Warmachine on the Road: Haley goes to War

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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."