Menite Jackspam

I got in another Warmachine game against Speedy. He was trying a fun list this time, while I had tweaked my previous list to make it legal in Wolves of Winter:
Strakhov 1
- Torch
- Juggernaut
- Destroyer
- Greylord Adjunct
Doomreaver Swordsman
- Greylord Escort
Nyss Hunters
- Valachev (free)
Koldun Lord
Forgeseer (free)

Speedy's list was in the Creator's Might theme:
Cyrenia 1
- Judicator
Avatar of Menoth
Severius 0
- Templar
Choir of Menoth (4)
Rhoven & Guard
Vassal Mechanic
Vassal x2 (free)


Pre-Game:
We rolled a Steamroller scenario, but it had like 7 scoring elements and I just felt like it would be too much. So after some waffling around I suggested we just play Hold The Line as it was fairly simply and neither too cramped nor too spread out (I ended up using a 50mm disc for the central flag because I only had 2 40mm discs and I didn't care anymore). I threw some forests on the table (well, we decided everything counted as a forest); I need to sort out some new terrain but I just don't know what would be a good choice and I don't want to have to paint anything really. Speedy won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I couldn't exactly ignore terrain the way I usually do with my infantry, so I had to work around the forests. I put my battlegroup on my left, and the Nyss Hunters in the middle. Speedy positioned his Judicator opposite my battlegroup, and kept his infantry behind his jacks. My Doomreavers went on my right.

Round 1:
Doomreavers apparated then ran forwards. I spread them all out, and also hid the Nyss behind the forest, as I was pretty sure the Judicator could put out a lot of AOEs. Strakhov put Occultation on the Nyss, Superiority on Torch, and Sentry on the Destroyer, and walked behind the forest. The Jacks ran forwards. The Greylords clouded themselves and walked up. In retrospect I could have given the Escort Stealth with a cloud if I had planned my turn properly, though it didn't end up mattering.

The Mechanic fixed up the Judicator a little, something (Rhoven?) gave him Eyeless Sight, Choir handed out Battle, etc. The Judicator did some damage to Torch and killed a couple of Nyss Hunters with drifts. The Avatar ran towards my Doomreavers and used Menoth's Gaze. Cyrena put Inviolable Resolve on the Avator and put a wall in front, then popped her Feat.

Round 2:
I don't remember if it was his normal or his Sentry shot, but I think the Destroyer put about six points of damage into the Judicator. The Doomreavers charged the DEF 12 ARM 23 Avatar and only put about 5 points of damage into him; not being able to hit him with Brittle Frost first was a unfortunate. The Escort simply based the flag. The Nyss ran up to engage models, with a couple also basing flags. Torch ran up to touch the flag on my left. The Juggernaut ran up, but made sure to stay further back than the Destroyer. Strakhov moved into the forest. The Koldun Lord advanced while trying to stay hidden from the Judicator.

The Avatar rolled 4 focus and killed four Doomreavers, leaving two knocked down. A pair of Choir I believe tried to finish one (which might not have been legal as I think they still sung Battle that turn?), but couldn't crack the armour. The Templar killed a pair of Nyss Hunters. Cyrena might have killed one as well? She put a wall in front of my jacks. The Judicator killed some Nyss Hunters and the Forgeseer, and put some damage onto the Destroyer. I scored two points for the side flags.

Round 3:
Strakhov filled up Torch and the Destroyer. The Destroyer put his Sentry shot into the Judicator or maybe the Templar. I probably should have used the Apparition move to shuffle the Greylord Escort behind the flag, but I forgot. I forgot to move him during their activation as well, so the Escort did nothing while the Doomreavers stood up. One Doomreaver killed two Choir, but without the charge the two attacks into the Avatar did nothing. Torch then charged into the Judicator and actually did good damage, crippling his right arm and only leaving a few boxes on that grid. The Koldun Lord shuffled as far back as possible while still keeping the Templar in LOS and range, before hitting the jack with Brittle Frost. Strakhov activated and recast Superiority onto the Destroyer, who I had intended to charge the Templar but I forgot I needed Pathfinder to go over the wall, and the flag was blocking me from making distance if I tried to charge around the wall. So instead I just put a double-boosted Bombard into the Templar (in retrospect I should probably have targetted the Judicator since iirc he doesn't get the target-in-melee defensive bonus, and I probably could have crippled his right grid). My last Nyss Hunter charged the Templar. The Juggernaut ran up to take Torch's place as a flag holder. I ended the turn at 4 points.

Since the victory condition for Hold The Line was simply to reach 5 points, Speedy was now in a bad position. The Mechanic fixed the Judicator's right-side systems. The Avatar finished off the Doomreavers. A Vassal ran to contest the flag on my right. The Judicator shuffled into range and shot down my Greylord Escort, put 10 damage onto Strakhov and killed my Adjunt, and put a heap of damage onto Torch, leaving his right arm crippled. Early in the turn the Templar used Road to War move to move in the general direction of my Destroyer, then at the end he looked to charge my Juggernaut but couldn't reach, so he just ran to contest instead. One warrior model based the central flag, giving Speedy a point.

Round 4:
Strakhov filled the Juggernaut and Destroyer. The Koldun Lord cast Brittle Frost on the Templar. Strakhov popped Feat and charged the Templar, then bought two extra attacks. He actually did good damage, leaving the Templar's shield crippled. Torch then charged into the Templar's back arc, hitting once with his good fist and then again with his crippled saw. Finally the Destroyer charged the Templar; he rolled a crit on his charge attack... but it didn't matter because the damage was enough to kill the Templar so the crit didn't matter. As usual. With the Juggernaut still sitting on the flag, I scored my fifth point for the win.

Post-Mortem:
I threw my army forwards as quickly as possible to push the lines of engagement back and let me score early. Speedy didn't really appreciate just how dangerous it was to let me get away with it, which is why he suddenly found himself in a pickle at the start of round 3. At this point he might have still been in the game if he committed to contesting flags. Trampling the Avatar over the Doomreavers to get to the Escort, or at least to get close enough to contest, would have freed up the Judicator to focus on my battlegroup and on getting close enough to contest, rather than having to move to my right to get into gun range of the Escort. If he had planned his moves better he could have moved the Templar directly towards the Juggernaut with Road to War (instead of blocking his direct path with a warrior model), which would have let him charge in and kill the Juggernaut. He could have also run more infantry models, like the remaing Choir, to contest flags rather than casting Battle (which he didn't really need all that much). Or he could have killed Torch with the Templar (possibly repositioning afterwards with Road to War, I'm not really sure how far he was at the start of the turn), freeing up the Judicator to charge my Juggernaut and possibly getting the Destroyer AND basing the flag all at the same time - three birds with one stone!

I think at the time he was being a bit too precious with his models, trying to keep the Judicator as safe as possible and focussing on killing my few remaining infantry models even though they weren't that big a threat. He probably should have swapped Inviolable Resolve off the Avatar since it wasn't really in any threat anymore, the other jacks needed it more by the end.

I think that was my last game with Strakhov. He didn't really do anything that game that any warcaster with a speed buff and free charges couldn't have. OK, I did have the option of just pushing the Templar away from my flag with two casts of Battering Ram, but... I never used Overrun (kind of hard when I can't kill anything at range, I'd have to charge the Juggernaut in to have a reliable chance of killing anything my battlegroup can actually reach), Sentry didn't do much, Occultation helped a bit but wasn't that big a deal, and I didn't exactly make the most of the Feat (as usual). The Koldun Lord didn't do much either, maybe someday.

I need some models that do more damage. It's kind of telling that even though I won, I barely killed anything; my death count for the entire game amounted to two Choirboys and a single jack at the end!

Meeting In The Middle

So I got a new mat. My old snow-themed mat really isn't great for photos, expecially with all my unpainted white-primed models. But the real reason I was shopping for a new mat, was to buy a cloth mat that would be easy to carry; neoprene mats are real nice to play on but a bit of a pain to carry around when you also need to carry a case of models and possibly terrain as well. I was worried that the cloth might slip around, and... yeah, it does. You need to be a little careful, and I think that it might be better to fold the mat to size when playing on an undersized table, as cloth hanging off the edge can get pushed around or possibly worse. So yeah, I'll be sticking to neoprene when possible. But this new one does look pretty nice.
Strakhov 1 (themeless)
- Torch
- Destroyer
- Juggernaut
- Greylord Adjunct
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats

I believe Speedy is discovering the joys of list building and optimisation.
Cyrenia 1 (Exemplar Interdiction)
- Reckoner
- Reckoner
- Hierophant
Sevy 0
- Fire of Salvation
Exemplar Warder
Vassal Mechanic
Exemplar Cinerators (5)
- Officer
Choir (4)
Idrian Skirmishers (6)
- Chieftan And Guide


Pre-Game:
We rolled mosh-pit from the big book. Water is kind of a pain and hills don't exist anymore, so we used my water and hill templates as forests and created a nice symmetrical forest with a couple of ditches in a tactically-important clearing. Speedy won the roll and chose to go first.


Deployment:
Speedy bricked up, with a gap in the middle to solve activation issues. Rather than run down the middle into his shield-wall, I thought I could try circling around him to attack from different directions, so I put my battlegroup to my left and my infantry to my right. The Idrians declared Prey on the Cutthroats, so I responded by declaring Prey on the Idrians.
Round 1:
Speedy advanced, surprising my by keeping his Cinerators in two separate groups. He held his Idrians back, putting up a wall to protect the frontmost models. The Cinerators got Inviolable Resolve and the Tough battle plan. Superiority went on Torch, Sentry on the Destroyer, and Occultation on the Juggernaut (no real reason why tbh). I sent my Cutthroats on a long flank, in the hopes of threatening his squishies behind the shield-wall. The Nyss set up in a forest. My Battlegroup advanced, with Torch flanking to my left.
Round 2:
Speedy moved his brick to toe the zone. Realising that the Idrians were disadvantaged against the stealthy Cutthroats, he moved them back to a defensive position. Cyrena placed a wall in front of my two warjacks, limiting my options somewhat. With the wall in place I would need to feat to charge over it - although I'd probably need the feat to make it into melee anyway. It looked like I had a clear line to Cyrena; I considered swapping Superiority to the Juggernaut and sending him in for the assassination, but I wasn't feeling too sure about the odds and I didn't really want to end the game on the second turn anyway. Instead I decided to try to thin his Cinerators and use Overrun to limit his ability to strike back.

I allocated an extra focus to the Juggernaut and Destroyer. The Destroyer rolled hot on his Sentry shot and killed the Heirophant. The Cutthroats continued pushing up, taking a couple of back-strike shots into a Cinerator and leaving him on one box. I figured P0W 10, or even POW 15, wasn't likely to crack ARM 23, so I shuffled all the Nyss forwards to take one big shot into the injured Cinerator. Naturally the Nyss did what they do. I swear. Every. Damned. Time. It's always when I go for one big CRA that my Nyss just shrug and go "Nah". Anyway. Strakhov put Overrun on both the Destroyer and Juggernaut, moved up just enough to get some Cinerators in range, and Feated. Torch charged a Cinerator, failed to do any damage to anything with his flamethrower, then exactly met the Cinerator's ARM value on two damage rolls, and ultimately ended up not killing him (I think he passed a Tough roll and was left knocked down). The Juggernaut and Destroyer then went in, and managed to kill one Cinerator each. Using the two Overrun moves I walked the Juggernaut backwards (taking a fair bit of damage and being set on fire from free strikes) and moved the Destroyer up to help distract and try to block access to the Juggernaut.
Round 3:
After a whole bunch of Vengeance strikes my Destroyer was not in great shape - and that was before models even started to activate! By the time all the buffs had been handed out and the attacks made, all my jacks were gone. The Idrians moved to block LOS to Cyrena. Oh, and one Reckoner missed a shot at my Nyss. Cyrena was sitting on 1 Focus. If Strakhov was couple of incheces farther forwards he might have been able to charge a Cinerator and Overrun into Cyrena, but as-is I would have to go for a ranged assassination. So my Nyss Hunters took two CRAs: the first knocked down one Cinerator (creating a window for Strakhov), the second put 4 damage onto Cyrena. Strakhov was then able to walk up into gun range. I rolled two for the riot gun and put two double-boosted shots into Cyrena: one did 5 damage which was reduced to 0 with Focus, and the second did 10 damage which was shield-guarded. Finally I cast Battering Ram but missed. The Cutthroats advanced and cleared most of the Idrians but couldn't get any actual shots into Cyrena.


Round 4:
A fully-buffed Fire of Salvation took down Strakhov with just his initials.
Post-Mortem:
I actually enjoyed this game more than the last one. I'm not exactly sure why, but I think it's because it was faster and more streamlined: there were big swingy turns, desperate last-ditched Hail-Mary's; everything you want in a good game, without dragging on too long. The Idrians could NOT deal with the cutthroats, but the Cutthroats couldn't really hurt any front-line models except the Idrians (not without getting into their back-arcs anyway), so the two units kind of just cancelled each other out a bit. The Nyss Hunters had the potential to do damage if I charged them in, but dice-14 is intimidating even for charging weaponmasters. I probably still should have done it I guess? My dice were pretty poor on that big turn where I charged everything in, but were OK for the rest of the game and were pretty hot last game, so it all evens out in the long run. By the way: Speedy passed 100% of his tough rolls in this game! Talk about just rolling better!

I'm not sure what I should have done instead of charging the Cinerators with my jacks; the scenario didn't give me too many options after all (on the other hand I didn't have any solos to score flags with, so...). Maybe I should have fully-loaded up Torch and sent him in then yo-yo-ed him back, keeping the other two in reserve and giving up points for a couple of rounds? Then when the Cinerators wheren't blocking charge lanes anymore I could have Feated and sent in my jacks on his? I dunno, I don't feel like I'm playing Strakhov very well, I'm not sure if I should keep trying or if I should switch to another caster with more hitting power. The idea of bringing an army that can reliably crack armour is feeling very attractive right now.

The First & Last SR2021 of 2021?

So, Warmachine. I'm as surprised as you are. I wanted to run a simple list without too much support bloat. The idea was to leverage Torch's mobility to take out softer targets early, and soften up harder targets with shooting. Alexia would stand back and accumulate Risen, kept safe by Occulatation, until she could help finish off hard targets late-game after our forces were depleted. The Adjunct would keep Strakhov at 6 focus and allow my Destroyer to shoot at Passage'd warjacks.
Strakhov 1 (themeless)
- Torch
- Destroyer
- Greylord Adjunct
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
- Valachev

Speedy did a lot of research when putting together his list. I had never even heard of his Warcaster tbh, and it's been a long time since I read up on Protectorate models so I didn't really know what I was looking at.
Cyrenia 1 (Exemplar Interdiction)
- Templar (Proxied by The Avatar)
- Guardian
- Devout
- Hierophant
Severius 0
- Repentor
Cinerators
- Officer
Choir (min)
Exemplar Errants (min)
Knights Exemplar
- Officer


Pre-Game:
For convoluted reasons relating to how PP makes the rules available, we decided to play a mission from SR2021... on the last day of 2021. Problem is it's been a LONG time since I've read a Steamroller document, and I was too busy to check up on the rules before we started, so I was relying on Speedy as he had actually read the document. I think this was his first time playing Steamroller though, and it introduces a number of complications over the original rulebook missions, such as specific scoring elements only being scored by specific model classes, etc. So yeah, we were not too sure what we were doing.

Anyway, we rolled for mission and got Recon II. I did my usual crappy job of spreading out terrain symmetrically. I'm really not good at laying out terrain; a single piece of terrain in the wrong place can have such a huge effect on Warmchine, especially when the game gets really cramped in the center, that I tend to instinctively be very conservative; it just feels more fair somehow? I dunno. We used empty 50mm bases for objectives, but I forgot to bring something to use as flags so we used my Butcher1 and a barbarian to stand in for the flags.


Deployment:
Speedy won the roll and chose to go second. He picked the Observatory and I went for the Armoury. Prey went on the Errants.

Round 1:
I spread out my infantry, trying to keep my distance without staying too far back. Alexia ran out of Valachev's command area. While my original plan was to put Superiority on Torch, I decided to get cute and start off with it on the Destroyer and swap it to Torch next turn. This meant I couldn't put Sentry on the Destroyer, so I put it on Strakhov instead. Occultation went on the Risen. Strakhov charged the Cinerators for distance. The Adjunct put a cloud on Strakhov for no particularly good reason.

Speedy pushed up, handing out a whole lot of spells and buffs and things. The Errants used the objective to shoot at my Cutthroats and Nyss (we mistakenly thought it allowed the whole unit to ignore Stealth), leaving Alexia with 4 corpse tokens.

Round 2:
I made a lot of mistakes this turn. I used Strakhov's sentry shot to put down a random cloud on the off-chance that it would help me (though I was afraid it might actually inhibit the Destroyer if the scatter was unlucky). I was not happy with the +1 to EVERYTHING ALWAYS nonsense that Sevvy0 was handing out, and I realised he was in range of my Destroyer. It was kind of marginal without Superiority though; I could have activated him, moved up to take the shot, and then activated Strakhov to recast it on Torch, but I really wanted to use Overrun to move the Destroyer back to safety and I wasn't sure I could trigger it off anything else. So I activated Strakhov before the Destroyer, cast Overrun on the jack, and took a couple of shots at the Cinerators, dropping one to 1 box. The Destroyer walked up and was able to kill Sevvy with the bombard. I walked him backwards a little out of the threat range of the heavies, but because I had moved Strakhov up too far I didn't want to pull the Destroyer too far back so I left him more exposed than he would have needed to be if I hadn't gotten greedy with Strakhov.

The Cutthroats and Nyss Hunters took out all but one of the Errants and one of the Knights.Torch moved up to block access to my flag (or more specifically to the Adjunct who was now basing the flag). Alexia ran back into cohesion, and I used some Risen to further screen the Adjunct.

So I guess putting damage onto the Cinerators let them move 3", putting then in range to attack Strakhov (although I guess with Dash they were technically already in range since he hit one with a RNG10 gun). The Devout got Battle and Positive Charge and charged Torch; at P+S 17 it did more damage than I had originally expected from a light. Two Cinerators charged Strakhov and the rest went into the Destroyer. Torch and the Destroyer were both knocked down to around half health, but after spending focus Strakhov only lost a box or two. The Errants and Knights killed a few of my infantry. Cyrenia took the Repentor into her battlegroup.

Round 3:
Things were not looking too good for me; the lines had closed with me eating a (mild to be fair) alpha, meaning that I couldn't really take advantage of Strakhov's speed. His heavies were staring me down now, but eating free strikes from Weaponmasters was not an appealing idea so I couldn't really back away. I loaded up the Destroyer and Torch. The Risen activated to clear some room that I needed, and tried to jam the Guardian and Repentor - not a great plan against a spray, but what else could I do. Alexia also created a Thrall. I left Superiority on the Destroyer, using him to kill four of the Cinerators. Torch walked up and wrecked the Devout, then Sprinted a measly 4 inches back. Strakhov repositioned (out of the Killbox as I later realised) to put some distance between himself and all the heavies, failed to break armour on the injured Cinerator, and decided to camp his focus. My infantry finished off the Errants and most of the Knights, clearing the zone. The Thrall then ran up to distant flag.

I believe the Guardian trampled over the Risen, but was still able to kill Torch. The Templar charged the Destroyer, crippling most of his systems (including his cortex and axe). The Repentor killed an infantry model or two. The remaining Cinerators whiffed their attacks on Strakhov. The last Knight moved towards my Thrall; he couldn't charge as he was facing the wrong direction, and was just out of walking melee threat range.

Round 4:
My Nyss Hunters charged whatever they could and did nothing at all. The Cutthroats finished off the last Knight, then transferred Prey to the Choir as it turns out your can't put it on an objective. The Destroyer, at MAT 9, needed a 2 on one dice to hit a Cinerator, and whiffed. Alexia charged the Guardian in the back; her Risen actually did four points of damage iirc before she attacked. She started the turn with 17 Risen, and managed to kill the Guardian with just one Risen grunt left. The Adjunct managed to cast Frostbite on the uninjured Cinerator without having to roll on Strakhov, knocking him down to just one box - same as his friend. Strakhov killed one Cinerator, cast Overrun, killed the other, and then used Overrun and Sprint to head over to the other objective, trying to maintain his distance from Speedy's jacks. I chose to camp the focus, but I wonder now if I could have done something useful with Ram?

The Templar with Battle and Positive Charge easily finished off the Destroyer. The Repentor trampled up to Strakhov, killing the last Thrall and dealing 9 damage to Alexia. I could have kept Alexia alive on 1 health by sacrificing Valachev, but decided to keep Valachev instead. With a couple of bought attacks, the Repentor only managed to do a point or two of damage to Strakhov.

Round 5:
According to my scorekeeping, if I could score three points this turn I would win. So Strakhov simply ran from the Repentor, making it into the left zone. The Cutthroats charged the objective and were unable to kill it. The Nyss Hunters were unable to charge due to positioning issues, so they walked up and attacked instead, but were unable to finish it off. This left me a point short.

Speedy shuffled some stuff around, killing my Adjunct and objective. Looking at the score sheet, it seemed that I would be 5 points ahead at the end of my next turn so we called the game here.

Post-Mortem:
It was a VERY long game, and my recollection of the rules was EXTREMELY rusty, so were were constantly running into situations where I couldn't remember what the correct rule or interaction was, and we were pretty exhausted by the end of it. I think I was making mistakes in basic hit/damage match by the last round. I'm pretty sure we screwed up the scoring; I was ahead, but I'm not sure that I was 5 points ahead.

We got a lot of small things wrong or made silly mistakes. The Devout might have been able to shield-guarded Sevvy, for example. I should not have left Strakhov that far forwards just to try to put out some damage; that pretty much cost me my jacks as I did not want to pull them so far back as to be BEHIND Strakhov. Also I gave away two points to the Killbox.

I wonder if we should "warm up" to the game again using small-point games, so we sort out the rules in our heads and stuff; once we start playing faster and more confidently we can probably go up to 75 point games and get through them fast enough that the game doesn't feel like it's dragging.

Anyway, I want to get to play with Torch's Sprint, but he's just kind of pillow-fisted. It hurts to have my warjacks top out at P+S 17, but I need something like a Destroyer to trigger Overrun. So either I swap some infantry for a Juggernaut, I swap the Destroyer for Behemoth, or I swap Torch for something that can actually hit hard.

I mean, Torch is just so expensive. He's more expensive than Beast 09 now! He doesn't hit hard enough to be a melee jack, and he's guns are far too crappy for him to be considered a gun jack - he's a 17 point heavy with a 6" spra; the Repenter is a 7 point light yet has an 8" spray! Torch is not exactly a utility jack either; Relentless Charge and Flare do not feel all that valuable to me. They could at LEAST give him an Alchemical Mask! Well, immunities are nice sometimes I suppose.

2021 End Of Year Report

Honestly, 2021 was rough for me. I kind of feel like I'm improving in some ways, but slipping back in a whole lot of others.

Old Resolutions
Nope.

1. Plan My Time
I started trying to use the planner, but I was never able to stick to the plan, and then I just stopped using it. Didn't seem to be any point.

2. Stick To A Good Routine
Ha ha, no.

3. Eat Better
Well, I've made some progress here perhaps, but not nearly enough.

4. Take Better Care Of My Home
Um, I'm not doing too badly here, but I'm not doing very well either.

5. Stop Chasing Mental Stimulation
I don't think I've made much progress here, no.


New Resolutions
Since making lots of life-changing resolutions doesn't seem to be getting me anywhere, this year I'm going to try to make thing easier.

1. Take Better Care Of Myself
I don't know how exactly to do this, but I will try to keep the idea in mind: I need to things that are good for my physical and mental health, rather than getting consumed with the idea that I have to get "stuff" done and not doing what I need for myself.

2. Make Plans
That means writing lists; to-do lists, day plans, etc. Perhaps I need to try to be more flexible? Or maybe the opposite? I dunno.

3. Work On The Hobby Models I Like, Rather Than The Ones I "Need"
Pretty much this whole year, and much of last year too I believe, I've spent most of my hobby time on models that I liked, but didn't love, because they were what I needed for a game I wanted to play. Monpoc, Warcaster, etc. This year I'm going to go back and finish some of the many, many models that I was once passionate about, but that I ended up putting aside "temporarily" before they were done and never actually going back to.


I really need to make some changes to my life this year. Let's give this another go I suppose.

Experimental Apes

I finally got some Empire of the Apes units done. I started with the specialists so I could try some tests and see what I liked. I tried to use similar colours to my King Kondo, with the addition of a military green as a sort of "faction colour". However, Kondo himself was a little labour-intensive and didn't exactly turn out perfectly, so I tried to streamline the process somewhat.

All the ape units were primed in Vallejo 73.660 Surface Primer Gloss Black. I intially tried to airbrush some basecoats over that, but found it was too dark and the colour was too hard to build up. So instead I gave all the ape units a basecoat of P3 Menoth White Highlight that I could layer the actual colours on top of. I then airbrushed some rough basecoats of Vallejo 72.730 Game Air Goblin Green where needed. With the airbrushing done, I started on the Command Ape first. I found him surprisingly enjoyable to paint, so I ended up taking my time, using specific washes for every colour, that sort of thing.

Command Ape
The fur was basecoated with Citadel Layer Skrag Brown, then drybrushed Formula P3 Rucksack Tan to bring out the texture. I then drybrushed the upwards-facing surfaces with a mix of Rucksack Tan and Vallejo 71.132 Model Air Aged White. I followed this with a wash of Citadel Shade Nuln Oil, then Citadel Wash Ogryn Flesh.

The skin was basecoated in Vallejo 70.992 Model Color Neutral Grey, then I applied some rough highlights with the Aged White. I then washed with Nuln Oil to darken and shade, then with Citadel Shade Seraphim Sepia to introduce more of the warm tones (as I had found neccessary with Kondo).

I filled in the eyes with Menoth White Highlight before painting a dot of Green Stuff World 1832 Acrylic Color Redwood Brown. After cleaning it all up I lined the outside of the eyes with Citadel Shade Agrax Earthshade.

I painted both the teeth and fingernails with Menoth White Highlight, but then I applied a light glaze of Citadel Shade Seraphim Sepia.

For the leather I chose Citadel Colour Snakebite Leather, which I hoped would stand out from the fur. For the brass bits I just added a couple of layers of Citadel Layer Gehenna's Gold over the Snakebite Leather. I shaded with Agrax Earthshade, which also made the leather darker and more saturated.

The dark grey areas were just Vallejo 70.862 Model Color Black Grey shaded with Nuln Oil. For the steel I wanted to stick to slightly darker tones, so I used Vallejo 71.072 Model Air Metallic Gunmetal shaded with Nuln Oil again.

For the details on the back, I used Formula P3 Morrow White and GW Scab Red. The screen was basecoated in Green Stuff World 1796 Acrylic Color Kraken Green, text painted on in Scalecolor SFG-22 Fantasy & Games Surfer Orc Flesh, then it was glazed with Citadel Glaze Waywatcher Green.

Finally the green armour was washed with Citadel Shade Athonian Camoshade, then I airbrushed on Vallejo 25.517 Acrylic Varnish Gloss followed by Vallejo 26.518 Acrylic Varnish Matt.

While I was very happy with the results, I wanted to cut the painting time per-model. So for the Ape Infiltrator and Rocket Ape, I tried to limit myself where possible to just basecoats and a dip.

Ape Infiltrator & Rocket Ape
I used the same basecoat of Citadel Layer Skrag Brown for the fur, followed again by a drybrush of Formula P3 Rucksack Tan. For the second drybrush however I just used Vallejo 71.132 Model Air Aged White.

The skin was also basecoated with Vallejo 70.992 Model Color Neutral Grey, and roughly highlighted with Aged White. I followed this with a wash of Citadel Shade Seraphim Sepia.

The fingernails were again painted in Formula P3 Menoth White Highlight with a glaze of Seraphim Sepia. I accidentally used Aged White for the eyes instead of Menoth White Highlight. The dots in the eyes were Green Stuff World 1832 Acrylic Color Redwood Brown again, but I didn't outline the eyes this time.
The leather was just Snakebite Leather again, with the brass details again picked out in Gehenna's Gold. The grey hardware was just Vallejo 70.862 Model Color Black Grey, the steel was Citadel Base Leadbeltcher this time (which is very close to the Vallejo Model Air Gunmetal, but in theory should have better coverage).

I painted the rope and canvas with Rucksack Tan, and then highlighted with Formula P3 Menoth White Base. Wood was simply Citadel Layer Doombull Brown. Any red details were painted in Vallejo 72.711 Game Air Gory Red (I didn't want them to be too bright and eye-catching, but perhaps this was too dark?).

I picked out the holes in the rocket launcher in Vallejo 70.950 Model Color Black. The Rocket Ape's beret was basecoated in Vallejo 72.729 Game Air Sick Green and highlighted with Vallejo 72.732 Game Air Escorpena Green. The lenses on the Infiltrator's goggles used the same Escorpena Green, and the concrete under his fist was the same Vallejo Black Grey but drybrushed with Vallejo 70.989 Model Color Sky Grey.

Once that was all done, I gave the two models a dip in The Army Painter Quickshade Dip Dark Tone, making sure not to let it pool too heavily anywhere. After letting it dry, I airbrushed on a coat of Vallejo 26.518 Acrylic Varnish Matt.

Although the results were not identical to the Command Ape, the quickshade worked quite well over most of the surfaces. It might not have done all that much over some of the darker colours; with these two models that didn't seem to be a problem, but it's something I might need to watch out for on others. The main issue I had was that the fur ended up much lighter than I would have liked, and is also too close to the colour of the leather. I could go back to washing the fur with Nuln Oil (as well as the dip of course), but I think I might get better results if I just paint the fur in darker browns to begin with. I think I'll try that next time.


Overall I think all three models look good, and they were more fun to paint than some of the larger or fiddlier models I've worked on recently. They took a lot longer to paint than my Terrasaur units, for obvious reasons, but they're still not too bad. I have another 12 apes to go, but sadly I have no idea when I'm going to have time for them. Nevermind more UCI...

Strike, Raptor!

Speedy and I finally sat down for our second game of Warcaster. Needless to say I had to read the rules again seeing as it's been over a year since our first game. Our lists were a little larger this time; I was running:
Artemis Fang hero solo
Coalition Weaver solo
Hunter solo x2
Ranger Fire Team sqaud
Ranger Infiltrators squad (proxied with G.U.A.R.D. Exo-Armours)
Dusk Wolf light warjack (Talon Rocket Pod, Battle Rifle, Ripper Saw, Neural Net cortex)
Strike Raptor heavy warjack (Railgun, Railgun, Battle Rifle, Battle Rifle, Ace cortex)

Speedy had:
Justicar Voss hero solo
Paladin Weaver solo
Paladin Commander solo
Paladin Seigebreaker solo
Paladin Enforcers squad
Palading Defenders squad
Firebrand light warjack (Harbringer Cannon, Fusion Glaive, Repuslor Shield, Jack Hunter cortex)
Morningstar heavy warjack (Gate Crasher, Maelstrom, Heavy Fusion Glaive, Dauntless cortex)


Pre-Game
We played Skirmish (so three pulse rounds of three turns each) and rolled the first mission, with three objectives. BTW I was using the WNM card tokens, but to avoid mixing my tokens with his Speedy agreed to use some WMH acrylic tokens (Focus tokens were Arc, spell tokens were used for activation markers). We used the pulse round tracker to track turns, with a dice tracking the rounds. Speedy won the roll-off and chose to go first. He deployed his Weaver behind the close objective on my left, and his Morningstar behind the central objective on my right. I mirrored his deployment with my Strike Raptor and a Hunter. I put the Strike Raptor behind cover, but with LOS to the objective.

Pulse 1.1
Speedy advanced his Weaver a few inches to the objective. He charged his Morningstar, advanced it, and used the Gatecrasher to put down a gate with three Arc. In the Deployment phase he summoned a Firebrand and Justicar Voss from the new gate, which collapsed. He then summoned a new gate from Voss (seems I took the photo before he put the gate down). I charged my Strike Raptor and started putting shots into the Firebrand, but couldn't kill it. The Hunter advanced slightly, but stayed out of LOS. I put down a gate with four Arc next to the Hunter.
Pulse 1.2
Speedy pushed the Firebrand and Voss right into the Strike Raptor's face, but Voss couldn't get into melee range and thanks to cover the Firebrand wasn't able to do much. Finally he deployed his Seigebreaker and Enforcers from the new gate, which collapsed. All my units had activation tokens, so I was able to clear the tokens and activate again. I put a second Arc on my Strike Raptor and continued to fail to kill the Firebrand (on account of him benefitting from the same cover as I was). The Hunter started to make his way towards Speedy's objective, but was able to kill an Enforcer on the way. In the deployment phase I deployed my Weaver, Dusk Wolf, and Artemis Fang next to my objective, collapsing the gate.

Pulse 1.3
Speedy cleared the activation token off of Voss using a Cypher, allowing Voss to finally get in and start doing damage. He also activated his Enforcers, but they weren't able to do very much. Finally he put down a gate.

I finally brought the Strike Raptor up to 3 Arc. I took a couple of shots with Artemis Fang before repositioning her, but she whiffed, leaving cleanup duty to the Dusk Wolf. Between them they only managed to kill two Enforcers. Finally I put down a gate in a protected spot near the center of the table.

Pulse 2.1
I don't remember exactly what happened here, I think Speedy might have continued to try to kill the Strike Raptor, but at +3 DEF he was proving stubborn. Anyway, Voss repositioned towards my objective, then Speedy brought in his Defenders (again, photos are out of sync with the action).

My Strike Raptor rolled hot and finally took out the Firebrand, then started to make his way towards the objective.

Looking at the photos now, I probably should have spiked for Flight as that would have let the Strike Raptor score this turn, but I had spent the entirety of last pulse round charging him up so I was reluctant to part with the Arc now. My Hunter repositioned and whiffed a shot at something. I deployed my Ranger Fire Team and then put down another Gate towards the Morningstar.

Pulse 2.2
The Morningstar advanced to the objective, shooting at my Strike Raptor but not managing to kill him (I think a Cypher was used here?). So instead Voss went back and slammed my Strike Raptor off the table (luckily only a couple of weapons and an arm broke off when he hit the floor... j/k). The Defenders put some damage onto my Dusk Wolf and Weaver, but couldn't clear my objective.
I think I charged the Dusk Wolf. My Weaver and Dusk Wolf killed a couple of Defenders but couldn't clear the unit, so they couldn't score. I deployed my Infiltrators and my second Hunter, collapsing my Gate, but then I placed a new one even closer to the Morningstar.

Pulse 2.3
Speedy finally activated the Seigebreaker, who killed my Dusk Wolf. I believe he also scored with his Weaver.
I killed his final Defender with Artemis Fang, then moved my Fire Team up to block the Seigebreaker's access to my objective. I considered using their grenades to try to collapse his gate, but instead decided to focus-fire on his Seigebreaker; that thing can put out a lot of damage. I used a Cypher to move my Infiltrators up to his Weaver so he wouldn't be able to score at the start of next turn. Finally I deployed my Strike Raptor again.

Pulse 3.1
The Morningstar moved in to melee with my Strike Raptor, managing to do some damage and inflict a System Failure. Luckily we rolled melee weapons, of which my Strike Raptor had none. He also used the Gatecrasher to put down a Gate behind my Strike Raptor. The Seigebreaker killed off my Weaver and Fire Team. I think we hadn't yet adapted to the fact that you can shoot THEN move, as looking at the photos now I suspect he could have scored this activated if he had done so. Speedy collapsed his Gate to summon a Paladin Commander behind his Seigebreaker.

I moved Artemis Fang between the Commander and my objective, putting some shots into the Seigebreaker and also scoring. My Infiltrators took down Speedy's Weaver and scored on that side too. I deployed a Weaver behind my Strike Raptor, collapsing that Gate, but then put down a new one between Artemis and the Commander.

Pulse 3.2
Voss advanced and scored the centeral objective. The Commander advanced and tried to destroy my Gate; I think he might have knocked an arc off it, but I don't really remember.

I charged my Strike Raptor, then cleared Artemis Fang's activation token with a Cypher. She put 4 attacks into the Siegebreaker, finally managing to finish him off. The Strike Raptor Spiked to fly over to the objective, putting all his attacks into Justicar Voss. Only the last attack actually hit, and Voss Spiked to ignore the damage. Finally I deployed my Fire Team and second Hunter, trying to use them to body-block the Commander from reaching my objective. In retrospect I should have been able to put down a couple of gates to make it even harder... oh well.


Pulse 3.3
I believe I was up by one here; Speedy had already scored the centeral objective, so he would need to score one of the remaining objectives, both of which were surrounded by my models. So he used a cypher to give his Morningstar +2 speed and Flight, moving it up to shoot at Artemis and my Hunter, but he whiffed his rolls. The commander was able to move around my models and reach the objective, but he failed to kill Artemis and so couldn't score, leaving me with the win.

Post-Mortem
I don't really remember what happened last time, but I feel like the game went better this time, with us understanding and using more of the rules. Obviously we still made a TON of mistakes, and looking back I can see how we could have played various turns better, but I still feel things came together better this time, and I was able to get a better sense of the flow of the game. Things like the dice system being more swingy than I expected, Arc being harder to get out and keep on your models than I had realised, and Gates just popping up ALL OVER the place! I was surprised by how quickly Speedy was able to bring in a whole bunch of reinforcements, while I literall wasn't able to activate any new models until the last turn of the first pulse round; that Gatecrasher is pretty cool!

I went into the game planning on putting all my resources into the Strike Raptor, to take advantage of the offensive and defensive bonuses it gets when charged, so I spent the entire first pulse round charging it up. It ended up doing less damage offensively than I expected, partly because I allowed my targets to get cover in order to stay in cover myself. It did prove very resilient, but that was in large part because I messed up the rules and was rolling extra Power dice instead of extra Action dice for the extra defense from the Arc. Which reminds me: I wish PP marked the rules with Power dice and Action dice icons the way they do sometimes in the Monsterpocalypse rulebook, as-is it's too easy to read a rule in a hurry and not pay attention to which kind of dice you are supposed to add.

On a related note I felt Artemis also under-performed slightly on the offensive front, but overperformed defensively - which got me the win, so no complaints I suppose. I was actually rolling lots of Blast damage attacks with Artermis, and a few with the Dusk Wolf, but we completely forget about the ISA's Compound Armour. I actually found summoning too many units was a problem, because I believe there was at least one instance near the end where I would have been able to clear my activation tokens and gain an advantage if I didn't have my useless Weaver sitting around un-activated. The activation system does take some getting used to. Speaking of, so far the most useful Cyphers I've found were ones that cleared activation tokens. I really didn't get too much value out of my Cyphers this game. And for some reason I really don't like Furies; yes, they are free attacks, and that's fine, but... they are a little limited, and a free attack just doesn't feel that interesting. Well, it's partly my fault for not spending any time on building my Rack.

Overall it was a very close game right to the end (that probably would have gone to Speedy if we hadn't messed up so many rules), and it was a lot of fun. But it was also kind of exhausting. Obviously not knowing the rules well enough or being familiar enough with the game overall was a big factor here, but also the constant back-and-forth activations with very little down-time, the complexity of the turn and activation system, models popping up all over the place all the time, and the back-and-forth flow of Arc made it a whole lot more mentally taxing than Monsterpocalypse (which, while deep, still seems easier to "autopilot" if you don't feel like thinking too much).

It also made it much harder to write a battle report for! There's so many more turns in WNM than in WMH, with models not just being taken off the table, but also contantly being placed back on! Gates can be placed, used to deploy models, and then collapse all between photos! Arc can be allocated to almost any model, and then cleared in that same turn. Cyphers can allow models that shouldn't have been able to activate move around and kill things. All in all it's a lot harder to decipher the photos and remember exactly what happened when compared to Warmachine. I don't know if I'm going to be able to write up this sort of blow-by-blow after every game!