It had to happen.

Remember that model I was so happy to have finally finished assembling? The one that I said was one of my favourite 40K models? Well, guess which model just fell off a high shelf onto a hard stone floor?

Sigh. I was moving a metal tray full of models with magnetised bases onto a high shelf when... I guess it bumped something that was on the shelf and slipped out of my hand a little, hitting the shelf? I really don't know what happened, all I know is that a handful of models went flying past my face and crashed into the ground. I still don't get how it happened; I took the tray to my desk and tried shaking it and jerking it and not a single model budged, but when I was slowly and carefully maneuvering it into place earlier the models had practically thrown themselves off.

So unless there's more models that ended up somewhere that I couldn't see, four models actually fell. Two were unpainted Tallarn, and seem pretty much undamaged. One was my painted Tallarn, but he only seemed to suffer a minor bit of chipped paint (and I wasn't all that fond of the model anyway), I could repair him easily enough if I could be bothered. And the fourth one was, you know, the model that I've spent hours and hours and hours working on over the span of close to two years. I mean, that photo you see? That little design made from wire? That probably took somewhere around 4 or 5 hours to do. Maybe more. You have no idea until you try it, how hard it is to bend such tiny pieces of wire into such specific shapes and glue them in such specific positions. Even just picking them up with a pair of fine tweezers is a challenge; I can't tell you how many times I applied a bit too much pressure when trying to lift them up only to have them somehow twing off and disappear. And that's not the only place where I applied that effect.

The base? I spent hours fashioning components and wiring them up, then after the milliput had hardened it turned out the switch was broken and stuck in the "on" position. Yes, at least it wasn't stuck in the "off" position, but still, I spent ages carefully cutting it back out, carving the hardened milliput away from the connections while trying not to break them. I had to go and buy a solder pump just to clear the old solder so I could fit the new switch and solder it back in. I'm not even going to talk about soldering wires onto an LED that's less than 2mm across it's widest point.

Having said all that, the only real damage that I can see is that the spear tip broke off, a tiny bit of greenstuff needs to be redone (literally half a finger), and a couple of bits need to be re-glued. The LED still works, thankfully. To be honest, considering it's a metal and resin model full of custom work that fell almost two meters onto a hard stone floor, I'm amazed that the damage wasn't much, much worse. The spear tip will be a bit of a pain to replace, but it's not so bad. Still, the moment when those models hit the floor... damn, but that's not something I want to have happen again.

In other news, I've finished Strakhov's fancy new base and glued him down. It's going to be a while before I can paint him, but he's ready for me to have another go with, which I've been looking forwards to. I'm really hoping he doesn't fall of a table or something.

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Skorne

Turns out that Ceramic Cafe has re-opened. I didn't feel like doing anything too ambitious so I tried to keep it simple. Here's the result:

It was supposed to be bright red. Seems watering down ceramic paints as if they were acrylic paints is not such a good idea. Oh well.

After my last game against Skorne I modified my list a bit:
Harkevich
-Black Ivan
-Decimator
-Juggernaut
Nyss Hunters
Koldun Lord
Widowmaker Marksman

I opted for the Decimator because I thought he could be useful for holding zones: he should be able to put damage on heavies while keeping them up to 12 inches away. I added the Juggernaut cos I figured I needed at least two armour crackers against Skorne, and chose it over the Spriggan because, well, I felt like taking him for a spin. Also the Spriggan is not painted. The Nyss are still the only infantry that I own other than the mechanics. I'm trying to play without my "focus crutches" (Sylyss and the Koldun Lord), so I decided to take Kell and the Widowmaker Marksman for solo removal, but at the last minute I suffered a moment of weakness and swapped the Koldun Lord back in.

His list was:
Makeda 3
-Molik Karn
-Gladiator
-Basilisk Krea
Paingiver Beast Handlers
Agonizer
Some kind of shooty unit with a UA (it had two banners)
A medium-base solo

So Lady Thanos is the leader of the Skorne huh? And they like wearing red? Who does that remind me of? This list was quite different from the last one; at least my Nyss had something to shoot at this time. I ask about Karn and it turns out his threat range is 13 inches. So much for my "cunning" plan with the Decimator.

He won the roll off and chose to go first. I deployed Harkevich opposite my zone (which had a very inviting looking forest on the side) with Widowmaker and Decimator. Ivan was pretty much in the center, looking to walk up a hill. The Juggernaut was to the left, eying a cozy looking corner of the other zone protected by a wall, with the Koldun Lord standing behind him. The Nyss are far on my left.


Round 1
He does some shuffling and repositioning and stuff, but later laments that he didn't move up far enough, basically giving me the zones.

Harkevich puts Fortune on the Decimator, and of course escort on himself. Koldun Lord doesn't move and just uses power booster. Everything else runs.


Round 2
He moves some of his infantry into the zone, but spaces them out so there's only around five actually in it. I think he killed Cylena this turn with a CRA. His heavies move toward Harkevich.

Three focus to the Decimator, one to Ivan, two upkeeps. The Nyss walk up and shoot his infantry on one side. I wasn't really thinking about it, but ended up clearing the zone. The Juggernaut (who I carelessly ran out of Harkevich's control area) gets focus from the Koldun Lord again and runs into his designated corner. The Marksman shoots a Paingiver, which I feel very happy about until I realize they are a unit and not solos, so he has plenty more. Dammit. I move Black Ivan to shield the objective on my side. I'd love to get a shot at the Agonizer but it's well hidden, so I consider shooting at the objective on his side, but I decided my more immediate concern was taking down his heavies, so instead I shoot at Karn and do something crazy like 13 damage (this was after he made me re-roll the attack). The Decimator shoots at Karn but against DEF 12 I decide to boost the attack rolls as I really want to push him back as much possible, so I only do about 3 or 4 damage total. Harkevich just runs over to the far right of the zone to be safe.

My opponent then tells me I've just scored two points. Nice!

How the hell is Khador so much farther up the board?

Round 3
Karn suddenly changes direction and charges (and kills) the Juggernaut, with Makeda's help, who uses Karn's animus to move back to safety afterwards. One of Makeda's Guardians moves into my zone, while the other heads towards my Nyss. The Gladiator runs into my zone, the Krea into his. The Agonizer also jams my zone while denying me focus allocation. His infantry kill a few Nyss. I don't score this turn.

You can't see Harkevich, but he's still hiding in the corner like the big manly man that he is.

OK, so I can't give out any focus. This is not good. Not a surprise, but not good. With the Juggernaut gone, I'm thinking going for a scenario win is probably a good idea. I drop escort; he's pretty close now. The Marksman shoots something, I don't remember what. Harkevich walks up to get Black Ivan back in his control area (I really need to pay attention to the whole "control area" thing), feats, and shoots at the Agonizer, boosting the attack roll. He shield-guards it with the Guardian and it kills her (I think I boosted damage). I cast Broadsides and between Harkevich and the Decimator I put the wretched thing out of it's misery. Black Ivan takes the shot against Molik Karn and does like 3 damage.

The Decimator slams the Gladiator out of the zone for free thanks to the feat, doing a few points of damage I think with the free shot but none with the slam. I was hoping to slam it far enough to put some damage on the objective (which would have given me an extra damage dice too), but it only moved an inch. That turned out to be a big deal later (FORESHADOWING!). The Koldun Lord gives Black Ivan a point of focus, which it seems the crying baby elephant can't prevent since it's "given" not "allocated". Ivan declares a charge against Karn, but I decide to take my free shot against the remaining Guardian since I think it's going to be blocking my Nyss from threatening Makeda or Karn soon. At ARM 20, I decide to go all in on killing it and spend my focus point on boosting the damage roll. I do 4 damage. Dammit. Then Ivan misses his charge attack. Double dammit. Finally the Nyss move up and kill all the rest of his infantry unit, barring the flag bearer (who doesn't have a gun, so that's OK). I score another control point for dominating my zone, putting me at 3.

In case you're wondering, the Gladiator normally walks backwards to protect his face. From axes.

Round 4
Makeda charges Ivan, her remaining Guardian charges my Nyss. I made a mistake last turn and aimed with them all, as a result only two are actually in the zone and the Guardian is able to kill them both. However, he forgot to feat before making his first attack; he feats and takes a Fury point from the death of the second Nyss. He has a spell up that gives everything boosted attack rolls when attacking anything in Makeda's melee range, so when he rolls snake-eyes with his first attack against Ivan I Dodge him just out of her range, while still being about half a millimeter in the zone.

This is quite a stroke of bad luck for him, but he really pulls out a pro play here. Makeda kills the Koldun Lord with a spell, which allows him to make a short move with Makeda, who moves back up to Ivan. She also gets a point of Fury back thanks to the feat. She makes one attack and camps one Fury. Now a buffed Molik Karn makes a ton of P&S 15 weapon-master attacks with free boosted damage rolls, does quite well for damage, and kills Ivan off despite the +3 ARM. Ouch. At one point he actually missed an attack roll, but Karn has an ability that lets him boost a roll after he rolls it, allowing him to throw another dice and prevent the Dodge.

Now the buffed Gladiator charges the Decimator. Remember how he only got slammed an inch? Well, because he was getting a free charge he charged sideways to try to make up the three inches for the damage boost, meaning he was no longer between the Decimator and the objective. he rolled quite well for damage but couldn't knock out any systems. The Krea then ran into my zone, and his medium-base solo ran towards the Nyss. At the end of the turn he scores his first point for dominating his zone.

Notice the second wreck marker? Sigh.

At this point I'm in trouble. The Decimator can probably kill the Gladiator (probably), but that won't let me score. I can bulldoze the Krea out of the zone and score one point, but that leaves Harkevich wide open to a Karn in the face. I can just run away, but then Karn eats the Decimator and I'm just delaying the inevitable. Plus it's getting late and food has become part of the equation. So I go for the only plan I can think of that has the slightest chance of success; at least we'll finish quickly one way or the other. Unfortunately according to my calculations I need to roll 14 on three dice, so it's not what you'd call a sure thing.

So I need to use Beat-Back to push both Warbeasts out of the zone. By my calculations it will take at least five hits, leaving me with just one focus left. So I drop Fortune and allocate one focus to the Decimator. I activate the Marksman and take a shot at the objective. I'm at dice minus 6, I figure I have decent odds of doing more than one point of damage if I roll rather than use Sniper, which would give me better odds of taking it out later, so I roll... a 6. Sigh.

Then I realise that I forgot to count Harkevich's initial attack when calculating how much focus I need - I only need 4 focus to make 5 attacks! So I cheekily ask my opponent if it's OK if I can retroactively allocate him another point. I regret doing that -I'm trying to move away from this beginner's mentality- but in the heat of the moment I got carried away, and he said it was OK, so gave the Decimator a second focus point.

Harkevich charges the Krea and beats it out of the zone, then the Gladiator suffers the same fate (and is Staggered to boot). That will get me my fourth point. Now I need to destroy the objective to win. No longer engaged, the Decimator charges the objective; I wasn't sure he'd make it, but it turns out to be just a smidgen over 7 inches away. At straight dice with an extra attack, I need to roll 15 on five dice. I roll 12. I concede.

Harkevich knocks back multiple monsters many times his size, but to no avail.

After shaking hands, I glance at the table and suddenly realise that the Nyss might just be in range of the objective. We play it out real quick like, just to see if I actually had a chance or not. Only one Nyss is in range to shoot at it (at least without taking a free strike from a MAT 8 model). He's at dice minus 8. He rolls... 11 on two dice, destroying the objective.


Postmortem
I just don't know what to make of that. My opponent was talking afterwards as if he had lost, but I had already conceded - besides, he allowed me to shift a focus after activating, so that's not exactly kosher. I also don't think it's fair to say "if I hadn't conceded I would have won"; it's a little outside of the scope of this kind of discussion, but I won with a very lucky roll, if I hadn't conceded I would have been moving differently, I would have activated models in a different order, overall I would have physically picked up and thrown the dice differently, in other words there's no reason to believe I would have rolled the same result. But as a wise lion once said, "You can never be told what would have happened".

That was actually the most interesting game I've played so far. Lots of small decisions had large effects, positioning was a huge deal, and lots of movement tricks (at least compared to my games so far) were happening on both sides. Ivan dodging and Makeda following with that slick move was very cool and a turning point in the game. My failing to focus on the Guardian with Black Ivan's shooting left my Nyss in a poor position to help out later. His sideways charge with the Gladiator opened the path to the objective and also put him close enough to the Krea for Harkevich to knock them both out of the zone.


He had some bad dice at times, while I had pretty good dice overall, with a couple of really good rolls. We both made a number of mistakes. He failed to get into the zones early, and positioned the Gladiator poorly at the end. He should have thrown the Decimator away or something instead of trying to crack it at ARM 23, and sending in the Agonizer to hold the zone was probably not a good idea overall. I was careless with the Nyss; if I had jammed more into the zone he wouldn't have scored there, I would have been putting pressure on Makeda and in position to potentially kill his Paingivers, and also possibly in range to attack the objective. If I had focused on either killing the Guardian or killing Karn with Ivan on the feat turn, I would have done more good than not killing either. Or perhaps I should have tried to put some damage on the objective instead, that would have changed things a bit (although he actually complained about it getting in his way later, so maybe not killing it wasn't a bad idea at the time). I forgot to advance-deploy the Koldun Lord, and in retrospect I probably should have positioned him across from the infantry (admittedly I was under the vague impression at the time that he only had one or two Paingivers). I was very careless and kept leaving my Warjacks out of Harkevich's control area. I didn't think much about where my Koldun Lord was standing, I might have had some vague idea of putting him somewhere where he could move up and spray something, but in retrospect I should have kept him well back and as protected as possible, or at least toed the hill for the def bonus. When I moved Harkevich over to catch Ivan in the feat, I unthinkingly moved him within  around 13 inches of Molik Karn. Luckily he was facing the wrong way, or else it could have been a shorter game. And of course my complete brainless moment when I forgot to count Harkevich's initial attack.

As far as models go, the Decimator didn't play quite the way I wanted, but I wouldn't have been able to clear the zone without his Broadside shot, and like that I can use him while keeping him a safe distance away. Being able to reach out and hit almost anything without paying to boost with Black Ivan is very useful, though I didn't actually manage to do any damage that mattered this game (other than forcing him to heal a point or two). I just don't know if he's worth taking with other casters though. The Nyss were consistent with their shooting, this was one of the few games where they did good work for me. In theory the Juggernaut died without doing anything, but in practice it helped keep him busy on that side of the board, and a Spriggan's death would have been a bigger blow. The Marksman really didn't end up contributing, next time I want a sniper I'll probably take Kell for the second shot. Ultimately the Koldun Lord didn't count for much other than getting the Juggernaut into place then getting Ivan killed, but the fact is I need that extra focus on the first turn if I want to run three Warjacks, and having the option of an extra focus is kind of a big deal with that Agonizer running around.

While Escort was dropped early, it helped me get into a good position, which is a big deal. Broadsides and the feat kept me in the game that turn when the Agonizer did his thing, and Beat-Back is what psuedo-won it for me. So while Harkevich is not the power caster that he initially appeared to be to my inexperienced eyes, he does seem to be able to get me out of some bad situations.

I mean, thinking about it, he spent something like 15 Fury in one turn, while I had crucial turn where I couldn't allocate. He got all the charges off, his Warbeasts all had access to +2 movement and Pathfinder (including a Warbeast that's already SPD 6), meaning he could match or exceed a big part of what Harkevich brings to the table, and his Warbeasts all had access to free charges and were pumping out like 7 high-power attacks each while mine could have (but didn't) put out 4 tops (OK, plus one more medium power attack in the case of the poor Juggernaut). Despite all that I was still in the game thanks to Harkevich's ability to get some work out of his Warjacks without allocating focus and to keep them alive (well, at least one of them alive) for one turn, and of course Beat-Back is proving to be a bit of a big deal. Well, thanks to all that and to a lot of luck.


Musings
I've never felt so strapped for focus as I did on that one turn when I could calculate exactly how much focus I needed to stand a pretty decent shot of winning the game, and I thought I was one short. On a different topic, I  take back what I said about Skorne being Khador like: they have a 2 point unit that buffs multiple warbeasts, clearly they are more like Menoth. This game, and a comment my friend made about Warmachine being combo-driven, got me thinking. The way I see it, there's a difference between combos and packages.

Lets start with combos. Consider Cygnar: you can take a Hunter with Arcane Tempest Gun Mages for Snipe or other magic shots, or with Sword Knights for the Pronto move, or with Arlan Strangeways for a fully boosted shot, with a Journeyman for full focus without taxing your Warcaster, or with your Warcaster for whatever he gives it - Kraye for light-cav moves is a notable example. You can do the same with a charger or Cyclone or others, the different combos then have give different jacks more or less advantages - for example the Journeyman gives the Chargers two fully boosted shots, the Gun Mages give the Cyclone magic bullets on all it's shots but don't help the Sentinel or Charger as much, etc. Those same models and others can also help other jacks, such as the Stormclad or Centurion, for different over-all effects. You've also got other available buffs, such as Arcane Shield and so on.

Combos give you a lot of different ways to play the game. Packages do not. While on the surface they may look the same, a package (in this definition) is when you have only a single available or practical combination. Think about the Winter Guard. You have a basic unit and a number of bolt-ons. The Unit Attachment and Weapon Attachments are not combinations, they are optional add-ons to this one unit. The only actual "combination" here is Joe, and he only works for Winter Guard. Yes, in theory this means he can buff four different units, but he's mainly just used with one or two, and if you're taking the Infantry or Rifle Core, you are taking Joe. Full stop. There's no mix-and-match, no variety. It's a package. In practical terms it really just comes down to whether you want the basic Winter Guard Infantry Death Star ^TM, or the deluxe version with the weapon attachments.

I like combos: they keep the game interesting. I do not like packages: they just complicate your turn. I'm not saying packages don't have legitimate reasons to be in the game; they do, as it creates a risk-reward scenario: a package usually performs much better per point than any non packaged or buffed unit or model, but at the cost of increased vulnerability: take away the squishy buffing model and what's left suddenly under-performs (in theory at least, balance is always a tricky thing). It makes the game more tactical. Yes, combos have the same effect of forcing you to make tactical decisions, while being more interesting and varied, but they are also much harder to design and keep balanced.

So I'm not saying that packages are bad, only that I don't personally like them. Right now the game is already too complicated for me so adding complications that don't make my army more interesting doesn't appeal to me, but also I don't like how... scripted they are. There's no decisions to be made, no creativity. Taking Winter Guard? Take Joe. Playing Menoth? Take Choir. Taking a Hunter? Ooh, who should I take him with? My caster? Do I want to spare the focus? Do I have any battlegroup-only spells that are worth it with him? Gun mages? Are they worth taking in my army on their own merit, and do the magic bullet options make up for the lack of a boosted attack roll? Sword Knights? I'm taking the Journeyman anyway, shall I throw it on him or would that force me to play him too far forwards? So many things to try!

That's why, in recent forum threads, I've argued against Khador getting a choir-like unit, or solos that buff a very limited set of units or models. Having said that, I don't have such a problem with introducing new UAs, since they are actually part of the unit and so don't count in my head as a "fake combo" the way packages do. It's a perception thing more than anything else, although it's still better than something like the Choir; I mean a UA might be an auto-include if you're taking that unit, but the Choir is an auto-include in every army. That's just boring to me.

A game at last!

I finally got a proper game in! We played at 35 points, I ran a Harkevich list I'd quickly thrown together. I was trying to bring more anti-infantry than my old lists, and also to try to play without my usual complement of focus-supporting solos. The Juggernaut is there for cheap armour cracking, and the Berserker is an independent unit that fills six points (I didn't really have any other models I could put there except mechanics and solos), plus I like the idea of having an independent heavy that can stray far from my caster if need be.
Harkevich
-Demolisher
-Juggernaut
-Berserker
Nyss Hunters
Thor
-Basher
-Basher

My opponent was playing Skorne:
Dominar Rasheth
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Sentry
Agonizer
Gatormen
Swamp Gobbers
Paingivers
Some solos/UAs?

We played a scenario with two zones and two objectives that contest the zones. I won the roll-off and opted to go second. I chose the side of the table with a forest in the center so Harkevich could stand in it if needed.

He deployed centrally with his gators on my right. I placed the berserker on my far left, then the Nyss, the Juggernaut, Harkevich in the center, with the Demolisher then Thor's group on my right to face-off against the gators.

Turn 1
Everything runs up. He moves gators over to other side to get at Nyss.

I put out my upkeeps and toe the zones. As usual I positioned my intended Fortune target (the Berserker) too far from Harkevich, so I cast it on the Demolisher instead.


Turn 2
He kills some nyss with an AOE spell he arced through something. The AOE stuck around to do POW 12s to anyone that entered it.

The Nyss charge some gators and kill one or two (I got less charges than I could have because of the lingering AOE). The Bashers pronto up and shoot at the Agonizer: one boosts the attack and misses, the other aims and boosts damage for a total of three damage. The Demolisher can't get line of sight on the agonizer, so it shoots at  the Sentry with fortune and boosts the damage rolls, but rolls poorly on damage and does very little. Harkevich moves forwards enough to stay out of (or is that inside?) the killbox, but still toeing the forest. The Berserker runs up the far left side. The Juggernaut repositions to charge his Bronzeback if he kills the objective. I'm trying to keep my heavies safe from his Titans using the objectives, so if he destroys them I charge him.


Turn 3
He kills most of the Nyss with the gators (MAT 9), and the Bashers with the Sentinel. He kills Thor with the AOE spell. He destroys the objective on the left with the Bronzeback. The two surviving Nyss fail the leadership roll for casualties (to be fair they've already passed like 3 or 4 leadership rolls at this point; it seems Gatormen cause Terror or something).

Finally remembered to take a photo! The Agonizer is behind the ruin.

I can't allocate focus because of the Agoniser, and my heavies are too close to his Titans. Things aren't looking good, so I decide to just have some fun. The Demolisher Bulldozes the Sentry out of the way and moves past, taking a little damage from the free strike, and shoots twice at Rasheth. One misses and kills a Paingiver or something, the other hits. Pow 15 vs arm 14, but Rasheth only takes one dice from shooting attacks. I roll a two, for three damage. Which he transfers.

Now for the fun part: Harkevich feats and declares a charge at a Gatorman. He uses the feat shot to shoot at the Titan but at dice-7 does no damage (I didn't want to risk killing the Gatorman, unlikely as that was, as I needed the beat-back move). He kills the Gatorman with his charge attack (see, Nyss? That's how it's done!) and uses Beat-back to move up to the Agoniser. Which he kills. This handily leaves me with 3 focus (all part of my cunning plan!), which he uses to cast Broadsides. I forget to use Harkevich's own shot, but the Demolisher hits Rasheth again... and rolls a two again. This time he doesn't bother to transfer the damage. I was originally planning to charge the Bronzeback with the Juggernat in such a way that he ends up close enough for Harkevich to get the Escort bonus, but I decide to slam it instead, since at least that lets me kill a Paingiver. The Bronzeback takes no damage.

The two remaining Nyss move away from the Gators to clear up a charge lane from the Berserker and die to free strikes. The Berserker charges the two Gators, the charge attack hits and isn't enough to kill it (did not expect that!) and the second attack misses.

Hmm, looks like he's about to start scoring in the right zone...

Turn 4
The Bronzeback walks up and kills Harkevich.

He kicks sand in Harkevich's face.

Oops! I mean...

... he smacks Harkevich with his tusks.

Postmortem
Trying to flank with a Berserker doesn't really work, even if it has Pathfinder. I suppose I could have killed the Agonizer and camped 3 focus, on the feat, with the Juggernaut close enough for Escort, but I don't really believe that would have bought me another round. It was a fun game and I really enjoyed myself. It was my first time playing against Skorne, they kind of feel like Khador, but more so, if that makes any sense. Well, except for that Agonizer - how does such a tiny little baby elephant just shut down my army like that? Crazy stuff, but it highlights something about Warmachine: you can't just build a list to do one thing well, you need to have answers to different problems. From the sounds of it, one list can't answer all problems, which is why you have different lists in competitions. This game has many layers, huh?


After that game I lent my models to a Cryx player who didn't have his army. He had never played with Khador before. We changed the list a bit:
Harkevich
-Black Ivan
-Spriggan
-Juggernaut
-War dog
Koldun Lord
Nyss Hunters

Long story short, Black Ivan went straight for the Agonizer and took it out. The Gators murdered the Nyss even more thoroughly this time. The Juggernaut and Spriggan killed the objective and the Bronzeback under the feat, allowing Harkevich to toe the zone and score three points. Black Ivan charged the Gators and killed one and a support piece with the free shot. Even with an arm debuff partially countering the feat, the gators consistently rolled low and barely scratched him (not having the distance to charge helped), and on the last attack they missed, allowing him to use his dodge move to step between them and towards Rasheth. This caused him to keep his support models between his caster and Ivan rather than worrying about jamming zones. Meanwhile the remaining two titans together with the arm debuff spell just managed to destroy the feated Spriggan (the Sentinel missed once or twice - man that felt good!).

At this point the only models in the right zone were Harkevich, the Spriggan, the Juggernaut, a Titan, and a Paingiver. We discussed how best to clear the zone; the Juggernaut could throw the Titan out while Harkevich and the Koldun Lord could shoot at the Paingiver, but (with a little prompting from me) he chose a different path.

The Juggernaut moved away from the Titan over to the Paingiver, taking 6 damage from a free strike, and killed with a boosted attack. Harkevich charged the Titan and used Beat-back three times to push it out of the zone, leaving him to dominate it and win.


WOOHOO! My Spriggan killed a Bronzeback! Harkevich won the game using Beat-back! That's living the dream man! Yes, OK, that probably wasn't the smartest way to play it since it left Harkevich staring at a Titan, but it was fun. It was nice to see that my army can work when a good player is behind the wheel. Hopefully I'll be getting more games in from here on out.

Random Update

Between moving country, searching for a new job and trying to get up to speed in said job, I haven't really had much to say on the blog. But I recently finished assembling a model I've been working on for a very long time, and I decided it justified a post. Here's a couple of teaser photos:

After an unholy amount of effort the design finally came out looking pretty good.

The money shot! This was actually taken earlier, before I had fixed the pattern.

The model is one of my very favourite 40K models, I bought it at least three years ago and started working on the conversion about two years ago, but gave up when I couldn't find a good way to make the bases the way I wanted. However, when I finally managed to fit a battery in a normal(ish) looking base, I started looking at him again. Then I got busy with Warmachine models, then with moving and job hunting, then with Warmachine models again. And when I finally did start working on it again, I spent ages on little details that I wanted exactly right. I decided that it was finished and then realized I had forgotten something or wanted to change something about three times before I finally ran out of things to do. And (with the exception of the subject of the photos), all of the things I was doing were really very minor and subtle and most people probably would never notice if I don't point them out. But if I didn't do them, I would know. And I would never be happy with it.

Other than that, I finished assembling my Nyss grunts (Cylena still has a bit of work), and did some work on another model I'm trying to get to light up. Unfortunately I won't be able to paint any of them any time soon as it seems the only way to get spray primer in this country is to ship it in via surface post, which takes like two months. I did do a bunch of painting on another big project I've been meaning to finish for over two years though, I was very happy with that, though there's some more work to do yet.

I haven't been able to play very much Warmachine, but I gave my friends a few demo games. The Decimator is pretty good in battle box games; much more fun than the Destroyer anyway. We played on a plain table without any terrain and only a few painted models, but I'm planning on getting my hands on some nicer terrain, hopefully that will make it more enjoyable for people.


I've also started looking at my game engine again. OK, this needs a bit of background I think. At my last job, I was spending a good number of hours a day staring at a computer monitor coding, then coming back home and spending more hours staring at a computer monitor coding. Progress had slowed and I was getting tired, so eventually I decided to try to spend my limited free time on hobbies that didn't involve staring at a computer screen. Well, not quite as much any way.

Now let me back up a bit. Several years ago, I bought a laptop. Not my first, but the first one that I bought for myself. It was pretty much a middle spec deal, but it was nice and small (for the time). I really liked it, and still do. But a few years later I needed something more powerful for some work. So I ended up buying the most powerful laptop I could locally get off-the-shelf. It was a rather large laptop that I never really liked very much, but it did everything I needed it to at the time. I kept it for work and the older laptop for personal use. Until the older laptop started overheating and shutting down, so I retired it and moved to the larger one exclusively.

Recently I decided to try to see if I could get some use out of the older one, so I had the insides cleaned up - which seemed to solve the overheating problem - and installed...

No, hold on, let me back up again. Microsoft sucks. I've tried not to hate them, but lately they've really, really been getting on my nerves. I'm not going to go into it right now, but I'm done. No more Microsoft products for me. I've just been given a mac at my new job, and while I can see that it has a lot of great things going for it, there's annoying differences in the basic interface that make it a little uncomfortable for me.

... and installed Ubuntu on it. After a couple of false starts, I got it working properly. And it's very nice. It has the simplicity that Windows is missing and the comfort and familiarity that I'm not getting from my Mac. So yeah, I'm thinking it's on it's way to becoming my favourite OS. I'm hoping to convert my other laptop eventually, but I can't be bothered right now.

So I've been enjoying getting to use my old laptop again; I find it's keyboard and scrollpad very comfortable, the battery life has improved under Ubuntu, and unlike my larger laptop it doesn't burn me when I try to actually use it on my lap (yeah, that one might need the dust cleaned out as well).

What was I talking about? Oh yes, my game engine. Well, after resigning from my last job, I decided to try to do some reading up on computer stuff. That didn't get very far, but it did lead to a renewed interest in my engine. Hearing about old friends releasing their own games didn't hurt. Plus, one of my friends has a PS4 and it's been a struggle for him to find local multiplayer games, so I figured there's a market there...

Here's the thing. I used to work in Visual Studio, but now I want to start working in Ubuntu, so I've been converting my engine over to work with makefiles. It's actually been fun so far, but I've found myself wanting to change a lot of things in the engine itself, which has slowed things down a lot. Plus I want to go through and integrate unit tests into everything. So right now it looks like it's going to take a lot of work to get the engine actually running at all again, but hopefully when (if) it's done it will be more modular and more portable. Which is important if I ever get to the point of actually trying to produce something that other people can play.

What about game ideas? Well, I've had a few small ones. Nothing major, just small tweaks on standard formula, but it's all stuff that sounds fun to me and hey, it's a start. I'd love to be able to start posting about my engine again on this blog, so hopefully I can build up and sustain some momentum for a while. Fingers crossed.

Seasick Sanguinary Guard

I painted this model for a friend. I took it as an opportunity to experiment a bit, and the results are... interesting. I don't think it really suits the model, but painting gold this way might work for, say, an undead model or something like that.

I've nicknamed him "Seasick Steve" after the singer of the same name, simply because the name seems to fit. I was in a bit of a hurry to finish the model so I didn't spend as much time as I might otherwise have, but I think it still came out well except for the colour not really working for the model. Basically I painted it in normal golds and bronzes, then applied a green glaze, then drybrushed with gold. This turned out very greenish and not shaded enough, so I used Armypainter Quickshade strong tone on top of that, which reduced the green-ness by covering the deepest areas and generally adding a bit of brown.

The base was interesting; I was trying something new, the results are much more subtle than I expected, though still quite cool:

Basically after priming the model I stuck some little "battlefield rocks" on to match the rock that's part of the model's foot, then covered it all with a layer of Agrellan Earth. Once that had dried and cracked, I painted watered down orange into the cracks (it took several coats to get it to build up in some areas, seems it kept getting "wicked" into hidden hollows), then brushed on black, then drybrushed it with dark grey to avoid overpowering the orange. While the black looks quite flat and the orange isn't bright enough and the cracks are too small to be easily visible from more than a few inches away, it looks pretty good up close...


While I'm not satisfied with the model overall, I think it looks pretty good considering how much less time I spent on it than usual. It makes me feel that there is actually hope for me to paint a small army if I use a simple colour scheme and don't spend too much time on highlights, and use shortcuts like army painter. Maybe someday I actually will have a fully painted force on the table. Maybe. Hey, it could happen, right?

More Shooting Shenanigans

We had an extended day at the club and I was able to play a couple of games of Warmachine and an introductory game of Infinity.

We were using the Infinity quickstart rules, I found the game very interesting and a great deal of fun. Models are very fragile as a single shot can take one out of the fight, but there's a high degree of randomness involved so you could lose a model to the first shot of the game (as I did) or have two models flailing at each other for multiple turns without doing any good (as we did). I really like the reaction system; the game feels much less "my turn your turn" since you are reacting to your opponents moves. I also think the dice system is very cool, it's much harder to work out probabilities than in other games I've played, and while having better stats gives you an advantage it could always realistically go either way. And of course the models are amazing, although from my limited exposure to them I don't think that the factions have as strong a signature visual style as factions do in other games. Perhaps it's just more subtle and I'll pick up on it if I keep playing.


But back to Warmachine. I played my current Harkevich list against a Cygnar list that went something like:
pCaine
- Stormclad
- Sylyss
Rangers
Storm Blades with the UA and Gunners
Storm Lances (5)
Tempest Blazers (5)
Storm Blade Captain x 2

My opponent gave me a heads up on what the army could do and what Caine's strengths were. We rolled a scenario with two zones, each with an objective in the middle. I won the roll-off and opted to go second. He deployed most of his army opposite the objective on my left, with pretty much just the Tempest Blazers on my right. I deployed Torch and Thor's group to the right to deal with the Tempest Blazers, Ivan and the Demolisher on my left, the Nyss far to the left where they could run into the forest, and the mechanics behind the Jacks.

Round 1
He advances and casts a lot of buffs. I advance and cast the usual Escort on Harkevich and Fortune on Torch. I didn't use Thor's Drive as I didn't want to overextend the Blasters. Sylyss stays well back this time, and the Mechanics decide to stay back where it's safe.

Round 2
His Rangers and some Storm Lances do a number on the Nyss - the Rangers' ability to lower their defense basically makes them easy pickings, and he rolls pretty well. Also, electroleaps.

My army is the one with no paint on it. Sigh.

His Tempest Blazers take out Thor and some Engineers, and start to circle around behind my army. The Storm Blades (and a few of the Storm Lances) move up and try to take out the Demolisher, but between Cover, being engaged, and being armour 25, he barely scratches it. Because of the Killbox he moves Caine up a little and sits him between two pieces of the (very nice) generator terrain object.

In my turn I have an idea; I give Torch a single focus point and the Demolisher a single focus point. The Koldun Lord moves up and gives Black Ivan a focus point. I run Torch as far up as I can towards Caine then cast Broadside. The idea is to hit Caine with a fortuned spray attack; it won't kill him but it will do damage as he's not camping very much, and if it hits it can set him on fire. Problem is, I forgot that Warjacks have to be in Harkevich's control area to get the shot from Broadside, and I've run Torch too far forwards. If I had made sure to keep him in Harkevich's control area, or even moved Harkevich up first, it might have worked. Oh well. I use the Demolisher's shot to kill the Storm Lance engaging him (with help from a Blaster - the other does very little), and Ivan's shot to kill a Storm Blade Captain hiding way back behind the Storm Blades. Ivan then tries to kill the second Captain in his activation but is out of range; the deviation kills a Ranger (and possibly a Storm Blade). I don't want to open up the Demolisher; it's much more valuable contesting the zone and blocking his army, but I want to try to score, so I use a slam power attack against the objective. It doesn't do any damage. I pull my support models in to shield Harkevich from the Tempest Blazers; I know this only a temporary measure, but oh well. The remaining Nyss charge the Storm Lances; the two on the right miss, prompting Cylena to show them how it's done; she hits and rolls three sixes for damage, leaving the last Hunter with nothing to do. I like to think she cut both man and horse clean in half with a single swing.

Round 3
I don't think he likes where Torch is standing, because he decides to try to go for the caster-kill. He moves up Caine and uses Thunder Strike to slam Black Ivan into Harkevich. Unfortunately, because of the pylons sticking out from the terrain object I was hiding behind, I couldn't put the Battle Mechanic Officer in base contact with Harkevich, otherwise he at least would have stayed on his feet.

BTW that's a forest in the top right.

I don't remember why, but he took the opportunity to set the Stormclad on the Demolisher. It didn't do very much. His Rangers and Tempest Blazers then shot Harkevich to death.

Armour 18 isn't really enough to save a Warcaster from being shot to death.

The game was fun and I enjoyed seeing all that cavalry on the table. I like the idea of the fortuned shooty Jack running up and shooting at the Caster with Broadside (even if I screwed it up this time); perhaps a fortuned Destroyer or Behemoth together with Black Ivan could catch people by surprise? I was also impressed by how useful the Demolisher was in just holding people back; the terrain and objective helped a lot of course. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised however at how quickly the Nyss died thanks to the loss of a couple of points of defense.


My second Warmachine game was a 35 point game against a Mercenaries army. Against my better judgement I decided to drop the Nyss rather than a Warjack, and I also dropped Thor's group and put the Man-O-War Kovnik back in. To be fair none of them had been doing very much for me lately and it was getting a bit late so I didn't want to spend to much time stressing over army composition. His army included:
Gorten Grundback
- Driller
- Blaster x2
Forge Guard x2
Herne and Jonne
A girl and her pet bear (?)

I didn't take any photos and we ran out of time early in the game as the club was closing, but at that point I had made some mistakes in my positioning: I set up Torch at what I had judged was just in range to charge the bear or one unit of Forge Guard through rough terrain, the Kovnik about 8 inches away from the same unit of Forge Guard, and the Demolisher likewise about 8 inches away from the other unit of Forge Guard. The thing is, it turns out Forge Guard have Reach. My opponent had mentioned it, but I hadn't heard him and it just hadn't occurred to me that Dwarves would have Reach - I mean, seriously, would you expect them to? So they got the charge on the Kovnik and murdered him, and the other unit charged the Demolisher and put some damage on him. Also, after checking their card(s?), it turns out the Bear and his girl have Pathfinder so they were able to charge Torch. Luckily he was just out of range of the girl so the Bear wasn't able to get a gang bonus, but the bear still did a lot of damage (damned Warbeasts with their infinite Fury) then threw Torch out of Harkevich's control area, effectively crippling him.

With five minutes left, we decided to play on because I thought there was a chance I could pull off an assassination; I trampled the Demolisher over the Forge Guard and tried to shoot at Gorten. We were in a hurry at the time so we didn't spend long figuring out if it was legal or not, but in retrospect I don't think it was; Torch pull that trick because he has Virtuoso, allowing him to make ranged attacks in the same activation as melee attacks, but Demolishers don't have Virtuoso. Anyway, the Dwarves' free strikes crippled the Demolisher's left arm, so I didn't bother to buy a second shot because I forgot his guns aren't in his arms; I missed the first shot and the Broadsides shot, so we stopped there.


I was impressed by how strong a list that was: the Forge Guard are tough and hit hard and will kill Warjacks or infantry (if they can reach them), Herne and Jonne bring a fair bit of anti-infantry, and of course he's also got the Blasters for that, and then there's the Driller (which he can buff to P&S 21!) and the bear for even more armour cracking; the list is slow but can really dish out the pain. Even if I hadn't underestimated the army and gotten all my models charged, I still don't know how I could have won short of a lucky assassination run.

So this time I was up against two large Weaponmaster units with Shield Wall and Reach. So Weaponmasters can kill infantry, heavy infantry, and Warjacks; kinda makes me feel like any other kind of unit is a bit redundant. It just kind of feels like paper-rock-scissors-shotgun, and guess who's the shotgun.

I'm really starting to like the possibilities Harkevich brings for a ranged assassination, although I would need a more focused list to make the most of it - maybe it's time to give Behemoth a go? I think it's time to drop the Mechanics; I just so rarely do anything useful with them, especially with my Jacks moving up more quickly thanks to Escort. The Koldun Lord isn't doing very much either now that he's not marshaling a Jack (and he's a lot easier to kill without one to take shots for him), I think I'll drop him too. I think I need to trade Thor and co for some form of resilient infantry. Or Doom Reavers with the escort; you can never have too many Weapon Masters right? While I'd love to swap the Spriggan back in, I'm really starting to see the value of the Demolisher as a mobile wall that you can't ignore, and I'm not sure I'm done experimenting with Torch just yet.

I've have noticed that I tend to swap back and forth between the past and present tense when writing battle reports. I need to keep an eye on that.

Undead Cheese

I just played my first game against Cryx. I was running a small modification of my previous list:
Harkevich
- Black Ivan
- Torch
- Demolisher
- Sylyss
Mechanics (min)
- Officer
Koldun Lord
Thor Steinhammer
- Blaster
- Blaster
Nyss Hunters (max)

I don't remember my opponent's exact list, but it was something like:
pAsphyxious
- Harrower
- Cankerworm
- one of those little TMNT mouser droid things, not sure which one
Bane Thralls (max)
- UA
Banelord Tartarus
Satyxis Raiders (max), and some sort of attachment or supporting solo
A fat mechanic thing, I think it makes bomb zombies or something
Scarlock thrall (I think)


I forgot to take pictures so I can't remember exactly what happened, but I'll give at least a summary. First of all, my list: I was meaning to try this list last week but forgot to bring the right bits. I had a theory that Harkevich would run Torch better than Strakhov; between fortune and Broadside the flamer could be very effective. Throw the feat into the mix and Torch could potentially get three shots with the template with rerolls on them all in a single turn, that could help a lot with my infantry problem. I needed an extra point in order to afford Torch, so I decided to drop the Spriggan (sob) and give the Demolisher another go. I've been reading a bit about him so I think I have a better idea of how to use him now, with potentially up to four 4" AOEs in a single turn he should give me some good anti-infantry firepower... well, more than I had before anyway. Yes, I have less armour cracking ability than before, but between Torch and the Nyss it will probably do.

Let's talk about the Bane Thralls. I was expecting my opponent to bring Cryx, so I decided to read the Cryx section of the main rulebook again as a bit of preparation. Last time I learned what a pain Stealth could be, and at this point I'm pretty much terrified of Weaponmasters. So guess what Bane Thralls do? That's right, it's a unit of Stealthed Weaponmasters. So you can't shoot them, then when they reach you, they put out a lot of damage. But wait, there's more! They also debuff your armour just by being close to you (Dark Shroud I think it's called), so not only do they deal more damage, all the rest of your opponent's army does too. Oh, and his unit are also tough and have a mini-feat thing that lets them stand back up once for free. Lovely. A few of his other models also have Stealth, including Cankerworm. Which also has an armour-piercing attack, so that's another one I need to watch out for.

Now that's OK, I know there's going to be ways to deal with them. Problem is I'm not sure if my list has any. Well, my best bet is probably the Nyss; they're faster and have ranged attacks, so with care I can get them withing 5 inches and whittle him down a bit with shooting, or get the charge, and they have high defense, so they won't be completely wiped out up close. Plus, my list now has a lot of templates (which have a chance of doing damage) and sprays (which ignore stealth), so that's something, even if they are close-range weapons.


The scenario is one with two rectangular zones. I win the roll-off and opt to go second. He deploys everything centrally, with his Bane Thralls on my right and the Satyxis behind them. I deploy my Demolisher, Nyss, and Torch opposite his infantry, Ivan on the other side with the Koldun Lord, and the Mechanics spread out behind the Jacks.

Round 1
He moves forwards and spreads out his Bane Thralls in the zone on my right so it's almost impossible to get more than one with an AOE. Harkevich puts up Escort and Fortune on Torch. I run my guys up, except Black Ivan who takes a shot at a Bane Thrall. It misses automatically and the deviation isn't helpful.

Round 2
He moves up further. The Harrower takes a shot at Harkevich and kills off Sylyss, who was in base contact (I need to keep that guy farther back). Tartarus runs up to my Nyss and forces them to take a leadership check. Boxcars. Great. I'm still not clear on how failing leadership checks works, so I opt to not move the Nyss in my turn. They successfully rally though. At this point I'm worried about the Harrower, which if I understand correctly can shoot me through anything (filthy Cryx). So I decide to charge it with Black Ivan, even though I'm not sure it's in range. So I move my other two jacks up to take shots at the Bane Thralls, then I feat with Harkevich, then cast Broadside for some more shots at the Thralls. Ivan then declares a charge at the Harrower, taking his free shot at the Cankerworm. Which I forgot had Stealth, so he misses and does nothing. The problem is I didn't give Black Ivan enough focus as I wanted to maintain the upkeeps but had lost Sylyss, and I wanted Broadside as the Bane Thralls were still my primary concern. As a result Black Ivan did some damage (I think he took down the Harrower's gun), but not enough to wreck it. One Blaster moved up to where it could fire at the Thralls, taking a few points of damage off the Officer (had I known he was the officer before rolling for damage I would have boosted the roll, but I hadn't realised it from across the table), the other (which had the benefit of Thor's Tune-Up) tried to move up to a position where it could catch both Asphyxius and another model with it's spray, but I didn't realize Aspyxious had Reach and ended up putting it too close so it couldn't shoot. Sigh.

Round 3
Guess what? Bane Lord Tartarus has Reach, Weaponmaster, and Thresher. Oh, and he can curse a unit to drop their defense (in the same activation that he attacks it seems), so my Nyss' high defense didn't save them from losing half their number -including Cylena - to a single swing. But wait, there's more! I didn't just lose five Nyss, he also gained five more Bane Thralls that could activate in the same turn. Ugh, filthy Cryx. So the Bane Thralls are almost back up to full strength now (actually they might have been above full strength at this point). Luckily a few were knocked down and I was able to kill the guy who lets them stand back up, so they didn't all get to swing at me. Anyway, he did plenty of damage to Torch and the Demolisher but luckily they survived in working order thanks to Harkevich's feat (I think I had not opened the Demolisher at this point, just taking the shots from Broadside then closing him back up in his activation). He tried to cast a spell at Black Ivan but missed as he was engaged; I took the opportunity to use Dodge and move into base-to-base contact with Asphyxious. This was a mistake on my part; I was hoping for the chance to get a free strike on him, or possibly even to survive the turn so I could actually attack him. Unfortunately I moved before he had activated Asphyxious, the Harrower, or Cankerworm, so he devoted all three to try to kill Black Ivan, which he managed to do (the fact that he was able to use multiple armour debuffs didn't hurt his chances). Had I waited until later, I might have been able to move away after one or more of them had activated, and ideally during the Harrower's activation to rob it of some attacks, which might have been enough to survive and put him in a bad position, but oh well. Oh, and the Nyss failed their leadership roll for losing half their unit. Sigh.

I finally ask what's giving the Bane Thralls Tough. Turns out it's the Standard Bearer. So I hatch a plan to get rid of him; I wasn't sure this was legal but we discussed it and decided it was OK, and I've looked it up online since then and the consensus seems to be that it's fine. After Harkevich casts Broadside to help Torch clear some Thralls, Torch tramples up towards the Standard Bearer. He kills a couple of Thralls along the way and avoids any free strikes as any Thralls in range were knocked down from making Tough rolls. After trampling you can buy additional melee attacks, but Torch has Virtuoso, meaning he can make ranged and melee attacks in the same activation. I figured he couldn't make an initial ranged attack since you can make either initial attacks or a power move, but that didn't mean he couldn't buy additional ranged attacks. So he bought an attack and sprayed the Standard Bearer, finally ridding me of those annoying Tough rolls. The Demolisher tried to kill Tartarus and failed. The Nyss stood still then rallied again.

Round 4
Tartarus kills two more Nyss and a mechanic, generating three more Bane Thralls. The Thralls activate and kill off my Jacks. At this point I'm down to just Harkevich and a few machanics, so when his turn ends he scores a bunch of victory points and wins the game.


Post-game thoughts
So basically by the end of the game he had killed off almost my entire army and was only down most (but not all) of a unit of Bane Thralls? I know I'm not a very good player, but that was ridiculous. Of course between his good Tough rolls and respawning the damned things, I pretty much had to kill each one about three or four times.

The Nyss did NOTHING. I had a couple of unlucky rolls with them, and that was all it took. If I had known what Tartarus could do (and if I'd thought about it properly), I would have moved most of them away but left just one engaged with him, so he either killed just the one or took a free strike in order to try to reach more. Had the Nyss not frozen in fear, thing would have been very different as they were pretty much my best bet for dealing with the Thralls.

Thor and the Blasters didn't do very much. I know that they can be useful, but they aren't working for me so far; Thor tends to die early on and the Blasters keep getting engaged, at which point they suck.I really with they had Gunfighter.

Torch was pretty good in the game; Fortune really helped his spray, and getting two of them proved to be pretty much the most effective thing I had against the Bane Thralls, especially since even if they survived their tough rolls, they would still be on fire giving me one last chance to kill them.

The stat my Jacks have that's rather nice is their armour, but what good does that do when Cryx can drop my armour just by standing next to me, then can layer on two or three armour debuff on top of that?


Overall that was quite a painful match; I must say I'm not feeling an abundance of affection for the Cryx right now. Stealthed Tough regenerating Weaponmaster infantry who debuff you just by standing next to you? Yeah, nice going there PP.