Impact Hits

Hordes is my new hobby

2011-09-24T15:17:00.000-04:00

I fell out of miniature gaming for a while but now I'm back with a vengeance. I've for the most part moved on from Games Workshop games, mostly due to their recent pricing decisions. I love their models and wish I had the income to afford all of the new Ogre goodies they just released but alas, I do not.

My Trollbloods however have been growing. Hordes seems to offer far more bang for my buck than Warhammer did. Every new thing I buy is unique and brings something different to the table. Every game I play is a unique experience. That and their pricing scheme and lower model count works a lot better for me.

I've bought a ton of stuff recently, to the point where it is almost easier to list the stuff I don't have than what I do. I've also started to devote some time to actually painting things. The last time I blogged I hadn't even primed a single Trollbloods model.

Recently I basecoated black my entire Trollbloods army. I did it using regular paint rather than spray paint as my main obstacle to painting was that I couldn't spraypaint in my new apartment. With that hurdle out of the way, I went to one of the local stores and picked up the Trollbloods Paint Kit as well as the Privateer Press Wet Paint Palette Kit. I now have quite a few models with their skin painted Trollblood Base and I just for the first time began experimenting with highlighting (beyond just drybrushing) and mixing of colors. It's pretty exciting and I hope to have a fully painted Trollblood some time in the near future.

With that said, I present to you my current work in progress, my Dire Troll Mauler:

From Instant Upload

Trollbloods vs. Khador 1/15/2011

2011-01-18T00:16:00.000-05:00

I played my first game of 2011!

I took my Trollbloods against Rob's Khador this past Saturday and emerged victorious. With this win, I am officially undefeated in the new year.

This was also my first scenario game and was the "Convergence" scenario played at 35 points. Rob took a Kharchev list that he will have to detail and I took a pMadrak list.

My list:
pMadrak
Dire Troll Bomber
Axer
Impaler
Impaler
Krielstone Bearer + 3 Scribes
Stone Scribe Chronicler
5 Champions

I got the first turn so I deployed my Madrak brick with the Bomber off to one side and the two Impalers off to the other. On my first turn I advanced as quickly as possible and stopped just short of the center circle zone. I also cast Sure Foot on the axer who was chilling in the middle of my brick. On Rob's turn, he did the same but moved some Bombardiers into the circle to prevent me from getting a free point. The Bombardiers shot at my champions to no avail (dealing only 3 damage to one of them).

On my second turn, I moved the Champions, Madrak, the Axer, and some of the Scribes into the circle. I didn't have the threat range to charge unfortunately. I moved up one of the Impalers and shot at one of the Bombardiers doing only 6 damage (I think), not enough to kill him. I moved up the Bomber and gave him Far Strike hoping he would be able to lob two bombs into the Bombardiers and kill all three for me. Alas, it was not to be. I rolled a 5 on my first to hit roll (boosted even!) and then rolled another 5 on a non-boosted to hit roll. Really horrible luck.

On Rob's second turn, Karchev towed his jacks in so that they could charge into my Champions and attempt to tear my brick apart. The combination of Sure Foot, Defensive Line, and Protective Aura served me well though and the jacks failed to accomplish anything significant. They manage to kill one of my Champions (after he passed 3 lucky tough rolls in a row) but that was it. Rob then proceeded to try and charge another unit into my bomber but they fell short. Finally he had a unit of Turions (I think?) that had 3 spells. He had all of them cast a spray spell at me which actually ended up doing more damage to his own guys than they did to mine. He had a series of rather painful misses that accomplished nothing for him.

On my turn, Madrak cast Carnage and feated. The result was one of my champions that was unengaged charging into his tightly clumped infantry and singlehandedly mowing through almost all of them. My Axer moved into combat with the three warjacks and began Threshering. Now that they were all in melee range of my warbeast, I had the Chronicler trigger Charge of the Trolls on my Champions (they actually attacked at this point). And my champions began to tear apart the warjacks. I crippled the arm on one, did some damage to another, and destroyed the third with a final charge from one of my impalers.

On his turn, Rob went for the caster kill. He towed his one jack that was still in good shape out of combat and into position for it to charge Madrak. It did but failed to kill him due to Madrak's Scroll of Grindar's Perseverance which kept him alive.

When Rob's turn came around again, he conceded. I had almost all of my models left (one champion had died) and was getting ready to finish mopping up his warjacks (and Karchev) and was going to have no trouble keeping Madrak away from him for the rest of the game.

It was probably one of the more fun games I've had in Warmahordes since I started playing. I enjoy playing against the straightforward beat their face in style of Khador much more than I do playing against Steve's sneaky Cryx.

My Next Project Poll

2011-01-05T08:47:00.000-05:00

It's been so long since I've done anything miniature related that a whole bunch of awesome new miniatures have come out that I would love to get my hands on. The only problem is, funds and time are limited, and I can't seem to decide what I want to get next.

So, here are my options:

1. Start Dark Eldar. Games Workshop released all of these awesome new miniatures with a really fun sounding army book. I already have a smallish Ork 40k army but I've never really gotten into 40k that much. Should I give it another shot with a fresher army?

2. Buy More Skaven Stuff. There are TONS of really cool Skaven models to pick up. I haven't bought anything for them since the book came out (I only have the old 7th edition battalion), and between the Island of Blood, and the first two minis waves, there's a lot of cool stuff to pick up.

3. More Trollbloods. I've been really enjoying games of WarmaHordes recently (even though I haven't played too much) but my current selection for armies is so limited. I really need to enchance with some more variety but I'm torn between this and a Games Workshop project. Games Workshop, surprisingly, seems to give me a little more bang for my buck (at least in terms of number of models) over Privateer Press but I'm probably more likely to play games of WarmaHordes.

4. Orcs & Goblins are due out in the Spring. I could just wait for them and then start up that army if they turn out to be really cool. I'm really intrigued to see what they do with the first book of 8th edition.

5. Buy Nothing. I am so far behind on painting my stuff. Should I just suck it up and paint my old models instead of buying a bunch of new stuff that I'll build and then never paint (or maybe even never actually play)?

There's a poll to the left, please vote and then let me know your thoughts in the comments.

It's a New Year

2011-01-02T21:41:00.000-05:00

Wow. It's been a really long time since I've posted anything.

Life really got away from me for a while and it doesn't look like it will be letting up any time soon. I now have a wedding to plan for, another move to plan for, and I'll be starting grad school at the end of the month. I'm going to try and start this blog up in the new year but try to ration my time with it a little better. Posts won't be nearly as frequent or probably as in depth as they were before but I'm going to try and aim for a post a week or so with whatever my miniature related thoughts of the moment are.

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and I'm looking forward to seeing all the miniature related things everyone accomplishes in the new year!

Slann Mage-Priest Painting Part VI

2010-09-10T07:02:00.000-04:00

I did more work on this guy too. Made quite a bit of progress actually. I picked all the various little critters crawling around on it, finished up the tiny leaves, and highlighted the scrawling branches with Vermin Brown. I then started working on the little skink dude. I wanted to emulate the way they had done him in the book. The sort of albino/bluish color but I apparently fail at working with whites and getting colors to blend that smoothly. I'm not very happy with him and he'll probably go through several more iterations before I'm done.

From Slann Mage-Priest I

Really all that's left to do is get the horns to look the way I want them, figure out how I want to do the pieces that currently the dwarf bronze color, and finish off the little skink guy. Then I'll have my first completed model!

Cold One Cavalry Painting Part I

2010-09-09T06:00:00.002-04:00

Rather than continue showing off models I'm not happy with, I thought I'd take a moment to share some of the models I've been working on that I am proud with. These guys need washes and highlighting still but here is the basic approach I'm going to be using for my Cold Ones.

From Cold One Cavalry

Skin was done in Gretchin Green and the scales were done in Orkhide Shade. I'm planning to highlight the scales with Hawk Turquoise.

Saurus Warrior Workshop

2010-09-08T08:50:00.000-04:00

Here's where I'm at with my Saurus Warrior test model currently. Basecoated with Mechrite Red then did the skin in Blood Red and the scales in Scab Red. I'm going to experiment with some washes today and see how things turn out with that.

From Saurus Warriors

I think this gets me the contrast I need but I won't know how it will look until I experiment a little with some washes. I'm also wondering if Red Gore or Mechrite Red for the scales would have been a better as Scab Red is almost purpleish in color.

Temple Guard Workshop

2010-09-07T12:50:00.000-04:00

Here are the samples I've been painting up to test some ideas for the temple guard.

This first one is basecoated Leviathan Purple and the scales were coated with Liche Purple.

From Drop Box

This one used Mechrite Red with the scales in Liche Purple. Experimenting a little with the idea from my previous post. I'm not sure I like it.

From Drop Box

On the other side of the previous model, I tried scales in Leviathan Purple (shoulder) as well as scales in Warlock Purple (leg).

From Drop Box

On this model I tried basecoating with Warlock Purple and scales in Liche Purple on the shoulder. On the leg I basecoated with Leviathan Purple and did the scales with Warlock Purple.

From Drop Box

What do people think of the different color schemes? Right now I'm thinking I'll scrap the red/purple combination I was thinking of and go with either the Leviathan Purple/Liche Purple combination of Leviathan Purple/Warlock Purple combination.

Saurus Painting Workshop

2010-09-07T00:04:00.000-04:00

I've spent a good chunk of the day playing around with my Lizardmen some more and trying to figure out how to move forward with painting some of them. Mostly I've been basecoating several cold one cavalry and finetuning some minor details on my slann's palanquin.

The big things I've been playing around with though are these guys. My saurus warriors and my temple guard. Here is a sample of the work I had done on them previously that I'm not very happy with.

From Impact Hits

I actually really like the temple guard model but am disappointed with the way the skin/scales turned out. I want my temple guard to be purple in color to represent their elite almost royal role in Lizardmen society. To that end, I had painted them Liche Purple, washed them with Purple Ink, and then drybrushed them with Liche Purple again. The issue I have is there isn't enough of a difference between the skin and the scales for me to be happy. I want the scales to be the deep, vibrant purple with a lighter, similar shade for the skin. Trying to figure this out is where I'm failing though.

A test model I've been working with (unfortunately no picture due to dead camera) used Leviathan Purple as the basecoat. I then started picking out the scales in the Liche Purple. I'm not sure this is going to get me to the final effect that I want though. The Leviathan Purple contrasts with the Liche Purple extremely well but it's unfortunately a dull purple and not really what I'm looking for.

I've considered using the Warlock Purple instead of Leviathan Purple but I'm thinking I would rather have that as the drybrush highlight on the Liche Purple scales. I'm also thinking that would take it too far away from the royalty type colors I was hoping to achieve.

I am having the same problem with the normal Saurus warrior models. I wanted them to be red based (all of my Lizardmen species are a different color) and so my initial try (the ones seen above) were all basecoated in Scab Red and then washed with Badab Black. I love the way the scales looked afterwards but I'm not happy with the way the skin looks once again. I want a brighter red for the base of the lizardmen with the scales the darker color.

To this end I decided to start one of them from scratch and basecoated it with Mechrite Red. It's a very nice color but unfortunately is not bright enough to achieve what I wanted for the skin. I attempted to paint a basecoat of Blood Red onto the skin but began experiencing extreme difficulties getting an even coat on that looked uniform. It would appear that red is a very difficult color to work with. Would anyone have any ideas on a good way for me to get a basecoat of Blood Red on them or am I just going to have to layer it several times to get what I want? One solution I was thinking of was to just heavy drybrush the whole model with Blood Red and then darken up the scales from there to create the contrast. Any suggestions on what might work would be much appreciated.

One last thought that just occurred to me. To create a more uniform army look, maybe I could paint the temple guard with dark red skin and the purple scales and the saurus with bright red skin and the dark red scales. Show a transition of saurus to temple guard over time as the elder saurus warriors became more elite and their skin/scales darkened over time.

I will hopefully get an opportunity to take some pictures in the morning. When I get the chance, I'll toss up the pictures for everyone to see what I've been working with. If I can, I'll try to paint up a few rough test examples of what I'm thinking for everyone to take a look at and offer suggestions.

Weekend Painting Progress

2010-09-06T12:34:00.000-04:00

I've been making a lot of painting progress this weekend. Unfortunately, my cell phone that I use for taking my pictures has died and since I'm not at home, I don't have a good way to charge it. I'll be posting pictures later this week of everything I've been doing but I thought I'd give an update.

The main thing I spent some time on was my Salamanders which I am pretty happy with. They're mostly finished, I just need to complete their eyes and then I might try to find a way to make their back fin and other "webbing" type parts stand out a little more. I'm unsure what I want to do with that so they will probably be stuck in limbo for a while until I decide.

I also decided to take another shot at my Saurus Warriors and Temple Guard since I decided I wasn't very happy with the way their scales were turning out. I didn't feel like the scales were standing out enough from the base color of their bodies so I took one of the saurus and started a new test model base coated with Mechrite Red and I took one of the Temple Guard and base coated it with Leviathan Purple. I'm going to try to build up from there and see if I can get a result I'm happier with.

I spent some time on my slann picking out the last of the leaves on the palanquin. Now I need to go back and highlight/wash them before I pick out the rest of the little critters riding around on it.

The thing I'm most happy about though are my Cold One Cavalry. I was inspired by one of the color schemes in the Lizardmen book and basecoated the entire cold one with Gretchin Green, did the scales in Orkhide Shade, and then drybrushed the scales with some Hawk Turquoise. It really looks fantastic. I'm going to need to experiment with washes some still to get the right shading I want but I am really excited about the way those test models are starting to come together.

The Bellower #3 Review

2010-09-05T16:00:00.001-04:00

The Ogre Stronghold recently released the latest issue of their webzine "The Bellower". You can check it out here. My Ogres are in a holding pattern for now while I wait for the new book rumored to be out some time next year. I don't have much interest in relearning Ogres for 8th edition when it will all be for naught soon enough and my play time is as limited as it has been recently but I still enjoy reading about them and day dreaming of a future in which I lead my hungry Ogre horde to dominion over the lesser races of the world.

This issue is chock full of awesome stuff. I wasn't a huge fan of the first two issues but this one really got me excited.

As far as Ogres go, they have a really nice guide to all of the magic items. They break them down in much the same way I've been doing for Lizardmen and a lot of the advice they give is very useful. They even have their own ratings system to let you know how good each item is.

My favorite part though has got to be the Blood Bowl section. One of their authors converted a Goblin team out of Gnoblars and offers lots of tactical advice on how to win with them. I don't play much Blood Bowl and know very little about tactics but I sure love the idea of a bunch of Gnoblar running around the field!

Some of the sections are a little too fluffy for my taste (like Ask Aunty Doreen) but its worth skipping those pages for the meatier articles. If you've never checked out the Bellower before, now's a good time to take a look.

Krielstone Bearers Assembly

2010-09-05T12:00:00.005-04:00

I haven't completely assembled these because it occurred to me that attaching the stone to the Krielstone Bearer would make it difficult to paint the stone. I am considering trying to do glowing glyphs for the stone and if I'm going to do that, I'll need to paint the stone before attachment. So for now, I'm going to have to field the unit not completed.

From Krielstone Bearers

I ran into some minor difficulties shortly after these pictures were taken. I tried to use my clippers to tweak the models so they would fit the slots in their bases more firmly. Unfortunately, the bearer himself has a very weak joint connection in his left foot and I snapped it off at the ankle trying to twist the slotting piece. I had to file it back down and re-glue it. Unfortunately its such a small joint that there isn't much surface area for holding it together and there isn't enough space to try to pin it. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep the model from falling apart in the future.

Pyg Burrowers Assembly

2010-09-05T08:00:00.001-04:00

These guys didn't require much assembly. All but the leader were one piece models. I attached the arm to the leader and then twisted their slots slightly so that they'd stick in the bases without glue. I'm not sure how I'm going to base everything in the long run so I don't want to glue them in permanently.

From Pyg Burrowers

I absolutely love the character of these models and from what I've read online, they can also be quite devastating on the battlefield when comboed properly. Very eager to take them for a test run.

Borka Kegslayer Assembly

2010-09-04T19:32:00.000-04:00

Got my second warlock assembled! I'm looking forward to trying him out and seeing how he does. I've been really excited about this guy and can't wait to see him in action.

From Borka Kegslayer

I ended up pinning his hands on because it wasn't the strongest connection. The rest of the model fit together really well and I was quite impressed. After this picture was taken I used some green stuff to fill in the base and stick the peg on his left foot through it. It should hopefully create a much sturdier grip.

Stone Scribe Chronicler Assembly

2010-09-04T16:32:00.000-04:00

During my first day of recovery, I've been slowly but surely assembling my recent Trollbloods order. Progress has been slow due to my regular need for breaks to rinse etc. but I have been making progress. Thus far I have most of the new models in various states of assembly. I've washed all the pieces and trimmed off excess mold lines. I even busted out some green stuff to fill in some gaps which you'll see when those pieces are completed.

For now, here's the finished Stone Scribe Chronicler.

From Stone Scribe Chronicler 1

I was actually really disappointed when I realized this wasn't the model I thought it was. I had meant to order myself a Stone Scribe Elder and ordered this guy instead. Whoops. I guess I know what's going in my next order!

August Competition Results

2010-09-04T10:33:00.000-04:00

We have the results from our August Competition!

I managed to win painting and come close/compete in all of the other categories.

Asmo beat me out in blogging (just barely). He had some really good articles this past month. If you're interested in Hordes, I highly recommend checking out his Skorne articles. He also finished a really nice series of articles about Dark Elves in 8th edition.

Rob managed to take the construction point. He put together a ton of new Khador stuff and really earned this one. I'd love to see some pictures of it all. How about a blog update Rob?

Frans won playing again with a whopping 10 8th edition games at varying point levels. If only he would write up some battle reports we could all read about them!

This brings the current totals to:
Minute (2)
Asmo (2)
Frans (2)
BK (1)
Rob (1)
Nathan (0)

You can see a summary of what everyone did here.

This was the first month that we had with some real competition. Several of the categories were close and it brought out what is in my mind a slight problem with the scoring system. The goal of the competition is to encourage people to devote time to all aspects of the hobby. However, by only giving points to the winner, we have created a situation in which it is far better to specialize each month than it is to devote equal time to all aspects.

I'm hoping to start a new competition for the 2011 year when this competition is up and I'm proposing the following changes to the scoring system. Every category you don't participate in is -1 points. For every category you win, you get 3 points. For every category you contest the first place winner in, you get 1 point. What do the other competitors think of this new scoring system for future competitions?

Blog Shout Out

2010-09-03T14:00:00.002-04:00

I wanted to take some time to draw your attention to some of the blogs I've been enjoying recently.

Trollblood Scrumm:
This is a really fantastic site for everything Trollbloods. Great tactical advice etc. It's given me a lot of ideas and gotten me really excited to expand my collection.

Dei Greci:
Wow. This guy custom builds everything and it is all amazing. I wish I had half the talent he does.

Kevin's Miniatures and Hobby Table:
Kevin has painted a lot of Lizardmen lately and I've been tracking his progress and collecting ideas for my own work. I really like how some of his stuff has turned out. Particularly the stegadon and his kroxigors.

Manic Workbench:
This guy has been moulding his own custom lost temple bases and they look fantastic. I'm starting to think I may need to give moulding my own stuff a shot some day.

One Inch Warriors:
Great lizardmen paint jobs here. I love seeing how people paint their lizardmen and its been a source of inspiration and even some small amounts of jealousy!

N810's Lizardmen Blog:
More cool lizardmen minis.

Son of Slann
I'm also a fan of the Lizardmen stuff here. Really inspiring.

Drinkin' and Modelin':
This is where I go to satisfy my Ogre Kingdoms fetish.

I'd also like to give one final shout out to The Trading Post. It's a very nice site that compiles information from the various Warhammer Fantasy blogs/communities together for easy discovery. I support any efforts to build a better community and appreciate someone taking the time to do this work.

Lizardmen in 8th Edition: Lore of Beasts

2010-09-03T10:00:00.056-04:00

Right about now I will either be in or just getting out of my wisdom teeth surgery I am unfortunately having to undergo. However, I prepared a handful of posts ahead of time to keep you, my loyal readers, entertained. After today though I'll be taking some time to relax, recover, and work on some minis so there may not be any updates for a while depending on how I'm feeling.

Wildheart (Lore Attribute):
Pretty cool attribute that makes the spells easier to cast against everything that isn't Infantry.

Wyssan's Wildform (Signature Spell):
Pretty cool spell. I wish you could 12" AOE it like the other augment spells in this line. As it is, it's the most universally useful spell in this list. It'll work well with all of your units. It will even make rank and file skinks into something to be feared. I like the idea of pairing this with Cold One Cavalry myself to give them some extra punch and defense. T5 with a 2+ armor save is nothing to sneeze at. They'll even be S6 on the charge. Toss a scar veteran or oldblood in with the unit and cast Savage Beast for even more ridiculous devastation.

The Flock of Doom (1):
I think this is a terrible spell. 2D6 Strength 2 hits means you're getting on average less than 2 wounds per roll of the spell against a lot of units. It's dirt cheap though and slann can get a free power dice per attempt so if you've got a spare die, there's really no reason not to cast it.

Pann's Impenetrable Pelt (2):
Cool spell that will help keep your characters alive. I'm not sure how often you'll cast it though but I could see it being partnered with other spells in this lore to send a nasty character to take on a monster by himself.

The Amber Spear (3):
I actually like this. It gives you a great tool against monstrous creatures. Nice range and the upgraded version is fantastic if you can hit a unit of monstrous infantry on a flank. Unfortunately a slann in a temple guard bunker is not too likely to get such a flank shot.

The Curse of Anraheir (4):
Fun spell especially if you end up with lots of terrain on the board. Noone is going to want to enter any terrain with this on them (hills too!) and if they are already in terrain, they certainly won't be moving them that turn. It's also a nice penalty to shooting and combat units.

The Savage Beast of Horros (5):
I think this is a fantastic spell. It makes any character instantly awesome at combat including even the lowly skink chief. The boosted version of this spell to make all nearby characters fantastic is also great. There's no need to make your characters killy if you can just rely on this spell to do it for you. I also love the idea of a skink chief with stegadon warspear that has this spell. 6 Strength 9 attacks (10 if you synergize with Wildform) and 2D6+2 strength 6 impact hits? Yes please. The downside is you

Transformation of Kadon (6):
Very cool spell. Slann can't use it (see the Lizardmen FAQ) so it doesn't really matter how good it is.

Other Lizardmen Thoughts:
I don't really like it for Lizardmen. I think it'd be fun to make a list built around it with a mobile slann and a bunch of cheap scar veterans or even skink chiefs to do some serious damage. I think it'd be a fun list to break out every once in a while for a fun game but I don't see it as being overly competitive. The real problem I have with this lore is that it is great for enabling your characters to take on things they can't beat normally but you have to commit your characters in the movement phase and then have no guarantee you get the specific spells you need off. If Pann's Impenetrable Pelt and The Savage Beast of Horros could effect the entire unit, I'd be all over this lore.

Trollbloods vs. Cygnar 8/28/10

2010-09-02T14:00:00.001-04:00

I also had a chance to play my first game against a Warmachine faction this last Saturday. I took my Trollbloods warpack against Nathan's Cygnar battle group.

This was a pretty straightforward game with unfortunately few pictures. The map we set on had a river with a bridge for crossing. I used my axer's animus on the impalers to send them through the river to either side of the bridge and moved the axer across the bridge with Madrak behind. Unfortunately, Nathan had some really good dice going for him and in two rounds of shooting, he managed to knock out one of my flanking Impalers before he could really do anything and charge the other impaler with his heavy jack.

On my turn, my last Impaler did manage to put a severe beating on the heavy jack and cripple his Quake Hammer (I think that's what it was called). And my axer charged a wall that his shooting jack was behind but promptly whiffed on his attack rolls.

In his next two turns, Nathan finished off the impaler and moved his heavy jack into combat with Madrak. He also managed put a severe beating on the axer. I made one last valiant effort to get Madrak into combat with Nathan's caster but whiffed all of my attacks and then conceded the game. Nathan was well on his way to slaughtering me to a man.

Trollbloods vs. Legion 8/28/10

2010-09-02T10:00:00.004-04:00

I played my first game against Rob and his Legion warpack. He took the warpack and I took a modified list consisting of pMadrak, 3 Trollkin Champions, and two Impalers.

We set up the board.

From Hordes 2010-08-28

And then deployed.

From Hordes 2010-08-28

I had the first turn and had no choice but to advance.

From Hordes 2010-08-28

Rob moved his stuff up and into the forest. I quickly realized that Eyeless Sight and that forest in his deployment zone were going to be major pains. On my turn I rearranged my guys and advanced a little more. One of my Impalers critical smited one of his many Shredders knocking it back out of the forest by 5 inches.

On his second turn, Rob began his assault shooting with both Lylyth and the Carnivean to kill one of my Champions. Then it was my turn to try and get even.

From Hordes 2010-08-28

I moved my Impalers to the flanks and took shots at another Shredder and the Carnivean. I managed to critical smite the Carnivean and knocked him down. On his turn, Rob sent one of the Shredders in to tie up two of my Champions and used Lylyth's shooting to knock out another Champion.

From Hordes 2010-08-28

He then had his Carnivean charge one of my impalers where it promptly demolished it.

From Hordes 2010-08-28

On my turn I had Madrak take potshots at the Carnivean, the two champions kill the Shredder, and the remaining Impaler advance and also take a shot at the Carnivean. I missed with the Impaler and hit with Madrak but didn't do a whole lot of damage. I had my last Trollkin Champion charge the Carnivean and do quite a bit of damage to him but it was unfortunately not enough to have any lasting impact.

On his turn, Rob had Lylyth shoot at and kill the champion in combat with the Carnivean and then moved the Carnivean into combat with Madrak. At this point it was all over.

From Hordes 2010-08-28

It's a real shame the Trollbloods Warpack and the Legion Warpack are so different points-wise as I would have really liked to have been able to take my axer against Rob but the points just didn't work with the models I have.

Lizardmen in 8th Edition: Magic Weapons

2010-09-01T10:00:00.068-04:00

Taking a quick break from the magic lores to spice things up a little bit.

Blade of Realities:
This is a fun item with all sorts of uses. Put it on an oldblood and watch your opponent sweat. It is actually less good in 8th edition now that a BSB can let you reroll all failed leadership tests.

Blade of Revered Tzunki:
You can only give this to an Oldblood for 6 strength but for 5 points less you can give him the Giant Blade that has the same end result.

Giant Blade:
This is probably a little over kill on a guy who is already strength 5. Strength 8 is nice if you know you're going to be facing monsters. I'm not sure you need that much strength in general though.

Sword of Bloodshed:
Excellent weapon. Scimitar of the Sun Resplendent was a 7th edition favorite of mine and for just 10 more points you can give your Oldblood an extra attack. Pair this with maiming shield and enjoy a whopping 9 attacks. Add the Potion of Foolhardiness and enjoy a breathtaking 10 S6 attacks on the charge.

Obsidian Blade:
Not really worth it. I'm not a fan of negating armour saves unless it comes from strength.

Scimitar of the Sun Resplendent:
A 7th edition staple made obsolete by the Sword of Strife.

Stegadon War-spear:
Fun item. I don't know that it's good but you can guarantee that stegadon is going to mess up whatever it charges.

Ogre Blade:
You probably don't need much more strength than this so I recommend it over the Giant Blade. It is too pricey for skink chief or scar veteran and there are better options for an oldblood.

Sword Of Strife:
Scimitar of the Sun Resplendent but cheaper. Nice item when you want to get some defense on your oldblood or want a killy scar veteran.

Fencer's Blades:
This is more of a defensive item than an offensive item and there are better defensive items out there. I don't really like it much. Though I do find the idea of pairing this up with Glittering Scales and Aura of Quetzl to make a virtually unhittable character very humorous.

Staff of the Lost Sun:
I could see it being useful on a Skink Chief in a unit of Terradon riders but it would make the unit a little too expensive for how fragile it is. Very situational and opponent dependent. Putting him in a unit of skirmishers would be throwing him away.

Piranha Blade:
It has some uses but I personally wouldn't take it. There are more versatile options out there and you have better ways of dealing with nasty monsters.

Sword of Anti-Heroes:
I don't really see a situation where this buys you much. At best you're going to get +1 strength, +1 attack out of it but only when fighting characters. It gets you nothing against monsters or elite units.

Spellthieving Sword:
I would never take it. If you're hitting a spellcaster, you're probably killing him. There are of course exceptions worth considering (daemons, warriors, vampire counts, etc.).

Sword of Swift Slaying:
If you want to attack first, take the Lore of Light on a slann. It'll go much further. There are much better items.

Dagger of Sotek:
I don't see many reasons to take a Skink Chief let alone equip him with this.

Sword of the Hornet:
Exact same as the Sword of Swift Slaying above.

Sword of Battle:
Very basic. Good for a cheap magic weapon.

Berserker Sword:
Makes a unit immune to psychology. You're lizardmen so you aren't really worried about psychology though.

Sword of Might:
Very basic. Good for a cheap magic weapon.

Burning Blade of Chotec:
I like this. Gives a cheap hero a way to deal with regen and armour. Toss on something like a cheap scar veteran and stick him in an infantry unit. Gives bonuses for assaulting buildings and dealing with cavalry/war beasts for an extra perk.

Gold Sigil Sword:
Much like the Sword of Swift Slaying, there are better ways to strike first if you want to.

Sword of Striking:
Let's you hit on 2s instead of 3s. Nothing really special though synergy with lore of light for I10 and ASF is fun to think about.

Biting Blade:
Ewwww.

Relic Sword:
You're already doing this unless you're beating on a steam tank or you're a skink chief. Not much point.

Shrieking Blade:
Fear isn't that fantastic any more and there are other ways to get it. Take a real weapon.

Tormentor Sword:
If you're beating on a guy, he's already in combat and this isn't going to do much unless he kills you.

Warrior Bane:
What I said for Tormentor Sword.

There's a lot of cool items to pick from and I'd love to try some of them out. You can make some truly terrifying Oldbloods with these. Unfortunately, I love my slann and rarely get to try some of the awesome weapons as a result. My biggest Fantasy regret might be not getting a chance to try out Blade of Realities under 7th edition! Though I can't wait to field a Sword of Bloodshed Oldblood some time.

August Competition Progress

2010-09-01T06:00:00.033-04:00

Update for the month of August. I've taken part in all major categories this month but there's only a few that I think I have a shot at. For details on the competition, see here.

Blogging:
I did a lot of blogging this month. It was easily my biggest month. I increased traffic by over 1,500% and hit a new high of 149 visits.

Modeling:
I assembled my first order of Trollbloods. This included the Trollbloods Warpack, a Trollkin Champions unit, and a Dire Troll Bomber. I also tackled pinning for the first time.

Painting:
Slann Mage-Priest
http://impact-hits.blogspot.com/2010/08/slann-mage-priest-painting-part-iv.html
http://impact-hits.blogspot.com/2010/08/slann-mage-priest-painting-part-v.html

Salamanders
http://impact-hits.blogspot.com/2010/08/salamander-painting-part-i.html

Engine of the Gods
http://impact-hits.blogspot.com/2010/08/return-of-stegadon.html

Playing:
I played a 10 point game of Hordes and three 15 point games during my lunch breaks against Asmo. I played a 2500 point game of Warhammer Fantasy (Lizardmen vs. Skaven) with The Vermin Lord. I also played two additional games of Hordes against Rob and Nathan.

Salamander Painting Part I

2010-08-31T10:00:00.000-04:00

I spent some time painting my salamanders and watching Bones on Netflix Instant Queue yesterday. Fantastic show.

Anyways, I made quite a bit of progress. I coated the models with Macharius Solar Orange then washed them over with Baal Red. I then picked out all of the scales with Chaos Black and rewashed the scales with Baal Red.

From Salamanders

I'm planning to go through and highlight the scales with some sort of grey. I haven't decided what kind yet but I'll probably do some experimentation. I'm also planning to highlight the skin with Blazing Orange and possibly some form of yellow.

Hordes Battle Report 8/26/10

2010-08-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

Asmo and I played our third game of Hordes during lunch and I finally beat him. Pretty soundly too I might add. Suck it Asmo! =P

He'll probably slaughter me several times this week to make up for that last comment.

He's been writing a series of articles analyzing the troops he's been taking from the perspective of a long time Warmachine player. It's good stuff, I highly recommend checking it out. You can also check out his version of our game on 8/24/10.

So anyways, we played 15 points again. He took the same list as last time but swapped Morghoul out for Makeda. So he ended up with 2 Cyclops Savages, a Titan Gladiator, Makeda, and 4 Paingivers. I took pMadrak, 5 Trollkin Champions, an axer, and an impaler.

I've started to get a hang of how to play pMadrak a little more. We tossed down random stuff on the table again and after my previous games, I've realized that I need to wait for him to come to me. There's no real need for me to rush him. So I turtled up behind an impassable obstruction. I sent an impaler around the far side to take shots at the approaching Skorne foe. I stuck my Champions on the other side with the axer nearby for support and I hid pMadrak in between it all.

In the middle of the Skorne approach path was some rough terrain. Asmo sent each cyclops around a different side of it and Makeda and the Titan straight through. He tried to approach slowly to draw me out but I refused to bite. My impaler started taking potshots at one of his cyclops' and he finally caved and launched his attack. His titan charged into my champions and easily killed one but then got bogged down by the sheer amount of defensive power. His cyclops charged the impaler but failed to kill it.

On my turn, my champions and axer did some major damage to his titan. Those guys are nasty! and Madrak and the impaler took out the cyclops. He sent in his other cyclops to back up the titan but it was too late. Madrak and the impaler started taking shots at Makeda who tried to help the dying cyclops in combat. With most of his beasts dead, I moved in for the kill and finished him off.

I'm really eager to get my Krielstone Bearers assembled and try them out with Madrak. Even more defensive power will make his turtle shell even more difficult to break through.

More Minis

2010-08-28T09:00:00.001-04:00

I have wisdom teeth surgery coming up next weekend so I placed another order for stuff to work on building over the weekend. I'm going to be on painkillers so I decided that spending my time painting was not going to be the best decision I could make.

From Trollblood Orders 2

I hope to have them all assembled and ready to join my games within a week!

Hordes Battle Report 8/24/10

2010-08-27T11:25:00.000-04:00

So, real life has been hitting me hard this week and my blogging has lagged behind. Been extremely busy at work and home and also had to deal with a cold that took me out of commission several nights this week.

I'm feeling better now and have a lot of exciting hobby stuff coming up. I'll be getting a game of 8th edition in against The Vermin Lord this weekend as well as some games of WarmaHordes with Rob and Nathan and BK. I also should get some time to do some painting.

Anyways, Asmo and I have continued to play games of Hordes during our lunch breaks. I've been running with pMadrak and my warpack as the base and Morghoul's warpack as his. For our second game, we decided to up the points a little and I dropped an Impaler in favor of my Dire Troll Bomber. This brought me up to 15 points. Asmo added a unit of Paingivers to his warpack to bring it up to 14 points.

I played terribly. I had a shooting list with a caster not really designed for it against his close combat list. On my first turn, I moved my guys up to take shots but my impaler was short and I forgot to fire twice with my bomber. Instead of using cover to force him to come to me and take a beating from my guys, I left all of my guys exposed and watched as his Titan slammed my bomber, followed up, and killed him in a single round.

Luckily, he moved his cyclops and his titan out of Morghoul's control area which bought me a turn. He also forgot to pop his feat when he needed to. I did end up in combat with Morghoul but his high defense and my poor rolling resulted in very little damage taken. I conceded after it became clear that his titan was going to charge in and demolish madrak on the next turn.

You can check out Asmo's take on our previous game here.

New Poll

2010-08-24T19:13:00.001-04:00

I tossed up a new poll on the right. This is your opportunity to let me know what type of content you're most interested in. If you get the chance, please cast your vote. It should be noted that you can vote for multiple items.

New Skaven Models Announced

2010-08-24T07:52:00.001-04:00

Games Workshop has just put up some new Skaven models for advanced order. They will be released on September 18th.

They have announced a Skavenslaves Sling Upgrade Pack.

As well as a re-release of classic rat ogre models.

Maulerblades, Ironclaws, and Stitch Spikegouger.

I usually don't like the look of a lot of Games Workshop's classic models but I'm sort of digging the new rat ogres. It's a shame they aren't part of a plastic kit and I already have more rat ogres than I will ever need, especially after I purchase Island of Blood.

This post is a bit of an experiment. Are people interested in seeing more breaking news on here? Or should I stick to theoryhammer, modeling, painting, and battle report posts?

Lizardmen in 8th Edition: Lore of Death

2010-08-23T10:00:00.000-04:00

This is another lore that seems to be receiving a lot of Internet praise. Unfortunately, it is not so great with Lizardmen.

Life Leeching (Lore Attribute):
Extra power dice is always fantastic. Your slann should already be generating an extra dice per spell so with this attribute and some judicious spellcasting, you should be able to have an amazing magic phase.

Spirit Leech (Signature Spell):
Assassination spells. Your slann's leadership actually makes this a decent choice. The extra range option on the spell also makes it quite functional.

Aspect of the Dreadknight (1):
Very nice spell to pair with Doom and Darkness. Use the assassination spells in this list to kill the enemy BSB, give your big saurus blocks fear or terror, then reduce your enemies leadership. Very nice combination that will really cause some damage if you can get it all off.

The Caress of Laniph (2):
Great character killing spell. The range severely limits its usability when taking an immobile slann unless you're willing to up the casting value for extra inches.

Soulblight (3):
This is a very nice spell. The ability to hit all enemy models with it is fantastic. Increases the survivability and killiness of your troops in close combat.

Doom and Darkness (4):
This might be the best spell in this lore. With the FAQ changes to Steadfast, this can be used to defeat Stubborn. Steadfast isn't so great when your leadership is only 5. Use this to break that critical unit in close combat or make sure that panic test fails. Also nice to pair this with Fear and Terror.

The Fate of Bjuna (5):
Another great spell with a fantastic chance to kill whatever you target. However, the short range severely limits its use. Your slann is going to be easy for your opponent to avoid. It's great if your opponent charges something big and nasty into your temple guard as you will get several turns to try this spell out. It's bad if you get tied up with cheap troops while the nasties destroy your flanks.

The Purple Sun of Xereus (6):
Fantastic spell. Not so great for Lizardmen. Your saurus are going to be obliterated by this spell and the only thing that can get it is a slann. If he's in a temple guard block and you misfire with this bad boy, you just lost the game. If he's by himself, he doesn't have the mobility to get to the enemy line and unleash this on them and is worth far too many points to risk on a suicide run.

Lizardmen Thoughts:
I covered a lot of these inline today. The major issue here is that slann's don't have the mobility that would be really nice with this spell. However, putting them in a temple guard unit means you don't necessarily need the mobility if you can get yourself into position. The other major downside is that the really nasty spell in this list has too much potential to destroy yourself. You'll probably never want to cast Purple Sun unless all else seems lost.

In the early turns of the game, I'd cast boosted Spirit Leech and Caress of Laniph in an attempt to wipe out the BSB and then the general (in that order). Once that's handled you can direct your focus towards nasty monsters. With the BSB and general gone, start getting fear/terror on your critical units and Doom and Darkness and Soulblight on your opponent's critical units. At this point, you get to watch his line start to crumble.

This isn't a terrible lore for Lizardmen and it isn't a fantastic lore either. I think there's a lot of potential here for some interesting list builds (particularly ones that go fear/terror heavy) but I'm not convinced a savvy opponent wouldn't be able to counter and limit your plans. Either way, I certainly think its a fun sounding list and will probably run it at some point to see how it plays out.

Dire Troll Bomber Assembly

2010-08-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

This model is really really cool. It might be my favorite model in the entire Trollbloods line. Giant nasty troll running around with explosive powderkegs? Yes please. I don't know how effective he'll be in game but I absolutely had to pick one up. The detail on this model, like the other Trollbloods I have put together is absolutely topnotch. To top it off, it is the most easily assembled metal model of its size I have ever put together. The edges are clearly defined and all of the pieces just fit without any extra filing and work. It was a little more difficult to pin than the other models due to the way the joints go together and I was only able to pin the head, and all of the arm pieces together. However, I think pinning on this model may have been overkill because of the way everything fits together so nicely. On a model this big, I would have thought it a necessity and I really don't think it is.

Here's the finished work. I might green stuff a little bit later but I'm not actually sure it's even needed.

From Dire Troll Bomber 1

Lizardmen in 8th Edition: Lore of Light

2010-08-20T10:00:00.000-04:00

I like this lore a lot.

Exorcism (Lore Attribute):
Great if your enemy is undead or daemonic, not so fantastic otherwise.

Shem's Burning Gaze (Signature Spell):
Great range and it gives you flaming attacks. It can be increased to S6 for taking out nasty monsters too. Nice little magic missile and a great tool for an army with very little long ranged threats.

Pha's Protection (1):
Fantastic gunline protection. Combine this with Iceshard Blizzard and you can really hose an enemy shooting unit. Can be aed to protect all of your valuable units.

The Speed of Light (2):
Gives you high initiative to make sure you strike first and high weapon skill to make sure you hit. It also makes it harder for your opponent to hit you. Can be aed and given to all of your units. Great synergy with both Iceshard Blizzard and Pha's Protection to virtually guarantee your opponent can't hit you.

Light of Battle (3):
Great for low leadership armies. Not so great for others.

Net of Amyntok (4):
This is a cool little utility spell. Gives you a chance to hold a unit in place and do some damage while you're at it. Use this to prevent that critical charge or make your opponent think twice about committing his other resources to battle.

Banishment (5):
Great damage spell against things with ward saves. This makes it the best spell in the game for busting through magic resistance. It's not very high strength though which is unfortunate.

Birona's Timewarp (6):
This is a really great spell. Terrific synergy with the rest of the lore and turns your guys into close combat beasts. More attacks, more movement, and always strikes first? Fantastic. Pair this with Speed of Light to give your guys hatred. Even better, it can also be cast in an area effect.

Lizardmen Thoughts:
This is the creme de la creme of Lizardmen lores in my book. It counters all of their weaknesses and really makes it hard for an opponent to beat them. Net of Amyntok gives you extra utility to prevent your saurus from being outmaneuvered. Shem's Burning Gaze and Banishment provide you with very nice ranged threats to assist your Lore of Heavens ranged threats. Worried about Purple Sun and initiative tests? Cast Speed of Light and worry no more!

The real nice thing here though are the ways the augments synergize. Take a ranked up unit of saurus with spears and cast Pha's Protection, Speed of Light, and Birona's Timewarp on them. You now have 25 S4 WS10 attacks that can reroll to hit and will always go first. Not to mention, anything wanting to attack back is going to need 6s just to hit you. Combine that with Curse of the Midnight Wind from Lore of Heavens and they have to reroll their successful to hit rolls too!

On a unit of temple guard, you're looking at 20 S5 WS10 attacks. That's going to dish out some serious damage and really put a hurting on your opponent. This combination even makes your saurus cavalry suddenly awesome!

The only spell that isn't fantastic for Lizardmen is Light of Battle but only because their leadership is already godly.

I REALLY like this lore for the slann. It helps you from turn 1 all the way through to the end of the game. Start off with magic missiles, Net of Amyntok, and Pha's Protection to keep your guy's safe and transition to the augments as your combat units collide.

One thing of note. You have no miscast protection so you'll either need to run your slann solo or take Cupped Hands of the Old ones. Soul of Stone is also worth considering.

1st Foray Into Hordes Mk II

2010-08-19T10:00:00.001-04:00

I played my first game of Hordes during my lunch break on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun but its definitely clear I need to secure a better understanding of the rules. Unfortunately no pictures as it slows things down too much and my lunch break has a time limit.

I took my Trollbloods warpack against Steve's Skorne warpack. It was a pretty close game but Steve's familiarity with Warmachine and what is in my opinion, a better set of models for pitting against another warpack, Steve managed to win.

We set up some terrain (carrots from my lunch as a forest, salt & pepper shakers, etc.) and started our first game. He advanced his Titan and Morghoul through the carrot forest and sent his two cyclops guys around. On my turn I moved my impalers up into range with their animus and shot both of them at the titan doing quite a bit of damage. I had the axer move to intercept the two cyclops. Madrak cast Stranglehold on the Titan as well to hold him in place on the next turn.

On the second turn, one cyclops charged madrak, the other charged the axer. The axer took quite a bit of damage (after Madrak transfered the damage he took) and had his body crippled. On my turn, Madrak and the axer managed to kill off one of the cyclops. My rolls were terrible though and he should have died much sooner. I did force my axer to regenerate and heal his body so it was no longer crippled.

On the third turn, the Titan slammed one of my impalers and knocked him really far back. He then spent fury on additional attacks into Madrak. Morghoul popped his feat to keep me from forcing my warbeasts and transferring damage. On my turn Madrak leached all of the fury he could and almost finished off the titan (4 health left, damn my rolling sucks). The axer couldn't be forced so he only managed a little damage against the other cyclops.

On Skorne fourth turn, Morghoul charged Madrak and using his fury on additional attacks knocked him down to about 3 health left. The cyclops went next doing just enough damage to Madrak to finish him off and I failed my Tough roll. End of the game.

Things I learned:
My turns were too long. I need to go into these games having a much better grasp of what I can do.
I need to remember that Madrak also has a ranged weapon. It's really good and I had completely forgotten about it.
I hadn't realized that Madrak had a really fantastic upkeep spell and I should have cast it on the first turn.
Madrak's feat is not very good for facing other warpack armies. It relies on being able to kill guys in one attack and keep moving through them to mow down large groups. That doesn't work really well against only warbeasts.
Definitely a fun game. I'm looking forward to playing more.

Lizardmen in 8th Edition: Lore of Life

2010-08-18T10:00:00.053-04:00

By request, here are my thoughts on Lore of Life.

Lifebloom (Lore Attribute):
This is a pretty cool attribute. Free healing is very nice and you can use this to keep a choppy saurus character or a stegadon going long after it should have succumbed. Very nice.

Earth Blood (Signature Spell):
Nice spell. Regeneration is always nice and with Throne of Vines it's working half the time. This is somewhat negated by the sheer amount of flaming attacks available to most armies now but it's still pretty good to have. You're going to want to use this in conjunction with Throne of Vines and the other spells in this lore to create a really nasty anvil unit your opponent will never get through.

Awakening of the Wood (1):
Decent spell for its cost. Unfortunately, I don't really foresee many people getting any use out of this. With the random terrain generation chart, I at least don't foresee myself putting anything in a Mysterious Forest that has such a potential to start munching on my guys. Luckily its a good spell even when not in the woods.

Flesh to Stone (2):
+2 Toughness is fantastic. +4 Toughness is even more fantastic. This will make your opponent need 5s to wound you at best, 6s to wound you with Throne of Vines. This is a must have spell for this lore.

Throne of Vines (3):
This is the spell that makes this lore. It allows you to throw tons of dice at each spell with no fear of miscast and makes all of your spell but Dwellers Below even more fantastic. You will start every magic phase with casting this spell if you don't already have it up.

Shield of Thorns (4):
Great spell for your impossible to kill anvil unit. Get this up and it forces your opponent to seriously think about whether they'd rather dispel Throne of Vines or this in their turn. Every turn they don't dispel this (if cast with Throne of Vines), they'll have to take 4D6 S4 hits. That is just awesome.

Regrowth (5):
Bring your units back to life? Very cool. D3+1 is so-so for the point cost but D6+1 with Throne of Vines is truly very nice.

The Dwellers Below (6):
A fantastic spell against some armies. The last spell you will cast against others. Strength test or die is very nice against things like elves but against things likely to pass their tests, you are probably better off keeping all of your buffs going.

Overall Lizardmen Thoughts:
This seems to be the lore that everyone on the internet absolutely loves for their slann. It's easy to see why. Take a big old unit of temple guard, stick your slann in it, march it up the field, and give it 4+ regen, +4 toughness, bring back D6+1 casualties, and give it an extra 4D6 S4 hits in close combat every turn? That's just AWESOME!

I haven't tried it myself but when I really think about it, I don't see it as actually being that great on the table. If your opponent brings a badly unbalanced list, sure, you're going to dominate the magic phase and their is nothing he can do about it. But what it really comes down to is Throne of Vines. This is the spell your opponent has to stop. Without this, your battle plan falls apart.

You have two choices every magic phase, cast this spell with a lot of dice to keep it from being dispelled or go for the minimum. If you go for the minimum, your opponent can throw all of his dice at it because this is what he needs to stop. All of your other spells lose a lot of their effectiveness without it and will expire by the next turn anyways so you'll just have to recast them all over again and who knows how good your next magic phase will be.

What if you throw enough dice at it to make it difficult to dispel? Well, if you irresistable force it, that's fantastic and you get it. If you don't, this is where he whips out his dispel scroll or feedback scroll and we get to watch your slann implode. What if you do get it off and he knows he can't stop it with his dice? Well, then all he has to do is stop your follow up spells. If you've thrown a ton of dice at this spell, you're not going to have much left for your other spells. And he can just dispel throne of vines in his magic phase. On average, it only takes 2 dice on a level 1 wizard to dispel it. 2 dice on a level 4 wizard is virtually a guarantee.

I think a savvy opponent that brings any decent amount of dispel is going to tear apart a Lore of Life list. Sure, if your opponent isn't so savvy or just plain has shitty lucky, you're going to tear him apart with this list, but with magic so random in this edition, I think this list relies too heavily on being able to be consistent in your magic phase.

There are of course some ways to mitigate this and try to make sure you have enough dice to do what you need to do. My personal recommendations are to always take The Focused Rumination on your slann and seriously consider taking the Forbidden Rod on a skink priest and a Power Stone on the slann himself. These will help you generate your necessary power dice on a bad winds of magic roll and enable you to recover and get things back on track. A Power Scroll to irresistible force Throne of Vines or another spell on command is also useful and should be considered.

As far as partnering this with Lore of Heavens on your skinks, look for synergy with Iceshard Blizzard to help get your anvil unit into combat and Curse of the Midnight Wind to make it even harder to kill them.

Trollkin Champions Assembly

2010-08-17T10:00:00.002-04:00

I managed to get my Trollkin Champions assembled as well. These guys were a lot faster since they didn't require pinning but I am stumped about one thing. The models come with these 5 little barrel pieces and I cannot for the life of me figure out where they are supposed to attach to the models. If anyone knows, please fill me in as I have been unable to find any pictures online that show the location.

Here are the barrels I'm talking about:

From Trollkin Champions 1

Now for the models themselves, these guys are really cool looking. Lots of detail. So far I've been EXTREMELY impressed with the quality and level of detail on Privateer Press models. The only thing I'd ask for is a little more variety would be nice. There seems to be only two grunt bodies and one leader body and it would be nice if there was a way to make all five guys in the unit look unique.

Leader:

From Trollkin Champions 1

Grunt 1:

From Trollkin Champions 1

Grunt 2:

From Trollkin Champions 1

Grunt 3:

From Trollkin Champions 1

Grunt 4:

From Trollkin Champions 1

Lizardmen in 8th Edition: Lore of Heavens

2010-08-16T10:00:00.048-04:00

Let's start here since it's the lore that skink priests have to take. I'm going to go through the lores one by one since this is my first time covering them and I'll give my general thoughts as well as Lizardmen specific thoughts.

Roiling Skies (Lore Attribute):
Interesting lore attribute. Unfortunately, interesting doesn't mean good. It's not going to do too much and is really just a nice extra rather than a reason to specifically take this lore. There is some debate on whether or not the hits are inflicted for merely targeting the enemy or if the spell has to be successfully cast. I'm in the camp that says it needs to actually go off but a FAQ will be needed to clear this up. It's nice for lizardmen because it gives them a little extra oomph against things like dragons that are going to be difficult to take down from a distance. I don't think it's enough oomph though to really make much of a difference.

Iceshard Blizzard (Signature Spell):
Pretty nice spell. Lets you shut down a shooty unit or a warmachine. This is particularly useful for lizards worried about their saurus blocks being demolished. It also combos nicely with some of the Lore of Light spells. Combo it with The Speed of Light (Light) and Curse of the Midnight Wind (Heavens) and you can make your enemies elite block need 6s to hit and all 6s get rerolled.

Harmonic Convergence (1):
This and Curse of the Midnight Wind are opposite sides of the same coin. This is best used on things that need 3s to hit and/or 2s to wound as it will virtually ensure every to hit roll succeeds and every to wound roll succeeds. Give this to your elite troops or a unit that is going to be causing a lot of rolls. I can see it being useful on blowpipes and salamanders in addition to the more elite saurus type units. In the end though, unless you really need that critical extra hit/wound, I think you're going to be better off trying one of the other spells in this lore.

Wind Blast (2):
Very cool spell. I like it a lot though I'm not convinced of its usefulness. Clever placing of this spell can force your opponent's units to trip over each other and really hose his battleline. You can also force your opponent out of charge position and might even cause some damage to some of his lighter troops. It's pretty cheap to cast too and I think it's certainly worth taking just for the chance to mess with your opponent. The major benefit of this spell is restricting your opponent's movement when you have less mobile (saurus) troops and beating him to position is critical. Fun combos are possible with Fulminating Flame Cage (Fire) and Net of Amyntok (Light) as well.

Curse of the Midnight Wind (3):
This is a pretty interesting spell. Combo it with things that give your units extreme toughness and/or weapon skill and they become virtually impossible to kill. Double the casting value and you can hit multiple enemy units at once which is a very nice extra bonus. Use this on units targeting saurus warriors, temple guard, cold one knights, stegadons, etc. It's not really worth casting to save skinks because those little buggers will be dead anyways unless you've managed to dramatically up their toughness. Better than Harmonic Convergence because it's easier to make your guys harder to kill than it is to make them killy.

Urannon's Thunderbolt (4):
It's a pretty basic magic missile. Nothing particularly great about it besides S6. The best use for this spell is high toughness/armored small units. With only D6 hits, it's not going to do many wounds which is why you need to make the wounds it does do count. This is for elite units. Don't bother casting it at cheap throwaway units unless you absolutely have to stop that unit of skirmishers/fast cav. It's a nice little ranged threat that lizards don't get much of.

Comet of Cassandora (5):
Much better than the older version of the spell. No longer remains in play means you don't have to worry about your opponent dispelling it before it goes off but you also have to be more careful about placement and your own troops. Drop this on top of your opponent's warmachines/shooting units and watch him scramble. It also makes for a terrific way to control your opponent's advance. Noone is going to want to take their elite troops through the middle of this thing's target area. Lizardmen don't have much in the way of anti-shooting so this is a great spell for them.

Chain Lightning (6):
This bad boy is Urannon on steroids. It's the same spell for an extra 5 casting value. It has the bonus of not requiring line of sight and hopping to more units 2/3 of the time. With a lucky roll of this and bad planning on your opponent's part, you can wipe out mass units of heavy cav, light cav, skirmishers, independent characters, monsters, and warmachines. It's a fantastic spell. Gives lizardmen another great way to deal with targets at a range.

Lizardmen Thoughts:
I think most Lizardmen lists are going to have this lore in it. Magic is such a powerful phase in 8th edition that you have to bring something for it. This will probably be a slann but even a slann needs backup. The last thing you want is to roll 12 for winds of magic then have your slann's first spell break his concentration and you can't cast anything else. As a result, I foresee a skink priest of some sort in every list.

This lore provides a variety of spells that help negate Lizardmen weaknesses. There are several terrific ranged threats in its arsenal as well as anti-shooting and anti-maneuverability spells. You can't go wrong with most of these spells. I would try to give each priest you take at least one damage and one utility spell. Harmonic Convergence is probably the least useful spell for Lizardmen (unless comboed effectively) so i would trade it for Iceshard Blizzard most of the time.

Warpack Assembly

2010-08-15T11:00:00.002-04:00

I spent some time meticulously cleaning and assembling the Warpack box that came with my order. In the past, I've never been particularly careful at the assembly step so I wanted to make sure I did an extra good job with the start of something new. I took the advice of my friend Asmo and cleaned/filed all the mold lines. I then soaked the models in a bowl of warm water and dishwashing liquid before scrubbing them down with a cheap toothbrush. I've never done any pinning before but I wanted to go the extra mile with these so I asked Nathan who I know had pinned his Cygnar army together for some advice on what to pick up. I ended up pinning everything but the heads and Madrak using the Gale Force Nine pinning kit.

Here are the results!

Madrak:

From Trollbloods Warpack

Axer:

From Trollbloods Warpack

Impaler 1:

From Trollbloods Warpack

Impaler 2:

From Trollbloods Warpack

Group Photo:

From Trollbloods Warpack

I think they turned out really well. The joints are all pretty solid and I'm very pleased with how easy it ended up being. Once I got the hang of it, it didn't take much time at all. I want to green stuff the gaps and crevices with green stuff still which is another new thing for me so hopefully that will go as smoothly.

It Begins.....

2010-08-14T16:05:00.000-04:00

From Trollbloods Order

Let the building commence!

1st Foray Into 8th Edition (part 2)

2010-08-13T10:00:00.003-04:00

In part 1 I talked about my game against Daemons of Chaos. After we finished up our game, I played again against my friend Nathan.

I let him borrow my Lizardmen from the game, it was his first time playing with Lizardmen.

I took an Ogre list I had brought with the hope of being balanced against the Lizardmen list.

Tyrant
- Wyrdstone Necklace
- Sword of Bloodshed
- Enchanted Shield
- Heavy Armour
- Luck Gnoblar
Slaughtermaster
- Siegebreaker
- Halfling Cookbook
- 3 Gnoblar Thiefstone
Bruiser
- BSB
- Obsidian Lodestone
- Heavy Armour
- Cathayan Longsword
Butcher
- Dispel Scroll
10 Gnoblar Trappers
30 Gnoblar Fighters
6 Bulls
- Standard Bearer
6 Ironguts
- Standard Bearer
6 Ironguts
- Standard Bearer
1 Scraplauncher
1 Scraplauncher
2 Leadbelchers
- Bellower
2 Leadbelchers
- Bellower

Tyrant and Slaughtermaster went in one Ironguts unit. BSB and Butcher in the other.

We rolled up a lot of obstacles for our terrain and we rolled dawn attack. This really made our deployment difficult. It basically killed any strategy regarding deployment because there was no guarantee your critical units would be where you wanted them.

Nathan deployed the lizards first but I managed to seize the initiative.

It was unfortunately a slightly dull game. Not much happened as we had to cut it short because it was getting late. I also didn't get a chance to take any pictures.

Basically, he was unable to do much in his magic phase. Dispel scroll kept it in check and the slann was taken out early due to loss of concentration. In one of my shooting phases, a scraplauncher misfired but the other dropped a template almost spot on and dealt pretty good damage to a unit of saurus. Scraplaunchers are pretty fantastic but I didn't get to do much against them.

On our last turn of play, I got a series of charges and redirects off that resulted in several of the small skirmishing units fleeing and one unit of Ironguts colliding with a block of saurus spears. The Ironguts handily won combat but unfortunately needed one more wound to negate steadfast and failed to get it with their Stomps. The saurus held.

That was when the game ended. It was looking like a win for the ogres as they were about to enter combat in full force but who knows what would have happened in Nathan's next turn!

Slann Mage-Priest Painting Part V

2010-08-12T10:00:00.003-04:00

Not a whole lot to report here though I am pretty happy with one of the pieces that I completed.

I spent most of my time during this painting session touching up the random leaves around the back of the palanquin. I got the initial Knarloc Green on a lot of them and also did some touching up of the branches in spots I had missed my first time through. Still have washing and highlighting of the leaves to do as well as figuring out the next step to really make my branches pop.

From Slann Mage-Priest I

The other day when I was working on this, I also decided how I wanted to do up one of the many little critters that is chilling out on the palanquin. I used Chaos Black and Blazing Orange to paint the stripes and then filled in the eye slits with two tiny strokes of Chaos Black. This will probably receive a Devlan Mud wash. I'm not sure if there is any point in highlighting him.

From Slann Mage-Priest I

Lizardmen in 8th edition: Rare

2010-08-11T09:05:00.024-04:00

Not much in the way of options in this category.

Ancient Stegadon:
These are a better option than the normal stegadon. Extra strength to make the Thunderstomps and impact hits even better. Extra armor save for a little extra shooting and magic protection. I also like the double blowpipes more than the bolt thrower. Unfortunately, it still gets destroyed by cannons and other warmachines. The real problem with this selection is it uses up your rare points that I personally would prefer to spend on Salamanders. I think these might make it into my list occasionally.

Salamander Hunting Pack:
Love them. 8th edition has made them absolutely fantastic. A unit of skirmishing multi-use breath weapons that can march and fire, hit on partials, and give a -3 to armor saves? Take them. Take more of them. Then take even more of them. These guys are going to wipe out blocks of infantry like nobody's business. They are also useful for getting guys out of buildings. Each template that touches the building is going to inflict D6 hits on the unit and since the attacks are flaming, you'll get to reroll the to wound roll. Not to mention the panic attacks for any wounds caused. They are also slightly more survivable now with the monsters and handlers rule giving them an effective 5+ ward save.

I like unit sizes of 2 as they don't get too expensive for a unit at that point so you can use them as a bait/redirect if you have to. They are also going to be charged because your opponent is not going to leave these guys in his flank to flame him all game. So the smaller units of 2 helps to minimize the points loss when these guys do inevitable end up in combat. I plan to always field at least a unit of two.

Razordon Hunting Pack:
Like them. I don't think they're as good as salamanders but on a good roll, they do have a lot more damage potential. On a bad roll though, they are going to do nothing, and they have the potential to get really hosed on the charge. It's a real trade off with these guys, you'll either get complete crap, average, face meltingly good.

Like the salamanders, at 75 points a pop, I'd run them in units of two. Though three is really tempting for that once in a million turn when your opponent charges them and they unload 60 shots. The main advantage these guys have over salamanders, is they won't necessarily keel over and die when they get charged in combat. With their stand and shoot reaction, you're probably going to take some of the enemy with you. They are also better than salamanders at dealing damage to smaller blocks. Salamanders really only excel if you can get the template on a lot of enemies. The main disadvantage is they aren't nearly as good as salamanders at forcing panic tests or dealing with high armor targets. These guys will probably see themselves show up in my lists as an occasional complement to my salamanders.

This concludes my breakdown of the units. What are people interested in seeing next? A run through of magic items or the magic lores?

Return of the Stegadon!

2010-08-10T11:00:00.009-04:00

It's been a long time since I last worked on this guy but I finally took the time to focus on him for a little while and made quite a bit of progress.

From Engine Of The Gods 1

I coated the entire body with Hawk Turquoise then washed it all with Thraka Green. I then applied a light drybrush of Space Wolves Grey focusing on the body but also hitting the scales a little too. I washed the scales with Devlan Mud and then gave them an extremely heavy drybrushing of Regal Blue. I rewashed the scales with Thraka Green again and then gave the whole body another light drybrushing of Space Wolves Grey.

I think the effect turned out really nicely. I'm not sure there's enough shading in the non-scales portion though. I'm going to leave it for now but I'm thinking I might give the skin a wash of Devlan Mud too and make sure I get it down into the crevices.

Lizardmen in 8th edition: Special

2010-08-09T11:00:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure how much I like Lizardmen special choices in 8th. They all have a use but only in a support role. I'm not sure you can really build an army around any of them.

Chameleon Skinks:
I think these guys got a pretty good boost with 8th edition. They can deploy anywhere at least 12" from the enemy now, line of sight doesn't matter. In 7th, I used to have a hard time finding a place I could actually put these guys that wasn't my own deployment zone. Now it's easy to place them and in some scenarios, it's incredibly easy to drop them in the opponent's backfield. They can march and shoot now making them an immediate threat from turn 1 that your opponent has no choice but to deal with. As scouts they can also be used to prevent placement of your opponent's scouts and hinder your opponent's vanguard moves.

These are the only skinks that can move and double shot without losing their poison. They are twice as effective as the regular skirmishers (with regards to damage output) and only 5 points more. They're also at an additional -1 to hit making them difficult to kill once they get around behind your enemy's blocks. That's a steal and I'd recommend taking at least one unit of 10-12.

Terradon Riders:
These guys got a mixed bag of changes with 8th edition. Since man sized no longer matters for the skirmisher shooting penalty, these guys are now harder to shoot at. The line of sight changes however mean it's a lot harder to hide them from enemy shooting though so you're going to need it. One thing to keep in mind is that wings don't count for line of sight purposes. Your opponent needs to be able to draw line of sight to the body of the model. The vanguard move they get also helps negate the line of sight issue by helping them reach the opponent's backfield much quicker than they could have in 7th edition. With proper planning and if your opponent isn't careful, you could be dropping rocks on turn 1. I think these guys are still useful but I don't know that I'd take more than one unit

Temple Guard:
I like these guys in 8th quite a bit. In 7th edition I always had trouble with the front rank dying and not getting enough attacks back. That isn't a problem any more. They are better than saurus warriors with higher weapon skill and also higher strength. Since they can't use their shields in close combat and with their light armor, they have the same armor save as saurus warriors in close combat, even though they can't use their shields.

Like the Saurus Warriors, these guys are a great target for a lot of the new spells your Slann can field. Taking them with a Slann makes them virtually Unbreakable though non-combat resolution leadership modifiers are something you will need to be aware of with the changes to Stubborn. Immune to Psychology makes this less of a problem but it is still a concern. The other thing to keep in mind is that this unit will be demolished if your Slann miscasts. Be VERY wary of this as the miscast not only wipes out the expensive temple guard, but it will leave your slann undefended.

Cold One Cavalry:
Heavy cavalry is a bit of a mystery to me in 8th edition. I'm not really sure they're any good. I personally will not be taking these guys very often. There are a few things that are clear though. These guys will not break infantry blocks by themselves. They just don't have the damage output on their own and they are too expensive to ever negate Steadfast. I can see pairing them up with infantry blocks of your own. Run these guys into the flank, an infantry block into the front, and hope your block is able to negate steadfast. These guys do have quite a bit of killing potential (especially with spell support) so I won't rule them out yet.

I think they should be run in units of at least 5. Possibly go to 7 wide as they will be striking last and are bound to take missile fire on the way as well. I think they might also be a great melee character delivery system for some extra oomph in combat.

Kroxigor:
Everything I said about Cold One Cavalry also applies to these guys with the exception of character delivery. They have extra strength from their great weapons so are better against heavily armored infantry and heavy cavalry. They will always strike last but have extra wounds to help them weather your opponents attacks. However, they have the same toughness and a worse armor save than cold one cavalry.

The key advantage these guys have over Cold One Cavalry is Skinks. Stick these guys in a unit of skinks and suddenly most of their downsides disappear. Your opponent is going to get extra combat resolution from killing the skinks, but now you have a flanking unit that can negate ranks and possibly help negate steadfast. Your kroxigors that you took for damage output are fully protected in combat and have excellent protection from shooting. While I'm not sure it will work, this is the only way I see these guys being useful.

Stegadon:
I don't like Stegadons at all. It's a big giant target that your opponent is going to fire everything at. If he has warmachines, the crew is as good as dead, and so is the stegadon. It comes with a bolt thrower, which can be incredibly useful, but I really don't think you'll get a chance at more than 2 shots with it.

It does have Thunderstomp now which is very nice. It means that once it's in combat, it's actually going to do some damage. It's also never going to flee from combat due to Cold Blooded and Stubborn so once you hit something with it, that unit will be there for a while. I personally won't take them.

Whoops

2010-08-09T08:22:00.002-04:00

It would appear that when I was playing around with my Picasa privacy settings and organizing some of my albums, I inadvertently hosed the picture's in yesterday's post. I apologize for the mixup, the problem has been corrected and the pictures should now display.

Slann Mage-Priest Painting Part IV

2010-08-08T11:00:00.007-04:00

I've been working on my slann piecemeal for a while but haven't made much progress until this weekend. Mostly I've been tracing all of the branches that wind around the palanquin's base.

The two big things I've accomplished is I picked up some gloss varnish for the slann and applied it to him in his entirety. I was having problems with the paint chipping and was told that sealing them with varnish is a good way to prevent that from happening. I'm trying to decide now if I should get some matte varnish to apply and reduce the shininess a little.

From Slann Mage-Priest I

I also figured out my color scheme for the leaves and did those up. Credit goes to Alex for his tips on the matter. I coated the leaves with Knarloc Green, washed them with Devlan Mud, applied a drybrush of Goblin Green, washed them with Thraka Green, drybrushed with Snot Green, and then applied a final wash of Thraka Green.

From Slann Mage-Priest I

Anyone have suggestions? They are welcome!

Trollbloods Order

2010-08-07T10:00:00.003-04:00

Short post for the weekend. I'm going to try to keep the meatier posts for the weekdays when people are going to be bored at work.

Today is my birthday so earlier this week I placed my first order for some Trollbloods miniatures. I don't really know much about the game or any strategy involved so I went with what I thought looked cool.

I ordered the following:
Starter Box: Madrak, 2 Axers, 1 Impaler
Dire Troll Bomber (this dude just looks awesome)
Trollkin Champions (this guys also look really cool)

My first caster is going to be Madrak since he is in the starter box so I got the Champions since it looks like they would play well with him. The Bomber is also a dire troll so he's going to be nasty in close combat too.

In September I'm planning to pick up Gunnbjorn so I wanted to grab something that was ranged to go along with him.

I think I'm going to try to make it a goal to pick up a new Trollbloods unit once a month and build up slowly over time. That way I can continue to collect Hordes stuff while continuing to enhance my Games Workshop armies.

I'll be borrowing Steve's starter box to get some games in until my order arrives and then I'll document my progress assembling everything. In the meantime, does anyone have some cool paint scheme suggestions for Trollbloods? I was considering going for something out of the ordinary instead of the default blue. Possibly a dark red or purple color scheme.

Lizardmen in 8th edition: Core

2010-08-06T08:00:00.003-04:00

Lizardmen have some really good options in their core selections. Unlike some other armies, you're not likely to ever have a problem not reaching your 25% core requirement.

Saurus Warriors:
I love these guys. They took a decently sized hit in fighting power with the shift to 8th though. Their low initiative almost guarantees they go last every time which means you need to field them in blocks big enough to ensure a full two ranks is still alive (to get all your attacks back) or three ranks if you give them spears. Spears also only give supporting attacks in 8th so a block of warriors that got 20 attacks with spears in 7th will still only get 20 attacks with spears in 8th. Their are ways to mitigate their weaknesses however (Lore of Light) and with the right support, and a decent block size, I think these guys are solid.

Skinks:
I personally prefer these guys as skirmishers. There are however some potential uses for these guys in 8th edition. They are cheap enough that you could field them in giant steadfast blocks. If you take them in big blocks, you can add some kroxigors to the unit to give it some killing potential. This gives you a great way to protect your kroxigors from ranged and close combat threats. Pair big steadfast/hordes blocks of these guys up with some hard hitting units on the flank and I think you might be able to field a competitive army around these guys. They can also be fielded as cheaper throw away blocks than the skirmishers. Since they don't have blowpipes as an option, the extra range on the javelins has actually helped them so they might be good cheap harassment/redirection units as well.

Skink Skirmishers:
These guys lost some things but gained others. Of particular importance is the ability to march and shoot which is absolutely fantastic. You will still be single shotting with your blowpipes most of the time because you want 6s for their poison but that doesn't matter. Take them in units of 10-12 and they make fantastic redirecters, harassment units, and can even do some damage to non-infantry units. Don't bother with the javelin upgrade. The range on them increased to 12" but they now take a penalty for long range. Blowpipes and the chance to double shot sometimes is much more useful than getting non-poisoned hits on 5s.

Jungle Swarms:
I don't know what these guys are for. I didn't know in 7th edition and I don't know now. Really, the only thing I can think of is to annoy your opponent a little. Set it up so he can waste a full unit charging them or get charged in the flank by them and held up for a while. These things aren't going to survive at all being attacked by anything on the front but if you can limit the attacks back of a unit by hitting the flank or rear, it should last a turn or two. They're really expensive though so I'm thinking they still aren't going to be worth it. I'm thinking you'd want to field these in 2-3 bases. 2 is cheap enough to be a throw away unit but any shooting or magic will quickly knock it down to 1 and make it worthless. 3 will weather a little firepower and give you enough oomph to last a round or two of combat.

1st Foray Into 8th Edition (part 1)

2010-08-05T08:00:00.079-04:00

Two weeks ago I had my first foray into 8th edition. Unfortunately, as always, I failed at taking pictures.

The first game I played was against Sam and his Daemons of Chaos again. I took my Lizardmen. I used a list very similar to my standard 7th edition list with a few tweaks to scale it up to 2500 points.

My list:
Slann Mage-Priest
- Focus of Mystery
- Focused Rumination
- Becalming Cogitation
- Cupped Hands of the Old Ones
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Lore of Light
Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Engine of the Gods
- Plaque of Tepok
Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Cube of Darkness
11 Skink Skirmishers
11 Skink Skirmishers
11 Skink Skirmishers
20 Saurus Warriors
- Full Command
- Spears
20 Saurus Warriors
- Full Command
- Spears
20 Temple Guard
- Full Command
12 Chameleon Skinks
3 Terradon Riders
2 Salamanders

Sam's list (guesstimate):
Kairos Fateweaver
Herald of Khorne
Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut
Herald of Slaanesh
3 Nurglings
20 Bloodletters
20 Bloodletters
20 Daemonettes
3 Bloodcrushers
5 Flamers
6 Flamers

We rolled Battle for the Pass. Our terrain setup had a watchtower on both sides of the board near the deployment line. One side had a town with a handful of obstacles, a Sigmarite Shrine, and a Mysterious Forest. Off to the side in the middle was a hill and the other deployment zone had a Magic Circle and an Arcane Ruins. Sam deployed on the side opposite the town and won the roll to go first.

His deployment was very simple, place everything as far forward as it could go and stick the nurglings behind my Temple Guard unit. My deployment put a unit of saurus ready to move up and man a wall on the first turn with support from the Engine of the Gods and two unit of Skink Skirmishers (one deployed in the shrine). Another unit of skinks containing the on foot priest was placed ready to move into the watchtower. The temple guard were placed next to the tower with a unit of saurus, a unit of warriors, and the salamanders to support. I placed my terradons behind the watchtower and promptly forgot to make their vanguard move.

With his first turn, Sam moved everything up, killed some temple guard with some flamers and didn't do much else. He rolled poorly on the winds of magic and Kairos was close enough to the slann to lose his 6 rolls.

On my first turn I moved the priest and skirmishers into the tower. I moved my one unit of saurus up to the wall hoping to take the charge from the bloodcrushers and hoping the wall would give me what I needed to win combat, I moved the terradons towards the engine planning to fly them over the enemy and use the chameleon skinks to hunt down Kairos in the backfield. I moved the skinks supporting the wall saurus up to take a charge from the daemonettes. My saurus supporting my TG moved up to take the charge from one of the bloodletter units and my salamanders moved up and positioned on a slant to take a charge from the other bloodletters (and force an overrun towards the board edge.

In the shooting phase, one of my salamanders misfired and ate 3 skinks. The other successfully landed the template on bloodletters and flamers killing one flamer and several bloodletters. In the magic phase I rolled a 10 for winds of magic and channeled an additional dice. This was followed by a successful magic phase that resulted in me casting Net of Amyntok on the Nurglings (I was worried about them charging my temple guard in the rear), placing a Comet of Cassandora in the middle of the demon line (next to the Bloodcrushers and Flamers). You can see the comet market in the picture below. I also successfully cast either Shem's Burning Gaze or Banishment (can't remember which, might have been both) to do some extra wounds.

In the daemons phase, he charged bloodletters into salamanders, bloodletters into warriors, brought bloodcrushers around to set up the charge on my temple guard, and charged daemonettes into skinks. The below picture was taken just after his movement phase. He also attempted to charge the nurglings into my temple guard but the net of amyntok held and they took damage instead.

From 2010-07-24

When his magic phase hit, I rolled for Comet of Cassandora, and it went off. The marker is the dice next to the bloodcrushers. It dealt severe damage to both flamers and crushers killing one flamer, wounding the herald, and killing one crusher. He rolled double 6s for his winds of magic and I became very worried. He cast the first spell with enough power that it would have taken most of my dispel dice to stop it so I used my Cube of Darkness. I rolled a 6 and ended what could have potentially been a really bad magic phase for myself. His shooting took out a couple of guys (not many). In close combat, his daemonettes killed my skinks to a man and overran into the fortified building where they had to stop (can't overrun into combat with a fortified building). His bloodletters fighting my warriors won combat but I maintained enough ranks to keep my steadfast and held. My salamanders were massacred but one barely survived and fled. He either went off the board or was caught but the bloodletters who pursued were pulled out of position.

On my 2nd turn I charged my stegadon into the daemonettes, my wall warriors into the daemonette flank, and my temple guard into the flank of the bloodletters fighting the warriors. My shooting from chameleon skinks killed some flamers. My skinks in the watchtower unloaded 22 poisoned shots into the remaining bloodcrushers and killed off the herald and another bloodcrusher leaving only a single lone crusher. In my magic phase I was able to successfully cast The Speed of Light and Birona's Timewarp on my temple guard unit giving them an extra attack, WS10, I10, and Always Strikes First. I believe I also got some other spells off.

With it being clear that Sam was about to rapidly lose a full unit of daemonettes and bloodletters, his bloodcrushers had mostly been annihilated, and my chameleon skinks and terradons were closing in on Kairos, while my lizards had taken minimal casualties, Sam conceded.

Lessons learned:
Steadfast is pretty great. Normally my saurus would have booked it after losing to bloodletters they never got to attack. My salamanders not having partials are also pretty awesome now. I love the lore of light, but magic is VERY finnicky now. Sam had no backup plan in the even of bad Winds of Magic rolls and I had pretty good magic defense. This meant I was able to shut down his magic for a full two phases with ease. Cube of Darkness is an excellent item. Now that dispel scrolls are one per army, these items that can end an entire magic phase are suddenly infinitely more useful. My slann can alleviate the risk of a bad roll somewhat through the use of his extra power die discipline. March and shoot on skirmishers is incredibly useful. Terrain is important as if used properly, it can provide several major benefits. There are also some really cool synergies between Lore of Heavens, Lore of Light, and Lizardmen that I picked up on during the game. I think both lores can really complement Lizardmen well.

Lizardmen in 8th edition: Heroes

2010-08-04T11:00:00.000-04:00

Your selections in this area of the army will be heavily dependent on what decisions you came to about your Lords. You also need to decide if you want a stegadon or not as this will eat up the majority of your points.

Saurus Scar Veteran:
These guys serve the same basic basic purpose as Oldbloods. They can be equipped for a variety of purposes and are relatively cheap so you can take a bunch of them. They have the option to be the army BSB and serve this role very well. If you don't have the points to take a Slann as a BSB or are concerned about your general and your BSB being the same model, this is the guy you should go with.

One of my favorite ways to use these guys is to give them Light Armor, a Great Weapon, and some extra magical item kick (offensive or defensive). It's cheap so you don't have to worry about them dying too much and they can bring a little oomph to the offensive power of your saurus warrior or cavalry blocks.

Stegadons:
Before discussing the other two hero options, we need to think about stegadons. Do we want one in the army? The offensive power of stegadons grew a lot in 8th edition. Thunderstomp in these guys is no joke. If you get him into a combat, he is going to destroy a lot of things. However, they are EXPENSIVE and can quickly eat up your hero points. If you're taking a stegadon, there is a pretty good chance you will only be taking one or two other heroes. The other major downside is the new line of sight rules that make it extremely difficult to hide this guy. The new partial template hits and cannons against multi-part models rules can also devastate a stegadon if you aren't careful. If you are taking one and risking a critical hero on it, you need to make sure you have a plan for keeping this guy protected

Skink Priest:
Skink Priests are pretty cheap. You can get a level 2 wizard for only 100 points or a level 1 wizard for only 65. With all of the cool arcane items now available, it's worth considering spamming these guys on the cheap to take advantage of this and help ensure a good magic phase or to help disable your opponent's magic phase. If you took two slanns for your Lord choice, I would recommend investing few points in this area unless you want specific arcane items that you couldn't get on your slann.

Some items I would recommend considering: Cube of Darkness, Diadem of Power, Plaque of Tepok, Forbidden Rod, Dispel Scroll, and Feedback Scroll.

These guys can also take an Engine of the Gods but if you do take one, be prepared to face a lot of enemy fire. Make sure you always activate The Portent of Warding up until the point you're in combat or enemy warmachines and casters have been taken care of. If you're going to take this, you should also bring some warmachine hunting characters to assure yourself of a way to eliminate the threat. Luckily, you can get some warmachine protection through the use of the lore of heavens signature spell (Iceshard Blizzard). If facing a warmachine heavy army, you will want to use this. If you also have a slann with the lore of light, pha's protection provides additional protection from ranged attacks.

Skink Chief:
They are really cheap but you get what you pay for. That isn't to say they don't have a purpose but they have a difficult time fulfilling multiple roles. They aren't killy enough to be used for combat resolution purposes and they die pretty easily. They can however be used successfully as item carriers. Want to give a unit some MR? Toss a chief in with the MR item. It's the cheapest way to do it if you don't have the points to spare on your other characters. They can also make decent warmachine hunters. Give them cloak of feathers or a terradon to ride and they can be removing warmachines from battle in no time.

I really love the idea of putting one on a stegadon with the warspear as that combination will destroy units in close combat. However, without the engine's powers, or the skink priests to cast Iceshard Blizzard, this guy is a sitting duck against a lot of armies. If you're going to take him and you might face gunline armies, I'd consider the lore of light on a slann for pha's protection a necessity. I think this option is workable but it will require building a list to support it or playing an opponent that can't do anything about it.

Lizardmen in 8th edition: Lords

2010-08-03T11:00:00.000-04:00

My buddy Steve over at Boisterous Exuberance has been running a series of articles on his impressions of Dark Elves in 8th edition (part 1). I thought it would be a good idea to do the same.

Slann Mage-Priest:
This is the choice that is going to define your list. The new 8th edition rules drastically change what options are available to you. All of the BRB lores are quite excellent and which one you choose will have a huge impact on what other units you should take with your army to maximize synergy. With the new Lord percentage restrictions it is now also possible to take up to two slanns in a 2500 point list. The third important consideration is that the new miscast results are so devastating that you may want to seriously consider running your slanns without a temple guard bubble. Strength 10 hits centered over the slann is going to wipe out the entire unit very fast.

2 Slanns:
If you take two slanns, you only have 75 points total for all of their magic items. That's not much. Luckily, you do get one free discipline per slann at this level. If you are giving them temple guard, you need to use this allotment to get you miscast protection. Luckily you can get this for free through the Lore of Life so I would recommend taking this on one of your slanns if it is in a temple guard unit. You should also take the Focus of Mystery to ensure you get Throne of Vines. If the second slann is also in a temple guard unit. You need to give him Cupped Hands of the Old Ones. Since your first slann is going to have to do without The Focused Rumination, you should give it to your second slann. He won't know all of the spells from his chosen lore but having the free power dice every spell will give you some protection from a bad winds of magic roll and you can ensure the second slann will use minimum pool dice so that both slanns can contribute to the magic phase.

The major problem with this setup is it is very expensive. You have to provide a temple guard buffer for two slanns and this quickly adds up. You can always go for a more conservative route and only place one slann in the temple guard, or even running both slanns outside the temple guard, but this leaves you having to dedicate your two disciplines and 75 points towards defensive items that will ensure the slann doesn't get killed.

1 slann:
This is still my recommendation and how I prefer to personally run my lists. I stick him in a temple guard unit and make sure he has some form of miscast protection. Either the lore of life or the cupped hands depending on what I want to do with the rest of my army. Then I give him The Focus of Mystery, The Focused Rumination, and Becalming Cogitation. This ensures that he will have a decent magic phase regardless of what the winds of magic roll and offers him a great deal of protection against the opponent's magic phase. I also make him the BSB as I don't want to have to take another character just to carry the standard. This does pose a risk for some scenarios (all my eggs in one basket) but if I am aware of this and keep the unit safe, it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

I will address synergy with the different lores of magic in a separate post but I will say that I like to give my Slann the lore of light. There are several spells in this lore that help negate the innate weaknesses in the lizardmen army. It also nicely complements Lore of Heavens which your skink priests will have.

Saurus Oldblood:
If you don't want to go with a heavy magic list or are looking to supplement a single slann list with something killy, the oldblood is what you want. One of the old builds I liked in 7th edition was to give an oldblood the maiming shield and scimitar of the sun resplendent. The items in the new BRB allow you to take this idea and make it even better. Sword of Strife is 10 less points than the scimitar and you can take Sword of Bloodshed for 20 points less than both the shield and the scimitar on only one item.

Light Armor, Sword of Bloodshed, Maiming Shield, and Potion of Foolhardiness.
This gives you a 2+ armor save and 9 attacks (10 on the charge). That's going to do some damage to just about anything you run him into.

Shield, Sword of Bloodshed, Glittering Scales, and The Other Trickster's Shard
This gives a 2+ armor save, 8 attacks, and means most attacks need 5s to hit him, and enemies have to reroll successful ward saves.

Shield, Sword of Strife, Glittering Scales, and Talisman of Endurance
This gives a 2+ armor save, with 7 attacks, most attacks need 5s to hit him, and a 5+ ward save.

Sword of Strife, Horned One, Glittering Scales
This gives a movement 8 mount with 7 attacks, most attacks need 5s to hit him, and a 1+ armor save.

Other items worth considering are still the blade of realities, trickster's helm, and stacking Aura of Quetzl with Glittering Scales.

Regardless of what you want in a close combat character. You can get it with the oldblood.

July Competition Progress

2010-08-02T13:32:00.000-04:00

At the start of this month, several friends of mine began a hobbying competition that will last until the end of the year. The basic premise is that we compete in four major categories and at the end of the month, we reach an agreement on who won in each. Each category you win in net you a single point. At the end of the year, the person with the most points wins. The categories are blogging, painting, assembly, and playing. You can see a full description of the competition here.

So what have I accomplished this month?

Not much unfortunately.

I did get two games of 8th edition in. (Battle reports coming I promise!) The first I took my Lizardmen against Sam's Demons. The second was a learning game where I took my Ogres against my Lizardmen (played by Nathan).

I made some progress on the Slann I've been painting (an updated progress post of that is also coming).

Beyond that, I've been neglectful of this blog and haven't really assembled anything new.

So I think the only thing I have a shot at this month might be painting.

Next month I'm hoping to compete in all major categories.

Beginning Hordes

2010-08-01T10:05:00.000-04:00

After putting it off for a long time, I've finally decided to take the dive and start playing Hordes. The new Mk ii book is out which I picked up, as well as the Trollbloods faction deck. I have several friends that have started to get into Warmachine and to a lesser extent Hordes and I've just been waiting for the new rules. I don't have a good grip on the rules yet as I haven't finished reading them and have never played so I'm not sure what warlock I'll be using but I'm pretty excited. Trollbloods have some of the coolest looking models in the game and I love the character of the guys. A special rule called Comfort Food? Awesome. Steve and I will be learning the basics using the starter boxes during our lunch breaks which should make the work day a lot more bearable. After we've had a chance to get a few games under our belt, I'll be sure to post up my impressions and thoughts on how I want to proceed with my army.

What is this garbage?

2010-07-06T10:47:00.000-04:00

http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2010/07/build-request-empire-for-8th-edition.html

This may be the dumbest article I have ever read over at Yes The Truth Hurts. Seriously, this is the cheesiest trying to cheat the system list I have ever seen in my life.

First, you post up an Empire list that features the Goblin Hewer, a unit from Dogs of War/Storm of Chaos (that is no longer supported) to try and cheese out your gunline. Who is going to actually let you field that against them? This alone makes the list unusable for most people.

Second, what the hell is the deal with the knights being equipped with 1/2 lances, 1/2 great weapons? Noone is going to let you do that. If I tried that, the guy I was playing against would NEVER play me again. Just because the wording isn't 100% clear in the book does not mean it isn't obvious what the intention was. Who would actually want to be the douchebag trying to argue they can do this?

This list is a great idea if you don't want to have friends!

How about posting a real Empire list that someone may actually want to try out and offering useful advice besides trying to cheat the system to win?

Edit/Disclaimer: I read Yes The Truth Hurts for tactical advice as the players over there are far better at this game than I am, however it really pisses me off when I see things like this that emphasize cheating over real tactics.

Slann Mage-Priest Painting Part III

2010-07-03T16:54:00.001-04:00

After a few more hours of work and experimentation I have made more progress.

The actual Slann is pretty much finished at this point. Only the palanquin remains. To finish him off, I dry brushed the main body with Fortress Grey to give him a slightly more aged look and then applied a second coat of Devlan Mud. This made the grey highlights really pop and I think created a really cool effect. I then coated the jewelry pieces with Dwarf Bronze, applied Skull White to the teeth, and gave him Space Wolves Grey eyes. After touching up the areas around these, I washed the teeth and jewelry with some Devlan Mud.

I didn't add a pupil to the eyes because I was thinking it would be cool to give him eyes that were reflective of the sky and then leave them looking like he was in a trance with his eyes rolled back or possibly blind or meditating on matters of great importance.

The palanquin has not made much progress in comparison as I have been trying to decide between a few different colors for some of the pieces. In these pictures you can see some of my experimentation.

I'm trying to make a decision between Snot Green and Dark Angels Green for the leaves. I'm not sure which seems more jungly. I'm not sure either actually looks quite the way I'd like it to. Any suggestions?

I'm also experiencing the same dilemma deciding on the color of the branches. On the picture you can see where I've tested out Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown, Vermin Brown, and Calthan Brown. Neither is quite what I want I don't think.

I've started to coat the decorative pieces in Dwarf Bronze (eventually going to coat with Devlan Mud) to match the Slann. I'm not sure I want the round parts where the tusks/horns are mounted to be this color though. I need to think on it some more.

The last issue I'm grappling with is the tusks/horns themselves. I had initially coated them with Skull White with the idea that I would dirty them up a little bit but I'm not sure I like the effect the Devlan Mud has had. It's almost too dirty. I need to find a good way to give these shading and make the white slightly less pristine without just making them look brownish.

Slann Mage-Priest Painting Part II

2010-06-30T07:11:00.000-04:00

Day 2 of working on the Slann. I finished coating the palanquin in the Space Wolves Grey and after experimenting with several washes, settled on Devlan Mud.

From Slann Mage-Priest I

For the Slann himself, I wanted to go with some tropical coloring. To this end, I decided on a pattern of Warlock Purple and Chaos Black. Afterwards, to bring him back towards toad-like (the tropical colors had started making him look more like a frog, I washed him with Devlan Mud.

From Slann Mage-Priest I

Here the two pieces are together.

From Slann Mage-Priest I

Slann Mage-Priest Painting

2010-06-27T10:10:00.000-04:00

After a very long hiatus from painting, I finally got some time yesterday to devote a few hours to it. Rather than continue where I left off on all of my previous painting projects, I once again decided to start focusing on something entirely new, my Slann Mage-Priest.

Here is what I got done:

From Impact Hits

Not too much progress. I painted the spikes with Skull White which I'll have to darken up a little with a wash and some shading. I coated most of the base of the palanquin with Space Wolves Grey. I am hoping I can figure out a way to make the palanquin look like it is made from marble. I picked up a stippling brush that I'm going to use to try to stipple on some Shadow Grey. If that doesn't work, I will try my normal brush with some Shadow Grey swirls or may even just leave the color as is. Once it's entirely marbled I'll wash it with something (still to be determined) and dry brush it with something that will hopefully make it look a little more aged.

For the Slann himself, I'm leaning towards a Chaos Black and Warlock Purple color scheme. My only concern is that it will leave him looking too much like a frog instead of a toad.

More progress as I make it!

Lizardmen and Empire Vs. Skaven and Daemons Of Chaos

2010-06-16T06:53:00.000-04:00

Steve over at Boisterous Exuberance recently posted a battle report from a 2v2 game we played. Rather than try to best his excellent reporting, I will instead just supplement his post with my thoughts on the game.

1. I liked my new scar veteran setups. Giving the Horned One to a scar veteran with a great weapon proved extremely useful (held the right flank in check for quite a while). I suspect the other scar veteran would have proved equally useful if Howling Gale had not gone off and kept him from his flight move. I was going to attempt to fly him into the blue scribes so that my terradons could focus elsewhere.

2. My terradons once again proved useful but I chose poorly. Howling Gale on the first turn really shut them down and slowed down their ability to do anything. Then I flew them over the Blue Scribes when the Empire pistoliers probably could have handled him on their own. The next turn they were caught in the open again and got shot up by the jezzails. Gotta keep these guys protected better and make sure I use them more efficiently! Maybe I need to take a second unit (I should order some more)

3. Saurus cannot beat bloodcrushers. I need to quit trying to find a way to make it work. Those things are far too nasty and have far too many attacks.

4. I'm not sure I like Lore of Fire very much. My temple guard are really incapable of killing anything in close combat. They are too slow to ever attack first so against any killy unit, the only thing they do for me is not break. I need spells that can hit units in combat with me if I'm ever going to wittle them down.

5. Plague Monks are really good against anything they attack first against.

6. Miscasting a spell, rolling the result that gives your opponent a free cast, and watching him get the 13th spell off is really dumb. I'm glad that miscast option isn't on the table in 8th edition (at least I don't think it is).

7. My temple guard being wiped out and my slann losing combat with 3 wounds on him but rolling double 1s to stay in combat and continue to tie up a giant bloodletters and plague monk unit = win.

8. I think the Empire did all of the work this game. I didn't do much of anything to the enemy and really only served to slow them down. There was just too much hard hitting stuff for me to contain with my 3 blocks.

9. I should have been more aggressive with my engine. It should have charged forward and started dropping burning alignments on everything. It would have been far more useful to me on the right flank and instead it was stuck behind my temple guard unit all game because I was being too conservative with it.

Warhammer 8th Edition Information

2010-06-15T19:16:00.000-04:00

Warhammer 8th edition rulebooks are out and there's a lot of great information available online. Overall, it sounds pretty exciting and I'm really looking forward to it.

I had the chance to stop by my local Games Workshop earlier today and took the opportunity to gather some information that I had been unable to locate online but was extremely interested in. This is what I'v learned.

Charging:
When you declare a charge, you declare one charge at a time. Before you declare any subsequent charges, your opponent will declare his reactions. This is done before any rolling of charge distance is done. If your opponent chooses to flee, you may decide whether or not you want to try to catch the fleeing unit or redirect the charge to another eligible unit. You may only redirect once.

Bound Spells:
They use power dice like every other spell. The required casting value is the spell level of the item.

Spells:
If you fail to cast a spell, that wizard can't cast any more spells in that phase.
Each spell can only be known by one wizard unless that wizard has an ability that lets him know specific spell or all spells in a lore.

Magic Phase:
Power dice are generated and channeled every magic phase.
At no point can you have more than 12 power dice or dispel dice. Any extra dice are lost.

Magic Items:
Dispel Scrolls and Power Stones are limited to one per army.
All magic items are limited to one per army unless the item's description specifically says you can take multiples.

Lizardmen Vs. Daemons Of Chaos Lessons Learned

2010-06-09T11:13:00.000-04:00

Some lessons learned from my game against Daemons:

1. Terradons can be really useful if properly protected. They are however quite vulnerable when left exposed.

2. The Shield Of The Mirrored Pool, while a cool item, isn't very great. It serves as a guarantee that your opponent will only ever cast one magic missile against the unit but that's all. It doesn't even guarantee that the one cast won't go off. If you only have one block worth protecting, it is quite good. If you have several, you need to have other protection on the rest of them or he'll just pick a new target.

3. Killing Blow is really good against my saurus of all varieties. I need to be a lot more wary of it in the future.

4. Bloodcrushers with a Herald are an incredibly scary unit. I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with it in the future. They have a huge move range which makes it really hard to divert them for long and I don't really have anything that can kill them effectively. They are well protected from my magic and they can killing blow any lord or hero I send into combat against it. Even getting the charge on them is no guarantee. A carnosaur and oldblood with blade of realities is really the only thing I think has a shot and that is only if it gets the charge. Even then it might not wipe them out and a single killing blow landed will finish off my general. I think my best bet is my Engine of the Gods and LOTS of poisoned shots. If the engine could set up a flank charge, it might be worth it. A flank charge from a Skink Warchief with Stegadon War-spear is also good but it would probably only ever work in one game.

5. Blue Scribes can really help an opponent's magic phase and should be sniped/assassinated as soon as possible.

6. Pink Horrors and Heralds of Tzeentch with the D6 + 1 hits, D6 + 1 S magic missile are not that great. Odds are one of the dice will be low and completely ruin the spell. The AE spell is a lot nastier but can be equally inconsistent.

7. That banner that does D6 S6 hits in an area is really scary. I need to make sure I alwasy have some dispel dice for that.

8. My temple guard really are useless in close combat. Striking last due to poor initiative really hurts them and killing blow effectively bypasses their armor save. Having them in combat without a good and safe way to negate my enemies ranks is not good.

9. I need to do a better job of getting the Plaque of Dominion out into the center of the table where it can be seen more easily. I also need to remember to use it and the Becalming Cogitation when I can.

Overall, I learned quite a bit and hopefully these lessons will help me improve my play.

Lizardmen Vs. Daemons of Chaos

2010-06-08T19:17:00.000-04:00

As promised, here is my first battle report in a long time!

My army:

Slann Mage-Priest
- Focus Of Mystery
- The Focused Rumination
- The Becalming Cogitation
- Cupped Hands Of The Old Ones
- BSB
- Plaque Of Dominion

Skink Priest
- Level 2
- Engine Of The Gods
- Dispel Scroll
- Diadem Of Power

Saurus Scar-Veteran
- Burning Blade Of Chotec
- Light Armor
- Shield Of The Mirrored Pool

Saurus Scar-Veteran
- Light Armor
- Great Weapon

3 Terradons

16 Temple Guard
- Musician
- Standard Bearer

12 Skink Skirmishers

12 Skink Skirmishers

12 Skink Skirmishers

18 Saurus Warriors
- Spears
- Musician
- Standard Bearer

18 Saurus Warriors
- Spears
- Musician
- Standard Bearer

Daemons of Chaos List (Something like this):
Herald of Tzeentch
Herald of Khorne on Juggernaut
Herald Of Khorne BSB
Blue Scribes (General)
5 Chaos Furies
6 Screamers
2 Bloodcrushers
20ish Pink Horrors
20ish Pink Horrors
5 Khorne Hounds with Karanak
20 Bloodletters

Initial setup from my side:

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Initial setup (closer look at daemons):

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 1 (Lizardmen): I get the first turn and move everything up. I fly my terradons into the jungle. Not a whole lot gets accomplished this turn.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 1 (Daemons): Everything moves up. Harpies fly in front of me to try and force an awkward charge. A lot of magic gets cast including a magic missile at my shield of the mirrored pool. With typical luck, I roll the 1, have to eat the spell, and no more spells get cast at the unit the rest of the game.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 2 (Lizardmen): My terradons fly over the blue scribes dropping only 4 rocks and throwing their javelins. They manage to do 2 of the 3 wounds to him. My skink skirmishers along the hound flank get in the way of the hounds to draw them out into an awkward charge. I kill some of the harbies with shooting and spells but not many. I set up my skinks on the left to try and force the bloodcrushers into an awkward charge and I move my skinks in the middle up to try and pull the bloodletters into a bad charge.

Turn 2 (Demons): The screamers retaliate against my terradons killing all but 1. The Blue Scribes books it to the other side of the jungle. The hounds charge my skinks, catch and destroy them, but are succesfully pulled out of position. The chaos furies fly to behind my temple guard unit. The bloodletters charge my middle skinks which stand and shoot (I should have had them flee) and pursue into my temple guard. And the bloodcrushers charge my left skinks which flee, are caught, and also manage to hit my saurus block on the left.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

After combat my saurus block has been mowed down. My middle skinks have broken and fled. It's not looking too good for me. It is also revealed that the Herald Of Khorne has a really nasty area effect banner and I am out of dispel dice when it is used.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 3 (Lizardmen): I turn my engine to prepare to engage the bloodcrushers when they come around. Luckily they are so out of position I won't have to worry about them for a while. I bring my remaining saurus block around to flank charge the bloodletters on the next turn.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 3 (Daemons): The bloodcrushers and Khorne hounds regroup. Blue Scribes pulls in closer near the hounds, bloodletters move more models into base contact, screamers come around, and the horrors move towards my last remaining block.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 4 (Lizardmen): My saurus block charges the bloodletter flank. My engine turns around and moves swiftly towards the hounds and scribes. My last remaining skinks move down to stall the bloodcrushers. My saurus warriors successfully beat the bloodletters in combat but the leadership roll is good and there are minimal casualties to the unit. My engine of the gods triggers Burning Alignment and rolls an 11! The Blue Scribes blow up as do some of the hounds!

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 4 (Daemons): The screamers move up. The pink horrors charge the flank of my saurus warriors. The hounds charge the rear of my saurus warriors. The bloodcrushers charge my skinks, who flee and are caught, but successfully pull the bloodcrushers off at another bad angle. My saurus warrior unit is demolished in combat, the pink horrors give chase (the hounds do not) and pursue into the back of the bloodletters. The hounds are stuck in position facing the flank of the pink horrors and my lone scar-veteran escapes.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 5 (Lizardmen): My Scar-Veteran moves to engage the bloodcrushers. My engine moves away from them and blows up a bunch of the screamers. My temple guard end up in combat with the pink horrors after the last of the bloodletters blows up.

Turn 5 (Daemons): The hounds regroup. The bloodcrushers regroup. The screamers fly over my engine and scar veteran which survive.

From Lizardmen Vs. Demons

Turn 6 (Lizardmen): More combat, more aeing things with the engine.

Turn 6 (Daemons): The bloodcrushers charge my scar veteran overrunning into the back of the Slann. They do a wound to him but not enough for half points. My engine survives. as well.

Final result: Draw just short of a minor victory in favor of the Lizardmen. If the game had continued much longer, it might have gone a different way but I'm not sure. The bloodcrushers were nearly defeated and my engine was still in tact so I would say a draw is a fair call.

Wow, an update.

2010-06-03T15:04:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I've updated. I'm hoping to get back in the swing of things. I have a couple of battle reports to put up including a game of Lizardmen vs. Demons and a 2 vs. 2 game of Lizardmen and Empire vs. Skaven and Demons. Those will hopefully happen some time in the near future.

I've also been looking through the Skaven and Beastmen books. I don't have any Beastmen models but I'm considering turning them into a side project like my Skaven currently are. Build them slowly over time because I feel like buying some models for them. My first order of business for both is to create a list to build towards.

I think I want my first Skaven list to be a Pestilens themed list. It might change when 8th edition comes out so I probably won't begin work on it until after I see how that affects things but the list is below.

Lord Skrolk

Level 2 Plague Priest on Furnace with Flail and Power Stone

Level 2 Plague Priest with Flail and Warp Scroll

Level 2 Plague Priest with Flail and Power Stone

20 Plague Monks with Musician, Standard Bearer, and Plague Banner
20 Plague Monks with Musician, Standard Bearer, and Storm Banner
30 Plague Monks with Musician, Standard Bearer, and Banner Of The Under-Empire

6 Plague Censer Bearers
6 Plague Censer Bearers

12 Giant Rats with 2 Packmasters
12 Giant Rats with 2 Packmasters

Plagueclaw Catapult
Plagueclaw Catapult

Total: 2248

This list is based around trying to make the Plagueclaw Catapults effective. While negating armor saves is really good, the fact that they only deal Strength 2 hits is unfortunate. To counter this I wanted to field a list cramming as much wither as I possibly can in. Hence, the all caster characters. Lord Skrolk gives me a way to field my plague monks as core allowing me to take more censer bearers. The giant rats are in because they are extremely cheap and expendable while able to dish out a decent number of attacks on the charge. The hope is that they will be able to do quite a bit of damage to lightly armored withered units for little to no cost. The plague monks and plague censer bearers are there to finish the job. The censer bearers providing me a good way to do some damage to heavily armored targets that I can't hit with the catapults.

I could probably make a list that works better for what I want using a grey seer and dropping all but one plague monk unit for a bunch of cheap throwaway units but I figured if I was going with the plagueclaw catapults then I might as well go all Pestilens.

Expect upcoming posts to cover the just mentioned Grey Seer version of this list, some thoughts on a Beastmen army, and the battle reports mentioned earlier.

Ogres vs. Demons Game Report 2/27/10

2010-03-06T00:55:00.000-05:00

I brought the army outlined here: http://impact-hits.blogspot.com/2010/02/ogres-vs-demons-pre-game.html

Sam brought a greater demon of tzeentch, 5 hounds of khorne, 3 flamers, 20 bloodletters w/ full command, 20 plaguebearers with full command and a herald, and another 20 plaguebearers with full command and herald.

Long story short, this game went horribly for me. With no way to actually break through any of the demons my ogres were left unable to do anything when they got into combat.

First turn Sam moves everything forward and uses a bunch of spells. The only ones that get through are two nurgling infestation spells on my unit of gnoblars but I pass the toughness test both times. I use my only dispel scroll preventing bolt of change from going through. End of his first turn.

On my first turn, I moved everything up setting up some baits with counter charges in position. My gnoblar fighters have fled off the board at this point but I move a unit of bulls up to bait the bloodletters into charging so my slavegiant can slam into them and my ironguts + butcher can slam into a unit of plaguebearers. My ogrestar moves into position to charge the second unit of nurglings on the next turn.. My scraplauncher moves up and misfires giving Sam the opportunity to fire the scraplauncher himself. My leadbelchers move up, one unloads into the bloodletters, the other unloads into the houds of khorne. They both manage to do one wound each.

On Sam's turn he takes the bait on my bulls and charges them with bloodletters and plaguebearers. They flee leaving both units exposed to my charge. During the magic phase, my unit of ironguts is completely demolished by the greater demon who gets off bolt of change causing 9 Str8 wounds to the unit killing 2 ironguts and dealing 2 wounds to the butcher making the unit virtually useless.

On my turn, the giant charges the bloodletters, flails with chain resulting in 1 attack that gets ward saved. The giant gets promptly run down. My ogrestar fails to kill the herald even after the tyrant directed all of his attacks against it (he was the only one in base contact) resulting in a loss by 2 of the plaguebearers and the blowing up of a handful more. This however leaves me in a position where I have already lost over 500 points of units and my main ogrestar block is about to be flanked charged by the hounds of khorne and I have nothing left to hold up the bloodletters and other unit of plaguebearers.

I concede.

I will have to think further about how I should be playing against demons before I take my ogres against them again. I'm not sure what I should be doing better but I suspect demons may just be an absolutely terrible matchup for ogres.

Ogres vs. Dark Elves Game Report 2/20/10

2010-02-26T23:53:00.000-05:00

I played against Steve's dark elves. You can see his thoughts on the game at his blog.

The list I took:
Lord:
Tyrant
- Cathayan Longsword
- Heavy Armor
- Greedy Fist
- Beastkiller
- Wyrdstone Necklace
- Greyback Pelt
- 2 Sword Gnoblar
- Luck Gnoblar

Heroes:
Butcher
- Bangstick
- Dispel Scroll
Butcher
- Skullmantle
- Dispel Scroll
Bruiser
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Sword of Might
- Heavy Armor
- 2 Sword Gnoblar
- Luck Gnoblar
- 2 Gnoblar Thiefstones

Core:
3 Bulls
3 Bulls
3 Ironguts
3 Ironguts
9 Gnoblar Trappers
24 Gnoblar Fighters

Special:
2 Gnoblar Scraplaunchers
2 Leadbelchers
2 Leadbelchers

Rares:
2 Maneaters
- Great Weapons
- Heavy Armor

Initial Deployment:

From Impact Hits

I placed a set of Leadbelchers on each flank to handle the fast cavalry. I also placed both of my Scraplaunchers on the left flank so that they would have some good shots at his line and later in the battle be in position to slam into the flanks of his main units.

I placed my Maneater/character death star type unit in position where it would for the most part, only have to worry about its left flank. I staggered my two units of Ironguts behind the two units of Bulls with the intention of using the Bulls to set up charges with my Ironguts. I also placed my Gnoblar Fighters where I hoped to get some decent Large Target shots with Sharp Stuff before the unit was wiped out or possibly use it to bait a charge from something.

Dark Elves Turn 1:
Steve got the first turn. He moved his units up, picked off a leadbelcher from each unit and causing my Trappers to panic. On his magic phase he irresistable forced power of darkness and then promptly miscasted his first spell rolling a 7 on the miscast table and avoiding a wound. This caused his magic phase to fizzle out early and led into my turn.

Ogre Kingdoms Turn 1:
I moved my Maneater death star up in preparation for a charge from his cold one knights. I moved my right flank Bulls up hoping to bait a charge from his hydra and my left flank Bulls up hoping to bait a charge from the chariot, hydra, or corsairs. I also moved up my Gnoblar Fighters. I set up my two units of Ironguts to countercharge anything that charged the Bulls and I moved my Scraplaunchers up in a flanking maneuver.

My remaining Leadbelchers moved up and unloaded into their respective Dark Rider units. The leftmost one killed 4 riders causing them to panic and never return. The rightmost one killed 3 riders but they passed their panic test and remained. My magic phase accomplished nothing.

Dark Elves Turn 2:
I caught a lucky break and the cold one riders failed their stupidity test and stumbled forward. The right hydra charged my maneater group. The left hydra, chariot, and corsairs all charged my Bulls. My Bulls fled and my Maneaters took the charge.

From Impact Hits

Unfortunately, my Ironguts failed their panic test when the Bulls ran through and my entire unit, Butcher and all, rolled high enough to flee completely off of the board. My maneaters however pulled off a draw in combat with the hydra and hold.

Ogres Turn 2:
The turn starts with my fleeing Bulls (the ones that panicked a unit of Ironguts and a Butcher off the table) rallying.

I charge the rightmost hydra with both my Bulls and my Ironguts hoping to soundly defeat it in combat and overrun into the cold one riders and thus preventing them from getting the charge in the next turn. I beat the Hydra in combat by 4 but it still managed to not break.

I charged the chariot on the left in the flank with both of my Scraplaunchers but it chooses to flee from the charge instead. One of the Scraplaunchers is capable of reaching the Hydra however so it takes a Ld 5 Fear test to try to charge and miraculous passes slamming into the side of the hydra (or at least its handlers). Unfortunately, even with impact hits, it only manages to kill a single handler and thus the hydra holds.

From Impact Hits

With both of my charges that I thought would win me combats completely failed, I resign myself to what I can tell is going to be a very bad next turn.

Dark Elves Turn 3:
The fleeing chariot rallied.

The corsairs charge my unit of Fighters which flee. The leftmost hydra battle results in the death of the last handler but the Hydra holds again.

The cold one riders charge into my maneaters and win the battle even though I managed to finish off the hydra. My maneaters and ironguts hold but my unit of Bulls flees.

Ogres Turn 3:
My unit of Bulls on the left side charge the flank of the unit of corsairs. My hope is that with the 9 attacks and negating the ranks of the corsairs, I'll be able to win combat and force them to flee. Instead, the death hag kills an Ogre and the corsairs kill and Ogre completely demolishing me in close combat.

My 2nd scraplauncher fails the leadership test to join the other scraplauncher in combat.

My maneaters and characters slaughter several cold one riders in combat, handily winning the battle but the unit rolls a 4 on its break test and stay again!

Dark Elves Turn 4:
The chariot charges my Scraplauncher stuck in combat with the Hydra.

The corsairs charge my other Scraplauncher.

From Impact Hits

Both Scraplaunchers are completely wiped out.

The Cold One Rider/Maneater combat involves both units completely whiffing and no wounds to anyone. The dark elf general passes his break test yet again.

Ogres Turn 4:
My Bulls charge the Cold Ones and I finally force the general to flee and run him down. However, the last of my Ogres are completely in the open for shooting at. I'm completely out of magic defense. And the rest of my line is gone.

We play through until turn 6 at which point I give up after all my characters are wiped out and my last unit of Ironguts is charged by the remaining hydra.

Conclusion:

This was easily the best game I have ever played with my Ogres. I think the game would have gone completely differently if my Ironguts/Butcher hadn't fled off the field so early and the units I beat in close combat had actually broken. It's really given me hope that a new book coming out this year will make them more competitive and made me excited to play my Ogres again. I'm also planning to keep seeing what I can do with them and trying to win with the current book.

Ogres vs. Demons Pre-Game

2010-02-26T23:01:00.000-05:00

I'm playing against Sam's Demons tomorrow and I'm planning to field my Ogres against him. I'll be taking the following list.

Core:
3 Bulls
3 Ironguts
8 Trappers
24 Fighters

Special:
1 Scraplauncher
2 Leadbelchers
2 Leadbelchers

Rare:
2 Maneaters with great weapons and heavy armor
1 Slavegiant

Heroes:
Butcher
- Bangstick
- Dispel Scroll
Butcher
- Siegebreaker
- Skullmantle
Bruiser
- Battle Standard Bearer
- Sword of Might
- Luck Gnoblar
- 2 Sword Gnoblar
- 2 Gnoblar Thiefstones
- Heavy Armor

Lord:
Tyrant
- Cathayan Longsword
- Greedy Fist
- Heavy Armor
- Giantbreaker
- Greyback Pelt
- Luck Gnoblar
- 2 Sword Gnoblar
- Wyrdstone Necklace

Full write up with my thoughts behind the list after the game tomorrow.

Updated Model Progress

2010-02-16T21:20:00.000-05:00

I went through and organized all my models and got them set up on my hobby table so that I could take stock of what needs to be done and start figuring out what order I'm going to do everything in. With all the Ogre Kingdoms rumours that have been flying around lately, I'm thinking I may start painting them while continuing work on my Lizardmen. I have officially put my Skaven on hold while I get some work done on my other armies.

As far as my 40k Orks go. I'm really excited about the new Deff Dread and Killa Kan plastic sets that Games Workshop has just announced. When these hit the stores, I think I'm going to place an order for one of each of these. I'm also contemplating getting the Ork Megaforce as it is a really good deal.

Pictures of my armies:

From Impact Hits

Here is my Ork army consisting of 3 warbikers (1 nob), 3 deffkoptas, and ork trukk, an ork warboss, 7 ork nobs, and 40 ork boyz.

From Impact Hits

Here are my Skaven models consisting of 4 rat ogres, 12 giant rats, 40 clanrats (mostly unassembled), 20 plague monks, and a ratling gun.

From Impact Hits

My Ogre Kingdoms models consisting of 4 leadbelchers, 4 ironguts, 24 gnoblar fighters, 2 gorgers, 2 butchers, 6 bulls, Skragg, 1 tyrant, 1 maneater, 2 hunters, 40 gnoblar trappers, and a gnoblar scraplauncher.

From Impact Hits

The saurus warriors and stegadon I have been working on from earlier. Also, the three terradons I recently picked up.

From Impact Hits

More Lizardmen. This shows my slann, oldblood and carnosaur, 2 razordons, 2 salamanders, 36 skinks, 20 temple guard, and 16 cold one cavalry. I also have an additonal 12 skinks and 20 saurus warriors on the sprue.

Painting Progress

2010-02-01T01:16:00.000-05:00

I am incredibly slow at painting but I have been putting more effort into my lizardmen lately. I have attached pictures of the progress they are all making.

First up is my temple guard champion. He is the closest thing I have to a finished model currently. I'm planning to use roughly the same color scheme for all of my temple guard models. For the paint job, I used Liche Purple, a Purple Ink wash, and a Liche Purple drybrush for the scales/skin. The weapons are a combination of Shining Gold and Mithril Silver with a Devlan Mud wash. The Shield is a Regal Blue with a Blue Ink wash to go along with my stegadon color scheme.

I've begun painting my engine of the gods as well. The current plan is to go with a base color of Hawk Turquoise and wash it with either Blue or Black Ink. Then drybrush the scales (maybe the skin too? not sure) with Regal Blue to match the shields that the saurus will all be carrying. The idea is they are using stegadon scale shields.

Another thing to consider is that this is going to be an engine of the gods model. Since that requires an ancient stegadon, I'm trying to think of ways I could make the stegadon look older so that when I paint a regular stegadon, it will look younger.

These are my saurus warriors with spears. In this picture, they are all base coated (skin/scales) with Scab Red. I have also completed the Black Ink wash though I do not have a handy picture of them in that state. The next step is to drybrush them with Red Gore and start detailing the weapons and equipment.

Catching Up

2010-01-29T11:15:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I posted. I'm going to try and get better about that.

Over the Christmas/New Year's timeframe I attended Lindy Focus in Asheville, NC. It was an absolute blast.

Last weekend I played Steve of Boisterous Exuberance in a game. Lizardmen vs. Dark Elves. Steve posted a detailed write up of the game with lots of pictures on his blog which you can check out here: http://boisterous-exuberance.blogspot.com/2010/01/dark-elves-vs-lizardmen-012310.html

I've been working on painting my lizardmen recently. In particular my saurus warrior block. I'll post some pictures later. I ended up settling on a color scheme of scab red base coat, black inking, and red gore drybrushing for the skin/scale coloring. I've got the base coat down on all 20 of the models and two of them have been inked. I'm hoping over the next week I can crank out the inking and drybrushing and start on some of the finer details of the models.

In the meantime, I've been salivating over the thought of a new Ogre book in possibly May and the rumours that have been coming out surrounding it. A good summary of the relevant rumours can be found here: http://drinkinandmodelin.blogspot.com/2010/01/ogre-kingdoms-new-army-book-rumors.html

Also, one of the most impressive conversions I've ever seen can be found here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/264457.page

Ogre Kingdoms vs. Skaven Result

2009-12-26T13:46:00.000-05:00

So I took the list described in the previous post.

I was up against a level 2 warlock engineer, Grey Seer Thanquol + Boneripper, a Plague Priest on a Plague furnace, a level 1 warlock engineer, a warp lightning cannon, 5 jezzails, 2 units of plague censer bearers, a unit of stormvermin, two units of clanrats, and a Doomwheel.

Skaven went first.

During the first magic phase, I used the Hellheart and he chose not to cast any spells. The shooting phase went well for me. I took two wounds on my Scraplauncher from Jezzails and only lost two sabretusks from the doomwheel.

During my turn I managed to kill one Jezzail with my Bangstick, get Trollguts off on one of my units, and land a Scraplauncher shot directly on top of one of his clanrats units. I managed to kill 5 rats from it. I also moved my Yhetees up in a flanking position on his plague furnace and sent in some Gnoblar trappers to force a charge from his frenzied censer bearers and furnace. My shooting against the doomwheel failed miserably, both my leadbelchers and hunter failing to wound.

On his second turn it was the beginning of the end. He got some spells initial spells off that I managed to cancel with a combination of dispel scrolls, magic resistance, and dispel die. Then he rolled 6 dice to cast the 13th spell against my Tyrant unit. Of course he rolls double 6s, my unit is obliterated. I hang in there because I think I've still got a good shot at taking down the Plague Furnace my flank charging yhetees.

On my turn both the gorgers come into play. I set them up directly behind a unit of clanrats each. I manage to make the Jezzail team flee from my magic. My yhetees get the flank charge on the plague monks/furnace.

Turns out the plague monks have a banner that does 2D6 automatic hits to everything touching the unit. My Yhetees get slaughtered before they even get to attack. They flee, the plague furnace is forced to pursue, and directly in the flight path is impassable terrain. The Furnace pursues three inches, millimeters short of having to take damage for hitting the terrain.

I concede. I had no units that could do anything to the plague furnace or the doomwheel. I was out of magic defense and the only things I was going to be able to do anything to were units of basic clanrats.

Final Ogre Kingdoms List

2009-12-25T23:20:00.001-05:00

2 Gorgers
3 units of 24 Gnoblar Fighters
2 units of 8 Gnoblar Trappers
1 Gnoblar Scraplauncher
3 Yhetees
2 units of 2 Leadbelchers with Bellowers
3 units of 3 Bulls with addtional hand weapons (one unit has standard bearer and lookout gnoblar)
1 Hunter with 2 Sabretusks, a Talisman of Protection, and the Beastkiller Big Name
1 Butcher with a Bangstick and Dispel Scroll
1 Butcher with a Hellheart
1 Tyrant with Tenderiser, Jade Lion, Heavy Armor, and Wyrdstone Necklace

I am planning to take this list against a Skaven army. I've never had much success with my Ogres so I don't really know how this is going to work. My expectation is that Plague Furnaces and either Hellpit Abominations or Doomwheels will be taken.

For dealing with the plague furnaces, I plan to use my gnoblar to force charges that will allow my ogres to flank charge or force charges into rough terrain.

With the Hellpit Abominations, I'm hoping to use my Butchers to cast Braingobbler and force some panic test failures. This is my best shot at beating these as Ogres do not have any way of getting flaming attacks. My only other hope is that my hunter might be able to do some damage to them before they get into close combat or my Tyrant with Tenderiser can manage to get the charge and make it through the regeneration.

Against Doomwheels, the strategy is the same as with the Hellpits. I am hopeful that I can force it out of control with the Hunter's Harpoon Launcher and into some dangerous/rough terrain.

This is going to be a really rough battle for me I think but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to pull off a draw, or even perhaps a marginal victory.

Ogre Kingdoms

2009-12-24T10:42:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while I get an itch to mess around with my Ogre Kingdoms again. I haven't been overly happy with them but they are my first army so I feel like I don't want to give up on them. To that end, I am considering making a handful of key purchases that would allow me to field a better, hopefully workable Ogre Kingdoms list in the future.

Current owned models:
24 Gnoblar Fighters
6 Ogre Bulls
4 Ironguts
2 Hunters w/ Sabretusks
30+ Gnoblar Scrappers
4 Leadbelchers
1 Gnoblar Scraplauncher
2 Butchers
3 Gorgers
1 Maneater
1 Tyrant/Bruiser

My current hope is to expand with a unit of yhetees in addition to several more units of gnoblar. And probably a handful of miscellaneous ogres. I will most likely purchase another battalion at some point as it is a great deal compared to the individual costs of the models and I could also use a handful of additional ogres.

This Saturday, I will be playing against a Skaven army. My current plan is to play a fun game with Ogre Kingdoms. Dust off these models that I haven't used in a while, and see if I can do a better job of playing them strategically than I did when I first started out with Warhammer.

Tentative army list (full list tomorrow):

2x Gorgers 150
3x 24 Gnoblar Fighters 144
3x 3 Ogre Bulls 315
2x Butchers 260
1x Hunter 145
1x Tyrant 200
1x Gnoblar Scraplauncher 165
2x 2 Leadbelchers 220
2x 10 Gnoblar Scrappers 120
1x 3 Yhetees 195

This gives me 336 points to work with for magical equipment and unit upgrades. I will obviously have to use some counts as models for this but it shouldn't be too bad.

Ork Battle 1

2009-11-27T11:42:00.000-05:00

I've been lazy and haven't been updating this as much as I should. Asmo over at boisterous-exuberance.blogspot.com has been yelling at me for this failing on my part so I thought I'd toss up a brief write up of my first two forays into the world of 40k. For both games I took my 650 point space Ork list detailed previously.

Game 1 vs. Tau:

My opponent fielded two units of fire warriors, a big unit of Kroot, a battle suit with missile pods, a deep striking battle suit with two flamers, and some sort of tank with a rail gun on top. There were a total of 3 objectives to claim.

I got the first turn during which I flew my deffkoptas up to take on his rail gun tank and had my trukk and warbikers move flat out towards his troops. On his first turn, he shot the rail gun at my trukk and missed. His fire warriors managed to disable the trukk, and he shot up my big group of 20 ork boyz some and managed to kill one of my warbikers.

On my second turn, my deffkoptas managed to disable his rail gun tank and prevent it from firing during the next turn. My remaining two warbikers assaulted into one of his fire warrior units which they successfully defeated. My warboss and 11 Ork Boyz unloaded from the trukk and assaulted the other group of fire warriors which they also sent running.

On the second Tau turn, his remaining Kroot and the missile pod battle suit managed to take out the rest of my bikers.

On my third turn, my deffkoptas successfully blew up the rail gun tank. My 20 ork squad continued it's slow trek across the battlefield, and my warboss and 11 ork boyz moved toward the remaining kroot.

On the Tau third turn, my warboss and boyz were charged by the Kroot where they promptly slaughtered a fair number of boyz. I was able to do enough wounds back to succeed my leadership check (after using the bosspole) so the battle continued. The flamer battle suit landed just inside of range of my large ork boyz group but only close enough to hit 3 boyz with the template.

On my fourth turn, the Ork Boyz and Warboss managed to hang in there long enough to win tie the Kroot in combat. It was down to only my warboss left against a handful of Kroot (the warboss finished them off in the next turn). My 20 Boyz band proceeded to destroy the flamer battle suit and then moved on to spread out and capture two objectives. As the game was ending, only 2 fire warriors remained on the Tau side that had rallied and proceeded to capture a single objective.

Victory for the Orks! WAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!

Game 2 update vs. Sisters of Battle coming later.

Battle Report 10/24/2009

2009-10-27T00:58:00.000-04:00

I ended up facing off against Frans on Saturday with a slight variation to the lizardmen list from the previous post. He fielded a vampire counts list with a vampire lord on zombie dragon, a vampire, a wight king in a unit of grave guard, 2 units of 10 skeletons, 20 zombies, and 2 varghulfs.

My list:

Lord Kroak

Level 2 skink priest
- engine of the gods
- plaque of tepok
- dispel scroll

Level 2 skink priest
- cube of darkness

saurus scar veteran
- venom of the firefly frog
- light armor
- great weapon
- aura of quetzl

20 temple guard
- standard bearer and champion
- plaque of dominion
- burning blade of chotec

20 saurus warriors
- full command
- spears

10 ranked skinks

10 ranked skinks

3 jungle swarms

Setup was like the following:

|skeletons| |grave guard| |skeletons| |vampire| |zombie dragon|
|varghulf| |-------------zombies----------------| |varghulf|

------|skinks| |swarms| |temple| |engine| |saurus| |skinks|
-------------------------------------------------------|priest|

I had Lord Kroak in with the temple guard and the scar veteran in with the saurus. On my first turn, I marched everything up being careful to keep some range on my guys. I attempted to cast some spells with the skinks using kroak's dice. None of them succeeded but I was able to draw out a dispel scroll. On Frans' turn he moved the varghulfs to the flanks of each of the skink groups, everything else moved forward, and the zombie dragon attempted to charge the engine of the gods and fell about an inch and a half short. His magic drew out my cube of darkness which failed to end the magic phase but I was able to prevent any spells from going off.

On my second turn, everything I had charged. The engine charged into the front of the zombie dragon, the temple guard charged the flank on my left, and the saurus charged the flank on my right. The skinks both charged the zombie line with the skinks on the right getting the flank of the zombies. The jungle swarms charged the varghulf on the left. During my magic phase I unleashed the burning alignment from the engine and Lord Kroak's spell at casting value of 5+. Together these two spells dropped the zombie dragon AND reduced the vampire lord down to 1 wound remaining. It also killed several zombies from the unit engaged with the skinks. Frans used a dispel scroll on the second of Lord Kroak's spells cast with the 10+ casting value.

When close combat began and before the impact hits were calculated, Frans conceded the game.

Later in the afternoon I helped Chaney(Demons) and Aaron(Chaos) try to learn to play the game. Details on that later.

Ork List

2009-10-23T00:51:00.000-04:00

I've created the following Ork list for my first foray into Warhammer 40k. It's written up for a 650 point game and I'm trying to figure out the best way to tweak it down to 500 points. Currently this uses most of my models (minus 5 Nobs, some ork boyz, and some ork boy big shootas). In addition to turning this into a 500 point list, I'm also looking to figure out what I should buy as a next step to bring this list up to 750 points and eventually 1000 points.

Ork Warboss 60
power klaw 25

11 Ork Boyz 66
Nob Upgrade 10
power klaw 25
bosspole 5

20 Ork Boyz 120
Nob Upgrade 10
Power Klaw Upgrade 25
bosspole 5
2 rokkit launchas 20

3 Warbikers 75
Nob Upgrade 10
Power Klaw 25
bosspole 5

3 Deffkoptas 95
3 twin-linked rokkit launchas 30

Ork Trukk 35

Total: 646

Swing Dancing Routine

2009-10-22T23:58:00.000-04:00

So this blog serves a dual purpose. In addition to Warhammery stuff, it's also for me to talk about my other hobby, swing dancing! I've been taking a routine class with Charm City Swing and we will be performing the routine this coming Monday. Below is a link to our final practice run through from Wednesday night. It's not perfect but considering we learned it in about 8 hours over the course of 8 weeks, I think it's pretty darn good!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbPOMcSFyFE

Lizardmen List

2009-10-22T12:24:00.000-04:00

Here's a fun Lizardmen list I wrote up for playing against a friend's Vampire Counts army. It's not finished yet and there are several tweaks I need to make to it still. Possible changes include adding a Cube of Darkness and changing the magic items on the Saurus Scar Veteran around. I also need to make sure stupidity from the banner will work on the vampires before I take it.

Lord Kroak	600

Level 2 skink priest	100
engine of the gods	290
plaque of tepok	15
dispel scroll	25

Level 2 skink priest	100
dispel scroll	25
dispel scroll	25

saurus scar veteran	85
piranha blade	35
light armor	5
shield	3



20 temple guard	320
standard bearer and champion	28
plaque of dominion	50
Burning Blade of Chotec	25

20 saurus warriors	220
full command	30
spears	20

10 ranked skinks	50

10 ranked skinks	50

3 jungle swarms	135

Total:	2236