Swapping Playstyles

Back in Mk2 I was quite fond of Lady Aiyana and Master Holt. It's a great looking unit, with an elegant decorative style, Holt looks cool with his bladed pistols and his rules and stats lived up to his appearance, while Aiyana's debuff spell was an incredibly powerful tool. But in Mk3 it became much harder to justify taking them outside of a Mercenaries list as the main reason to bring them, the Kiss of Lyliss, became friendly-faction only. Still, I've been thinking about running them lately, and the other day I had an idea. I've been having a hard time getting the most out of the Cutthroat's Prey, and was wondering if it was worth throwing it at a jack early. Then I realised that if I couple it with Kiss and Brittle Frost that becomes functionally POW 16 shooting; against an ARM 18 Cygnar jack, that's doing 5 damage per shot! Couple that with Holt's pistols and that's an average of 35 damage, enough to one-round a Cygnar heavy!

Of course I should take some more quality shooting just to be sure; since I'm pulling out some old models, how about Harlan Versh? He could be very effective if the target jack has an upkeep on it. But that's a lot of delicate pieces I would want to keep alive for multiple turns, so the best Khador caster to run them under would be Strakhov 1. But he'll only protect them for one round, and even then there's ways to ingore Stealth, so I would need some shield-guards. The High Alert card would help, but it wouldn't be enough, so how about Alexia 2 and a unit of Legion of Lost Souls to both stand in front and also catch bullets? Plus that amounts to a +6 damage swing for them, putting them at effectively POW 18!

Obviously I'd need the Blessing card, and I chose Infiltration and Hit & Run for extra defense. Finally I chose Old Faithful over Power Swell, since I was only taking one shooty jack and no repair models. This all sounded like a very silly and janky list that would probably catch someone by surprise and win the first time I run it, then probably never again.
50pts Unlimited Khador
Strakhov 1
-Destroyer
Lady Aiyana and Master Holt
Croe's Cutthroats
Legion of Lost Souls
Alexia 2
Koldun Lord
Ol' Grim
Harlan Versh
*Blessing
*High Alert
*Hit & Run
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful


I told Karas I was running a Strakhov gunline, and he finally succumbed to the urge to run a jackspam list; it's something he's mentioned wanting to do even though he knew it wouldn't work very well.
50pts Cygnar Storm Legion
Huxley1 (Electrify, Jackhammer)
-Courser (Advanced Deployment, Mag-Bolter, Voltaic Punching)
-Stryker (Arcane Precision, Voltaic Javelin, Heavy Mag-Bolter)
-The General
Arcane Mechanics
Sharpshooter
*Blessing
*High Alert
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Sentry Duty


Pre-Game:
We took a quick look at the Battleforge Customs 1.2 scenarios (by Alif Cheng). On a whim I chose the Extraction scenario. I tried to set the table up in a slighly less symmetrical way than I usually do while still having an overall uniform spread; I chose to put some terrain in the very center, but not something that would be too punishing. I don't know why I have such a hard time laying out terrain... Karas won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I put Strakhov in the center to ensure he could cover my entire army with his feat, but closer to the forest since he likes concealment. Ol' Grim also went close to the forest. The Legion went in the center with all my important units and solos behind them. Karas deployed in a block to my left. My Cutthroats went behind the forest. I declared The General as their Prey target.

Round 1:
I ran everything up. The Legion went as far forwards as possible, while everything else tried to get defensive bonuses. Strakhov cast Assail on the Destroyer, then Feated and ran forwards to cover the entire army.

The General ran to the left objective. Huxley and maybe the Courser shot the right objective, leaving it on a few boxes, then Huxley used Jackhammer to destroy the left objective with The General, giving him a point.

Round 2:
I upkept Assail and allocated one focus to the Destroyer. I started by activating the Koldun Lord, who successfully landed Brittle Frost but did no damage. Aiyana and Holt went next; Aiyana landed the Kiss but Holt rolled low for damage. Next the Cuthroats activated, walking out of the forest and doing a fairly poor job as well. Harlan Versh activated, but without an upkeep on The General he did very little damage. Alexia tried to land a Hellfire (which would have been effectively POW 18) but missed. Ol' Grim tried his hand, and also fell flat on his face, missing one aimed shot and doing very little damage with the other.

Mathematically speaking The General should have been VERY dead by now, but it just wasn't happening. So much for that plan. I activated Strakhov, aimed, and cast Hand of Destruction on The General. I rolled three shots on the Riot Gun, and with damage boosts plus Hand of Destruction killed The General with the second shot. I put the third shot into the Stryker, then... somehow had two focus left? I... must have forgotten to pay for something? Anyway, I cast Convection at the objective but didn't do any damage, then repositioned backwards. I played High Alert on the Destroyer, who walked to within 3" of Strakhov and put a double-boosted Bombard into the Stryker. Finally the Legion of Lost Souls charged the Stryker and cranked their damage rolls, killing it! I scored two points for killing two undamaged jacks.

The Mechanics moved in and shot at the Legion, but only managed to kill one. The Courser hit Strakhov with his armour-piercing gun, but the Destroyer took the shot, taking 9 damage iirc. Huxley then shot Strakhov, doing 8 damage. The Sharpshooter took a shot as well, but missed.

Round 3:
Prey went on the Courser. I dropped Assail but forgot to allocate focus to the Destroyer. The Koldun Lord walked up and landed Brittle Frost on Huxley, but did no damage. Aiyana landed Kiss, but Holt didn't do all that much with his guns. Harlan Versh rolled four shots, missed two, and only did around 3 damage with the ones that connected. This was turning into The General all over again. Eventually, between Ol' Grim, Strakhov (who landed a boosted Hand of Destruction and remembered to use the Infiltration card after activating), the Destroyer (who didn't have any focus for boosting the damage roll), and the Cutthroats, I finally managed to take Huxley down. I think it might have been Croe who got the final shot, doing a single point of damage and also ensuring that Huxley wouldn't have been able to cast any spells next turn. I was planning to have Alexia buff the Legion's damage and walk them in if I couldn't finish Huxley with shooting.

Post-Mortem:
That was a silly but fun game, where we both played lists that felt better suited to each other's factions. I had a janky shooty list and Karas was running very unoptimised jackspam, so he was facing an uphill battle. The mission was a bit of a weird one, I didn't end up liking it; technically I won by points, because caster kill wasn't a win scenario. It's weird though, because I can see situations developing where you would run out of ways to score points and essentially have no way to win; I guess at that point you play to draw, or just conceded? That wouldn't be very satisfying. I need to spend more time looking at scenarios.

I was careless with Strakhov, running him dry; I really need to get used to resisting the temptation to use all my caster focus. It was a bit scary, facing down armour-piercing guns without any focus. In retrospect I could have protected him better; if I had put High Alert on Versh instead of the Destroyer, I could have replaced him with a Thrall with Shield Guard, allowing my to block two shots instead of one. Also I could have stayed within 3" of Old Grim, who benefits from Alexia's aura and thus was also a shield-guard. I kept forgetting to transfer Prey, and also forgot about Volume Fire on Strakhov. Oh well. Karas forgot that the Courser had Advanced Deployment, didn't put out his usual upkeeps, and he might have forgotten about the Eyeless Sight card (I'm not actually sure if he every had a chance to use it). Tournemant-winning players we are not.


Last game I said I was done with Strakhov, but I have to admit I felt as if he worked this game. He did pull his weight when so many models weren't; rolling a lot of Riot Gun shots will do that I suppose. Still, I think it's time to move on. I've had my eye on Butcher2, and recently I've been considering Vlad2 (who on paper looks like he has some similar gameplay elements). Most casters want faction infantry though, so realistically I need to start playing less mercs and get some more Khador stuff ready for the table. Eh, we'll see.

Armylist Of The Dead

With my Risen and converted Legion of Lost Souls finally painted, I had the idea of running a big (by 50pt Mk4 standards) "zombie horde" list, with as many undead models as possible. Which... is not that many in Khador unfortunately. At least Butcher3's Argii kinda almost count. I really wanted to try it in Halloween month, so I put together a list with Khador's scariest warcaster, his soul-fueled dark-magic-enchanted warjack, and a bunch of skellies:
Butcher 3
- War Argus
- War Argus
- Ruin (proxied by Juggernaut)
- Kodiak
Alexia & the Risen
- Thrall Warrior
Legion of Lost Souls
Legion of Lost Souls
Ol' Grim

This was kind of a big deal for me because it would actually be my first time ever playing a fully painted Warmachine list, even if it's only 50 points. Unfotunately I didn't get actually to play it, because Karas was unable to bring his models. So I gave him the Butcher list and threw together something on the spot with the other models in my case, which I named "The Dregs":
Strakhov 1
- Spriggan
- Destroyer (yes, it has Black Ivan's claw, I was too lazy to remove it)
Doomreavers
Croe's Cutthroats
Manhunter
Koldun Lord
Sylyss


Pre-Game
Karas said he didn't want to play a mission so we just played caster kill. Threw down some random terrain as usual; I had been planning on putting a zone in the middle but that didn't happen. Karas won the roll and chose to go second.


Deployment:
I deployed Strakhov behind the forest, and the jacks in the center. Karas put his battlegroup behind the trench and spread out his units. I put the Cutthroats behind the forest as they have Pathfinder, the Doomreavers behind the hill, and the Manhunter on the right flank. I declared the central unit of Legion to be the Cutthroats' Prey target.

Round 1:
We both advanced. Ol' Grim got a soul from the Grave Robbing card. Alexia created a Thrall. The targetted Legion unit pulled Cygnar and ran to the rear edge of the table.

Round 2:
The Cutthroats took the hill. Croe missed his shot at the entrenched Ol' Grim (to be fair he rolled a 9 and that wasn't enough), and another couple missed their shots on the Legion. I ran the Doomreavers and Manhunter behind the forest where they couldn't be charged and so would be hard to reach. The Destroyer walked up but turned out to be just out of range of the Thrall. The Spriggan ran and Strakhov set up on the hill.

The Legion charged and killed all the Cutthroats. Ol' Grim killed the Koldun Lord and Sylyss with Wraith Shots. Alexia ran over, and the far unit of Legion of Lost Souls headed back now that the Cutthroats were dead.

Round 3:
Strakhov dropped Assail and fully fueled the warjacks. The Doomreavers charged the Legion of Lost Souls and went mental, killing the entire unit, the Thrall, Ol' Grim, and a couple of their own dudes. The Manhunter ran to engage the other unit of Legion. The Destroyer killed the two War Argii and a Risen. The Spriggan killed Alexia and the Risen with aimed, boosted Grenade shooting and then used the Hit and Run card to repo backwards. Strakhov dropped a smoke bomb and repo'ed backwards.

The Legion ignored the Manhunter and killed a couple of Doomreavers. The Kodiak killed the Manhunter in a cloud of steam. Butcher shot the last Doomreaver but he toughed, which was actually bad for me because Ruin was then able to finish him and take his soul.

Round 4:
I fuelled up the jacks. The Spriggan killed most of the Legion. Strakhov walked 10" away from Ruin, rolled a single shot on the Riot Gun and double boosted it for no good reason, but still did no damage. He then repositioned back. The Destroyer charged Ruin and, for the first time in over ten years of playing Khador, finally did some damage with his Crit. Ruin's lost about half his boxes or so, suffereing from crippled movement.

Karas healed a single movement box using Old Faithful, bringing Ruin back up to full operation. Butcher held his focus and charged the Spriggan, spending his stack on Flashing Blades, killing the two jacks and Feating back to full focus then casting Energizer. This brought Ruin into range of Strakhov; the Doomreaver's soul gave him a second focus, which was just enough to kill Strakhov with boosted initials.

Post-Mortem:
I made a lot of mistakes that game, perhaps the biggest was just not doing anything useful with Strakhov. I didn't really shoot anything until the end, I didn't feat (his army didn't have too many guns, but I could have at least saved my support solos), I dropped Assail and didn't recast it which made things harder for my jacks, I spent my focus on shooting instead of putting out Hand of Destruction. I think not having a mission to play for threw me off a little. I probably should have put Prey onto Butcher, because if I could kill the War Argii then start shooting Butcher with Croe, he wouldn't be able to cast any spells, which is somewhat crippling for him because that's a big part of his toolkit. Of course that's not really going to happen, not for more than one round anyway, and doing it in early rounds wouldn't mean much while holding the Cutthroats back hoping to pull it off late game would cost me too much.

Anyway, I'm really over Strakhov at this point. I want to play a Sorscha or a Vlad or a Butcher. I need to get some more of my warcasters painted.

Attack The Paint

Many years ago, when "Blackest Black" became available and people started talking about using it for miniatures, I had the idea of trying to recreate the monsters from Attack The Block (2011). I've always had a soft spot for that film; my old company worked on it, so I watched it at the cinema with a group of workmates, and I even got to briefly talk to Nick Frost about the possibility of a sequel at a signing at a comic convention several years back. And of course I've always loved the design of the monsters:

I didn't have a suitable model in mind though, so I never got around to it. I did discuss the idea with people on the old Privateer Press forums, and I seem to recall one forumite trying it on a Circle Orborus Warpwolf, but I don't remember his name or how well it came out.

I never completely forgot the idea, even picking up a bottle of Green Stuff World "Maxx Darth" when it came out. Well, recently I was dabbling with Khador lists (as you do) and felt like putting Butcher 3 on the table, just once. But I didn't have any Argus models and was never fond of the two-headed deal to begin with, so I figured I'd print out a couple of generic wolf models to proxy. And that's when I remembed the old idea, and figured it was finally time to give it a try.

As it happens, while looking up OSL effects for my glowing blade experiment, I saw some videos using fluorescent paints. I've been seeing more and more miniatures painted with these, and figured they would be perfect for this model. I actually had a few Vallejo fluorescents lying around that I had picked up years ago but never figured out how to use. Luckily I had both green and blue, allowing me to mix them together to try to get close the turquoise glows from the film.

War Argii:
I spent a couple of hours searching for a suitable wolf model. I was looking for something simple, with no accessories, but with large pronounced teeth. The best model I found was "Fang The Dire Wolf" by The Lost Adventures Co. Unfortunately this was a single sculpt and I needed two of them, so I had to mirror the model and hope it didn't look too obvious. Also I had to shrink the model to fit a 40mm base, which meant I couldn't use the existing supports and would have to make new ones. Which I completely screwed up first time, losing much of the all-important mouth detail, so I had to redo the supports and print them again.

I did some experiments with the Maxx Darth, and found that the surface finish was VERY delicate; even extremely light handling would start to affect the surface finish, possibly even rubbing off the paint. So I decided to put it over a normal black undercoat that had already been varnished, so even if the Maxx Darth got rubbed off there would still be a robust black layer underneath. So after priming them in Mr. Hobby Mr. Primer Surfacer 1000, I airbrushed the entire models with Green Stuff World 1779 Acrylic Color Black Stallion (thinned with Green Stuff World 1880 Airbrush Retarder).

I wanted the basing to be brighter than the black body of the wolves, but dark enough to help accentuate the bright teeth. My typical Khadoran snow or ice bases would be too bright. I also wanted something that would work for both the steampunk fantasy of the Iron Kingdoms and also the modern urban setting of Attack the Block. I settled on the flagstones from the Basius Max: Sanctuary texture pad (pressed into Brown Stuff putty). The irregular square stones were ambiguous enough to fit a variety of different time periods.

I basecoated the bases in Vallejo 70.994 Model Color Dark Grey, then dryrbushed with Vallejo 70.992 Model Color Neutral Grey. This didn't really give me the kind of stone texture I would have liked; the Basius flagstones are a little smooth. I edge-highlighted the flagstones with the Neutral Grey, then washed the bases with Citadel Shade Nuln Oil. It seems my Nuln Oil is getting too old; I had to thin it with some Lahmian Medium, but it still felt a bit thick and had some small black particles that I tried to remove with my brush when I saw them.

I airbrushed the entire models with Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 112 UVCut Gloss, followed by Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 113 UVCut Flat. I had some issues with one of the bases and had to repaint and revarnish the base rim, but I rushed it and it didn't quite come out the same as the first one, looking a little bit less flat black.

With the varnish dry I started on the mouth. I did this after the varnish as fluorescent paints rely on ultraviolet light, and the varnish I'm using blocks UV. I basecoated the entire mouth in Citadel Layer Sotek Green, then picked out the individual teeth using Citadel Layer Temple Guard Blue. I applied a layer of Citadel Layer Baharroth Blue, aiming to cover about three quarters of each tooth (starting from the tip). I then covered about half of each tooth with a layer of Formula P3 Morrow White. After this I glazed the entire mouth with a mix of about 5 drops of Formula P3 Turquoise Ink and 1 drop of Formula P3 Blue Ink. This added some shading as well as tinting the teeth to be closer to the greenish turquoise glow in my reference screenshots (Iirc in the photo below the model on the left has not gotten the glaze yet). Once dry I covered about a third of each tooth with Morrow White again.

I mixed Vallejo 70.737 Model Color Green Fluo with Vallejo 70.736 Model Color Blue Fluo in about a 1:1 ratio to again try to get close to the colour in my reference material, using a UV flashlight to check the glow colour as I worked. In my first tests I had tried covering the entire mouth of my test model (turns out the failed first wolf prints had a use after all...) with fluorescent paints, but under UV the entire mouth started to glow instead of just the teeth. So I painted the fluorescent mixture onto just the teeth.

This gave a rather flat uniform glow effect under UV; I had hoped to experiment with fluorescent white paint, but the paints I ordered had taken a very long time to ship, and I really wanted to get these guys done in time to actually put them on the table during the month of Halloween, so I had to do without. Instead I applied a second layer of the fluorescent paint mix onto just half of each tooth, to create a simple rough gradient. I brushed Vallejo 26.518 Matt Acrylic Varnish onto the mouth, to protect it without blocking UV light (I did some test just to be 100% sure it had no effect on the glow whatsoever).

I could finally apply Green Stuff World The Blackest Black Maxx Darth to the body. This is a very thick paint; I had to thin it a lot with water, but I tended to over-thin it, so I had to apply several coats to get a solid effect on the raised fur areas. I was using a regular dry palette, and when I was almost done I started to suspect it might be picking up some of the grey paint that had dried on the palette before. So I grabbed a clean palette and thinned some fresh paint to apply on an area, but I couldn't see any difference so I guess it was fine.

The paint is kind of weird; sometimes it looks incredibly dark, much blacker than other black paints. Other times it looks like a lighter grey, but VERY matt, with virtually no specular light. I guess it's very lighting dependent. In the photo below you can see the regular varnished black on the left, and the Maxx Darth on the right, under normal room lighting:

The problem with Maxx Darth and, from what I hear, with all these "blacker than black" or "blackest black" paints is that they rely on their surface finish to work, and that surface finish is very delicate. In my test even very careful handling would damage the matt effect that gave the paint its "black hole" look. After some experimentation it seemed that a very light coat of Alclad II Lacquer ALC 600 Aqua Gloss Clear would give the surface a slightly satin look (compared to the unprotected matt original), but still maintain some of that extra blackness while providing some protection. So I carefully applied a very light dusting of the Aqua Gloss Clear. In the photo below the model on the right has been varnished:

I wasn't convinced that it had worked, so I avoided touching the bodies until after I had taken the glamour shots, to try to get the best possible photos. With that done I tried to very lightly rub the body of one wolf, as you would when handling gaming pieces normally, and I could immediately see the raised areas of the fur becoming more reflective. Here is the model before handling:

And here it is after some light handling. You can see the tops of the locks of fur starting to become more reflective:

And here's a comparison, with the unhandled model on the right:

So yeah, the Maxx Darth is basically a failure for normal gaming models. I can see using it for recessed areas that shouldn't be touched under normal handling, such as the inside of a monster's mouth or something (that could work well to give the appearance of a gaping maw of nothingness or whatever), but overall not really practical for normal gaming models.

Despite being such a simple scheme, these two models were EXTREMELY frustrating; from the print issues to the varnish issues to the finicky paint, these ones were a bit rough. And I'd like to say it was worth it, but knowing that all the work won't amount to very much in the long run since the Maxx Darth won't hold up kinda robs the project of the usual payoff. Still, it was educational; it was my first time using fluorescent paints, and that part at least worked out in the end. And I've finally put one of my many stupid hobby ideas into practice, so that's one less piece of baggage rattling around in my skull. Now to play Butcher 3 exactly once and never again.


EDIT (2024/11/03): I had ordered a pot of Green Stuff World 1760 Fluor Fluorescent White, but I wasn't able to use it for these models as I wanted to paint them before halloween and it hadn't arrived. Once it did, I tried painting it onto the teeth of one of the wolves to try to further brighten them (as the blue and green fluoroscent paints had darkened the whitest parts), but the paint is very transparent and made no visible difference under normal lighting. Under UV light the glow was more blue than before, but the difference doesn't really show up on camera so there's no point in posting new photos. So yeah, doesn't look like the white will work very well for creating gradients on glows, I think it'll be more for creating glowing whites (the glow itself is bluish under UV, but still).

Game-Swap

I offered to demo Warmachine to a local 40K player, and in return he offered to demo Killteam. So we did both.


GAME 1: KILLTEAM
Pre-Game:
I brought out my old Space Marine collection and picked some proxies for Angels of Death:
Space Marine Captain
Assault Intercessor Warrior
Eliminator Sniper
Heavy Intercessor Gunner
Intercessor Warrior (Bolt Rifle)
Intercessor Warrior (Bolt Rifle)

Attila had Legionnaires:
Legionary Shrivetalon
Legionary Chosen
Legionary Anointed
Legionary Baleful Acolyte
Legionary Butcher
Legionary Warrior


Round 1&2:
I was learning the movement and combat. I pulled ahead by a point in the first couple of turns.

Round 3:
I had done more damage in the earlier rounds, but wasn't able to finish off some models that I was in melee with. I had decided to take a risk with my heavy; instead of walking away and shooting the model engaging it (that would go down to a single hit), I figured I could kill it in melee, score the objective, and then use his ranged attack to finish off another model, but I whiffed HARD in melee and just died without costing Attila a single activation instead.

Round 4:
With very few activations left, the score remained even while Attila was ahead by one living model. However, having the numerical advantage allowed my an extra action with my sniper, who managed to finish off one more Legionnaire, drawing the game.

Post-Mortem:
It's a quick game to pick up and play. The movement and action system seemed to be simple but fairly well done. The combat resolution system took a little getting used to, but I can see how it creates the opportunity to make meaningful decisions while giving the attacker an advantage. The "stealth" system felt unintuitive to me, but I guess it makes sense as a way to balance melee and ranged combat. The action point system seems to allow most activations to follow the standard "move and attack" format, but with some flexibility (moving further and attacking, or scoring an objective without sacrificing movement and combat) while still remaining quite simple. I have had issues with small model count games in the past, where sometimes models would die too easily, or there was too much of a binary difference between the model getting hit and dying, and never getting hit and not taking damage, making attacking feel unsatisfying. Killteam's system of wounds and saves might be the best health/damage system I've played in a small-model-count game.

The basic game did feel very simple, without too much difference between different models and weapons, and very few special rules outside of basic attack/defend combat rules. Of course this was an intro game where we didn't use all the rules so it's not a fair comparison, but I will say there was a stark difference between the model profiles, which were mainly just base stats with a few special rules on the weapons, and the incredibly rule-dense model cards in Warmachine. Which is not a knock on Killteam, I believe it's supposed to be a quick and easy-to-pick-up little skirmish game, so the simplicity seems like a feature. I don't know how much depth the game has when played at a higher level by experienced players, I imagine there's a fair bit of strategy in positioning etc. when you understand the game better.

From this one experience, I felt it was a fairly quick and clean game that's an easy way to put some cool 40K models on the table, that can be enjoyed in a very casual way. I wouldn't mind playing it again, though I don't expect it to replace Warmachine or Monsterpocalypse for me. It might replace Zone Raiders sadly; the core rules in that game are probably just too crunchy for me.


GAME 2: WARMACHINE
Pre-Game:
I wanted to write a couple of 30 point lists that prioritised using actually painted models for the demo, with at least one jack, unit, and solo. I chose Butcher1 for Attila; he's relatively straight-forwards (or at least he used to be) and wrecking face with him is great fun. Ruin is the best jack for Butcher and would help demonstrate command cards (Grave Robbing) and internal synergies/interactions through his bond with Butcher. The Legion of Lost Souls was freshly painted and synergised with Alexia2. The Koldun Lord filled out the points and brings a great debuff.
Butcher 1
-Ruin (proxied by Juggernaut)
-Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Legion of Lost Souls
Alexia 2
Koldun Lord
*Blessing of the Gods
*Grave Robbing
*Infiltration
*Old Faithful
*Power Swell

I chose Harkevich for myself as he's a relatively simple warcaster, and Black Ivan could show off some synergies and movement tricks with him. The Drakhun and War Dog are painted. I didn't want to run a mirror with my second unit of Legion of Lost Souls, so I just grabbed the Cutthroats.
Harkevich 1
-Black Ivan
-War Dog
Croe's Cutthroats
Man-O-War Drakhun
*Break Through
*Careful Reconnaissance
*High Alert
*Hit & Run
*Put The Fires Out

I know demo games are usually played without a scenario, but again I didn't feel that was a good representation of the game, and Attila was not new to wargames so I figured he could handle it. So I just threw a 12" zone in the center of the board and said that any model could score it if no enemy models were in the zone, starting from the second player's second turn. First to five points - or to kill the enemy warcaster of course - would win. I said I'd go first so I could demonstrate the turn order etc.


Deployment:
I deployed centerally, with Harkevich ready to run into the forest. We discussed his deployment and I suggested that some models wanted to stay further back.

Round 1: I forgot about Escort and moved Black Ivan before activating Harkevich. Everything basically just ran up and spread out.

Attila moved the Legion towards the trench and ran Alexia into the forest. Butcher cast Deceleration and put Vengeful on Ruin.

Round 2:
The Drakhun was almost exactly 13" away from Ruin; too far to charge, but just close enough to walk and shoot, repositioning away afterwards. I think he might have done a couple of points of damage; in retrospect this would have been an opportunity for Ruin to trigger Hyper Agressive and Vengeful (singe the Drakhun was almost exactly 6" away so Ruin could walk 4" and attack 2"), but I completely forgot about those rules. Also that would have allowed the Drakhun to hit Ruin, and I don't remember if Black Ivan had activated yet, so it probably wouldn't have been a good idea. But I should have remembered it and discussed it.

Hark and Black Ivan did a bit of shooting, but didn't do much damage. The Cutthroats charged the Legion of Lost Souls; I killed one but that left two of my models without a target in range. Croe and the last Cutthroat missed their attacks.

Butcher cast Decelaration and moved around a bit, respecting my threat ranges. Alexia moved up in the forest. Ruin dismounted then killed the Drakhun, allowing Alexia to replace him with a Thrall, who moved behind Ruin to be able to Shield Guard for him. The Legion of Lost Souls completely wiped out the Cutthroats, resurrecting their lost brother in the process. Attila scored one point.

Round 3:
I allocated to Black Ivan and charged him in to Ruin, but wasn't able to finish him so I had to finish the job with Harkevich. Worth mentioning is that Black Ivan's Dual Attack shot hit even though he doesn't have the Pistol advantage, but the Thrall took the shot. Also I once again forgot that Ruin had Vengeful and should have been able to take a swing at Black Ivan. I scored a point.

The Koldun Lord cast Brittle Frost on Black Ivan and Alexia did a few points of damage with a Hellfire. The Legion of Lost Souls charged Black Ivan; they were doing a couple of points of damage each, except for on who REALLY cranked the dice and did two whole columns by himself:

This left Black Ivan on twelve boxes. Butcher Feated and charged, swinging over the heads of the Legion where it would be harder for Harkevich to reach him. With five damage dice on his charge attack, he rolled 16 damage, taking out my jack while sitting on 6 Focus. I just went ahead and conceded.

Post-Mortem:
I find it amusing that Attila played a Legion and Butcher in both games. Playing Warmachine right after Killteam reminded me just how complex Warmachine is these days; every model on the table had a multitude of special rules. Butcher1 used to be one of the simplest Khador casters; the back of his card used to be blank, but now he has Hyper-Agressive on himself and his warjacks; I feel that's a rule that takes a fairly high skill level to use effectively. Perhaps Vlad1 is a better starter caster now; he's strong but pretty straight forwards, with great buffs and crazy threat range on his jacks. Guess I need to get mine painted up.

Still, Attila seemed to enjoy it, and didn't seem to have any trouble with the rules (other than both of us forgetting about Vengeful...). It was fun to play some Warmachine, it's been a while. As much as I love the game, it has no local presence and I don't really want to try to push it. I was trying to bring people into Monsterpocalypse, but that game is pretty much dead right now, at least in terms of support. As is Warcaster. People seem to be enjoying 40K and related GW games, at this point I don't think I'd be doing them any favours trying to get them into other games. So maybe I should be playing more Killteam...

Arise!

Wow, I can't believe it's been over nine years since I painted Alexia, and I still hadn't painted the rest of her unit. That's just depressing. Well, with Alexia and the Risen being a pale shadow of their former selves, I'm finding it very hard to justify bringing them (in the rare event that I actually get a game). But it felt sad to put them away without ever having painted them, so I decided to try to knock the Risen out in a single week of speed painting. Spoiler warning: it took me a lot longer than a week. I did try to paint them as quickly as possible, but various stuff got in the way and I had to put them on hold for a few months. But hey, they're FINALLY finished!

And here they are with Alexia and her favourite undead servant:

The unit originally had twenty Risen grunts (well, due to a mispack my box actually came with twenty-one Risen), but only three sculpts (seen here with some missing arms):

In Mk4 the unit size was reduced from a maximum of twenty grunts to a maximum of ten grunts. This was a bitter pill to swallow, both in-game and also in terms of leaving me with ten (actually eleven) unusable models. But then I hit on the idea of converting them into a couple of units of Legion of Lost Souls. So I sculpted and printed some shields and glued them onto ten grunts. I chose two Khadoran Risen models to serve as unit leaders (which isn't actually a thing in this edition, but maybe it will be again someday, and it looks good aesthetically), and four of each of the others to give me an easy way to differentiate two units. I considered giving them some halberds as well, but decided it would be too difficult to fit them on to the models, at least in a way that looked good.

This left me with ten plus one basic boney boys for Alexia.

Risen:
I've never been a fan of duplicate models in a unit, so I tried to find ways to differentiate them. Luckily they were soft metal models and quite spindly, so I was able to do quite a lot by twisting and bending limbs. I also removed some body parts here and there. The Khadoran sculpt was an issue though, there wasn't much I could do other than chop the feet off at varying heights. Oh, and take off one guy's head. I'm sure he didn't need it.

In order to try to match the swamp bases I gave Alexia and the Thrall without having to spend a lot of money on resin bases (this was LONG before I got into 3D printing) I tried to sculpt my own swamp bases, with areas for water effects scattered across the textured ground (which I tried to make reminiscent of the ground on the other two's bases - some of which I had sculpted myself). I also drilled small holes of varying depth into the "water" areas, which I would use for the bubbles later.

For the Legion of Lost Soul's shields, I considered trying to recast the shields on some Precursor Knights I have lying around unassembled, or maybe just recasting the Radiance of Morrow on the fronts of their shields, but ultimately decided to digitally sculpt it myself, using this image as a refernce:

I wasn't too hard to get the basic shape, modifying it very slightly for better printing. I have uploaded the design to Thingiverse. For the shield I ultimately settled on a design by KillMeForPrizes on Cults3d. I wrapped the Radiance onto the shield, printed them up and glued them onto the chosen Risen models.

My plan for painting was to try to use very quick and easy techniques; I wanted to try to use mostly airbrushing and a dip, with maybe some drybrushing. The idea was to just use paint everything in faded brown colours so I wouldn't have to paint different colours for the different sculpts. I figured I might as well use a zenithal, but figured I'd go for green as the shadow colour rather than black.

So after priming the shields I airbrushed a basecoat of Green Stuff World 1796 Acrylic Color Kraken Green thinned with Green Stuff World 1747 Acrylic Thinner over the entirety of all the models. I then airbrushed Vallejo 71.287 Model Air Ija Kakhi Brown from above as the main brown colour. I carefully airbrushed Vallejo 71.132 Model Air Aged White onto the bone areas - or tried to. I thinned it with the acrylic thinner, but I still had a very hard time getting a consistent spray. I airbrushed the shield faces with a turquise I had mixed up from various blue and green acrylic inks a while back for a different project that I ended up not using (so I have a lot of it lying around). It ended up being very close to Citadel Layer Temple Guard Blue. Finally I airbrushed the bases with thinned Citadel Layer Doombull Brown.

Next I drybrushed the various metal bits with Scalecolor SC-72 Viking Gold, a sort of aged brass colour. I had some painting videos on in the background as I worked, and funnily enough after I finished I was cleaning my brush and glanced up at the video only to see Broadsword Wargaming painting Stormcasts, using almost the same blue/teal on their shields. Small world. I went over the Radiances and the Khador Anvils on the Ushankas of the Khadoran models with Scalecolor SC-73 Dwarven Gold to brighten them up a little.

By this point I felt a lot of the cloth had been covered up by the drybrushes and I wasn't really liking the colour that was showing anyway, so pretty much on a whim I brushed some Formula P3 Bootstrap Leather over any cloth areas with a drybrush... but then I decided that it was blending into the brass too much in places so after a few models I switched to Formula P3 Rucksack Tan and want back over the painted ones and continued with that. This wasn't exactly a drybrush as the brush was loaded with more paint than I would use for a normal dryrbush, but it wasn't exactly a regular painted coat either; it was sort of something in the middle.

I drybrushed over the "ground" areas with Formula P3 Hammerfall Kakhi to give it some contrast. Finally I "drybrushed" (again with a more loaded brush) some aged white to fix some bone areas that had gotten covered up. Most of the visible colour on the models now was from "dryrbrushing" rather than from the airbrush, so I kinda feel like the whole "do most of it by airbrushing" plan was a failure. Still, I had mostly drybrushed with a downwards motion so some of the original green shadow was still visible, and I had finished it all fairly quickly - MUCH more quickly than if I had painted all the basecoats on in my usual way - so that's OK.

I shaded them using The Army Painter Quickshade Dip Strong Tone, using a brush to clean up excessive pooling before it could set. When this was dry I airbrushed the "water" areas of the bases in Vallejo 72.729 Game Air Sick Green, but I wasn't able to get it down cleanly so I ended up going back over it with a brush, rather carelessly throwing it on. Most likely it would have been faster and less frustrating to just brush it on in the first place, although in retrospect I think I shouldn't have painted it up to the "ground" areas as sharply.

I carefully dryrbushed the Dwarven Gold over the Radiances on the shields to try to get them to stand out a bit more, as they weren't as bright as I would have liked after the shade. The result was subtle, but it did make a difference. I airbrushed spots of Vallejo 72.732 Game Air Escorpena Green onto the "water" areas, trying to create an "organic" looking undercoat for the water effects I was planning to apply.

Decades ago, back when I was in school, I used to write with a fountain pen that used standard ink cartridges. I discovered these had small clear plastic agitator beads inside. On a whim I started collecting these beads, amassing a reasonable number before I got tired of it. I still have them after all these years, and I had put them in my bits box when I got into the hobby. I glued them into the small divots I had originally drilled in the "water" areas (I did this after painting to maintain their transparenccy and to make sure there wouldn't be any unpainted base visible through them).

After painting the base rims black I varnished the models using Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 112 UVCut Gloss then Mr. Hobby Mr. Color GX 113 UVCut Flat. I marked bottoms of the bases with Rotring Drawing Ink White through an old Koh-I-Noor, I believe it's a Rapidosketch 0.35mm. Some of the beads did not pick up enough of the green colour from the base, so I glazed them lightly with Citadel Glaze Waywatcher Green.

For the water, I added a little bit of Woodland Scenics C1228 Earth Colors Liquid Pigment Green Undercoat to some Woodland Scenics C1211 Realistic Water. I ran a brush through it a couple of times, than added it to the bases with the brush. I didn't want it well-mixed, I wanted streaks of colour in the hope that would make it look like streaky swamp water. But that didn't exactly work, instead the paint seemed to sit on top of the water effects, so when I applied it to the bases I was picking up a lot of colour at first, then less and less as I worked through the unit. So the first models I did had darker looking swamp water, with more green particles, while the later ones had lighter, clearer swamp water.

While not what I had intended, I think it's fine, the difference is barely noticeable irl. Still, I think next time I'll try adding the water effects first then picking up a tiny bit of colour with a toothpick and swirling it in, or something like that. The water effects shrank a LOT; it feels like it loses at least half its volume. Also it doesn't help that there is a lot of capillary action pulling it up the sides of the models. After the first application dried it was very thin, so I gave them a second pass of water effects.

After that the swamp water ended up looking too plain and flat, even with the bubbles; it didn't look swamp-like tbh. So I decided to try to add something to the water to give it more detail. I took some strips of leftover paper strips ("Double A Premium" 80gsm white A4) from cutting out some cards I made using my card creator, and painted both sides with a heavy coat of acrylic ink. I wanted to completely soak the paper so there wouldn't be any white edges showing. I used a sandy-coloured mix I had leftover from a previous project, which was made of Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 227 Yellow Ochre with a little Amsterdarm Acrylic Ink 275 Primary Yellow. I then tapped an old paintbrush loaded with the yellow ink to splatter it onto the paper for mottling. I mixed some of the Yellow Ochre with Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 735 Oxide Black; this somehow turned out quite greenish so I added some Amsterdam Acrylic Ink 369 Primary Magenta to get a darker brown, and splattered that on top. Then I splattered some yellow on top again. I punched out a bunch of leaf shapes using two different Green Stuff World leaf punches (1300 and 1310).

I might not have given everything time to dry fully, as when I collected the leaves in a pile, many of them stuck together somewhat and I had to pry them apart with tweezers - which luckily mostly worked OK. I then picked up individual leaves with the tweezers, dipped them in the same water effects and positioned them on the base, immediately painting another coat of water effects on top, covering all the swamp areas again. The leaves unded up quite bright, perhaps distracting somewhat from the models (and also making them stand out a bit from Alexia and the Thrall, who didn't get the Autumn treatment). The green on the bases was already competing with the models for the viewer's attention tbh. But I've never used my leaf punches before, so I'm glad I got the chance to try a new technique, and I honetly think the makes the models more visually pleasing overall.


I've had a lot of fun with Alexia's unit in Mk2 and Mk3, so even if they don't get much more play in Mk4, I'm still glad I finally finished painting them. They deserved it. It might be a slightly muted colourscheme using very lazy painting techniques, but I think it works for them. I tried a lot of new things while painting these models, and it's the largest unit I've ever painted, so this was kind of an accomplishment as well as a learning experience for me.