggest monster) and the Ice Elemental. I just built Lucky Kai and the Soul Warden. Absylonia is there for scale.

Here are the Dragyri slaves. Got these at GenCon. All in I have a 502 point army. And I just downloaded the rules and all of the factions for free. Thanks Dark Age.

Here are three more GenCon purchases. On the left is Tierdeleira, a Werner Klocke Dark Elf sculpt for Reaper. The other two are Enigma releases cast by Cool Mini or Not. Wonderful. These will all be unit leaders for my Impetus Fantasy army.

Finally, my Weird Old West warband. I picked up the Ronin blister from Wyrd Miniatures at GenCon. I had Rasputina and both Victorias already, pre-Malifaux, actually. The first Victoria is going to be an almighty christer to model the two swords on to. Anyways, we'll see.

As to my GenCon shopping list I got Wyrd Miniature's new Nightmare and Lord Chompy Bits duo. I didn't buy Cool Mini or Not's giant eagle resin figure. I regret that. Exceedingly.

I also went to the Thunderbolt Mountain booth, met Tom Meier and John Kellner, both charming fellows, and picked up a pack of 20 of their exquisite Byzantine spearmen. In terms of news on where they are going with upcoming production, Mr. Meier told me to expect a release of platoons with support elements of 1/48th scale WW2 US paratroopers and SS sometime in the relatively near future. In his words, most of the sculpting is done, it's just a matter of getting the production details finished.

GenCon Report

2010-08-12T17:44:00.000-07:00

So, my plane arrives in Indianapolis at 8:20 AM Central time, Thursday, August 5th, 2010. I am a vegetable, but one capable of panic. I make it to the Convention Center directly from the airport in a taxicab by 9:15. I pick up my badge and ticket package from Will Call after another line up and then try to find the Privateer Press tournament (which has moved from the Wabash).

I find it in time to register and play Rite of Passage. My first game is against Orboros. This picture was taken before the start of my first turn. My army looked nice. I lost. I can't remember why.

This is towards the end of my second game. What fun we had in this game; I was throwing his Thunderhead about (I missed Nemo with it! Gah!) and he was frying me up pretty well.

This is after the first round of the third game. I thought it was sick that I had to play the very winged Legion list I sort of picked Legion in order not to play. It's kind of like circumcision...you're awake and it hurts a lot. Most of his models were somewhat painted.

In this game I lost to a man wearing a kilt. This has happened to men all over the world for many centuries, Highlanders being what they are. There were a few kilts at GenCon this year. No tartan though.

This is the crowd before one of the many doors into the exhibit hall on Friday morning. The picture doesn't do the scene justice.

I have to get one of these forts for the boys. Fantastic. By Conte.

Okay, now we are into the serious worship of minis. Dark Age had their booth with Cool Mini or Not. I think the latter now owns the former. Anyways, these are the Dragyri, which I quite like. I picked some up and am modeling them as I load these photos. We played a test game. A truly excellent small scale skirmish game. Very good mechanics. Nice. I'm in. Totally.

Ah, Kenoth of Menoth loves the Skarrd.

These are the Brood. Yum. We saw the new rule book (sans colour). Excellent looking. I can't wait.

So, Cool Mini or Not also are now producing Gamezone in North America. This is one of the Dark Elven figures. Jaw dropping.

As is this fellow. I have this figure.

And I have this Sandra Garrity sculpt, of a miniature formerly of the now defunct Magnificent Egos line, which Cool Mini or Not appears to possibly own as well. I have to paint this.

This is an original Cool Mini or Not release for Gen Con. It was worth every bit of the $70 they wanted, but I had to eat. And I already had my $70 miniature for the convention, Lord Chompy Bits and Nightmare (see below). By the way, this eagle is huge; that's a 28mm elven figure on its back.

Now this is a new release for Hell Dorado, which is now owned by Cipher Studios. We couldn't get a demo of Hell Dorado despite three visits to the Cipher Studios booth. This figure is called Augustinius Raimond, and I had determined to pick it up before the convention. I looked at it twice or three times in its blister and I thought the detail was soft and the cuts shallow. I didn't buy it.

This is my first Iron Arena game on Friday, against Quinton P. In this first picture my army is approaching the ball of metal death. He shoots my Carnivean to the right, but it has the spell Unnatural Aggression on it.

Here is the result. I was able to advance 6' in my maintenance phase with said Carnivean and charge Karchev. I feated but the winds of stupidity blew into my cranium and I did not cast Manifest Destiny. Karchev had three points left after all was said and done, and I died. Quinton was a good guy.

This is another Iron Arena game on Friday. In this first picture I am in the bunker with most of my army (the deployment rules meant large base models had to start inside). Approaching is a double pronged assault of Khadoran fury.

Here is the picture when I spew out of my hive. This game was another I lost in my assassination run, this time leaving two points on the Butcher. Fun stuff, great table.

Now this picture and the one following are of one of the best wargames I have ever had the pleasure to engage in. Myself and my buddy missed Hardcore on Saturday morning. We were each eating a very fine omellette when it started by my calculations. Never the mind, we decided to play on this exquisite railroad table instead. What a game.

Here is the view from the position of the black robes. Funny, I travelled three thousand miles to play a game against my buddy.

Here is Lord Chompy Bits riding Nightmare. Oh my God, this creation of Wyrd Miniatures for their Malifaux game has to be one of the best miniatures I have ever seen. I am going to convert him into a Khadoran caster for my son. His Feat will be Tantrum, when he will create Nightmare.

Here is the young master, sans Nightmare.

Another view of Nightmare.

And another.

And one final view, complete with a fanatic onlooker.

This is a Wendigo Yeti from Crocodile Games. Superb.

More of the Wendigo. What a painting job. Fine sculpts.

The new Skorne Nihilators from Privateer Press. They actually look better than this.

The new Legion Nephilim Bolt Thrower. Cool paint job.

The new Legion Ravagore. I saw the card. Cool, but I still prefer my Carniveans.

The new Cicle Warpborn Skinwalkers. Nice. And the fellow in the front is another new release, some kind of stoneskin phallus or other if I recall correctly.

The new Skorne Warlock, Dominar Rasheth. My buddy picked up the Skorne army book. Cool warlock.

The new Skorne Ancestral Guardian character solo Hakaar.

The new Skorne Warbeast Titan Sentry. It's contained in Hordes Primal MK II.

The new Skorne Extreme Titan Gladiator warbeast. Huge. Probably unplayable. Marvellous paintjob.

Cryx Warcaster Lich Lord Venethrax. This is long released but I really like the sculpt (very imposing figure) and the painting job.

New Cryx character jack (add-ons for standard Reaper Warjack build).

New Cygnar character jack.

New Khador character jack.

New Menoth character jack.

Cool terrain from Acheson Creations. This would make a great Menoth fort said Kenoth of Menoth. I could only agree, on fear of immolation.

This year I looked at the artist's section in the exhibit hall. I was very impressed, so impressed that I posed for my portrait. It's a reasonable likeness, probably a little understated. And my teddy bear doesn't have a smile.

This piece won the painter's award. I could see it. (Ha Ha).

Kenoth tries for yet another dimension. There's simply no point talking to him, he will not join the real world.

Ex Illis figure. This shows that their plastics can be quite excellent if modelled and painted properly.

This Ex Illis monks are very cool.

The detail on the wings of these Ex Illis angelic warrior types has to be seen to be believed. These sold out almost immediately on Thursday.

This monster works in Ex Illis because their system doesn't rely on basing of individual models. Great price too, less than $50.00.

Here is another one.

Here is my vote for the army of the convention. What a great paintjob, and he was just there playing pick-up games of WFB. Notice the Max Mini helmets on the unit in the front closest to my camera.

There were some nice touches to the army. Here, on the top of the pillar, we see two depraved demonettes (that's redundant) in an embrace.

Here the Lord rides two pony girls.

Here is the pole dancing demonette on the army standard. However, leaving aside these little details, the painting was just amazing. What an achievement.

So here is the last thing I did at GenCon, which was to watch the Privateer Press championship. This is the deployment of the armies, Khador with nSorshca on the left and Cryx with eGoreshade on the right.

The Khador player won with the following 35 point list.

nSorscha
War Dog
Behemoth warjack
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Winterguard Infantry (10)
2 Winterguard Infantry Rocketeers
Winterguard Unit Attachment
Kovnik Joe
Koldun Lord
nEiryss
Widowmaker Marksman
Manhunter

Which just goes to show that it's not the list, it's the player.

Off to GenCon with the Legion of Everblight

2010-08-03T17:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been painting like a maniac since the last post here, and I've not done too badly. First off, I simply finished my Warmongers, Raptors, Warmonger Warchief, Shepherds and a Forsaken. Then I built and painted a second Carnivean. Then I built and painted a third Carnivean. Then I built and painted Thagrosh the Messiah. I probably am not going to finish Absylonia, which is a shame, but I have to get up in 6 hours to fly to Indianapolis, so that's that I guess. Anyways, here are the pictures taken this afternoon in the backyard as I applied the Testors Dullcote to these fine fellows:

My GenCon shopping list is pretty small this year. The only must-have for me is Wyrd Miniature's new Nightmare and Lord Chompy Bits duo. I am also going to look at Cipher Studios releases for Hell Dorado, but mainly at the Augustinius Raimond figure for now. I'll be spending a bit of time at Cool Mini or Not and will probably pick up a couple of Enigma figures...well Dark Vlad for sure if they have it, and possibly Xargax before Loratham. Cool Mini or Not also has a giant eagle resin figure I want a closer look at...I can't tell from the picture what the rider looks like.

I'll be heading over to the Reaper booth as well. They are really a fine bunch over there, I must say, and I'll be looking to pick up a new Klocke Priestess sculpt called Tierdeleira.

Thunderbolt Mountain will be at GenCon (Yea!!!) and so I'll pop over to meet Tom Meier and John Kellner, and pick up a pack of Byzantine spearmen if they have them. I also am very interested in trying to get some news on where they are going with upcoming production. Such fine miniatures, just glorious!

I'll pop by the WarStore as well to say hi to Neal and his colleagues. I don't know what I'll be interested in picking up there but that's part of the fun of GenCon.

Last but not least, the Privateer Press booth. I'm signed up for three Warmachine/Hordes tournaments, so I won't have much time to buy swag. What I'd really like to do there this year is amble on over to watch Ron Kruzie and their other painters at work.

Practice Games - Practice List

2010-07-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

Ah well, so much to do, so little time. Into St. John's for some pre-GenCon gaming with my list of many things, and I discovered I'll need medication (or perhaps electroshock) to play it in 7 minute turns. So it's back to the drawing board.

This is my initial deployment in my first game against an eDeneghra list played by Mark.

Things heated up on my right flank:

Then, things heated up on my left flank:

Then I lost. Mark is an excellent player, so losing to him is no great shock. But it has to be said that I was stupid and then I died.

Next game was against Mark again, this time (at my request) playing nSkarre. I decided to change my deployment strategy.

Mark changed his strategy as well...here are his full Satyxis Raiders with Witch attachment charging my jacks...oh, what fun. Is there a caster with overwatch neutron bomb strike available?

After the game I told Mark that playing his Skarre list felt like reading a Russian novel...I knew something bad was going to happen, especially if I got off the couch to do anything. Unfortunately, I got up off the couch. His first charge attack from a Satyxis Raider did 12 points of damage on my Spriggan! 12 points! + feedback. He hit both my jacks with another 5 charge attacks. And let me say that free strikes from Satyxis Raiders are not gentle taps either.

Initial conclusion - I must find my brain. Final conclusion - I need less models.

Here are Ken's heavy warbeasts...he is taking them to GenCon:

Another view of Ken's Circle army:

And here is Jason's gun line, ready to receive the attentions of their woodland foe.

Gen Con painting project

2010-07-17T05:33:00.000-07:00

I painted the Widowmaker Marksman, an Ogrun Bokur and Reinholdt during a couple of sessions last week while I was vacationing down the coast. I haven't completely finished them...I'm going to put another flesh wash on the Ogrun, I've got to flock the bases and paint their edges black, and I will spray varnish them with Testors Dullcote on a dry day.

As far as problems go, the right ankle of the Widowmaker Marksman broke off when I was pushing it into the slotta base so I had to pin it back on. This is a design issue but no big deal as far as the modelling goes. The Ogrun Bokur is a fantastic model, one of the best in the entire Privateer Press range as far as I am concerned.

Here is the next iteration of my Gen Con Hardcore list. I am going to playtest it next week when I go into town for a week's vacation.

The Butcher of Khardov
Behemoth
Spriggan
War dog
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Man-o-war Shocktroopers (Leader and 2 Grunts)
Widowmakers (Leader and 3 Grunts)
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios
Kell Bailoch
Man-o-war Drakhun (with dismount)
Ogrun Bokur
Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator
Widowmaker Marksman

The Soccer Wars

2010-07-12T05:37:00.000-07:00

Holland, the dirtiest team to never win the World Cup.

It was clear what was going on. It was a coaching decision by the Dutchies to break up the Spanish verve by physical brutality. And it worked. By the second half many of the Spanish passes in the midfield were hurried and off target, giveaways they would never had made but for fear of injury. That's not to say they were cowards, but when you have a million euro professional salary there are limits to what you will sacrifice for your country in sport. And the Dutch coach, van Marwijk, knew his man in Webb. Those first two Spanish yellow cards were laughable equalizers for the much more serious Dutch misdemeanours that preceded them in turn.

Von Bommell was disgusting, a devil in orange. De Jong's foul on Alonso will be replayed for years and every controversial red card to come will be compared to the yellow he got.

After the match van Marwijk insisted his players stayed within the law. "It is not our style to commit horrible fouls, it is not our kind of football," he pleaded. He's obviously picking up where Tony Blair left off on Iraq's possession of WMD.

It would have been a scandal if the Dutch had won, but they played with such calculated violence it was a scandal they were there at all. Their defeat looks good on them.

Photograph: Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP

A hero for our time

2010-07-02T14:35:00.000-07:00

I have always admired Diego Maradona, the man who knows how to win - and how to tell his detractors that their arguments against him are arguments against God! Diego Maradona, long may your big jib draw.

Gaming weekend photographs

2010-06-21T17:41:00.001-07:00

So here are a few more photographs, rescued from the waters of forgetfulness by Stu.

In the first two shots I am playing against Mark's Coven. Both pictures are taken at the high point of my game, say after my turn two. I have destroyed one of Mark's boneturkies with my Great Bears (isn't his Deathjack delovely?) and I have used the Spriggan's flares, followed by 3 Bombard shots and my Widowmakers doing their worst to kill over half of Mark's Satyxis Raiders, causing them to fail a morale check. It all went downhill from here for me, but I was happy for a moment, and what is life, after all, but the possibility of being happy for a moment or two?

Now this shot is the only one surviving from my Sorscha v. Kreugar game. First, let me say that I initially played Ken's Kreugar list using nVlad and that he assassinated me on turn two using a combination of a slam by a WarpWolf into one of my jacks, knocking Vlad down, followed by spell and shooting attacks to turn him into a crispy prince. It was a thing of beauty.

In the game against Sorscha Ken got a turn two attack in on me using his Lord of the Feast, which he warped into base contact with Sorscha using the Stones on the hill to the left. However, he then whiffed his rolls with the Lord of the Feast, so I breathed a sigh of relief, and then I in turn spent all of Sorscha's activation/focus the next turn whiffing my rolls before I finally killed the shagging thing. Finally, Ken tried another assassination run, which failed, leaving Kreugar open to Sorscha's Icy Gaze and a number of bombard shots, not to mention a charge from a Spriggan.

The next game was my nButcher versus Ken's nKreugar again. In the first photograph, we are reaching the point in time where someone must do something. I had already learned by this time that two handed throws, while not particularly damaging, were most inconvenient, and that Warpwolves could hardly fail with them, even against Strength 12 Khador Jacks. And yet, they do find it hard to get up close and personal.

This picture shows me trying to figure out what the hell to do next. I may even be going through the alphabet in my mind. Otherwise, black is very slimming, and I will wear it as often as possible if there is even the slightest chance that someone will attempt to photograph me.

I like this photograph (thanks Stu) as it shows me getting my Behemoth into combat. I did thereafter kill the Alpha with a couple of Armored Piercing attacks, but it has to be said that the best thing I could have done, which I did not, would have been to pick up the shagging Alpha wolf and throw it at Kreugar. Ah well, I am reminded of what Scottie MaCarthy used to say, that "If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, it would be Christmas all year round."

GenCon bound

2010-06-21T09:40:00.001-07:00

As I've said above (and below) I'm off to GenCon this year. I travelled into St. John's a couple of weekends ago to play some games and finetune my Hardcore list (and my lists for the two other tournaments I am signed up for).

So my main and Hardcore caster is nButcher. My alternate is nSorscha. I played 5 games during the weekend, all at 50 points, starting with two with nButcher against, respectively, nNemo (win) and the Coven (loss). I then played three games against nKreugar, first with nVlad (loss), then nSorchsa (win), then nButcher (win). These last three games gave Ken (who is also going to GenCon) a chance to take a serious look at Kreugar.

I registered a total fail on the camera front, forgetting to bring my card for my Olympus C2100, then borrowing my mother's camera which resulted in a series of 29 photographs that looked like they were taken on the dark side of the moon. I have had to improvise. The pictures of the game versus Nemo are courtesy of Jason and many thanks for them, buddy.

In my initial two games against Nemo and the Coven I experimented with the Kossites. That experiment is now over. I think they would be alright fine with nVlad or the Old Witch and, of course, Yuri. With the Butcher they were probably more of a distraction for me than they were for my opponents. They can't hit the broad side of a barn door. They are good against low defence solos which, I suppose, will mean that opponents will place those kinds of models in the center of their deployment zones, which could be a good thing.

Here is my glorious advance against the old man, erm, Nemo.

Here are the Kossites after moving on my second turn. They killed the Cygnar chief mechaic bloke but not the GMCA. In a moment of hilarity that followed, Jason finished off the lass with a Chain Lightning directed at the Kossites. He won't do that again. I'm not sure if I was in command of all of these looking at the photograph now. I thought I measured it on the day, but 7" is no great thing.

My advance up the center continues. The Greatbears were much reduced at this point, despite Iron Flesh and the hill. They did destroy the Lancer however, a serious setback for Nemo. Jason's newly painted Ruins of Osgiliath, seen in the center of the table here, were very fine.

Here is the endgame. Nemo had crept up to within an inch of the Ruins. I advanced the Butcher and actually used blast damage from Obliteration plus blast damage from a Bombard shot to finish him off.

Here is my Hardcore army.

nButcher
Wardog
Behemoth
Spriggan
Destroyer
Destroyer
Great Bears
Widowmakers
Drakhun with Dismount

For other 50 point tournaments that require a second caster I will drop the Drakhun's dismount and use Sorscha and the Manhunter you see here.

Finally, I have three shots of of my Citadel modular gaming hill for Jason. As can be seen the hill did warp/came warped in one configuration (the Madonna bosomic variation). However, there are no such problems with the Battle of Hastings version.

I am not completely happy with the flocking. I think more of a mixture of the different flocks should have been attempted in places. As well, I think I may have overbrushed the outcrops a little too hard. That said I can probably rediscover definition there with a wash or two.

Bile Thralls

2010-05-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I last posted anything Warmachine related. I have actually been poring over the books and the cards, and collecting miniatures hand over fist, to get ready for GenCon 2010. I will be taking a relatively simple and familiar Khador list, but I am becoming more and more interested in playing Cryx and expect to devote a fair bit of playing time to Cryx over the next couple of years. So here is my latest painting project. The Bloat Thrall is more of a repaint, but the 10 Bile Thralls are my paintjobs through and through.

Next up on the painting table is probably an Extremoth.

Just because

2010-04-19T17:47:00.001-07:00

Late Romans redux

2010-04-13T19:18:00.000-07:00

I recovered this picture from a Facebook site. It is an action shot of my Late Romans during one of their defeats at Britcon 2003. I liked the picture anyways.

As can be just made out, my light cavalry is dashing around ther ruins on my right flank, my heavy infantry is in the centre behind a screen of skirmishers, and a unit of heavy cavalry is anchoring the left flank. My plan did not survive contact with the enemy.

Tomorrow, I'm going to post a picture of a Cryx unit I just finished.

The strangeness of this world is beyond all belief

2010-02-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

Colonel Russell Williams, Canadian Air Force, sitting to the left of General Rick Hillier, Chief of Defence Staff (Retired), during the latter's book signing tour late last year.

What a picture.

It's attributed to the DND by the Globe and Mail.

Painting Update - Napoleonics and Legion of Everblight

2010-02-07T09:50:00.000-08:00

Right, this is only an update, but I thought I'd post as I have at least one example of model preparation and also a view of where the 102 Napoleonic French are.

So, here are the French. As you can see they are coming along. The red on the Grenadiers' epaulettes, etc. is too strong. I shall have to lightly drybrush it, probably with Blood Angels Red or maybe an orange, and then wash with a blue...maybe with a Reaper Blue Liner. This kind of thing defeats the purpose of my wash method, but its my fault for failing to acquire or make a red wash that could do a satifactory job of it. In front are some Legion of Everblight figures I've stared to break things up a bit. Those are Blighted Legionaires. Excellent miniatures.

Here is the modelling tip. These are the mounts for the Blighted Raptors, an Everblight light cavalry unit. These are ungulates, sans antlers at this point, but the point is that there were gaps I had to fill with green stuff. I just used an exacto blade to mimic the tufts of hair. It was a fun bit of work. I'm not even sure if there was a problem with the minis as such. I probably could have filed them into a better fit, but I'd rather just fill gaps afterwards than spend a lot of time trying to mate the halves beforehand.

These are the Legion Warmongers, ogres gone bad, if you like. I firmly consider these to be the top fantasy sculpts at God's scale of the year they were released by Privateer Press. Fantastic. I also have a Warmonger Warchief here (though he missed the snapshot). Basically, I've just brushed GW Tinbitz over a black basecoat on all of the mail and plate on these. As you can see, I still have to ensure the mail is fully painted in black inside the chainmail. I've been using PP armorwash so far but may need to go with the gesso watered down again. The Warmongers' flesh is meant to be/will be painted a light greyish blue. I'll get to that later. I seem to always paint outside in, when I should be going inside out, i.e. paint the flesh first with everything else to follow. As well, this picture shows me again that I have somehow acquired a camera that cannot do the very thing it is made for. The world is full of shoddy goods, I expect. As a public service, let me recommend that readers avoid like the plague the Canon PowerShot A1100IS. Buying it was a notable waste of my money.

Has Prime Mark II enthralled a new recruit for Warmachine?

2010-02-06T07:03:00.001-08:00

It's every geek's fondest dream, and far, far too early to tell, but I was amazed to find my oldest son, Porrick, at all of 4 years of age, poring over Prime Mark II in the family room this morning.

When I tried to speak to Porrick, he displayed that 1,000 yard stare that I have come to know so well since Toruk first ensnared me in the hobby. He has since decided that he will play Kay-dor and, not only that, but he will play the prince of Kay-dor (i.e. Vlad). Now he loves red above all colours, so this is a matter of little surprise to me, but the "upside down triangle", as he called it, was very much to his taste as well.

I had to defer an immediate game, but I expect baby steps will follow soon. I know that 4 is the age that many athletes and musicians start their endeavours...why not Warmachine as well?

Exciting News from Gripping Beast

2010-02-04T04:59:00.000-08:00

I don't usually post product release news from companies in the hobby, but for the Beastie Boys I will make an exception. Gripping Beast is my favorite figure manufacturer and, frankly, I have the majority of their figures up to and including the Teutonic knights. Unfortunately, price is becoming a factor for me now, given the economic times, two young boys, and the middle-aged angst that I find afflicting me these days. So to hear that GB is going into plastics is refreshing. I mean, I have many of the plastic figure offerings from Victrix and the Perry brothers. If you have a Victrix French grenadier or a Perry voltigeur in hand, there could be no argument about quality. Plastic at 28mm is capable of exquisite detailing. So good stuff from GB. I can't wait to see the releases.

I SEE A DARK SAIL ON THE HORIZON!
The Vikings Are Coming!

Emerging from the sea-mist are the first fruits of our endevours in an exciting new area.......... 28mm Plastic Figures!

Naturally enough our first box will be Viking Hirdmen. On the left is one of the resin 'three-ups' that Darren couldn't resist painting. Nice.

Next issue we will have more details of the box and its contents plus plenty of pictures. We will also be letting you know how you can pre-order these ferocious Norsemen through a preferential newsletter special deal which will include a special limited edition metal figure.

If you can't wait, pop along to see us at the Vapnartak show at York Racecourse this Sunday (7th Feb) where we will have some of the resins on display.

Things Wargaming - Short Reviews

2010-01-31T09:27:00.000-08:00

I've picked up all of the products below over the past month and I thought I'd share some thoughts about them.

Black Powder is the big new thing for me, so much so that I am currently painting 102French 28mm miniatures! Actions speak louder than words.

Great survey if you don't have any other. The price, with free shipping, from Amazon can't be beaten. However, it has to be said that there are no pictures of French line of any use to a miniature painter in the book.

Great survey if you don't have any other. As above, the price, with free shipping, from Amazon can't be beaten. However, it has to be said (again) that there are no pictures of French line of any use to a miniature painter in the book, and I had to pull out my old Osprey French Line book. A major oversight from Osprey. Risable, really.

My SOA membership has been renewed again. The current production of the SOA magazine, The Slingshot, makes it one of the best available for an ancient wargamer. Kudos to the editor, Mark Watson.

I recently picked up issues 37 - 43 of Wargames: Soldiers and Strategy. Issue 37 had a superb article on refighting Ligny written by Barry Hilton. Elsewhere there were some quite remarkable ventures in translation, different in kind from the prior 36 issues. To give credit, however, most of the errors were entertaining. On the whole, then, still in the top three wargaming magazines for me, and so I will continue to purchase them.

I've been looking for a painting magazine for years. I thought Game Forces would be it, but too much focus on larger scales and busts, and too little on the tricks and techniques used by the painters. Pass.

Well, what a massive improvement the new Wargames Illustrated has shown over the days before it was purchased by Battlefront. I will be subscribing from issue 268 on...I have all the other issues since Battlefront took over. Top drawer stuff!

Napoleonic French Painting Report

2010-01-19T21:23:00.001-08:00

All 102 of the Victrix and Perry French are now modelled, hand-primed and drybrushed white. The plan is to paint them all using washes. Here is a close-up which shows well the ghostly effect reached by drybrushing white over a black basecoat.
Here is a wider picture showing most of the French models. I tend to make my own washes with the paints I have...the strangest paints can provide the best of washes. One notable example off of the top of my head is Delta Ceramcote's Midnight Blue, which is just a beautiful paint to work with. This time, I'm going to try the GW washes, along with seeing if I can make a good wash with either the Derivan French Blue or one of the Foundry French Blues. I'll see what works.

The miniatures will all be based on 40x40mm bases for Black Powder. I think I'm going to cheat a little on this and glue 2 miniatures to opposite corners of each 40mm base and paint them like that, adding the other singles later. I haven't figured out exactly how I'm handling the skirmisher thing yet. I have enough Voltigeurs; I just need to figure out the basing.

Wargaming with Thagrosh and Vlad

2010-01-18T06:21:00.000-08:00

So, another 700 km road trip - each way - for some Hordes and Warmachine gaming. I haven't played a lot of Hordes, and what I have played was mostly Primal Skorne armies back in the spring and summer of 2007. The last time I played Thaggie was during the May 24th weekend in 2008.

I brought Legion and Khador with me across the island and for the first game I flipped a coin to decide which to play against Mark's eDeneghra list. I forgot my camera, and so was reliant on the use of Jason's.

This is a nice shot of the table in the earliest part of the battle. My Legion paintjob is set off well by the Pegasus ruins Ken picked up from Neal at the Warstore.

The view from Mark's side of the table.

I was hoping for an epochal struggle between Carnivean and Death Jack.

Alas, it was a Death Jack that thought discretion the better part of valor.

I conceded the game after eDennie survived a second round of burning (she was on fire from the Carnivean's Blight Breath, and I had whiffed the first damage roll, which easily could have done the job on its own). As of the moment in time that I conceded Thagrosh had been beaten up on during Dennie's feat turn...I could have Slipstreamed him away as I was next to the Seraph in any event but I didn't bother...I Obliterated a Nightwretch instead but Mark had another Bonejack or three in the wings.

Lessons:

Generally, advancing towards a Cryx assassination army is counter-productive as well as being counterintuitive.

Don't ever use Thagroshes' spell Obliterate again! I missed it once, I think with a boosted attack roll. That's 5 fury gone. To get a reasonable result you need to boost damage too. To put it more reasonably, I can just imagine situations where it's useful, but you'd have to knock the target down first.

Don't feed living models to a Death Jack if you can avoid it. I took his arm off and then gave him some bacongator to put it back on again.

Okay, game two. I didn't want to play inter-faction and so I went with Everblight again against a Karchev list. This first picture shows the situation at the end of round two. I'm positioning the Gatorman Posse for a potential charge on Karchev.

Karchev has moved up closer again. I've decided now that I'm going to charge him with the Carnivean after Slipstreaming it over from its' current position.

Okay, I've charged, first, the Forsaken. A couple of points...she's lost 1 point of P+S on her claw in MKII but more to the point it was a dumb idea any way you look at it. Then the Carnivean charged with three Fury left to be used. I missed everything! with the Breath Attack and then did very poorly with two bites and two claw attacks against Karchev. The Wardog is fantastic with Karchev, raising his melee defence to 14. Wildness. Then, I decided I'd experiment and see what would happen if I charged the Spriggan with Thaggie. I used all of my Fury but one and didn't get the Spriggan's lance, or very much else for that matter. The lesson learned from this experiment is that Thagrosh does warjack damage (i.e. the same as a Beserker's axe) but that doesn't mean he can take out a Warjack.

Here's a side view of the final confrontation.

Next up were a couple of games that night against Jason's Cygnar and Trollbloods. In this first shot I've just taken 9 points off of Krae by a combination of sniper shots and a blown up Beserker - not shown. ;-)

This is another picture of the same scene from just behind Krae. The rest of the game involved a series of futile attempts by each of us to assassinate the other's caster. Jason whiffed an attack from a Lancer that would have finished Vlad, and Eiryss basically killed Krae with a couple of deathbolts over the course of three rounds.

I learned a lot during this game about playing Beserkers. As well, Eiryss is a must have for my GenCon list. The main thing I learned, however, is to never give up. That's ultimately what that whole play like you've got a pair thing means for me...just never give up because in Warmachine you truly have a chance to win every game you play if you are just a little patient in the face of adversity.

The final game of the day was my Legion against Jason's Madrak list. This was a rather disjointed affair during which, amongst other things, my Carnivean was killed twice! We had to call the game due to exhaustion, but Jason was in pretty good shape by then. I did learn a few things, however. My Seraph actually finished off a Dire Troll Mauler (it needed a Critical Hit with two fives on two dice to do it) which was a pleasant surprise. Thagrosh killed the Fell Caller and two Champions in the same turn of combat as well, with Fury to spare. I didn't play as agressively as I should have and made the cardinal error of splitting up my forces from the second round on. I also dropped Fog of War when I didn't need too, and held off on casting Spiny Growth when I should have put it on the Carnivean (I was thinking I'd transfer onto it later and the animus would have put it up to max Fury, but I had the Seraph at full health in any event and the Carnivean would have lived a little longer). Oh, and I forgot one of the key rules of meodern life...Don't feed the Troll! However, the game also reinforced for me the importance of taking out the foe's warbeasts. That lesson is what playing against Warmachine armies will not get you.

All in a great day. I am decided upon Vlad and Khador again for GenCon. It's just ultimately the familiarity factor...I owe it to the other players. Here is the core of my 35 point Hardcore list:

Vlad
Wardog
Drago
2 x Beserkers
Widowmakers
Great Bears
Eiryss

I just need to decide how I'm going to spend my final 7 points. I'm pretty sure I'll take the Drakhun with dismount, which leaves 2 points. I have to decide whether I'll take Kell, a Field Gun or a Manhunter.

Newest Army-Painted Thagrosh horde

2010-01-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

My newest project, a 35 point Everblight force, led by Thagrosh the Prophet. I acquired the Everblight models in a trade with JET (see Geektactica blog) a couple of years ago. They had a variety of painting on them, with base colours blocked out on the Carnivean, and washes and drybrushing on the lights and the Seraph. I have painted all models to some extent, but my greatest efforts have been reserved for the heavies. All the bases are my work, as is the Gatorman Posse.

My favorite Everblight monsta is the Carnivean. I am seriously considering building one more and adding Typhon, a Harrier, a Forsaken and two Shepherds for a 35 point Absylonia list for GenCon. More of this later.

Khador Troika - Painted Drago and 'Zerkers

2010-01-11T20:16:00.000-08:00

I have just finished painting and basing these three Khador warjacks tonight, except only for the coat of matte varnish to seal them. I'll be using them in a 35 point Vlad list this weekend...another road trip for the greater good.

You will note the modelled Napoleonic French behind. All 60 of the Victrix and the last 9 of the 42 Perry French are now fully built. 51 of the models have been fully hand-primed, and the other 51 are next.

Victrix French Fusiliers modelled

2010-01-08T02:54:00.000-08:00

Another step forward. Command, voltigeurs and grenadiers to go.

Update - the Perry scrubs have their packs!

2010-01-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

The Testors glue is non-toxic and it appears to work. This has left me sober with strong bonding. I had to sand the black primer off of their backs to facilitate the plastic bonding, though. Another small step taken towards Quatre Bras.

New Project Begun - Black Powder Napoleonics

2010-01-02T20:59:00.000-08:00

So I was talking to my friend Stu yesterday and we agreed to build and paint two brigades each of French and foes by this September for play using the new Black Powder rules penned by Rick Priestly and Jervis Johnson. So each of us will be building and painting one (Black Powder) brigade of French and one of the allies. Now I'm not buying any miniatures for a year so I've got to do my part with what I have. What I have for the French is a box of Victrix late French foot, a box of Perry French foot, and a box of Perry French Heavy Cavalry. I started the Victrix last night and I have now got all 60 of them cleaned up with heads and backpacks attached/glued on. Here they are in the foreground. You can see the miniatures primed black just to the right and behind? They are the 42 Perry French foot.
So I have 102 foot and 14 cavalry (in the Perry French Heavy Cavalry box). I don't have any artillery, and with only 14 cavalry I can only make one unit of cavalry. The foot will be divided into 4 units of 24. The Victrix box has 8 officers. Given that the Perry box has one already, I only need three from the Victrix box, so I've demoted 5 officers back into the ranks, though they are in the elite Voltigeur and Grenadier companies. ;-)

Because of this arrangement I ended up short 6 backpacks for my Victrix French. So I stole 3 from the Perry box (leaving me with 40 for them) and left my Victrix drummers without backpacks despite the stern requirement stated on the Victrix Instruction Sheet, which I quote:

"Backpacks are to be used on all figures except B13, B14, B15."

Stu is going to regift me a couple of Wargames Foundry French 8 pound cannons with crew that I gave him about 4-5 years ago. As well, he is regifting me a unit pack of 10 Newline Designs French Cuirrassiers. This will give me a bare minimum standard sized brigade of standard sized battalions for the French for Black Powder (using only one gun).

As for my allies, I will probably do a brigade of Prussians from my collection of Calpe Miniatures Prussians. I basically have everything Calpe has produced over the past 8-9 years so that will not be a problem. I was originally going to go British for the brigade of foes as I have a couple of boxes of Victrix British and a box of Perry British. However, I have neither cavalry nor guns for the Brits, so the Prussians it is, Prussians that have waited long enough to see the gaming table in any event.

Otherwise, you can see my Khador jacks on the painting table, namely Drago and two Beserkers, along with another nearly completed EIR Roman Legion and various other odds and ends.

I am really excited about this new venture. The Victrix figures are very fine, with very little and easily removed flash, and while it is a fairly labour intensive business putting the figures together, it is an interesting labour. I've wanted to play 28mm Napoleonics for years and now, with the Black Powder rules - a set which I think to be animated by the true spirit of wargaming - along with the amazing developments in plastic miniature manufacturing, making large armies of quality miniatures available at very reasonable prices, I think there's finally a chance for me to get a few games in after all.

I'll post developments as they occur.

Khador Update & Last Post of 2009

2009-12-31T09:43:00.000-08:00

I've been given a painted War Dog for Xmas from my good friend Ken and show it here with a Devastator I've just finished (for the second time). First, the War Dog. Ken gave three of his friends painted miniatures this year. If you visit Geektactica you will see a Viktor Pendrake he painted up for Jason and an Epic Deneghra he painted for Mark. These are all princely gifts and I will be using mine faithfully henceforth, including at GenCon in August, 2010, God willing. The pictures show Ken's craft well. Thanks Ken. You're a hard act to follow.

About the Devastator, a combination of a Testors Dullcote failure and a fall from a 4 foot ledge created a perfect storm for this miniature. I didn't strip it. I probably should have, but I thought that 10 - 15 coats of diluted red along with some coats of Reaper Clear Red would fix the painting. To an extent it has. To an extent it hasn't. It is alright fine, as my Nanny used to say. I'm done with it.

The latest iteration of my Vlad list follows below. I have probably two or three gaming days between now and GenCon. That's just the way it is for me living in the wargaming boonies as I do. I'm assuming Hardcore at GenCon will be at the 35 point level.

Army Points: 35

Name Cost
Vladimir Tzepesci, Dark Prince of Umbrey -5
War Dog 1
Drago 8
Juggernaut 7
Destroyer 9
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios 3
Battle Mechaniks (Full) 3
Great Bears of Gallowswood 5
Widowmakers 4

I'm finishing Drago now, have started to build my extreme Jugger, and await the arrival of the extreme Destroyer from Washington state (which is why I am going with those two jacks in my list to accompany Drago).

My number one resolution for 2010 is to buy no miniature this year! This will be a first for me since I started this hobby in June of 1996. As a matter of fact, I ordered my final miniature of 2009 late last night with a purchase of the new Skarre 2009 sculpt from Privateer Press. I call that going out on a high note!

Happy New Year!

Khador Victrix!

2009-11-29T18:37:00.001-08:00

This weekend I travelled 700 kilometers, mainly amidst darkness, rain, fog and assorted incidents of misery and terror, to attend a 6 player tournament in St. John's. Of course, this sort of journey makes perfect sense to any wargamer.

My list was as follows:

Vlad the Dark Prince of Umbrey
Juggernaut
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Man of War Drakhun without dismount
Man of War Kovnik
Man of War Kovnik
Kayazy Assassins (6)
Assassin Underboss
Widowmakers
Greylord Ternion
Meckaniks (4)
Manhunter

My pictures were not amongst my finer efforts of that kind. The first three below show Vlad's struggle with Asphyxious after two rounds of battle. Note in particular the placement of both Asphyxious and the Drakhun. In the third turn, Asphyxious came out and triggered the countercharge. But I whiffed on the damage roll and only did 13 points of damage on him.

In this picture you will notice the Widowmakers on the edge of the woods at the top. They have just taken out the only Cryx arc node on straight damage rolls with the help of Vlad's Signs and Portents. This was to severely limit the Cryx ability to interfere with the Khadoran plans. At 6 points each for the BoneJacks under Mark II the field has certainly changed for Cryx players. I would still think two of them are going to be required for casters like Gaspy, Dennie, the Coven and Skarre but that's just my opinion. The Widowmakers and Eyriss are always going to be able to lay the hurt on Cryx arcing from now on.

In this picture Vlad has charged up (using Boundless Charge) to get some cover from the BoneJack which had just run at the Widowmakers. As it turned out Vlad's impact on the battle was over.
This is where the battle was decided. The Assassins have lost stealth in Mark II so they need either cover or low MAT enemies to safely move across the battlefield into their threat range. A unit of Mechanithralls is perfectly suited for such a role. At MAT 4, they can only hit Assassins in melee on a roll of 12 (unless somehow aided by spells or other abilities). I believe the Cryx player rolled either 14 or 16 attacks here and missed every one.
Then, Asphyxious moved up, feated, killed 3 warriors, and then teleported back behind the Mechanithralls to get some healing from the NecroSurgeon. Then, the Assassin Underboss did his Killstrike mini-feat. Asphyxious died. Marc is a fell Cryx player. All I can say for sure is that nothing I did in this game will ever work against him again. Ever.

This is the second game against a Cygnar force led by Captain Stryker. In this picture both of my Kovniks have just been knocked down.

Practically speaking, the scenario conditions required that I destroy these two Cygnar jacks in the third round of the battle, as that would give me control of the 10" diameter area - surrounding the medal on the table - that they were located in.
The destruction of the two jacks is accomplished by Vlad's Signs and Portents used to buff shooting attacks from the Kovniks and melee attacks from the Great Bears, the Assassins, and the Juggernaut.
The final game was against a Trollblood force led by Madrak. The first two shots are views of the battlefield after turn 1. Madrak had a Mauler, an Axer, and a Pyre Troll. There was a unit of Champions, a Fell Caller, a unit of Pygs, and that particularly annoying solo - the Totem Hunter - that always ends up taking a few of my heads.

Now, this shot shows the location where, effectively, the battle was decided. I charged the Drakhun onto the Mauler. Basically, the Drakhun was killed by the Mauler and Madrak, who jumped over the wall to get at it. This allowed Vlad to use Boundless Charge and charge Madrak with 5 focus to spare. Madrak had only one fury, and thus with his scroll could only tranfer one lot of damage and ignore one lot. Before charging him I took a point off of him with a sniper shot, and I think 2-3 points with an AxeCannon shot from one of my Kovniks. I killed him on my last attack.

This is Vlad after Madrak's body was hauled off by his trusty Mauler. (In other words I screwed up the photo of the pivotal engagement.)
These are the rankings after the tournament. A win on Scenario condition got 1 point, a caster kill was worth 1, and VPs were calculated in the event of a tie. I had 4 points, from meeting 2 Scenario conditions plus 2 caster kills, in three games.

Thoughts on the Day

Vlad has been modified quite significantly in MK II, possibly more than most other Warcasters. His feat is restricted now to jacks in his battlegroup, rendering jack marshalling a non-issue for him. His Signs and Portents and Blood of Kings are both up to 4 points, making it impossible for him to cast both in the same turn. However, he can now cast Boundless Charge on himself during his activation. This is a huge benefit. I really liked Vlad before and I like him even better now. It's easy to complain that he's been nerfed, but I think he's as powerful as he could be while retaining game balance. Signs and Portents is one of the most powerful spells in the game. When cast to assist shooting and melee attacks from 3-4 units there is very little that can survive the onslaught that follows.

Kayazy Assassins

How do you say Awesome! in Khardic? This unit killed Asphyxious in game one, helped kill an Ironclad in Game two, and killed a Totem Hunter and a Fell Caller in game three, before mixing it up with the Champions until the big boys showed up. The Underboss is a must-have. Losing Stealth appears to be a drag but at Defence 14/Defence 16 to melee attacks the trick is to use the enemy units as cover.

Great Bears of Gallowswood

OMFG! These guys are giant killers. I will never play a Khador force without them again. They killed 3 out of 5 Troll Champions in one turn. Three Axe attacks finished off an Ironclad after it lost some points to a couple of AxeCannon shots and two Assassins. They have Tough. They can't be knocked down if Kolsk is still alive. They have 360 degree vision if Yaroslav is alive. Volkov gives them a charge with Pathfinder. They are death incarnate. I love them.

Man of War Drakhun

The Drak has lost the multiple attacks (Flying Steel). That said, his Dismount only costs 1 point. That's the best deal a Khador player can get. I didn't have a dismount this time. Doh! That will not happen again. I think it's a must have unit for my style of play. It's not for everyone, but it attracts way more attention than it deserves, and it deserves a shagging lot of attention.

Greylord Ternion

The Blizzard spell was woeful for me all day, and in my game aginst JET's Caine list later that night I cast Blizzard twice on Vlad and both attempts missed as I rolled over 7 on each. While typical for that whole day, it didn't matter much earlier. It cost me the game against Caine. I'm not convinced these guys are first-stringers for me anymore. I think Ice Cage is still a very powerful spell that could well make them worth their points, but I just can't get them up the table fast enough to use it. I think I'm going to try the Koldun Lord instead of these guys. Okay, I/we was/were wrong about how the Ternion works in MK II. The Blizzards work automatically. This changes the landscape significantly for this unit. While pricey, the ability to automatically gain another +2 DEF against shooting attacks for Khador models trying to come to grips with the enemy makes this unit very attractive. The only issue then is simply keeping up with the models sought to be protected.

Widowmakers

Still a must-have unit. With Signs and Portents you could well disable an aggressively played arc node on turn two every time. I can't see playing without them.

Man of War Kovnik

I really love these guys. I like to play with two. They are like offensive linemen. Most people don't notice them but they keep the QB from getting sacked and, occasionally, they get the big play in.

Meckaniks

I won't be taking these guys again. My list doesn't really need support the way I play it and I won't be jack marshalling again with Vlad given the change to Forced March.

Manhunter

I still haven't figured out how to play this guy properly. This is after 4 years of trying. I think I'm going to look at another option.

Juggernaut

Great jack. I didn't get one critical with it all day, which was a bit of a drag, and I have decided to finish painting up Drago for this list.

Postscript

My final game that night at JET's house against his Lieutenant Caine list. This is a picture of the Cygnar battleline. A good game that I lost to a good man.

X Carpasia - Painted Gripping Beast EIR

2009-11-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

This unit is the latest addition to my Early Imperial Roman army. I purchased these figures in 2002 I think. I have a long painting cue. The shield transfers are by Little Big Man Studios and are of the usual amazing character. I like this centurion pose. All of the soldiers in this veteran legion are wearing mail. Here is the complete unit of 24. In behind is a GB sculpt of a dismounted Caesar instructing a Foundry sculpt of a Primus Pila.

New Project-Oldest Minis; Airfix 1/32 WW2 Germans

2009-10-31T04:29:00.000-07:00

These are amongst the first miniatures I ever had. Alright, they are toy soldiers. I found them, and a horde of their fellows, after they had been in storage for over 20 years. These are Airfix 1/32 Germans. I bought them in Drogheda, Ireland in 1973. I've got a couple of young boys now, and I thought I'd paint these up for them. I didn't take the mold lines off, and the painting is basic black undercoat, one coat of colour, a coat or two of Future over that, all followed by a coat of brush-on matt varnish. I like them.
These are the entire horde of plastic toy soldiers, including the ones since painted in the picture above (the Germans are blue). You can see a Timpo Crusader footman on the top. There is a Timpo horse, sans barding, visible there as well, and there are many more Timpos below the surface. I purchased those one at a time in London, England in the year 1969. My father used to take me down to a toy-store/newsagent on England's Lane, Camben Town, early every Saturday morning and I'd get one knight and my brother would choose a Beano or some other comic of the time. Fine memories. I had to clean these. The smell of them was appalling, unwashed as they were for near 40 years.

October Painting Projects - Khador, Cryx and EIR

2009-10-28T19:21:00.000-07:00

This latest addition to my Khador force is a unit of elite Empress Guard Shocktroopers. I'm just making that up naturally, but the idea is that I'll join these with Beast 09 and some other elite jacks, solos and troops under the command of eIrusk. The red connects these to the rest of my Khador force, while the light green denotes their excellence.

These Mechanithralls are my first painting project for my newest Warmachine army, the dreaded forces of Cryx. Next is a Seether.

Finally, a unit of 12 Early Imperial Roman cataphracts based for Warhammer Ancient battles. The figures are by Wargames Foundry. The kontos are from Gripping Beast and may well be an OOP code now. I did ask that they be cast for me probably about 4-5 years ago. The Beastie boys have always been good like that.

MKII Khador Update

2009-09-26T20:25:00.000-07:00

This is one of those guilty WIP posts. The last 4 weeks have been the busiest of my career, which is not quite what I had in mind when I moved jobs in an attempt to try and get my life in balance with my work. I have been attempting, fitfully, to spend a little time at the hobby, directed towards my MK II Vlad list for GenCon 2010.

Plan A for that list involves Drago. I had to rebuild this model due to my initial poor planning on the fit. Again. It's a sweet miniature.

Plan B is a Beserker, one of two I'm going to need. The other is coming from BrookHurst Hobbies in the next week or so.

This isn't Plan C. I'm painting these MOW Shocktroopers because I like them and I had planned (in the MKI days) to do an eIrusk MOW list. These will be finished in the same scheme as Beast-09, so I'll be raising the green up quite a bit.

As for the GenCon MK II list, it will be Vlad, Drago and a Wardog, a MOW Kovnik with 2 Beserkers, and a Koldun Lord with 2 Juggernauts. This assumes that 35 point lists will be the level set by PP for HardCore at GenCon.

As for Vlad, I fully understand why PP changed him, raising the costs of casting both Blood of Kings and Signs and Portents to 4 focus each. It has to do with his feat and how well he runs jacks, which in MK II means he's much more of a go-to guy for Khador - and threat against everyone else - than he was in MK I.

I also appreciate PP making available the final MK II rules and card stats as free downloads. Thanks.

To war! To war!

Space Hulk!

2009-09-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

There is so little happening from a hobby perspective in my life right now, leaving aside the usual imaginings of any committed wargamer, that I have just got to post last night's introduction to GW's latest regurgitation, the 3rd edition of Space Hulk. In short, nice components, nice gaming miniatures, and simple rules which I learnt the essentials of in about 3 minutes.

The first mission in the rules provided in the box is Suicide Run. A Space Marine terminator squad has to destroy a control room to prevent the Tyranid genestealers on the space hulk from exiting it via functioning lifeboats located on same that are controlled from that room. The room can only be destroyed by the flamer armed terminator. The Marine player has to accomplish this or fail. Killing the flamer dude is a win for the tyranid player.

This first picture shows the gameboard after turn 2. There are four genestealer blip markers on the board, one being hidden behind the door at 12:00 o'clock. The Terminator sergeant is leading the way. He is dead hard, but genestealers are dangerous critters in their own right. The rearmost terminator is on overwatch to deal with trouble from behind, the worst kind.In the next picture, the stealers are revealed. The tyranid player did not move blip markers again for the rest of the mission.
In this next picture you will note the absence of the Sergeant. Yes, torn to little pieces after his pistol jammed. One of the great risks for a Marine player is a jammed storm bolter on overwatch as it does lead to unpleasantness. One of the main effects of the death of the Sergeant was to expose his companion bearing the Flamer to unwanted attentions as can be seen below.
The Flamer Marine was able to ward off the genestealers for a while, but on his last firing he was unable to kill the closest of three genestealers he shot at (he rolled a 1 on his to wound roll) which allowed the confrontation below to occur. Genestealers get three attack dice againt the one attack back of this particular Marine. Victory to the Cult!

Final thoughts: this is a very well produced game. It has to be said that this particular mission was not particularly riveting from a gaming perspective. As well, I am in my 5th decade on this planet and I did not play first edition Space Hulk back in the day (25 or so years ago). So I don't have the nostalgia that playing it in my late teens/early twenties would bring to the table today, and I guess it just wasn't that exciting from a gaming perspective. I don't mean to damn it with faint praise. I'll pick the game up if there are any copies left in the MSRP range and it's not too much trouble, but if I can't get it I won't lose any sleep. I am going to paint up a couple of squads of my OOP Deathwing terminators for the next time I play against my friend.

Thoughts on Warmachine's Next Big Thing

2009-08-15T03:13:00.000-07:00

On the evening of August 14th, 2009 many hundreds of Warmachine players across the globe joined with those in attendance in a convention room somewhere in the sprawl of GenCon 2009 to discover what exactly it was that Matt Wilson of Privateer Press was going to unveil as the NBT for Warmachine. I won't say that speculation was rampant for the week before the announcement, but certainly there must have been a high level of interest in the tabletop wargaming geek community across the globe.

Let's face it, we have a new and most high and excellent edition of Warmachine. There is a completely new faction, the Retribution of Ios, with an army book and a massive release of miniatures all of which became available for purchase on August the 13th at GenCon. In the context of Privateer Press' enviable security against rumours, what could it possibly be?

I went with the Orgoth invasion, for much the same reason that I always choose heads on a coin toss. My friend Ken guessed a naval variant of Warmachine, given recent releases and No Quarter articles. Others on the net chose a Warmachine mass battle game, or a new faction from southern Immoren, or new unit types or abilities. Some people chose a movie or a videogame.

As it turned out, it is a videogame. It will be able to be played on xBox and Playstation but not on Wii. Whether it will be a FPS or a RTS (?) is not yet known. It will have multi-player capacity. The player will control a warcaster with a battlegroup. Presumably there will come into being a domain on the interweb where online combat between warcasters from all the factions, reminiscent of certain of the fiction in Legends and other books, will be ongoing 24/7 in a WOW mode.

What is to be made of this? Well, first of all let me say that what Privateer Press does is none of my business. I'm not interested in questioning the wisdom of its business plan. If I had shares in the company or if I had otherwise invested in it that would be different. Because, as I sit here, I have both an Extreme Juggernaut and Drago winging their way towards my collection does not give me any say on what PP does. I acknowledge this.

That said, I won't be buying a Playstation, xBox or other video or computer gaming system so I can play this or any other videogame. Nor will I be losing myself and my marriage in an online Immoren chasing electrons about the web. It's just not my thing. I'm a tabletop wargamer. Warmachine is, I thought, a tabletop wargame. I'd rather play 10 games a year against other human beings on a 4' x 4' surface than 1,000 against a computer or against others on a computer.

For me, and this is solely my personal take on the matter, computer gaming is a form of wasting disease or elongated suicide. There is no substance to it. When I was a child, there were pinball machines that retained high scores and so, in the small communities that played on them, there was at least the competition amongst the various players to have their three initials up there between plays. There was no cheating the tilt. PAK was the man, until he wasn't the man any more.

I need that human element, the person on the other side of the table, the sense that "this all happened", the substance of the acquisition, preparation, modelling, painting, deployment, movement, the gaming with and putting away of miniatures, scenery and the tabletop surfaces. I need the art, the travel to play, the thrill of a victory or, more likely, the agony of yet another defeat, but a victory or a defeat that is witnessed by at least one other human being.

I sat at a computer a few times in the early 90's and got up 14 hours later after my civilization was nuked out of existence. Afterwards, it was hard to shake the feeling that I had just wasted so much of my time. There are some lines of script from Bladerunner that I think are apt to decribe what I'm trying to say:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die.

It's hard to imagine describing anything that ever happened in a videogame with such language. Isn't it more the case that every moment playing a videogame is forever lost in time, just throwing parts of one's life away as if it was garbage?

I know, I know, different strokes for different folks.

I can't wait to get Drago and that Extreme Juggernaut. My tabletop gaming schwi is only going to get better with these additions to my arsenal. Really.

Book Review - John M. Del Vecchio's The 13th Valley

2009-08-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

This novel was first published in 1982. The particular story follows the experience of the members of one company of the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) in offensive operations in the Khe Ta Laou valley, located in the area of South Vietnam the US armed forces called 1st Corps, between August 13 and August 25th, 1970. By that point in the Vietnam War the Americans were well into the Vietnamization process, withdrawing US troops in the tens of thousands per month and continuously passing over fire and other front line bases to ARVN units. John M. Del Vecchio served as a combat correspondent with the 101st in 1970 and 1971 in the area south of the DMZ (1st Corps) where the actions in this novel took place.

I think it is now safe to say that this work is one of the great war novels of the 20th century, easily keeping company with Solzhenitsyn's August 1914, Jones' The Thin Red Line, Heinrich's The Cross of Iron and Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. This book is not pulp fiction. There is nothing in the least bit gratuitous about the violence of the combat scenes. Nor is the writing of the masturbatory variety like that, most notably in the years since, of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels. With Sharpe we know at all times that he will suffer from no vississitude more inconvenient than a temporary interlude between sexual partners or perhaps a superior officer that he will thwart with ease at the right time. He never misses with musket or rifle, treasure falls into his lap like manna from heaven, and his foes (and lawyers generally) will all suffer from fates that would make any schoolboy shudder.

In The 13th Valley, the opposing forces, NVA regulars and Air Cav infantry, are equally brave and equally capable. There is no attempt by Del Vecchio to portray the character of any particular Vietnamese (except perhaps one Kit Carson Scout). They remain unknown to the reader, except through their deeds, but their deeds are known to the Americans. The difference between the opposing forces in the Khe Ta Laou is material in nature. The Americans had helicopter gunships, artillery of all calibres, B-52 bombers and an endless supply capability. The NVA had AK-47s, RPGs, mortars, bicycles, sampans and rice.

The combat scenes are incredible. Everything that happens has the indelible mark of truth. The interior life of the American soldiers, the transition from cherry to boonierat, the racial tension in the unit, the techniques and tactics of jungle fighting, whether on recon, ambush or in listening posts, or while in movement, during assault or in the desperate anguish of counter ambush, all of this is wholly contained within the pages of this novel.

A somewhat fascinating aspect of this book that has absolutely required the passage of time is the similarity of the mindset between the Nixon establishment and that of Dubya. There are good reasons for this, ones are well beyond the confines of this short review, but time and again the message of that time was capable of being readily transposed to this.

Other contrasts occur to the reader. It has been commonly asserted by American authorities over the last decade (well, at least since the invasion of Iraq) that the current volunteer army is of a higher quality in terms of educational background than that of the draftees (and volunteers) that fought in Vietnam. The 13th Valley offers another perspective on this issue, and one can only wonder how accurate the message of the last few years has been. After all, unless a college graduate dodged the draft, most notably by either leaving for Canada or serving in the Texas Air National Guard, there was a very good chance that he would have ended up in Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The images and writings of the Iraq War that I have seen have not led me to consider the US forces there overly comprised of university graduates. This is not to detract from the servicemen and women in either war. I think, ultimately, that despite the fact that this is not an anti-war novel as such, Del Vecchio does continually seek to remind us that America lost far more than a war in Vietnam. It lost tens of thousands of its citizens there, citizens who were thinkers, lovers, caregivers, fathers to be, citizens who learned how to tell right from wrong under the sternest test any person can face. That is the great tragedy of any war I suppose, but it is particularly so where a war is fought for reasons that are open to doubt.

Apart from that, there is the myth in the US, which Francis Ford Coppola, Stanley Kubrick and Oliver Stone bear no little responsibility for, that combat in Vietnam was fought by American soldiers to the accompaniment of music. While this sells soundtracks, it hardly seems credible given the kinds of operations engaged in by US troops in the jungle or to and fro those operations. Of course, this has since changed with the 2003 Iraq war and it now appears clear that heavy metal is de riguer when US forces are unleashing, erm, heavy metal.

One final note on Oliver Stone. There were several moments while reading The 13th Valley that I was reminded of scenes in Platoon. This may well be because Stone experienced similiar events himself. There are some indications that he fought as a recon grunt in the A Shau Valley with the 1st Cavalry Division in 1968. The A Shau is in 1st Corps, south of the Khe Ta Laou. That said, it was interesting to me to compare the images that the prose of Del Vecchio inspired with those that Stone directed into being in Platoon. It seems strange, but Del Vecchio's prose is more cinematic than the very movie that most closely relates to its action. I think this is more of a compliment to Del Vecchio than a criticism of Stone. Film and writing are different media, and it may well be that the former is more limited in what it can portray to our minds. In any event, despite the fact that Del Vecchio wasn't writing a screenplay, his work is profoundly cinematic in nature, and perhaps more than is possible for a work of cinema.

In the final analysis, I simply could not put this book down. If one is interested in the American phase of the Vietnam War for any reason whatsoever this novel is a gold mine. For wargamers, I can't think of any fiction that I've ever read from the Vietnam War canon that has as much intrinsic value. There are obviously excellent non-fiction works about the war that cannot be ignored - most notably for me Bernard Fall's Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu - but The 13th Valley is written by a veteran who was in fact a boonierat, and he has recounted his experiences in a way that transcends the narrative of either an academic or a hack. Highly recommended.

A new direction

2009-08-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

I have recently been quite inspired by a holiday in Gros Morne National Park and by the works I discovered there of a Canadian landscape artist named Shawn McNevin. Many of her subjects are to be found in the park. The Works page of her website is as follows:

http://studio167.ca/works.aspx

I understand the gulf that separates me from an artist of her talent and experience. What I intend is somewhat imitative, but I will be using acrylic on canvas, and the scenes that I intend to paint, for the most part, will be used as backdrops for tabletop photographs. The picture above shows my first canvas with two basecoats of white gesso on it so far. At least one more coat of gesso will be needed. Then I will lightly sketch out the scene before starting to paint it in.

Impetus - Introduction

2009-07-26T18:29:00.001-07:00

Ancient wargaming with historical miniatures is a longstanding interest of mine, and I have been interested in trying out the Impetus rules for quite a while. I finally had a chance to do so on the night of July 25th under the tutelege of Jason and Mark.

I had a brief experience with WAB in the early part of this decade, but that scene basically fell apart. I don't really know why now, but certainly those who were inclined to historicals in my circle at the time gravitated towards small scale miniatures, mainly 6mm, and seemed IIRC to be more focused on rulesets that I didn't find particularly enticing. I liked WAB, and I like 28mm scale miniatures.

To go on then, Impetus has been making strides with my friends. They are playing at 6mm now, but the lion's share of them are going on to larger scales, and I think 15mm will become the standard for the next couple of years. I purchased the Impetus rulebook and Extra Impetus 1. I read both over a few times and I have done some list building, but this weekend past was my first kick at the cat.

I think the rules are elegant. I like the balance Lorenzo Sartori has found between resilience and decisiveness. Everything seems to work in a sensible manner in terms of, for just a few examples, how distance is traversed, how weaponry works, how different classes of troops and levels of generalship function and, most importantly, how psychology influences the course of battle. The peculiar rule mechanics he has created, whether of his Zone of Control, the Impetus bonus, or VBU, interact well together.

I am also quite attracted to element based wargaming now. I like the possibility of diorama. I like the fact that all the miniatures on an element base can be seen (I'm talking the larger scales here). I like the fact that I need fewer miniatures and the fact that I can truly use the full variety of available poses.

I also was impressed by the way the game I played appeared to be capable of being rationally compared to historical conditions. We played Romans versus Parthians. The battle became messy, indeed, it became chaotic, as the various combinations of interpenetrating, advancing, charging, fleeing, and waiting units intermixed on the tabletop. This is what it must have seemed like to the soldiers on the field of Carrhae, a total shambles. And then, there was the straying of units of my cataphracts from their course, so that charges became difficult when in the final approach to the enemy...historically, units of heavy cavalry and heavy infantry always found it difficult to maintain a straight line. Men always gravitate towards the cover provided by the shields of their fellows.

This is my force, cataphracts to the left and horse archers to the right. You can see foot skirmishers in front of the cataphracts. My general to the left was excellent quality, the one on my right wing was either average or poor.
This is after my first moves (each command moves separately). In this game the Romans, having superior command, and having Jason rolling superlative roll-off dice, were able to go first every turn of the game. I always went second and third (Jason's army had only one general in command). This picture shows that I moved twice with all troops on the left wing. Two of three units of both the Cataphracts and the foot Skirmishers were disordered after failing their command check upon their second move. On the right wing, I moved the unit of elite horse archers that was accompanied by my general three times and became disordered. Everything else moved twice. I passed evey other command check.
This and the next photograph show my elite cataphract unit with attached general rampaging through the Roman right flank. This was good fun and also helped clarify how the rules work so well and so simply in the context of a situation with all the potential for serious complication.
You can see in this picture that my elite Cataphracts had effectively thrown a wrench in the Roman right so significant as to engross the attentions of two units of auxiliary cavalry, one unit of auxiliary foot, two units of legionaries, and two units of foot skirmishers. In the end this didn't work out as well as could have been expected, but that's pretty true to life as well, isn't it?

I have decided to begin work immediately on a 400 point 15mm medieval French army, using mainly Corvus Belli miniatures, with some references from Mirliton. I intend to complete this by November, possibly December. It will hit the table this year.

This is Khador! Multi-caster gaming

2009-07-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

On the weekend of July 25th-26th, I attended a Mark II Warmachine event with three of my friends at St. John's. I had determined to play three separate casters. It was my first time playing Mark II and I had never played one of the casters (eVlad) before. All games had one victory condition...caster kill.

The first game was against a beautifully painted Kreoss army played by Ken. I was playing Sorscha. Also Sprach Zarathustra was playing during these first few moments:
In this picture I had just moved up, used Sorscha's feat defensively, and Windrushed away.
In this picture the full results of my folly are apparent. Sorscha no longer has a defensive feat. Shake-it-Off has Finished it Off. Sorscha is now apparently a finesse assassination caster. If I wanted that I'd play Deneghra. It's not a big deal and I won't use any dreaded words of winge, but I expect it reasonable to forsee that we will see less and less of her at gaming conventions from now on, which is too bad because she is one of the archtype characters of this game. By the way, this was a crushing defeat, with my caster killed during Kreoss' feat by the shooting attacks of two warjacks.
My next game was pVlad playing against the Iron Lich list of Mark. I think myself and Mark were probably equally apprehensive about the other's toolbox. This first picture shows my forces advancing towards a boneturkey and the dreaded DeathJack.
My initial solution to the problem posed by these adversaries was to run Beast-09 up to them under Vlad's feat (Forced March). Mark's initial solution to this was to attempt to get the Death Jack to double-handed throw Beast-09 into the lake. He rolled 6 on two dice, I rolled 6 on one. Both jacks have Strength 12 so it was a no go with the throw. Whew!
A huge maul developed for a while, until dissipated somewhat by the lethality of the participants.
Further bloodletting ensued.
By this point, the Great Bears had wrecked the BoneTurkey, Beast-09 had destroyed the Slayer and the DeathJack had finished off Beast-09. This left Vlad a charge lane to the Lich which he took thanks to Boundless Charge. I played a limp game against Kreoss but that led to me displaying proper Khador agression in this match. My third match was against Jason playing eHaley. Another fantastic painted army to face off against. This is the tabletop view through the gully to the foe. Gulp!
This is the main part of my force ready to enter the fray.
This was probably the high point of the game for me. Jason did not know about the Drakhun's countercharge rule so I actually got the shagging thing into melee on this last of my three games. In the first game Ken had killed it with one shot from his Reckoner. In the second Mark had spelled it to death before I could charge. Anyways, here I was, ready to lay down the smack. But a Charger has defence 16. And I missed. Which sucked. Big time.
I advance Beast-09 and the heart of my army to the lakeside. Yes, that's deep water there. And right across the deep water, a free Charger.
Where is Beast-09 you ask? Well, as I discovered, eHaley has this little spell called Telekinesis, and she used it to give Beast-09 swimming lessons. Now, I don't know about you, but I'd much rather not know about a Drakhun's Counter Charge than not know about eHaley's Telekinesis. But that could just be me, I suppose.
One of the great truths of playing Khador is that every Vlad army is nothing more than a Vlad delivery system. Mine worked to get me up close and personal with eHaley. She turned out to be something of a Black Widow, if you take my meaning.
I had a great time. I can't wait to play again, and I really want to get a better understanding of eVald. He's cool.

Painting Workbench Update

2009-07-18T11:29:00.000-07:00

This is one of my occasional painting updates. The number of projects I have on the go is probably unrealistic by most people's standards but I have no deadlines, and pretty well paint what I like.

The first item is a group of 5 Warmachine Khador MOW Shocktroopers. These paint up like a dream and will be done shortly.

Second up is the Warmachine Mercenary Unit, Lady Aiyana and Master Holt. The picture is poor, and the level of painting so far is not much better. It will be improved upon.

Third is a medley of the Khador Koldun Lord, an Avatar of Menoth, a couple of the new Perry Miniatures plastic Napoleonic French that I am picking away at, and three Imperial Roman officers from Warlord Games and the Wargames Foundry. Yes, that is a Cryx Mechanithrall.

Fourth is a collection of excellent Bob Olley ogre and troll sculpts I am painting up. The four smaller ones in front are sculpts Mr. Olley did for Reaper Miniatures. The two larger ones in the rear were purchased by me from Olley's Armies before Mr. Olley decided to close it and sell his sculpts. The masters of these two were purchased in a subsequent auction by an Italian gentleman named Francesco Accordi.

Fifth is a unit of Wargames Foundry Roman cataphract cavalry. I had eight of these for a number of years which I used in my late Roman army. Now they will, as increased, serve in my Early Imperial Roman army. As well, I took a couple of the tops of them in a pose where they thrust from overhead with their kontos and added them to a couple of Gripping Beast lower halves. Those figures will see service in the Roman war elephants.

Here are the crew for the elephants as noted above, along with 4 new Gripping Beast Roman cavalry command figures to join a unit of 8 that I painted a few months ago.

This is my next Roman legion. These are all Gripping Beast figures.

These last three pictures are just some eye candy that I found. They show the brand new Victrix Miniatures plastic 28mm Napoleonic Scottish foot. Are they not the absolute dog's bollocks? They are certainly on my shopping list for Christmas.

Kovnik Markov is completed

2009-07-12T11:17:00.001-07:00

I finally finished this monster. It's a beautiful miniature but a lot of work. This is the one Privateer Press miniature that I should have pre-fitted, pinned and generally planned a little more for. (I have never pinned a warjack or warbeast, and I have a goodly few of them). The green stuff I used to sculpt the sash looks like a failure in the close-up and to be honest I am not that happy with it, but on the tabletop you can't tell that the sculpting job around the joint is not, erm, optimum in nature.

WIP Warmachine Khador Kovnik Markov

2009-05-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

Here is Warmachine's latest Khador solo, Kovnik Markov. I've got to build a joint with greenstuff and then sculpt and paint it to attach his torso to the horse.

Warmachine Khador Beast-09

2009-05-16T16:34:00.000-07:00

So I thought I had finished this the other day, and had even gone so far as to post it here as a finished model, Yet, in truth, I had misgivings. So I asked my friend Ken to look at a picture of the miniature and tell me what his thoughts were on the matter. He duly responded as follows:

"Hey,

He looks good. If I were to take that model a little further, I'd highlight the greens and reds just at the top and the edges. I'd use a "Brassie" metallic for various studs spikes and that script around his neck. The pipe grate would be brass as well. I'd also do something with the head...maybe paint it red or something, just the head spike remaining metallic."

So here he is, post-Kenolyptic:

This one is a picture that shows Beast-09 just coming down into the forest from the snow covered heights.

Progress - War Elephants and Khador's Beast-09

2009-05-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

The War Elephants are now primed and based. I went over to the WABList and was pretty set - based on the advice I got there - to go with 50mm x 100mm bases. Later, a couple of posters from Down Under pitched in and suggested 60mm frontage as the elephants could then be used for other gaming rule sets. Sure enough, a unit of elephants in Impetus would have a frontage of 120mm. So I went with 60mm frontage for each elephant.

For Beast-09 I am applying a very light mint green. I started off with GW's Rotting Flesh, but it was a very old paint and the coverage wasn't happy, so I switched over to a Derivan paint, Webbing Green.

Greenstuff for the War Elephants and Markov's Mount

2009-05-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

I applied greenstuff to the elephants tonight, mainly to make the trunks' join with the heads look natural. I used my exacto blade to put folds on the greenstuff to mimic the texture of the hide. This process took very little time, as I kept dipping the exacto blade in water which made the business of working the putty easy.

The Indian Elephant Stomping had some issues with gaps about its head-body join (and some very small areas of pitting on its underside) that I also fixed up. In fairness to Empire Models, I could have made the joint of the head and body true but I didn't want to work the resin as it is a foul and poisonous substance until painted, when it assumes the mantle of beauty.

There was a gap on the nether portion of the horse of Kovnik Markov that I also filled with greenstuff tonight. Again, the work of a minute.

Warmachine Khador Great Bears of Gallowswood

2009-05-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

I just finished these. These were awesome miniatures to paint. One piece of advice I would give is to glue the arms on first, before priming. I painted the arms separately, which was cool, but it would have been far more efficient to do it the other way. The paints I used were GW Foundation Mechrite Red over the black primer, followed by a number of coats of Derivan Rourke's Drift Red, followed by Derivan Roman Red, followed by Reaper Clear Red. The blue is Delta Ceramcote Payne's Gray, highlighted by adding Delta Ceramcote Ivory to it, The flesh is Privateer Press PP3 as is the Flesh Wash and Armor Wash. The metallics are GW, as is the old Citadel Flesh Wash I painted over a coat of diluted white paint to make one of the lads a blond. The Field Gray on the inside of the cloaks is an Italian paint called Lifecolor, an old (read 1998 old) favorite of mine. The bear pelts were painted with about 8 drybrushes of various off-whites over the original black followed by a wash of Reaper Creamy Ivory. I used Reaper Brown Liner on the axe handles.

Gripping Beast EIR Auxiliary archers

2009-05-06T20:42:00.000-07:00

I finished this unit of 17 archers tonight. They have to be given a spray of Testors Dullcote, but they're done. I really enjoyed painting them. The poses are very lifelike, and the faces are suitably foreign for auxiliaries; that is to say, two of them (kneeling and walking) are Hunnic or Alanic looking, and the other two poses, loosing and drawing, are taller fellows with big boned faces, typical Germans one might think. I suppose I might be making all of this up, but it's the kind of thoughts you have when you spend hours painting the little shaggers. The bases turned out nicely as well.

I think I'll complete a backlog of Khador models next, including Beast-09, Epic Irusk, Yuri, the Great Bears of Gallowswood and Kovnik Markov. I have been painting them in bits on a fairly continuous basis, and it's time to get them finished.

EIR War Elephants from Empire Models

2009-05-05T19:27:00.000-07:00

I received these in the post today. I purchased them from Empire Models on April 23, 2009, which means they got from England to me in Canada in eight business days. That's impressive. And I had to build them, just because the miniatures are, likewise, impressive. These elephants are very reasonably priced at 12 quid each. They both come with two mahouts, one a handsome looking young fellow, long locks flowing in the wind, and the other a soldier that comes with a selection of 4 heads, which I took to be Seleucid, Bactrian, Antigonid and Ptolemaic. The trip across the Atlantic was not without incident for these resin models. The Indian Elephant Stomping had his stomping leg broken off, and the Indian Elephant Walking had a piece of the tower broken. Nevertheless it was the work of merely a few minutes to affix the parts again with superglue, which sort of thing is most def a part of our hobby. And the resin was good on both elephants with only one small pit on the underside of the Stomper. There were relatively significant mold lines on the mahouts, including on the head I used. This was not a major problem, but I have to say it was somewhat disagreeable. I used a gap filler to properly affix the head of the Indian Elephant Walking. This was because I abhor any manual filing or cutting of resin, my other option. Both elephants will require some greenstuff to make true the join of trunk and head, but I couldn't find my greenstuff this evening and it shall have to wait.

The elephants are excellent. I will be putting scuta around the towers on both, with LBMS transfers applied. I am going to use the top halves of a couple of Wargame Foundry Late Roman Cataphract figures that I will attach to an appropriate set of legs so as to crew both elephants with a Roman pikeman. I expect to put a legionary throwing a pilum in each tower as well.

When I first went looking for suitable elephants for my 28mm WAB EIR army, I checked into it on the WABList, a Yahoo Group I have been a (mostly lurking) member of for years. I received a number of posts in reply to my inquiry, one of which advised me to get the 1/72nd scale Zvezda War Elephants, which the poster stated were oversized for 1/72nd and suitable for God's scale. I did so. Below you will see one of the two elephants the Zvezda War Elephants box contains, with red painted on it by my 3 year old, which is certainly a good thing - if not the the best thing that I could say of this elephant.

I had an interesting time shopping last night. What happened was that my wife splurged at J.Crew last Sunday morning, so this opened the purse strings for yours truly. So yesterday I acquired the following:

Painting supplies:

2 Citadel TIN BITZ paints
2 GW Foundation Mechrite Red paints
2 GW Foundation Gretchin Green paints
2 GW Foundation Iyanden Darksun paints
1 Foundry PRUSSIAN BLUE PALETTE (3 paint set)
1 Privateer Press P3 Standard Studio Paint Brush

I have to have the Foundation paints as I undercoat with black and these paints just give complete coverage on one application. The PP brush has been a pleasant surprise, which is why I'm getting another. The Foundry paints are an experiment.

I also picked up a few miniatures:

2 blisters Foundry Late Roman Fully Armoured Cataphract Cavalry. These are for the EIR project and I need to kitbash a couple of pikemen for the elephants.

1 Reaper Dark Heaven Garnuk the Ogre
1 Reaper Dark Heaven Kagonk Ogre Chieftain
1 Reaper Dark Heaven Vourgha Ogre Warrior
I just love the big Bob Olley sculpts. Fantastic.

1 box Perry Miniatures Napoleonic British. Got to have them. I will be doing these up with the Victrix box towards the end of this year.

1 Newline Designs 25mm Ancient Galatian Warband of 24 Foot & 3 Mounted. These are for a 28mm 300 point Impetus army I'm devising.

I live in a town where there are only two products locally available for my hobby, being White Dwarf magazine and Delta Ceramcote paints. So shopping is a lot of fun for me.

Workbench Update - EIR and Menoth

2009-05-03T11:27:00.001-07:00

These are from a unit of 17 Gripping Beast EIR Auxiliary archers. They are very close to completion. I need to highlight the flesh and tunics, finish the bows, paint the fletchings and flock the bases. Nice miniatures.
This picture shows a unit of ten Menoth Flameguard Cleansers I started working on earlier this week. These are Kev White sculpts. Sweet. You can also see a warjack (an Avatar of Menoth) that I'm building, another, a Repenter, that I'm painting, and a couple of Sunburst artillery pieces I'm building. In the background is the Khador jack, Beast-09, which I am working on the base of.

This is merely an update that, for the most part, I'm making to keep me motivated. I'll post the completed EIR archers in maybe 3 days. The Menoth miniatures will certainly take longer.

Praetorians Redux!

2009-04-25T04:20:00.000-07:00

This is a second unit of Gripping Beast EIR Praetorian miniatures with LBMS shield transfers, and they are based for WAB. The Primus Pilus has joined the front rank.
Both units of Praetorians together...last stand.

This is what happens when you put colour besides white on the shield face you are going to put the transfer on. My advice is to follow Mr. Hales' instructions to the letter.

Praetorians!

2009-04-17T18:18:00.001-07:00

These are all Gripping Beast miniatures and they are based for WAB. I should say that I don't know for sure the provenance of the standard. A Tribune has picked up a shield and pushed his way to the front rank, no doubt emulating the glorius Julius Caesar. I quite like the way red and blue work together. I am embarking on a red and blue phase without any doubt. It could last for years. If I'm lucky.

Gripping Beast EIR Praetorians

2009-04-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

With Little Big Man Studios shield transfers. Hopefully I'll have a full unit shot by this weekend.

New Early Imperial Roman Auxiliary Cavalry

2009-04-09T11:49:00.000-07:00

Here are 2 units of auxiliary cavalry, one of 8 (Gripping Beast) and one of 10 (Newline Designs). These look a lot better than the pictures would show them - albeit they are no more than a decent tabletop standard - but my photography is suddenly execrable. It's the light, I know, but time is short. I had these finished a while ago, but then decided to paint and flock up the GW modular hill and then had to fix up a variety of other terrain pieces I might use with them, and then life intervened.

First the Gripping Beast. The shields with cast javelins are from the Essex Dacian range I believe. Very nice.

These are the Newline Designs cavalry. I like these a lot, and a lot more than I thought I would. I have many Newline Designs figures in ye olde pile of lead, including a couple of armies (Ancient Indian and New Kingdom Egyptians) along with bags of the new Dark Ages ranges.

Winter and other things

2009-03-01T00:42:00.000-08:00

This is my back yard.

I am deep into the minutiae of the EIR painting project and the details of painting 140 odd pila and an equal number of gladii are best left aside I'm sure. The basing of the Romans continues apace, but again there is potentially an aspect of tedium to this so I will not share it until as a final result.

In other news, I have sold all my WW2 coffee table books and picked up a variety of dosh, including this smashing book.

I also purchased 2 starter boxes of Hell Dorado miniatures, the Lost and the Immortals, only to discover that barring the intervention of a white knight the company is closing shop in June of 2009. The French miniature scene continues to perplex and madden in equal measure. First Ilyad breaks up in a messy divorce, then Rackham commits a disordered seppaku, and now Hell Dorado crashes and burns in mid stride. I mean, what is going on over there? And who are these ever anonymous sculptors, the true and only strength of the French wargames miniature world? Can we arrange for work visas for them? Permanent residency? And of equal importance, can someone sensible please get the moulds of these much lamented miniatures?

Workbench Update

2009-02-07T03:55:00.001-08:00

Right, first the Roman cavalry, two units, the top eight are the Gripping Beast lads, the bottom 10 - when I purchased them from Sean - were Newline Designs EIR cavalry. Sean has since somehow transferred these, with most of the rest of his ancient ranges, to SHQ. (EDIT: I've heard since I first wrote this that it is a license agreement of some kind.) For different reasons I really like both of these references. Obviously, the painting of these miniatures is nowhere near finished.

These are the horses for the Newline Designs Roman cavalry. The harnesses with pendant straps fastened by metal discs (phalerae), and the decorative fringed chest band, or peytral, are seen on various Roman tombstones of cavalry troopers from the period. I'm no expert on saddles from the time. Peter Connolly has posited a construction of leather stretched over a wood frame in the shape of four horns, which you can see the front two of sculpted into the GB troopers above. The basing of these is coming along. The wash of dark umber has been applied. Next comes Citadel Shadow Grey on the rocks, then a dry brush of bone over the entire base, and then flocking.

The Gripping Beast horses. I like these, but I'm not sure they were meant to come with the troopers that Darren gave me at Britcon 2003 (Thanks again!). What's important for me about these are the new techniques in painting the horse hair that I'm trying for the first time.

Thank God the postman always rings twice. I am a Calpe Prussian man through and through, but I just had to get these.

The Wire - the best television I've seen in years

2009-02-07T03:16:00.000-08:00

We can all agree on just how desperate most television is. Hell, I'm going back to radio. There are very few shows that I'll even drop the paintbrush for - the fourth quarter of the Superbowl is the only time I did so in recent history - and then there is the issue of trying to faithfully watch a television show in the hurly-burly of it all. Over the past year I read several articles on The Guardian Online about just how good HBO's "The Wire" is, so when I recently came into some pin money I picked up the complete 5 season set, that's right, sixty 60 minute epidodes of a show I'd never seen before for, shipping in, about CAN$150.00, or the price of three shitty movies at the theatre with sig other. I watched the first two episodes last night and, well, just Wow! Brilliant, gritty and delicious writing, great acting, splendid camera work, just a breathless, amazing beginning. Life is short. I have no more time to waste on crap, however well intentioned. This was not a waste of my time. Five stars.

http://www.hbo.com/thewire/

A Picture of Kovnik Markov

2009-02-04T12:08:00.000-08:00

For some reason, this photograph has not been released by Privateer Press. I found it on an English eBay listing and I thought I'd post it so that its goodness might be appreciated by my friends. My blog has thereby acquired a limited social utility. If you see what I mean.

New Feature-Book Reviews

2009-02-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

I've decided to start a new feature on my blog, namely, book reviews. All books that I review will be related in some manner to the hobby. I'm going to start with Peter Heather's The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, a book my father gave me for Christmas this year. The review will be finished some time in the next week.

As far as my painting is going, I have been feverishly working on Roman cavalry and on my basing for both the cavalry and my infantry. I will post pictures of the cavalry in the next few days.

Next up, I am selling my collection of limited edition (a number of which are OOP) JJ Fedorowicz folio books respecting WW2 on eBay at the following link:

http://shop.ebay.ca/merchant/okeir

I was just gobsmacked when I saw this latest release from Helldorado. People are saying the face of the Naga is a bit featureless, but I think the art of the piece is far superior to anything I've seen in the hobby for many a blue moon.

By the way, the English rules for this game are at this link:

http://www.helldorado.fr/ressources/telechargements/telechargement_id19/fichier.pdf

Finally, I picked up the Impetus rules and the first supplement, courtesy of a fellow from Phillie who had a hankering to read up on Jochen Peiper.

That's all for a few days.

Build me an army

2009-01-25T10:17:00.000-08:00

I'm working on the basing of these fellows today. First, I cut several hundred little pieces of plasticard and crazyglued a sufficiency of those on the Praetorians to cover the gaps left on the washers I'm using. Why am I using these metal washers you might ask? For their weight (so the minis will stand on an angled surface) and height (less than a GW or PP plastic base). Their only downside is the tendency to leave these gaps that have to be dealt with, and not always, as can be seen with the Thunderbolt Mountain High Elves. Back to the Romans then, after they dried, more or less, I used a 1:1 mixture of white glue and black primer to affix sand onto the bases. I had to be careful to go back over each and ensure I had removed any sand that covered the toes. Next I will paint the bases, black, followed by a dark earth brown, followed by a drybrush of bone. Then I'll flock them with GW flock, which the best I've ever found.

The next step on the shields completed, being a base of GW TinBitz. Next, painting the final metallic (brass, bronze or gold; I haven't decided yet) followed by another wash of white on the shield, followed by the application of the LBMS transfers, followed by painting the backs of the shields.

These are some of the units I have to add to the army. As you can see there are 3 more units of 24 Legionaries, 4 units of 20, and a unit of 17 skirmishing archers. So 171 miniatures, 51 of which are Foundry, the rest Gripping Beast. I also have a unit of camelry and 2 units of cavalry, and I'll be getting some artillery and an elephant or two. I'm obviously mad, but the plan is a unit a month and the entire army finished by year's end.

Looking at the Rubicon (or the Jewell River)

2009-01-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

First, the Praetorians, i.e. my Rubicon. All figures are Gripping Beast for these two units of 24. Here are the 40 of the Praetorian grunts. Their commanders are now being started (see below). All I can say is that there has been a fair bit of work done to get them going. For example, the sandals and toes were painted and washed. Each figure's lorica segmenta and cingulum were washed with Privateer Press ("PP") Armor Wash. The flesh was painted up with PP Idrian Flesh, highlighted with PP Khardic Flesh, and washed with PP Flesh Wash. The tunics were touched up (except on some of the right arms). The cheek guards of the helmets still have flesh paint on them. From now on I am painting the flesh first on my minis but these have to be cleaned up. The scabbards are painted red (Derivan Rourke's Drift Red again). Regardless, these are starting to look the part.

The command figures. There are a couple of extra leader types, so I guess as elite units the two units of 24 will have an optio in each along with the Centurion. Or I could just get another 2 Praetorians from the boys at Gripping Beast.

These are Praetorian shields. I have the spindle boss on each primed black. It will be painted before I put the LBMS transfers on the shields.
The LBMS transfers.

The Elves continue. This is my Jewell River if you get the allusion. The bows have been painted with Reaper Master Series Creamy Ivory, the faces with PP Idrian Flesh.
My German knights are now mounted and hand-primed (in that order).

I wish I had more to report. It's been a fair bit of drudgery though I have enjoyed listening to podcasts whilst doing this painting.

I think I can, I think I can...

2009-01-14T19:56:00.000-08:00

First, the Thunderbolt Mountian High Elves. As can be seen the bows have received their first coat of paint, namely Reaper Master Series Creamy Ivory. Great paint. I used Derivan French Blue for the gloves and helm feathers. These colours are going to get a wash and a drybrush for sure. Not necessarily in that order. I'm just blocking them out now.

Work on Beast 09 continues. I drybrushed all the metal areas with Citadel Boltgun Metal. The other basecoat is a mix of about three parts GW Foundation Gretchin Green mixed with 2 parts of GW Foundation Dheneb Stone (where do they get the names?) liberally diluted and mixed with water.

Painting Update

2009-01-11T17:06:00.000-08:00

First, a small "d" disaster. So, I'm shaking a bottle of Derivan Rourke's Drift Red - what a red! more about that below - and my eyes are closed, and I feel something wet hit my right eyelid, so I open my eyes, and GAAK!, red everywhere, all over the wall, my posters, me, the table, Romans, Elves...all I can say is that it is a very, very nice red.

This is Derivan Rourke's Drift Red as a wash on the inside of the cloaks of one of the three available Thunderbolt Mountain High Elven archer poses. I'm also using a few other paints on these, GW Foundation Khemri Stone on the pants, Reaper Red Brick on the boots, Lifecolour French BlueGray on the tunic, and GW Foundation Iyanden Darksun on the helmet decorations and cuirasses.

GW Foundation Iyanden Darksun on the helmet decorations and on the cuirasses. You can see that I have used a wash on the cuirasses (Privateer Press Armor Wash) and on the one in front I lightly drybrushed some Coat D'Arms Bone. All the rest of these will recieve the same treatment.

Views from behind. All my Elves are blondes! I painted the hair by applying oop Citadel Flesh Wash to the white highlights on the hair.

Georg von Holbein with a wash of Derivan Rourke's Drift Red on the cloth barding and cloak, and a wash of Privateer Press Armour Wash on his armour and on the armour from the saddle forward. Don't ask.

The cloth barding on 10 Silver Helm horses below received their final wash of Delta Ceramcoat Midnight Blue. I am going to highlight the barding and freehand paint different heraldric devices on each horse.

Front and rear view of my Warmachine Khador heavy warjack "Beast 09" after drybrushing GW Tinbitz on all the metal parts. This was the work of 5 minutes, but I also spent a little while repriming all the spots you inevitably miss on a large figure like this, so 10 minutes in all. The drybrush of Citadel Boltgun Metal is next.

That's all I managed. Basically, I found myself drawn into spending most of my painting time on the Tom Meier High Elves. They are exquisite sculpts, and a delight to paint so long as you ensure you go 1/2 and 1/2 paint/water with everything. To do that successfully, you need paints that are going to lay down some pigment at that kind of mix. There are paints that I tried on these and then bailed out on. I won't bother listing them. What I can absolutely say is that I've never painted the like of these miniatures, and I just have to get some of his High Elven spear and some of his new Byzantine spearmen.

Cheers

A Dilettante's Painting Update

2009-01-06T19:09:00.000-08:00

A quick update before I turn in. First, I have finished highlighting the cloaks on my Gripping Beast 28mm EIR Praetorian Guard. The first picture gives a view of what I am facing in the months ahead. ;-)

This picture shows a lengthwise view. There are 40 of these models, and they will be finished in 2 units of 24. The other 8 models will be added from command figures, either GB or Foundry. I like my paint scheme. It's black primer, with the old Citadel Colour Deadly Nightshade on that, and highlights of the Derivan Ensign Blue. I may just do a last highlight on the most prominent folds of the robes.

These are the Thunderbolt Mountain High Elven archers. As can be seen I highlighted the black with a rigourous drybrush of white. I used Delta Cermcoate White for this...I have for years. It's a good paint for this task. Don't ask me why. Anyways, I then began to apply washes. On the armour you will see a wash of Delta Ceramcoate Midnight Blue. This is a great paint, one of my favorites. It didn't work as well on the helms. but there is no definition on them as the sculpts are so perfectly smooth. Just look at the detail! It's incredible. For the outside of the cloaks I used an old Citadel wash called Ork Flesh Wash. It's one of the best washes GW ever produced and, sadly, long OOP.

More Tom Meier goodness.

Yet more Tom Meier goodness.

Finally, some further work on the HYW French horses. I have great hopes for this project but it is my first venture into 15mm, and so we will see.

All the best.

Update on Painting Projects

2009-01-03T19:25:00.000-08:00

It's been a reasonable day. Between making a snow fort and watching a couple of NFL WildCard games I did a few things.

First off I primed Beast 09. I hand prime using artists' gesso. I find I don't lose any detail and I can't take the toulene from the spray primers.

Next off I highlighted the cloaks of about 20 of my Gripping Beast EIR Praetorians. I used a Derivan Ensign Blue (I was experimenting). Looks okay.

Next, a new project I've been working on. These are Thunderbolt Mountain High Elven archers sculpted by Tom Meier. These sculpts are incredible. It's funny, they are so fine that it's difficult to paint them without losing the detail. Even with the artists' gesso I heavily diluted it. What I tnink I am going to do is lightly drybrush these with white and then use washes. We'll see.

Finally, I started a 15mm French HYW army for Impetus today. I'm actually using Mirliton Geman Medieval Knights (ca. 1236 A.D.) to start the cavalry. I have a couple of problems. First, some of the miniatures aren't great fits for French knights of 1-2 centuries later. Second, I am unfortunately without any good references on the heraldry of the French. If anyone reads this (?) and knows of free web resources please advise. Here is what I did tonight. I used a white artists' gesso and then used a variety of GW Foundation paints (1 coat, whatever the colour).

And these.

An Aside

2009-01-02T21:45:00.000-08:00

When I play with soldiers, no one gets hurt.

"The IDF, heros against the weak."

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, December 2008

What I'm Up To These Days

2009-01-02T20:09:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas is over and yet the holidays are most definately not. I got three miniature related presents this year. One was the most excellent tome, "Painting Miniatures" by Danilo Cartacci. I got this book from Fantization after seeing a recommendation of Joe Videcki. Apart from that I got a truly amazing miniature from the Helldorado Westerners range called Georg von Holbein, and one of Privateer Press' newest warjacks, Beast 09.

Now I am nowhere near finishing Georg von Holbein, but I did the basecoats of Boltgun Metal (over TinBitz) and the Foundation Mechrite Red today to show where the miniature is going. I could have filled a little on the horse but I'm no perfectionist, and the only person who would notice will be looking to see whether it's a gelding if you take my drift. There was a bit of flash on the helmet of Georg.

Beast 09. I picked this up at the post office this afternoon and built it tonight. Nice kit. I don't know about the price. I paid it, but it was dear.

Comparison shot with a Juggernaught as Beast 09 is a souped up Juggernaught, and I thought I'd mention that a Jugger has a MSRP of $29.99 and Beast 09's MSRP is $54.99. It's a little strange. Shrug...

These are a unit of WFB High Elven Dragon Princes of Caledor, built, primed black and wetbrushed with TinBitz. I'm not decided upon where I am going with these and I'm trying to pick up another 5-10 so I'll await that development. But these are very cool miniatures, Jes Goodwin sculpts, first produced by GW in the early/mid 1990's. I always liked them.

eIrusk on the assembly line.

Yuri the Axe and his trusty henchwench.

The 4th edition High Elven plastic Spear and Archers. I always thought these rocked. I'm chuffed to have returned to this project after 12, yes, count 'em, 12 years.

A Good Trade

2008-11-27T19:10:00.000-08:00

I met a fellow at GenCon this year, a fellow hobbyist from Cleveland who paints with distinction under the handle "Minidragon". Anyways, when he happened upon an offer of mine respecting issues 1-19 of No Quarter magazine, we quickly worked out a deal where I would send those to him for a 28mm miniature of my choice painted by him. I chose a GW mounted Bretonnian Lord I had quite liked the look of from the first time I saw it, and asked that it be painted as if it was a Teutonic Knight. The miniature is now finished and I can only say that I count myself a fortunate man. So thanks, Joe. A lot.

The Golden Hills of Eriador

2008-10-19T12:59:00.000-07:00

The newest army at my house-The Patrician Ellie-Dumptruck Confederacy

2008-10-18T05:17:00.001-07:00

Words are besides the point! Well, except to point out that the bowls are fortifications for the commander in chief.

Another Glorious Painting Update

2008-10-16T19:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I've more or less finished the Winterguard. I didn't realize until after I'd finished that I have an extra Sergeant and an extra Rocketeer. Well, that's how it goes, I guess. I'm fairly happy with these, but I must say that unless you have painted Warmachine miniatures, it's difficult to imagine how tedious some of them can be to get through. These Winterguard are a case in point, whereas the MOW Kovnik below is a joy to paint. Anyways, I started highlighting miniatures when I began painting my Late Romans in 2001, but with these Winterguard I just don't have the patience to highlight them given the work involved in just blocking everything out. I like these miniatures, don't get me wrong, but it's not like lovemaking to paint them...not at all. There's little joy in it.

My newest project, the High Elves. These are from the WHFB 4th edition box. I've had them since late June, 1996. 12 years later and I'm painting them. Oi vey! But I'm really enjoying it, I like the 4th edition High Elf range, exceedingly. Actually, GW haven't made a decent spearelf or archer figure since. It's been all poncey dancing fools with bad hair, and I just don't get the joke. But that's because I read the 4th edition High Elf Army Book I suppose.

These were primed black. Tin Bitz was then overbrushed on the armor, followed by a drybrush of boltgun metal. Then a coat of Tri Art Yellow Oxide on the cloth, and a coat of GW Foundation Mechrite Red on the spear and leather hauberk. Then PP Skorne Red over the Mechrite Red, and Reaper's Linen White on the cloth.

That's how far I've got to the present.

There are a couple of metal spearelfs in the ones I have worked on shown in the picture below. I painted them in 1997, and IIRC I used mithril silver on a white base coat. So I'm going to be trying a few washes on them.

Painting and Daydreaming Update

2008-10-13T10:54:00.001-07:00

First, the painting update. As you can see below, the Winterguard are just about done. I'm going to give the faces and hands a bit of PP Flesh wash, and then one more highlight of Midlund Flesh, and I've got to figure out what, if anything, I'm going to do with their hair. And of course, the bases need a drybrush of bone before flocking them. Paints are GW Foundations, PP flesh tones, and the old Citadel metallics.

Secondly, my next project...yes, it's back to painting GW Terminators. I kind of miss the little buggers, and I can't bear to look at them in their current form any longer. I painted up 10 of them a couple of years ago and then traded them away...pictures of those miniatures are to be found in an earlier entry.

And, to explain a bit about where I'm coming from, what got me thinking about these terminators was the free Black Reach terminator with a recent White Dwarf. Here it is, built, primed black with some gesso and then just roughly overbrushed with a coat of old Citadel Vermin fur or something.

Which brings me to my daydreaming...I left off the GW hobby, as they call it, at the end of 2006. However, since I've moved to the outharbours of my fair province, GW has got me back a bit, mainly because of the fact that the only thing I can buy here that has any connection with my hobby interests is White Dwarf. And you know, that magazine has improved enormously. I'm not going to wax on about it ad nauseum. The bottom line is that they have changed the balance of the White Dwarf from advertising rag to hobby magazine. And GW's prices are going down for Canadians at the same time as they have almost revolutionized the quality of their models, and apparently made some relatively positive improvements in their rules. Anyways, the long and short of it is that I am so inspired by the new Vampire Counts, Chaos demons and the Chaos Warriors armies that I am going to get my OOP High Elves out and try to do something fine with them. It means coming full circle in a sense as the High Elves were the first army I acquired when I got into wargaming again in 1996.

Red October

2008-10-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Fall is here, and for some strange reason, strange because I cannot understand it, I find myself with time to paint again. I am painting the last of my Khador. Why? I do not know. But I am.

The Bloodletting continues, and other musings

2008-09-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

I'm selling off stuff at a fairly convincing rate over on my Alderass blog, so much so that I'm now toying with the idea of selling painted armies. The experience is starting to remind me of a short story my father wrote, where a man gets hooked on selling his possessions whilst his wife is on holidays, and she returns to find that he has sold everything they owned, lock, stock and barrel.

Maybe it's in the blood? ;-)

I had originally planned on selling off various Rackham metals I collected back in the day of second edition Confrontation and the original Rag'Narok. Rackham is trying to rebrand these metals now as "Legends" and to sell them at an even higher price point then it used to before it lost its way, but this will probably only work if it has a monopoly on the North Korean toy market. I saw virtually the full range of Rackham metals on sale at 50% off at GenCon, and you can find them on the internet at 75% off. What a sad disaster it has all been.

Now back to the idea of selling my painted armies. As so many others have done before me, I went a bit overboard with the Privateer Press miniatures, and even after ridding myself of almost $600 worth (MSRP) of NIB stuff over the past few days, I still have an awful lot of NIB and painted stuff on hand. The thing is that I actually have no one to play a game with where I reside these days, and even if I did, I have come to realize that I really don't need everything I have. I'm a short step, therefore, from realizing I don't want anything that I have.

I've purchased a lot of choices that I don't really want...is it our daydreaming that bankrupts us? I always thought that daydreams were harmless.

What I might do then, is just to sit down and figure out a few core army lists, and then sell the rest. That's a choice, isn't it?

News - The Bloodletting begins

2008-09-07T04:20:00.000-07:00

They say George Washington died from an overvigorous bloodletting. I hope I survive mine, but it is beginning now. My lead collection will be halved over the next couple of months. The prices will be 50% off MSRP plus shipping with insurance and PayPal fees. Everything shall be shown with pictures on my blog for this operation which is titled, appropriately enough, "Alderass". The link is on this page.

In other news I am painting away at the EIR. I am doing the mass painting thing, all 200 plus foot at the same time. At a certain point I will divide everything up into units and then finish them as such. There will come a time then that I shall be posting completed units fairly quickly, but that time is a ways away yet. What to do about the shields doth perplex me. I'd like to hand-paint them, but it's not realistic to do that, so I'll probably get Little Big Man transfers I expect.

Most excellent Privateer Press gaming tables

2008-09-04T19:33:00.000-07:00

Tour of Duty tables from GenCon 2007. Lots of great ideas here. The centerpieces are related to the scenario, so they do not have to be included on every table, but they are great...erm...centerpieces? One was used for the Nationals final that year, the one with the raised decking with a wooden crane assembly.

GenCon 2008 Highlights

2008-09-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

Well, just got back, so to speak, from GenCon 2008. There's a lot of independent material on the web about this convention, and about every part of it for that matter. All I did was war game, and I had very few opportunities to take pictures. These are the pictures that I thought worthwhile to share:

This is a game of Warmachine/Hordes using the Tour of Duty format. It's very similar to the old GW Carnage scenario, and in some ways is more fun than Carnage just due to the rich variety of rules associated with Warmachine and the smaller number of models, which gives space to move about and try a few things. I am playing Vlad, Joe W. ("Minidragon" on the PP forums) is playing Sorscha, Joe's friend is playing Mortenebra and my buddy Ken is playing a Trollblood army provided by Joe. Great fun, and a nice table provided by PP. Many thanks to the umpire, "Polar Bear" on the PP forums.

This is another view of Minidragon's army. I actually thought his Khador army was the nicest one I saw at GenCon.

This are three of Minidragon's infantry. The bareheaded Sergeant is an excellent conversion.

This is Minidragon's army on view before the HardCore tournament. I think the Manhunter's head is a superior conversion.

This is Minidragon's Kovnik Joe. Brilliant job. And note the converted Mechanik in the background. Small details like this make all the difference.

This Skorne Titan is excellent. The guy who owned him played with a Skorne sashimono faithfully attached to his back throughout his games.

The Skorne player also showed me his Carvivean for his forthcoming Legion army. Sweet.

Another view of the Carvivean.

Is Wargaming Immature?

2008-09-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

I often wonder about this. It's probably a learned horror latent within me from a few of the agonistes of the female persuasion that I've walked the walk with. But, you know, I don't think war gaming is all that bad. Why would it be any different for us than it was in the 19th century when it was considered a leisure activity a grown man could be proud of? Maybe a little like this:

And I did recently observe this person driving down the road near my house:

So I don't think war gaming is that bad at all.

The Painting Den

2008-08-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

This is where I spend a few hours every week. As can be seen, at present I am painting just over 200 GB and Foundry EIR foot figures. I prime by hand in black gesso. I am using Privateer Press Fleshtones. They are the best I've seen. I'm impressed with the GW Foundation paints and have been using them to paint almost everything (though particularly Khador) over the past year. I also picked up the new washes from the WarStore stand at GenCon this year and they are on the table because they are about to be applied on some white-primed Landsknect pluderhosen. I still have yet to find better metallics than the old Citadel paints from the 90's. You might also see a bottle of Reaper Master Series Clear Red on the table. That's a trick to make reds pop. I learned it at a seminar with Marike Reimer at GenCon 2007. I generally use a wide variety of paints but I have very little time and so I have to wholly focus on techniques that save time.

Mirliton Adventures

2008-08-30T02:40:00.001-07:00

During my honeymoon in 2004 I ended up in the little storefront of Mirliton in the little town of Tavarnuzze, just outside of Firenze. These are some of the things I saw there.

William Wallace and friends

More of William Wallace's friends. He had lot's of friends. Just ask Mel.

Kniggetts
More kniggetts
Northern wars...beautiful vignette
Another view of the Rus
Caroccio at 15mm scale
Teutonics at 15mm - I purchased these. I could not help myself.
Caroccio at 25mm scale.- I picked this up too. I was helpless.
Another view of the Caroccio vignette
Another view of the Caroccio vignette. The box comes with only 4 of the oxen so you should pick up another pair from Mirliton.
Scotland Forever - The Scots Greys at Waterloo. Wow!

WAB Late Roman Action

2008-08-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

During the years 2001 to 2003 I was totally obsessed with WAB. There is no other way to describe it. I engaged in a massive joint project with a gaming buddy, Stu G., under which we respectively purchased and painted massive GB Late Roman and Sassanid armies. We spent two years painting them. Seriously. In May of 2003 we trotted out our finished armies at the local modeling (and wargaming) convention. Both of us had based our miniatures with desert scrub and I had painted the boards in a theme that made homage to the scenes at the beginning of The English Patient showing the desert below the storm wracked plane.

Was it all worth it? Yes. Damned right. Yes.

Here are some pictures from the mass battle we fought. I think the armies were fairly evenly matched...Stu had like three units of 12-16 clibinarii on the table but I had warmachines. The bolt throwers were amazing. It was a great day. I should note that I have a unit of 36 or so Foundry LR foot and a unit of 12 Foundry Cataphractii, but the army is still overwhelmingly GB.

The second major WAB endeavour of 2003 was Britcon. Mi bella signora traveled with me to Roma and then Loughborough. She may have enjoyed Roma more, but she stood it well.

The first day I got there I met a wonderful chap named James Brewerton, and we played a pick-up game between his First Corps Ancient Indian army and my Late Roman Limitanae force. His chariots were awesome.

I think it was that evening that the WAB tournament began. My first game was against a Shieldwall Saxon army played by Karl. As you can see, he had a lovely army and he proceeded to dispatch mine with surgical precision. I actually really enjoyed the game, he was a great sport, and I had a lot of fun. That said, a FotW Late Roman Limitanae force is hard-pressed to deal with this kind of Saxon goodness.

The next day, I played a good few games. I don't think I will ever forget the one I played against the Shieldwall Welsh army of this fellow. It was one of those strange games where I felt like I had an army of lemmings on the table.

Later that day, I was impaled by the Assyrians.

My last game at Britcon 2003 was against a MiniFigs or Lamming Sassanian army played by a fellow named Duncan M. Now this turned out to be probably the least enjoyable wargame that I have ever played. First off, I was shattered after the Pub-Night, which was an absolute blinder but which, well, blinded me from imbibation of ale. Second, my foe appeared to be equally affected throughout the game, because I can think of no other reason to explain his chronic inability to measure properly, a problem so critical that my girlfriend was heard to utter at one point "That's the longest 8 inches I ever saw", which was fairly distracting in itself as you can well imagine. Then, I experienced the most shite moment of WAB that I ever had the pleasure to enjoy, when I chased a unit of Sassanid Horse archers off the table with my Late Roman light cavalry only to have to return them to face a unit of Cataphracts and a unit of levy foot that my foe had had the leisure to reposition to do them to death in his turn. The whole game I had been rushing through my turns as Rob B. was waiting to drive Duncan home and in the end I just conceded the game so that my foe could catch his ride back to Notts/Newark, whatever. Then, a couple of days later, I realized that Duncan had totally devastated my elite unit of drilled heavy foot with an elephant charge which, of course, is as impossible to do with an elephant as climbing a sheer cliff.

Actually, I haven't played a game of WAB since then. But I still love the game. From afar.

With acknowledgments and thanks to Tim M. for the images from the 2003 St. John's Hobbyshow.

The Beastie Boys

2008-08-28T18:25:00.000-07:00

At Britcon 2003. Top drawer.

Massive Attack

2008-08-27T09:10:00.001-07:00

I suppose every wargamer worth his salt has to do a battle of the titans at some point or other. My group did our first such game in March, 2002. 12,000 points in all, 6,000 points of Tyranids attacking length ways down a 12' long by 6' wide table against entrenched elements of Space Marines from a number of Chapters, i.e. from the collections of at least 4 members of the group. I have - I hope with fair cunning - attempted to hide from you the fact many of the miniatures were unpainted or only partially painted, because I don't want to ruin what I can assure was a dramatic spectacle which I shall be fortunate to ever see repeated again. The scenario is one of the great games of 40K that GW devised, where Tyranid troop units that are destroyed get replenished and can join the battle deploying from the sides of the tables. (The other great 40K scenario in my opinion was Carnage).

Anyways, as Chris E. would singsong to us all, "To War! To War!"

The Marines have the ridge line. They have to prevent the Tyranid Horde from getting into the city behind them. Intercepted radio transmission from the time: "They have a Barbed Hierodule." Let me assure you that the Marines melted away like smoke in the wind from its shooting.

The Marines await their doom. This is Chris E.'s rather high-priced Devastator squad with Commander, which came in at about 732 points (I'm sorta joking) but they looked sweet. My kit-bashed Whirlwind is next to them...LOS for arcing artillery, when will GW learn?

The view down the Marine's right flank. You will note the unit of Genestealers towards which 2 Death Companies of Blood Angels are eagerly rushing. Interesting idea that; and you know what people usually mean when they use the word "interesting"?

I love the drama of this picture. What can outfox Scout Snipers? A Lictor, perhaps?

Ummm, dinner. This is what happens when one rushes 2 Death Companies of Blood Angels towards Genestealers in this scenario.

I love this photograph. A Marine runs away, leaving his Commander to face the Genestealers.

I love this photograph too. A Genestealer, having dispatched a Dreadnought, runs towards the city leaving the Space Marine Commander to reflect upon the price of failure.

This is the end, my only friend, the end. The last stand of the Marines. The city taken, the slain being rendered down into the planetary gruel the Hive Fleet nourishes itself upon, the vampiric Emperor of Mankind getting a little of his own back.

With acknowledgments and thanks to Tim M., without whom this game would not have been possible, and for taking and cropping the pictures.

The Mighty Eldar

2008-08-27T05:11:00.001-07:00

I started collecting Ulthwe Eldar, my second army, in 1996. Over the years that followed I acquired a huge collection that included everything in the range except jetbikes and vibrocannon. I was musing about how I would paint this on DakkaDakka back in early 2002 and a fellow named Neil Dutton from Toronto offered to do it for a reasonable fee. Well, after a little thought I accepted and over the next 18 months he painted just about everything.

I was very busy with my job at the time, the work was reasonable tabletop quality at a minimum (Neil is an artist and he didn't put too much paint on the miniatures), the price point was good, and I was painting other miniatures anyways so it was a win situation from that perspective. What I didn't then realize was the identity issues I would have with miniatures I didn't paint. Coupled with a disenchantment with 40K due to a combination of misgivings over the rules and disgust over GW pricing in 2004-6, it was inevitable that I rid myself of these I suppose. In the event, I sold my entire Eldar collection to a fellow in California in 2007.

So thanks for the memories to Games Workshop but, again, I am without regrets. The moral of this story is that while you can covet any miniature of beauty, to truly love it you have to paint it yourself.

I will be posting more Eldar over the next few days.

With acknowledgments and thanks to Stu G. for the pictures of the Wraithlord and the Wave Serpent.

Wargaming with the Dark Angels

2008-08-27T03:34:00.000-07:00

This is just to prove that the lads did gird themselves for battle.

With acknowledgments and thanks to Tim M. for both the game and the image.