Slapfights

Got a couple more games in with MacBain!!!!:
MacBain!!!!
-Mangler
-Sylyss Wishnalyrr
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
Lady A and Mister H
Kell


Game 1:
My first game was against Beanpole:
Makeda I
-Tiberion
-Krea
-Marketh
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Immortals
-UA
Incendiarii (4)
Ha-Kaar
Willbreaker


Pre-Game:
Scenario was two flags and killbox. I won the roll and chose to go first. Beanpole picked the side with the forest and rough terrain.


Deployment:
There was a nice forest in the middle of the table that I thought would serve my Nyss very well, so I set them up behind it. Alexia was behind them, ready to slowly contest his flag with Risen. MacBain!!!! was directly behind my flag, with the Mangler there to threaten.

He deployed the Incendiarii on my left, near his flag, and the Immortals on my right, opposite my flag. Tibbers was in the middle and the Krea was embedded in his Immortals.

I then placed the Cutthroats behind my flag, ready to run forwards and jam. Kell went on the other side out of habit; in retrospect he would have been more useful against the Immortals than against the Incendiarii.

Round 1:
So the very first thing I did was forget to allocate focus to the Mangler. Great start. My infantry ran forwards and spread out. Kell hugged the house for cover. Fortune went on the Cutthroats, Failsafe on the Mangler, and I used the last point of focus for Energizer. I should have ran Alexia forwards, but instead I walked and created a Thrall; the idea was to run him forwards as a tempting target to draw at least one Incendiarii shot away from my Nyss, but I forgot to activate him after creating him.

Beanpole advanced and spread out,putting Defender's Ward on the Immortals and covering a bunch of Immortals and Incendiarii with Paralytic Auras.

Round 2:
So... I really didn't know what to do here. I didn't think much of the Cutthroat's chances against Defenders-Warded Immortals. So I figured the best I could do right now was jam forwards. I also figured I might be able to get a couple of Nyss Hunters into Makeda, just to annoy her. So MacBain!!!! popped his feat and handed out tokens to a handful of Cutthroats and Nyss, who then proceeded to charge Beanpole's front lines. Naturally I forgot to try to clear a path to Makeda, but I don't think I would have reached her anyway so nevermind.

I killed a couple of Immortals with great dice on the Cutthroats, giving him his Vengeance moves and souls to turn Incorporeal with. So much for jamming. Kell killed another. One Nyss Hunter rolled well and killed an Incendiarii. MacBain!!!! cautiously approached the flag; I left him close enough that one or two Immortals could probably charge him, but not more than that. I created a new Thrall and ran the two over to the flag to be annoying.

Hakaar and the Immortals rolled a whole lot of low dice; between Vengeance attacks and normal ones they only killed a couple of Cutthroats and left a couple knocked down. Makeda based the flag and, along with the Incendiarii, killed my Thralls, knocked down my front line of Nyss, and set them on fire. Tiberion trampled over two unkillable Nyss to reach one that he could paste, which he did. He couldn't score this turn thanks to unkillable Nyss.

Round 3:
For some strange reason Tiberion appeared to be in my Mangler's charge range. He had very thoughtfully made sure he wasn't engaged by anything either, meaning Aiyana didn't have too much trouble Kissing him. Holt put some damage on him, then the Mangler charged. He killed Hakaar with the Thresher attack, but mediocre damage rolls left Tibbers on a few boxes, but that was nothing a SURPRISE THRALLPEDO TO THE BACK couldn't take care of. Bless Alexia, with her evil necromantic sword and cursed undead minions.

MacBain!!!! ran from the oncoming Immortals, who my Cutthroats basically bounced off this turn. The Nyss Hunters killed another Incendiarii. Kell bravely strode forwards to try to protect Alexia from any retribution.

Makeda surrendered the flag but feated, while the rest of Beanpole's forces killed some more of my infantry. One Immortal charged Aiyana but failed to kill her. He swapped Defender's Ward onto Makeda. Oh, and he killed Kell. Alas.

Round 4:
I was able to get the Mangler into Makeda, but only did a bit of damage, that I think he transferred. I wanted to start scoring this turn, so I cleared his flag and set about creating a barrier of bodies that could protect MacBain!!!!. However, when all my models on that side had finished their activations, I realised that he still had an Incendiarii left that could probably take out the whole infantry wall with a single shot, (plus Beanpole would feat back a second one), so instead of running MacBain!!!! I had to advance and take a double-boosted handcannon shot to finish it off. Aiyana tagged the engaging Immortal with her Kiss, then Holt killed one or two. With Defender's Ward gone and the armour at a more reasonable level, the Cutthroats were able to kill a few more.

I guess Beanpole was a bit desperate here, because he sent Makeda in to a hot zone to kill Alexia. Which she did. The Immortals finished off the Cutthroats with their Vengeance attacks, then they killed Aiyana but whiffed on Holt. The Krea ran over to base my flag.

Round 5:
So Makeda was now sitting in front of MacBain!!!!. Easily kill, right? Somehow I didn't think so; not with Defender's Ward and a couple of Blood-Quenched tokens. But I figured MacBain!!!! had reach and she didn't, meaning he could attack while keeping a few models between them. I figured I could hit her once to stop transfers then put the Mangler and Cylena into her; they would both get back-stike bonuses, so I could probably do some damage while keeping a fair camp and scoring.

It took MacBain!!!! three focus to land a single hit, that did no damage. The Mangler and Cylena did maybe a few points between them? I left MacBain!!!! on three focus, with a couple of Risen between him and the Skorne warlock.

The other Nyss Hunter shot down Marketh, who was contesting, and Holt took two aspects off the Krea (which I thought was pretty impressive). I scored two points for dominating the flag.

The Krea finally killed Holt and started to score. Makeda killed Cylena but somehow managed to leave Sylyss on one box. The Willbreaker moved in to contest the flag. The Immortals scratched the paint on the Mangler. At some point we paused the game because this happened:

That's just from a regular dice throw. How crazy is that? Anyway, Beanpole scored a point this turn.

Round 6:
After what happened last time I tried it, I wasn't prepared to go after Makeda, so MacBain!!!! cast Fortune on himself, walked over to the other side of the flag, and killed the Willbreaker. I body-blocked Makeda with all the infantry I had left, while the Mangler killed a couple of models with a lazy swing. Beanpole scored one point and I scored two.

Beanpole killed some more infantry and spread out his remaining forces to try to make it hard for me to clear my flag. He scored another point, bringing his total up to three.

Round 7:
So for some reason I forgot that the flags weren't neutral and got it into my head that the Mangler could score a point on my flag. So I  loaded him up with focus, cast Energizer for three to make damned sure he had the distance, and sent him in to the Krea. He murdered it easily with his charge attack, leaving him with three focus and MacBain!!!! on zero with Makeda possibly in his back arc. Smart. Of course I didn't score anything.

Beanpole attacked MacBain!!!! with the remaining Immortals and a Paingiver, while Makeda based the flag and tried to make sure MacBain!!!! couldn't reach her. The Immortals rolled poorly and didn't do much damage. He scored a point, leaving us both at 4.

Round 8:
So MacBain!!!! needed to base the flag to score, but I also needed the Mangler to contest or else we'd both just go up to five points. So MacBain!!!! charged the Mangler, used Energizer to move the Mangler out of his reach then move the remaining couple of inches towards the flag. The Mangler ran over to contest. I scored the fifth point I needed to win.

Game 2:
I played against Blondie, who was running a similar list to last time:
Styker I
-Old Rowdy
-Squire
Journeyman Warcaster:
-Defender
Gunmages
-UA
Sword Knights (10)
Sword Knights (6)


Pre-Game:
We rolled the scenario with two flags and a zone with two objectives. We both picked Arcane Wonder. He won the roll and picked the side of the table with the wall and less intervening terrain, leaving me to go first.


Deployment:
The flag on the right looked nice and sheltered, so I prepared MacBain!!!! to go running over to it. The Nyss Hunters stood next to him, planning to use the large forest as cover from the Gunmages. The Risen went in the middle to contest stuff.

He deployed the Sword Knights in a long line, with the larger unit on my left. The Gunmages were spread out between them. Rowdy was just to the right of center, and the Defender to the left (behind the wall).

I put the Cutthroats on my left where the could contest the other flag, with one far on the right so he could get Fortuned. Kell went on the far left because... uh... I don't know.

Round 1:
So the very first thing I did this game, you guessed it, forgot to allocate focus to the Mangler. Sigh. Fortune on the Cutthroats, who ran up to the hill, Failsafe on the Mangler, the Nyss ran up and hid behind the forest.

Blondie ran his Sword Knights forwards in base contact. The large unit on left got Arcane Shield. The other shield went on Rowdy, and Snipe on the Defender - who killed a Cutthroat. Rowdy got into the zone, but was behind the forest.

Round 2:
Well, the plan was to start scoring, so I would need to keep MacBain!!!! safe. I also saw an opportunity with Alexia, but she would need to move forwards to take advantage, so she needed some protection as well. I placed the Cutthroat's corpse well forwards. MacBain!!!! feated on the Nyss and Alexia. The Nyss charged the small unit of Sword Knights and stubbornly refused to roll anything less than a 7, killing all but one.

Then I did something I'd never done before... I actually used Bushwack! The Cutthroats shot at the Sword Knights before moving back away from theGunmages. Shame they stubbornly refused to roll anything more than a 3... not really, but even with Fortune and poisoned weapons they only managed to kill a couple of Sword Knights. Kell ran in a long flanking maneuver.

Alexia advanced, moving the dead Cutthroat's corpse behind his line of Knights, while the rest of her posse formed up in front of her. She then turned the corpse into a Thrall, who had a clear charge lane at the Journeyman. One lucky attack roll and one perfect damage roll later, and I had one less warcaster to worry about this game!

Styker walked over an reactivated the Defender. The Sword Knights killed a bunch of Cutthroats. The Gunmages killed Kell, some Risen, and knocked down some Nyss Hunters.

Round 3:
I ran the Mangler around the forest to get to Rowdy, planning to use Jackhammer to attack him. Just one little problem: I forgot you need line of sight to cast Jackhammer, and there was a forest in the way. So instead MacBain!!!! based the flag to start scoring.

Risen and Cutthroats killed some Sword Knights, Nyss Hunters managed to shoot a couple of Gunmages. I created a new Thrall and sent him in to tie up some Gunmages.

Rowdy got three focus and attacked the Mangler, but his damage dice were poor and he only took off about half his boxes. The Gunmages killed the Thrall and punched a hole in my line of Nyss, allowing the Defender to shoot at MacBain!!!!, but he only did a few points of damage. Sword Knights continued killing Risen, then providing Alexia with corpses for replacements by killing Cutthroats. I scored a second point. Stryker used his feat.

Round 4:
The Mangler got three focus; a Thresher hit the object for... very little, and Old Rowdy for even less. After spending all my focus I think I did like one point of damage to Rowdy. The Nyss Hunters killed another Gunmage, but didn't do much else. Alexia burned all her Risen trying to break through the ARM on a single Sword Knight, but failed. The Cutthroats manage to kill a couple with charges though. I scored a third point.

Old Rowdy had to leave the fight in order to get around and contest the flag, running there through a hole the Gunmages made for him. Stryker shot the Mangler, leaving him Disrupted.

Round 5:
I put everything I had into Rowdy, but only managed to do a couple more points of damage. So MacBain!!!! abandoned the flag, running behind the forest. The Cutthroats and Alexia whiffed on the Sword Knights. Oh, after several turns of ineffective slapping at each other, a couple of Nyss Hunters finally managed to kill the last Sword Knight from the smaller unit.

Rowdy finally killed the Mangler. One Sword Knight killed another Cutthroat, while the other two died to free-strikes in order to leave Alexia un-engaged, allowing the Defender to gun her down. The Gunmages finally advanced and shot at MacBain!!!!, but couldn't break his armour.

Round 6:
Aiyana Kissed Blondie's objective, Holt shot it for a few points, then four Nyss Hunters charged it. Poor rolls saw three of them die before the last one finished it off, netting me a point. Croe killed the last Sword Knight, while his last Cutthroat ran over to engage a Gunmage. MacBain!!!! then charged over and killed said Gunmage, clearing the zone and dominating for two, winning me the game.

Postmortem:
OK, so those were some long grindy games. A lot of that was my fault for being so cagey with MacBain!!!!. I keep thinking that I should have been able to go all-in on Makeda, but the DEF buff from Defender's Ward combined with the extra ARM plus one or two Blood-Quenched tokens all the time... well, the one time I did attack her I burned half my focus and did 0 damage, so... having said that, there were several turns where Makeda could have reached MacBain!!!!, but he was usually camping at least 3 and I made sure it would have cost her initials to reach him, so Beanpole apparently wasn't prepared to risk it either. Honestly though, he really should have gone for it one that turn when I left MacBain!!!! on 0 camp with his back turned to her. I guess he didn't think I'd be able to score and/or contest so he wouldn't need to?

I think my dice were fairly average; I got the real clutch rolls off, but I don't think I pulled off any really crazy rolls. Both my opponents had some pretty bad dice though; Blondie's Gunmages rolled a whole lot of 3s, and Beanpole's Immortals took about 3 times as long to kill the Cutthroats as they should have.

Aiyana and Holt are... kind of a big deal. Aiyana's Kiss can really be huge, and Holt can do a surprising amount of damage; he came respectably close to one-rounding the Krea. At this point I'm fairly sure they're a must-have for a Merc list with no other damage buffs. I need to get mine assembled.

I have decided that, from this moment forth, Alexia shall officially be known as my second warcaster. She has almost warcaster-level stats, with great survivability, great offensive power, and some crazy abilities like getting Thralls into insane places, but she's cheap and, unlike my warcaster, is basically expendable. Killing that Journeyman was a huge blow, and it was a very hard attack to protect against.

I've been thinking of trying other jacks, but every time I do I imagine trying to kill Tiberion without a chain weapon. And with Beanpole talking about just keeping Defenders Ward on Tiberion all game, I just don't see it happening. I might try taking a second jack at some point though (once I get one assembled that is), at least at 50 points.

MacBain!!!! isn't exactly proving to be a powerhouse, but he does seem to have a flexible toolbox; I don't think I've found myself in a situation where I felt like I had no options, though I do feel very dependent on getting lucky with my warjack for armour cracking. OK, Sorscha and Strakhoff won't be cracking any armour on their own (one of the things I don't like about them), but Sorscha better enables the rest of her army to crack armour and Strakhoff can use still use Ram to manage heavies to some extent. Energizer is proving to be far more valuable than I expected it to be, I wouldn't have won the first game without it.

That 6 point unit of Sword Knights held up and ground down my 10 point Cutthroats and 5 point Risen units for the whole game, even after losing Arcane Shield. Yes, Alexia got a couple of Thralls off, but still, not a bad investment.

Blondie needs to be more aware of the scenario. The problem is that right now he's having trouble keeping his warcaster alive; I believe he lost the two games before this one to surprise assassinations on Stryker. So he's responding by keeping Stryker further back. Which is fair, but unfortunately makes it hard for him to score. Perhaps he should swap the Defender for the Centurion; that would give him a very robust piece that can contest zones and crack armour; I think he'd get more use out of it than he is from the Defender's cannon.

Traitorous Little Number Cubes

I finally had a chance to put MacBain!!!! on the table again. Since we were playing at 50 points, I had to borrow a few models, this time I was given the Piper instead of the Arab... I mean instead of Saxon.
MacBain!!!!
-Mangler
-Silly Welshnameelf
Kayazy Eliminators
Nyss Hunters
Cutthroats
Alexia & the Z-words
Aiyana & Holt (borrowed)
The Piper (borrowed)
Kell Bailoch
Maddie
Thor
-Blaster (2)

Beanpole brought a surprisingly support-heavy list:
Xersis I
-Tiberion
-Gladiator
-Krea
-Shaman
-Reptile Hounds (3)
-Aptimus Marketh
Paingiver Beast Handlers (2 min units)
Nihilators
Flayer Cannon
Willbreaker
Void Spirit


Pre-Game:
I won the roll and chose to go first. Beanpole sent me over to the side of the table with the big chunk of rough terrain right in the middle. We played the scenario with the two neutral 12" round zones.


Deployment:
"A big chunk of rough terrain right in the middle?" I thought to myself, "No problem, I have plenty of Pathfinder!". So I naturally deployed my pathfinder units on the sides and my non-pathfinder models in the middle behind the rough terrain. Smart.

I was expecting Beanpole to go for the zone on my right with the big trench running through it in order to protect him from my shooting, so I deployed the Nyss opposite that side since they don't care about cover, and the bulk of my army opposite the left zone where I was expecting less resistance. Alexia went in the middle for corpse collection.

Beanpole deployed his Nihilators on my right, the Reptile Hounds on my left, and the rest of his forces in the middle.

The Cutthroats pretty much had to go on my left since the Nyss were on the right, but I put Kell on the far right to help with the Nihilators and the Void Spirit.


Round 1:
I ran fowards and tried to space out. Fortune went on the Cutthroats and Fail Safe on the Mangler, leaving me one focus for a 1" energizer. Rhupert gave the Nyss Tough.

Beanpole ran forwards, trying to use the forest defensively. He put Defender's Ward on the Nihilators, and cast Paralytic Aura with the Krea, the Shaman, and Xersis. The Void Spirit kept it's distance from Kell.

Round 2:
The Blasters shot at the Reptile Hounds, doing surprisingly little despite even with some boosts. Kell, Holt, the Cutthroats, and the Nyss mainly just took aimed shots, managing to kill two Reptile Hounds and kill a few Nihilators, leaving a few more knocked down. Rhupert gave the Nyss Tough again, and MacBain!!!! gave them Fortune. Alexa backed up behind the Mangler because I was scared of the Flayer Cannon and the Shaman's boostable Ghost Sight shot. Maddie ran up to base her for better collection range. Risen tried to get past the treacherous "slightly uneven ground" in front of them, but they no walk so good.

The Nihilators charged my Nyss but killed... none? I think the Flayer killed Cylena (I forgot to take a tough roll) and the Tiberion killed another? After he was done murdering my Blasters and slamming them into Cutthroats that is. The last Reptile Hound killed another Cutthroat. The Void Spirit ran to help the Nihilators contest while trying to keep some distance from Kell (I think he was trying to engage a Nyss Hunter but couldn't quite make it?). Xersis cast Inhospitable Ground.

Round 3:
With Inhospitable Ground up, it would be very hard to get the Mangler into Tiberion. I thought I could make it, but first I wanted to Kiss him with Aiyana, which introduced all sorts of order of activation issues because he was currently engaging both a Cutthroat and a Nyss Hunter, which would make him much harder to hit.

So I dropped Fail Safe for the Focus and placed some Risen, blocking Tiberion's line of sight to the nearby Nyss Hunter. The Nyss killed some more Nhilators. Kell killed the Void Spirit. Rhupert gave the Nyss Tough as a parting gift before he left them for someone else (Alexia, who might need Pathfinder soon). Alexia then killed the last Reptile Hound with an aimed double-boosted handcannon shot, burning the Risen engaged by Tiberion. The Cutthroats charged, killing a Paingiver and missing the Gladiator. The Cutthroat engaged by Tiberion just ran off, getting crit-slammed into Thor. Both died.

Now Alexia was finally able to Kiss Tiberion. Holt shot some Paingivers I think. Finally, the Mangler ran a painstaking 5" inches to try to reach Tiberion, but was a couple of millimeters out. So MacBain!!!! had to cast Energizer for 1 Focus, getting the Mangler into range, then cast Jackhammer four times with the last of his focus. All four attacks hit, leaving Tiberion with about 4 boxes. Not quite good enough, sadly.

I then enacted operation "make damn sure nothing can kill MacBain!!!!", moving him well back and running the last of my models into what I hoped were protective positions.

Xersis cast Inhospitable Ground and healed Tiberion for a point, a Paingiver healed him for another (restoring all aspects), then Marketh gave him Defender's Ward. Tiberion then killed the Mangler. The Krea and Gladiator killed a bunch of Cutthroats, and the unit broke. Nihilators knocked down a single Nyss Hunter. The Shaman killed another, but the Flayer Cannon missed.

Round 4:
The Nyss Hunters, still rocking Fortune, killed the last of the Nihilators, a Paingiver or two, and the Flayer Cannon. The Flayer Cannon's grunt was of course promoted, but Kell walked up to get into a more threatening position and killed it.

Tiberion was at DEF 17 to Aiyana's kiss (how the hell does that happen?), but she just managed to land it. Holt shot... a Paingiver? Not sure. MacBain!!!! then cycled Fortune onto Alexia, repositioned towards the right zone, and managed to knock a few boxes off Tiberion with an impressive damage roll on a double-boosted hand cannon shot. He also feated (after casting Fortune instead of before, because I am stupid), allowing him to protect the Eliminators, the last of the Cutthroats, Aiyana & Holt, Maddie, Alexia, and the only Nyss Hunter who was actually in range.

Rhupert gave Alexia Pathfinder and set up in front of MacBain!!!!. Alexia charged Tiberion, finishing him off, while the rest of the Risen set up to block lines, and also managed to knock an impressive number of boxes off the Gladiator with a crazy damage roll on a charging CMA. The Cutthroats rallied, and the Eliminators spread out a bit. I scored a point for controlling the right zone.

With most of my important models being unkillable this turn, Beanpole focussed on thinning out my Risen and contesting the right zone. The Gladiator killed the z-words in front of him, the Krea and Paingivers killed some more, and the Shaman ran to the right zone. Xersis cast Inhospitable Ground again. He might have cast Defender's Ward on Xersis?

Round 5:
Kell finished off the Willbreaker. Aiyana Kissed the Shaman and Holt shot it for impressive damage. MacBain!!!! cast Fortune on the Nyss then walked and Energizered over to the zone. The Nyss charged the Shaman and finished it off, the rest blocked out the zone. Croe whacked the Krea pretty hard, but the other Cutthroat whiffed. The Eliminators ran around the edges of the left zone to be annoying. I could have charged Alexia at something, but she only had a few Risen left at this point so I decided to pull her back defensively instead; Rhupert gave her Pathfinder and they ran back to shield MacBain!!!!. I scored two points for dominating.

Beanpole wasn't really going to be able to stop me from winning on scenario at this point, so his only chance was assassination. Marketh cast Fury on Xersis. Two Paingivers moved over to kill the Cutthroat, allowing the Gladiator to walk over and throw Croe at a Nyss. He rolled the hard 9 he needed to hit, but the Nyss Hunter wasn't his real target: the flying bandit crashed instead into a Risen, killing them both and giving Xersis a landing zone. The Krea paralyzed a Nyss Hunter, allowing Xersis to charge and kill him easily, Overrunning into MacBain!!!!. Xersis was rolling straight dice; with MAT 8, one initial and 5 Fury, the outcome should have been obvious.

However, at this point Beanpole's dice showed their true colours and viciously stabbed him in the back, leaving MacBain!!!! on 2 health. At the end of the turn I scored the two points I needed to win.

Postmortem:
As soon as the game ended, Beanpole remembered that he still had his feat. Xersis had hit twice; that means the feat would have given him two more dice of damage; guaranteed to be enough to finish MacBain!!!! if he had remembered. I rolled a dice to see if MacBain!!!! would have passed his tough roll, and rolled a 1. So yeah, one silly mistake and some evil, evil dice cost Beanpole the game. Speaking of dice, mine were really good; I had some great damage rolls and I almost always got the numbers I needed when I needed them, perhaps the only exception being the failure to take out Tiberion with the Mangler (but that was always a bit of a long shot).

One thing I discovered this game is that Inhospitable Ground is just an annoying rule for everyone involved. Because it creates this invisible zone of rough terrain, it makes it really annoying to move when you're around the edges (as many of my models were). When I was moving MacBain!!!! the last time, we forgot about it, then when we remembered it created this awkward situation of trying to figure out where MacBain!!!! should be, and we ended up on a compromise that was closer to Beanpole's army than I had intended. If I had remembered earlier I might have worked around it better, possibly even using Rhupert's magic music on him rather than on Alexia. Well, I've always placed great value on Pathfinder, especially on warcasters; I love that Strakhoff has it natively, and this game just validated that.

I always seem to underestimate Xersis threat range, don't I? I love Overtake, someday I'll get a chance to use it myself.

I'm glad I was able to kill the Reptile Hounds early, but damn if they didn't absorb a lot more firepower than I expected.

The Shaman is an interesting support piece, with quite a lot of abilities. Plus a LOS-ignoring boostable gun is a valuable tool. Against my dudespam list though, Incendiarii are probably more valuable.

It's worth mentioning that I forgot to enforce Alexia's passive ability that doubles the cost of casting spells; that would have prevented Xersis from casting Inhospitable Ground, allowing MacBain!!!! to get to a safer position at the end. Speaking of which, in retrospect I shouldn't have pulled her back, I should have kept her forwards to be a nuisance. Well, I suppose I would have if I had seen the assassination coming, but if I had I would have done a lot of things differently, so never mind.

Wow, a Nyss Hunter was hit and actually survived! This has never happened before! Crazy! I'm starting to see why Rhupert is so highly regarded. Although I'm wondering if the added defense is actually better for the Nyss overall? Well, at least in this case, when my opponent didn't have any AOEs, auto-hitting effects, or accuracy buffs.

I really didn't do anything at all with the Eliminators this game. This was partly due to wanting to keep them alive in case I needed them to give MacBain!!!! the Gang bonus, and partly because Inhospitable Ground hurt them pretty badly. Hey, at least I remembered to put them on the table.

I do like MacBain!!!!'s toolbox. I think I made good use of his feat this game, it bought me a turn where Beanpole couldn't really kill anything valuable and had to just focus on Risen. Fortune isn't the most powerful spell around, but I think it was valuable this game, turning several misses into hits, helping to turn the balance of attrition in my favor. I wonder though if I was too obsessed with swapping it around? MacBain!!!! was pretty much on 0 camp all game. I can get away with that against Skorne, at least in the early turns when he's pretty safe from melee threats, but nearer to the end it might be wise to concentrate more on camping. Overall I think he's doing pretty well against Skorne so far, but realistically I think I should swap Thor's group for another warjack. I'll probably do that as soon as can put one together, which I can't really do right now as there's too much on my backlog.

My first model of the year and it isn't even mine...

I painted this model for a friend ("Blondie" in my battle reports) who's recently started a Cygnar army. I've been trying to teach him how to paint (which requires two types of skills I lack: teaching skills and painting skills), and I decided Old Rowdy would be a good "reference model" to paint up for him so he could get an idea of how the techniques I'm trying to show him can look in his colour scheme (at least as it stands right now, he's still experimenting with colour combinations).

The idea we discussed for his colour scheme was basically a darker version of the standard Cygnar colours, with darker blues, and blacks instead of whites. So for reference' sake, I'm listing the paints I used with this guy. These are mainly Citadel paints, and some of them might be out of production (or renamed), so check the paint compatibility chart to see what equivalents are available.

Blue:

1. Base with Mordian Blue
2. Wash with Asurmen Blue
3. Highlight with Enchanted Blue

Black:

1. Base with Black
2. Highlight with Codex Grey

Brass:

1. Base with Doombull Brown
2. Base with Gehenna's Gold
3. Wash with Ogryn Flesh
4. Highlight with Auric Armour Gol

Gold:

1. Base with Doombull Brown
2. I applied a coat of Gehenna's Gold here, but it's probably not needed
3. Base with Auric Armour Gold
4. Wash with Ogryn Flesh
5. Hightlight with Chainmail

Steel:

1. Base with Leadbelcher
2. Wash with Badab Black
3. Highlight with Chainmail

Silver:

1. Base with Chainmail
2. Wash with Badab Black
3. Highlight with Mithril Silver

Glow:

1. Base with Temple Guard Blue
2. Highlight the center of the glowing area with Baharroth Blue

Grass:

1. Base with Blackfire Earth (a texture paint)
2. Wash with watered down Devlan Mud
3. Drybrush with Bleached Bone
4. After varnishing apply spots of PVA (preferably a waterproof kind)
5. Sprinkle on Static Grass
6. Hold model upside down above the grass container and tap the base to get rid of excess grass and help it stand up rather than laying down flat
7. Preferably keep the model upside down while the glue sets.

I painted him over the course of about three weeks, which is pretty good for me. I did feel that he was more detailed than I initially realised, and as a result he actually took a bit longer than I expected to finish.

A bit of freehand on the shoulder.

Rowdy has lots of cute little dials and gauges.

Wait a minute, Rowdy has... NIPPLES? Horrifying machine nipples...

About the only blank space on the whole model is that huge empty shoulder plate thing. I kinda felt that it would look strange if it was left blank since it's in such a prominent position and there's no other large empty spaces on the model, so I pretty much had to do some freehand. I decided to get a bit ambitious and try a combination of patterns that I had been experimenting with way back when I painted Dante. I think the results are pretty good, if a bit "uniform". In case it isn't obvious, it's supposed to be a decorated block of "scripture".

For reference sake I've broken down the steps for painting the pattern. First I painted a simple square in Mithril Silver, then drew two a "frame" inside:

Next I painted over the middle bars using black:

Then I painted very thin lines of black to give the pattern depth and make it look like a single line passing over and under itself:

The "spirals" took a lot of back-and-forth, but basically they were a series of diagonal lines, with the first and the last lines extended into a loop. The ends of the lines were then touched up a bit to to go up on one side and down on the other, making them look more like curves:

Finally I painted a bunch of squiggly lines inside the frame to look like text:

I think he looks pretty cool overall, without using any techniques that are too advanced (not that I can use any particularly advanced painting techniques...), with the possible exception of the somewhat mandatory freehand. By the way, this was my first time using my new camera to take photos, along with a Foldio light box and a two-part rotating turntable thing I painstakingly built for creating more uniform animations (this was before Foldio opened their kickstarter for their mini remote turntable thing). I think these are the best photos I've ever managed (I didn't retouch the brightness or contrast or anything in post, all I did was resize them), so that's good. I'll post more details on the turntable later, but I'm hoping to get better at creating smooth turntable animations in the future.

Finishing A Paracord Belt

I can't believe how long it's been since I finished a belt. Well, I just completed my second Derweesh Mark III paracord belt, and it reminded me of Goldilocks: my first one was too short, this one is too long. Hopefully the next one will be just right...

Well, at least I can actually wear this one. Last time I used eight spine strands, and as a result I had to change my weave at the end. This time I avoided the problem by using six spine strands and weaving through the spine "loops" instead of around them (if that makes any sense). I was using 550 Paracord, and the belt turned out to be 1.5" across; just narrow enough for a standard 1.75" buckle. If I had used eight spine strands I don't think it would have fit.

Nice big regularly-spaced holes.

All buckled up.

I had several comments in previous posts asking for more details about how to finish belts. It's hard for me to explain in words, so this time I took step-by-step photos.

First of all, it helps to have a pair of leatherworking needles that will work with your cord. They aren't necessary, but you might have a much harder time getting the cord through the loops on the last row without them.

Second, the key is to leave lots of slack when weaving the last row, then pull it tight afterwards. This makes it MUCH easier to fit the cord through the loops, as I will try to show in the photos.

This is the second-to-last row:

As you can see there's enough room left in the spine loop to pass the paracord through again:

However, we don't pull the cord tight, and leave a generous loop:

We continue weaving:

Always leaving loops rather than pulling tight:

When you pull the weave tight, the cords actually take up more room; by leaving plenty of slack we can actually pull the cords back to reveal gaps that we couldn't have used of we had tightened the weave:

Again, needles help a lot:

In this case I chose to continue the same pattern, but I didn't want to end with a loop-back step as it would have created a bit of a "forked tongue", so I used a crossover step:

This meant passing the cord through the center,

then around the other cord and back through the same hole:

Once the pattern is finished,

you can pull it all tight:

Then of course cut and melt the ends. Not the neatest melt job I've ever done, but oh well.

Well, there it is. It's a lot lot lighter and easier to use than my Slatt's belt. I might make a shorter one with a nicer buckle at some point, although I'm considering trying to weave a KBK Bar as thinner, lighter belt next.

Turning Tables

Got my second game in with MacBain!!!!. My main plan going in was to try to use Countermeasures; the idea was to put it on the Cutthroats and jam them forwards.
MacBain!!!!
-Mangler
-Sylyss
Nyss Hunters
Croe's Cutthroats
Alexia & the Risen
Kayazy Eliminators
Maddie
Reinholdt

Blondie was trying his Sword Knights for the first time. Also, as Rowdy and the Squire were on the painting table, he put together a list without them.
Stryker I
-Centurion
Journeyman Warcaster
-Defender
Gunmages
-UA
Sword Knights (max)
Sword Knights (max)


Pre-Game:
Turns out a white and grey gaming mat covered with white and grey primed models is not very visually interesting... my camera doesn't seem to photograph it very well either. Because I had forgotten to bring terrain or objectives or anything with me, we picked the simplest scenario with just the two medium bases as flags. He won the roll and chose to go first.


Deployment:
Blondie lined up his Sword Knights, with the Gunmages to my left. I put Alexia in the middle for best soul collection, Maddie next to her to increase her collection range, and MacBain!!!! facing my flag. The Cutthroats faced off against the Gunmages, with one in spell range of MacBain!!!!.

Round 1:
Blondie ran his Knights forwards in base contact. The Gunmages moved behind them. Stryker put Snipe on the Defender and Arcane Shield on the Gunmages, while Junior put Arcane Shield on the Centurion. The Defender took an optimistic shot at my army, but even RNG 20 wasn't quite enough yet.

I put Countermeasures on the Cutthroats and spent the rest of my focus to run and Energize my battlegroup forwards. Everything ran.

Round 2:
The Defender put 6 damage on my Mangler. He Sword Knights charged my front lines, with one group putting another 6 damage on the Mangler and the other unit taking a bunch of Cutthroats. His Gunmages then shot through the gaps to take out some more Cutthroats and some Nyss Hunters. The Centurion charged a Nyss Hunter but missed all it's attacks. Stryker popped his feat.

My plan this turn was to clear my flag and start scoring. Alexia put down a bunch of Risen behind his Sword Knights. The Mangler killed a couple of the Knights engaging it with a Thresher. Reinholdt gave MacBain!!!! Lucky Charms. MacBain!!!! then took an aimed shot at one Knight but missed (I was saving the charms for the damage roll as it was in the feat). Jackhammer on the Mangler killed the remaining Knights engaging the jack. I put Fortune on the Nyss at last. The Cutthroats only killed a single model I think. A 5-man CRA from the Nyss killed one more Knight. I think I moved the Risen but forgot to make their attacks for some reason. In the end there was one knight left contesting my flag.

Round 3:
The Centurion finished off the Mangler. The Defender shot Alexia and forced her to sacrifice a whole bunch of Risen. The Sword Knights took out more Cutthroats, leaving only Croe. The Gunmages killed off Alexia, some Nyss, and all but one Risen. Stryker moved towards the flag.

Well, my army was almost completely gone, so all I could do now was go for assassination. MacBain!!!! used Intrigue to move forwards a bit, passing through the flag. Maddie seduced a Knight to get him out of the way; he walked over and missed a swing at a Gunmage. Croe killed a Knight because why not. One Nyss Hunter ran over to engage Stryker, while the rest killed a couple of Knights. Reinholdt gave MacBain!!!! Lucky Charms. MacBain!!!! cast Fortune on himself and charged Stryker, surviving a freestrike from the Centurion. With the Gang bonus from the Nyss, he managed to pull it off.

Postmortem:
Wow, I was getting murdered! My plan to use Countermeasures backfired, as I was never able to reach the Gunmages so my Cutthroats just ran forwards to get themselves slaughtered. Meanwhile my completely unnecessary use of Energizer just meant that I couldn't afford to get Fortune out; in hindsight it would have been more useful to put that on the Cutthroats then swap it to the Nyss. Plus, you know, I completely forgot to feat. I kept saying "I should feat this turn", then forget until two activations after MacBain!!!!.

I underestimated the range on the Defender; he could have been putting boosted POW 15s on MacBain!!!! from the second round as I actually left line of sight, but he probably forgot that the flag doesn't block sight and focused on the Mangler instead.

In previous games Blondie would always use his feat a turn later than I thought he should, I think he picked the timing better this game as I suddenly found myself engaged by ARM 21 Knights, and an ARM 29 Centurion! My Nyss Hunter was at dice -20 on the damage roll on the jack!

I guess he still needs to work on his threat-range estimation and remember to protect his caster, though that's a skill that takes time to learn; I myself left MacBain!!!! pretty exposed this whole game. Plus Macbain!!!! has a slightly longer threat range than you might expect, especially with Maddie. The Gang bonus and ability to cast Fortune on himself also makes him a bit more dangerous than the average Warcaster.

I forgot to take the Eliminators out of the box again. I don't know why I keep forgetting those two, though they are stealthy ninjas after all. I don't think that they would have made that much of a difference to the game though.

I guess Maddie won me the match, as I wouldn't have had enough focus left for the kill if I'd had to use Energiser to make the distance.