What's on the Painting Table

Post Warmahordes weekend, I've not got anything that must be painted quickly, so I'm back to my hap-hazard style of painting. However, I thought that if I tried to keep track of it, I might get stuff finished rather than end up with masses of stuff nearly finished.

• Skorne Beast Handlers and Cyclops Brute - These guys were almost finished when I decide to take Cryx for the weekend. They just need finishing touches and they are good to go.
• Harbringer - With some effort I have put together my Harbringer of Menoth. A wonderful model, that has some really evil joints on it. So far I've put down the first layer of paint, but need to invest in some new detail brushes before I continue.
• Bases - If you might have noticed in my pictures, I'm not at all good at basing my models. Its always something I've intended to do, but kept forgetting. Given I have a bucket load of basing materials that I've accumulated over the years, I really have no excuse. So, I'm going to go back and base all my models. At the moment I have a few test ones, which hopefully will lead to a fully based army.
• Captain Rengrave - He was started back when I was painting the rest of the Revenant Crew, but as I wasn't expecting to field them he took a back seat. 
• Lylyth - Again, finishing touches more than anything. 

That's what I can remember!

Hopefully I can also try and avoid buying much before the next Warmahordes weekend in August. I'm going to allow myself the next Warmachine expansion book, and painting supplies, but otherwise see how I go.

I'll edit this with some pictures later, posting at work so no camera or miniatures to hand !

 

And here they are. Harby has a base coat of paint on, and more importantly she's together. Pinned all over the place, and hopefully won't come apart while I'm painting it.





My attempts at basing. They look good, but I have a couple of issues in that a) I didn't use enough PVA and b) I need to adjust the positioning. Overall thought, I'm satisfied, and so will work on the rest at some point.

Post May Warmahordes Review

Last weekend was a bank holiday, and more importantly it was a Warmahordes Weekend.

In the end I took this list:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
* Cankerworm
* Nightwretch
* Skarlock Thrall
Bane Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls

This was my first games with Asphyxious, and I came away from the day having won 2, lost 1. However many mistakes were made by all, including many misjudged distances and once or twice even forgetting to allocate focus.

If I run this force again, I think I'll switch casters and take Denny again. It will mean switching the Cankerworm for another Nightwretch, but more Arc Nodes are never a bad thing. While a fully focused Cankerworm did make mincemeat of the heavy jacks it came into contact with, I found myself missing Denny's debuff's, and her feat is so much more awesome.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed the games played, and hope to get a few practise ones in before the next Warmahordes weekend at the end of August.

Battle Overview
This is all coming from my memory as I didn't take any notes. If I make any mistakes, those that were there can correct me.

The playing area was 4'x4', with a modest amount of terrain added in the form of a couple of small hills, tree areas and a couple of walls. The placement of the 2 areas on trees on the mid line basically created 3 corridors of clear terrain for units to pass through, unless they wanted to deal with the rough terrain penalties.

Game 1 vs Retribution
First game was against my brother's Retribution force, made up of Mage Hunters and a light and heavy jack. I ended up splitting my forces, sending my Bane Thralls down the middle with the Skarlock, and the remainder of my force going to the left. The Cankerworm advanced deployed and using its Affinity with Gaspy managed to get itself in the woods in the middle by the end of my first turn.
Alan ended up sending his caster, Ghost Sniper and light jack to deal with the Bane Thralls, and while the Bane's never made it into combat, they did tie up those 3 units for quite a while. While that was going on, my Cankerworm made very short work of his heavy jack, and my Mechanithralls pummelled the Mage Hunter squad with steam powered fists.
The game almost slipped away from me when a number of mistakes came back to haunt me. Due to a missunderstanding of the charge rules, I ended up never putting my Cankerworm in base-to-base contact with its targets. That meant that I never used its salvage ability, to steal the shiny Retribution weapons. By the closing stages of the game, my only ranged abilities were Gaspy's spells, and with no cover available from either terrain or hiding behind his own units (damn being a medium base) I went into the last turn of the game on 1 health point. Thankfully I managed to unleash a volley of Hellfires, popped my feat and repeated until I won.

Game 2 vs Cygnar
A highly melee focused force vs a jack heavy ranged force. This one didn't at all go to plan, and I'll be working on some counters for future engagements.
Again I went with a split deployment, but this time put my Mechthralls down the middle and took the Banes to the right. The Cankerworm moved up fast, but after seeing what it could do, my opponent decided to try and take it out with some AoE effects. The only thing threatening me to the right was a Hunter, with the 2 heavy jacks and Warcaster facing off against the Mechthralls. While I dispatched the Hunter and stole its gun, poor positioning on my part put Gaspy in LoS to a Charger and Brisbane with no camped focus. He didn't last very long.
I'm going to need to look at ways of dealing with ranged heavy forces. I think I was a little too cautious to start with, Cryx is quite fast and needs its speed to get into combat fast.

Game 3 vs Circle
My first game against a Hordes force, and in a previous battle he'd made mincemeat of the Cgynar force, so I wasn't keen to go head to head with the entire force. Packing a heavy warbeast, light warbeast and a 5 man medium based infantry unit and a bucket load of movement tricks, this one was interesting.
In what turned out to be a theme of the weekend, I deployed in a split fashion again with my mechthralls in the centre, and everything else to the right. After seeing his speed the last few battles, I didn't push the Cankerworm too far ahead. I managed to get a hit on his heavy warbeast with Hellfire and sent it running, leaving only the light and infantry really as a threat. I left the Mechanithralls to die at the hands of the infantry and concentrated on working my way around the forest to deal with the light and warcaster. While the light warbeast died to a combined assault to the Bane Thralls and Cankerworm, I almost lost the whole thing when I forgot the caster had Pathfinder and what I thought was a safe position turned out not to be. The dice gods smiled on me though as I weathered a hail of magic attacks on low health, and importantly with a speed reduction. Unable to charge, I had to resort to Hellfire + feat in an attempt to get the kill. However the dice gods withdrew their favour and I left my opponent on 1 health! Surprisingly they didn't push for the kill, instead decided to withdraw, at which point I gained the upper hand and finished things with an arc'd Hellfire.

I had 3 very different battles, in each both myself and my opponent made mistakes that would come back to haunt us later in the game. We all were having problems judging ranges, leaving a couple of warjacks/beasts stranded after a failed charge, or a critical spell being just out of range.

I'm looking forward to our next wargaming weekend. Hopefully before then I can get some practise in against my brother using a few variations of my list. I'd also like to break out the Skorne, as I like how they play and Titans are awesome!!

Count Down to May Warmahordes

Its now only a week and a bit to May Day Warmahordes!!

I've been painting like a mad man to get a silly number of models finished. I'll admit, its only silly to me, given my previous painting speed. But much to my own surprise, I'm not doing a bad job.

However, I'm running out of painting days due to other commitments between now and the Bank Holiday, so time to nail down what I'm taking and make sure that's all painted. With War Room now not coming out until mid-May, I'm forced to take Cryx as I don't have the Mk2 cards for my Skorne.

So far we've just been playing straight forward caster kill games, which I expect we'll continue with. I'm up against a jack heavy Menoth, Mage Hunter Retribution force, Starterbox+ Circle and a ranged heavy Cygnar (I know, most Cygnar are ranged heavy).

Last time I fielded the following:

Warwitch Deneghra
* Deathripper
* Deathripper
* Skarlock Thrall
Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls
Pistol Wraith
Warwitch Siren

While I did ok, I'm not sure I made much use of the Warwitch and the Mechanithralls. Also, with it being 15pts, and a lack of infantry, I wasn't able to regenerate the Mechanithralls as well as I intended. I'm expecting to face at least 1 heavy 'jack or 'beast in each list, and I don't feel I have much to deal with them.

I have been toying with the idea of fielding the following instead:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
* Cankerworm
* Nightwretch
* Nightwretch
Bane Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Pistol Wraith

I've always loved Bane Thralls, they are a solid unit that can take apart infantry or warjacks/beasts. I think the Cankerworm could be fun, but I'm not sure I need 2 arc nodes. I think I'm going to shelve this list and look at another Gaspy list.

New Asphyxious list:

Iron Lich Asphyxious
* Cankerworm
* Nightwretch
* Skarlock Thrall
Bane Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Mechanithralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Necrosurgeon & 3 Stitch Thralls

Only 1 arc node, but a Skarlock Thrall who acts in a similar manner anyway. Mechanithralls are in there to act as a tar pit against anything I don't like the look of, Banes and Cankerworm can eat any 'jacks, while I line up Gaspy for a run at the caster.

Hmm, now this is an interesting one:

Warwitch Deneghra
* Defiler
* Slayer
* Skarlock Thrall
Bane Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Warwitch Siren

Half of the army has Stealth, and the Slayer can be given Ghostly to help it get where it needs to go. I'll actually have a heavy 'jack who can go up against any other 'jacks, all be it with support from the Warwitch.

I have many options to ponder. Anyone fancy offering me some gems of advice?

Painting Update

I have this tendency to only post updates when I've got new finished models to show. However, given how I paint (many things, a little at a time) this results in large gaps between posts. So, I'm going to try and post more often, even if they don't have pretty pictures.

This weekend I hope to get much painting done, so I won't post anything yet. Instead, I'll take a look how far I've got with each of my planned armies.

Cryx
This started as the most complete, so in principle should be the closest to completion!

 Iron Lich Asphyxious - Done
* Cankerworm - Ran into a small problem, I'm missing the jaw for some reason. Still 50% done though.
* Nightwretch - Done
* Nightwretch - Done
Bane Thralls (Leader and 5 Grunts) - I'm about 33% of the way through a full unit.
Pistol Wraith - Done

Menoth
I've put much of this force on the back burner until I can get the Harbinger put together. I did sort the Choir out though, as it may need to be loaned out to my Menoth opponent.
Harbinger of Menoth - To be constructed
* Repenter - To be Undercoated
* Crusader - To be undercoated
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) - Full Unit Done
Holy Zealots (Leader and 5 Grunts) - Undercoated
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer - To be undercoated
Paladin of the Order of the Wall - Done

Skorne
As with my Cryx, these guys were well on their way to being complete at the start. I have swapped a Savage for a Brute, so technically putting me a step back.
Master Tormentor Morghoul - Done
* Cyclops Savage - Done
* Cyclops Brute - 50% Done
* Titan Gladiator - Done
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) - 50% Done
Bloodrunner Master Tormentor - 75% Done

Legion
I think I've got a paint scheme I can replicate accross the warbeasts, but have yet to do anything bigger than a Shredder. I've also realised I don't have the horns for Thagrosh, something I need to look for before I order anything from the parts department.

 Thagrosh, Prophet of Everblight - To be undercoated
 * Shredder - Done
* Shredder - Done
* Carnivean  - To be undercoated
Blighted Ogrun Warmongers (Leader and 2 Grunts) - 90% Done (final touches on 1)

Some people might not view this as a huge amount of progress, but given the amount of time I get to paint, I think I'm doing pretty good!
Only downside is, none of these include being based. Basing is something I've never quite gotten the hang of, and as a result 99% of my miniatures have unpainted bases. Perhaps its time I knuckled down and got basing.

Painting Update

The clocks going forward has brought lighter evenings, and greatly expanded my painting window. I can now spend an hour winding down from work painting, rather than sitting in front of the computer!

Recent completions have been my Menoth Choir, and my test Shredders.

The Choir is looking good, despite 2 of the models being finished a while ago and the others half painted up till now. Unlike some of my other miniatures I’ve half started, I actually managed to maintain a similar process. They look good together, and I imagine I would be to only one to tell which ones where which. 

 

Shredders are done; I talked about them in a previous post so instead of repeating myself I’ll just post pictures.

Thanks to the wonders of Simple Green, I have my Beast Handlers stripped of their old paint, ready to start again. I’ve also got my Master Tormentor on the table, and about 60% done. I’ve managed to reproduce the look of the existing miniatures quite well, so hopefully the new ones won’t stand out too bad. Let this be a lesson for me; don’t leave things half way done! 

Last weekend, Games Workshop unveiled their new line of paints with much fanfare and propaganda. Hailing them as the next thing in paints, that will revolutionise the way we paint miniatures, GW once again misses the mark with their advertising. While a couple of the new lines introduced look interesting, the advertising feels like Finecast all over again. 

Looking just at what the product is, there may be something good in amongst all the propaganda. The line of paints has nearly doubled as they have introduced an increased number of shades into the line. They’ve also split the paints into a number of different categories, Base, Layer, Shade, Glaze and Dry. The idea is, and supported by a painting guide on their website, you simply buy a set of paints, apply them one at a time, and you have your miniature painted. 

While the idea of not mixing your own paints might not appeal to experienced painters, for those just getting started it’s a simplification that may see them produce better results, and have them gain more confidence.

Without testing the paints, I can’t really comment on how this system works. I haven’t bought GW paint in years, but I’ve been told that their Foundation paints and inks were quite good. I may pick up a few and give it a try, but I can’t see myself switching over. For a start, they are still more expensive than the likes of P3, and their bottle design hasn’t improved. They’ve also created all new colours, getting rid of the previous colours. While there is a conversion chart, GW doesn’t guarantee they will match, so people (like me) may find themselves with mismatched armies. However the Dry paint idea, specially formulated to dry brush well, looks interesting so I’ll give one of them a try.

Warmachine/Hordes Armies - Update

Over a month since I started my 15pt army challenge, and I'm well under way.

I don't get a lot of time to paint, especially due to the dark evenings, so some people may be surprised how much is still to do. However, I'm happy to be making progress!

I've also got a date for another Warmahordes Weekend, being the May Day Bank Holiday, so I have a deadline to at least get one force finished!

So, what have I done. Well I have 2 Shredder's almost finished in their new colour scheme. Its come out ok, but the challenge will be to get it onto the Carnivean. I've gone for quite dark armour plates, with the flesh tone very similar to the Warmonger's I did a while ago. I've also nearly finished the last Warmonger from my minimum unit, and have Llyth in the final stages of completion. Actually, if I can get Thragosh and the Carnivean painted, then that's a force complete.


On the Skorne front, my Beast Handlers are currently being stripped of their old paint to get a brand new one. I'm hoping I can match the one remaining that I felt worth saving. I've also ordered a Cyclops Brute as I've heard they are worth it, rather than field 2 Savages. Hopefully it'll arrive soon, but I'm not adversed to the twin Savage list. I've also got my Master Tormenter ready for undercoating.

I haven't gotten much further with the Menoth force. Harbinger is currently still defeating me, so has been boxed in frustration. I have, however, started finishing off my Choir. These are another unit I started a while back but had only finished 2 of the 6. Unlike other units, these I feel I can actually finish off in a similar way, so no need to strip them. They are now about 80% complete, with some highlights and shading to finish off.

As for my Cryx, well the bulk of the army is the 6 man strong Bane Thrall unit, which is currently pieced together and waiting for the last clean up before undercoating. I've got to get round to ordering the missing parts to my Cankerwurm, but otherwise I'm sitting pretty good.

Retribution Test Mini

On top of all this, I'm also helping my brother sort out his Retribution force. Despite being keen to paint, he's let down by health problems, so I've been experimenting with Quick Shade to try and create an effect, but simple colour scheme. His force is mainly made up of Mage Hunter's, so mainly greens and leather which work well with the Quick Shade. Rather than white armour, I tried out a bone colour, which I think worked quite well.

The mini I used to test on is an old Confrontation miniature I had in my box. However it had a nice amount of cloth and armour to experiment on. All I did was apply the base colour, use a brush to apply the Quick Shade and then once dried used the base colour to effectively add highlights.

I think it came out well, and I'm much more impressed with Quick Shade than I was before. I bought it originally to do my Skaven army with, but after seeing the effect a friend managed on his Celestine, I thought I'd give it a bash. While I'm not going to be doing everything with it, it certainly has its uses and can great a great effect easily.

Colossals are Coming

This is a little later than I wanted to post, I'm recovering from a rather annoying cold type bug.

Anyway, last weekend was Templecon, a massive Steampunk convention over in the US. Typically, Privateer Press was there, and previewed what we can expect from them over the coming year.

Coming July 2012

Yes, the almighty Colossals are coming!

*Disclaimer: I was not at Templecon, all the following information has been gathered from forum posts and blogs of those that did.  All thoughts and opinions however are my own.

For those that don't know the Iron Kingdoms setting well, Colossal Warjacks were the original warjack creations and were used to drive off the Orgoth from Immorean. They were massive weapons platforms that required a team of Warcasters to control, and could lay waste to whole armies on their own. From these the modern, smaller, warmachines were developed, and now, taking things full circle, Colossals have been redesigned. These new type Colossals, while smaller than their predecessors, are less resource intensive to make/run, are more mobile, as well as only needing one Warcaster to control them.


Each of the Warmachine factions (including Mercenaries) will get a new type Colossal, and in a video released at the weekend PP previewed the Khador and Cygnar ones.

Cygnar: Stormwall

Khador: Conquest

Both are in resin, and tower above the heavy warjacks they are posed with. Check out the video for some great shots so you can see the size of them for yourself.




From information provided both at Templecon, and later on the Privateer Press forums, these models will cost between 18 and 20 points each, are part of your warcaster's battlegroup and have 2 new special power attacks they can make. That means they will benefit from battlegroup spells and effects and able to be allocated and use focus. In short, makes them awesome.

Menoth: Judicator

I've read both on PP's forums and on private blogs some people questioning the "need" to release Colossals. Some have even, disingenuously implied that this is an under the table attempt to push the size of battles up in order to sell more miniatures, a move compared to another games companies tactics.

Cryx: Kraken

I do wonder if these people are paying attention to PPs previous release history. Each new unit type introduced from Ranking Officers to Battle Engines, has worked to broaden the game, not push it to higher power levels. I'm not saying there aren't some powerful units out there, but there are no "I win" units with some of the weakest units finding a place in some army lists.


Colossals are going to be powerful units, otherwise they wouldn't be worth that many points. But surely creating armies to face off against them is what makes this game fun. 


If nothing else, these are going to be awesome centrepiece models for your armies. If you are playing Warmachine then you must love giant stompy steam powered robots, and these are going to be GIANT steam powered stompy robots. Its all win!

Retribution: Hyperion

Personally, I'm looking forward to at minimum getting hold of the army book! I've still not been able to justify purchasing one of the Battle Engines as I don't play large enough games, but I hope the Colossals inspires my gaming group to up the power level a bit.

 Of course, not only will we be getting Colossals in the next book, but also the third incarnation of some of the Warcasters. I can't wait to see what over the top models Privateer creates for them.

Is this a teaser for Hordes Colossals, I think so!