The end...

So I'm shutting down my current two blogs. I've come to realize that I simply jump from project to project much too quickly to keep a blog for a single game. What will continue to happen is that I will start a new project for a few weeks or months and then go to another one, leaving the old blog dead. That isn't any fun. So my Warmachine blog is closing. My plan is to start a new general gaming blog that I can record all of my projects on. So you never know what I'll be posting, but at least I'll be posting.

Distractions everywhere

Hello Gentle Readers,

So what is going on with Warmachine? Well these past two weeks I've hit a snag in my play time. I've missed two weeks of the slow-grow league. Which was a real shame as I was doing fairly well. My office has exploded and my nice painting space has disappeared under a swarm of stuff.

Not that I like to do this, but I'm going to talk a little bit about what has been distracting me from my Cryx. First up, I played in a FoW event last weekend. I haven't played FoW in quite some time, and it is one of my favorite games. This was a mid-war event and I busted out my eastern front italians, fucilieri even. Yeah, that's right, my balls are that big that I play eastern front Italians. :)

Had a great time. First time playing V3 of the Flames of War rules. For the most part, good stuff. Came away with one win, one tie, and one loss. Can't ask for better than that. The event was the Northwest Invasion, and it was the second one that has taken place. Portland vs Olympia I believe. Next year we are hoping to pull in a Salem team. Already looking forward to it.

I also traded away one of my Dystopian War fleets, my French. I have to say I'm just not a big French fan. I got the fleet because it was a smoking deal at the time and I wanted to bolster my DW collection. However, I was offered the Meneoth Judicator as a trade for the army. How could I say no? So now I have a sweet new Judicator to put together. Holy crap that thing is big, and tons of pieces. Plus, lots of snipping to do on all of the resin. Hope I don't screw anything up.

I also need to admit that I got into a beta for an online card game that has been sucking up my time. I also enjoy playing LoL and MWO, so those always compete for modeling.

I've also been checking out Beasts of War lately. They are currently in their Kings of War week. Now KoW is about the only competition for Warhammer Fantasy that is out there right now. Mantic has done a great job of expanding that line. I've been interested in this because I'm currently on a anti-GW kick, and I have several fantasy armies collecting dust on my shelves. So could KoW be a way to play with my toys once again? Not sure yet. On the one hand, I really wish Mantic had gotten a bit more original with some of their units. Don't know if they needed to stay so close to GW. But on the other hand, it means you can use your existing stuff pretty much straight away in order to play their game. So right now I'm considering picking up a rulebook. Not a huge investment and the rules do seem like a nice break away from fantasy with some interesting ideas.

Oh, and one last bit, locally my friend Jeff is starting up a Bolt Action! league. Now I love bolt action and my german army has been sitting in its box since I got it. So I'm spending time putting models together for that game too. So as you can see, I got a lot of crap going on. But never fear, warmachine is right in the middle of it all. I just need to reorganize my office once again and get WM at the pole position. I might even need to break down and go online to buy a plastic Deneghra. That darn blade backpack keeps bending on me.

Until next time.

Missed week 4!

Sorry sports fans, but I missed week 4 of the league. We will simply put it down to exhaustion brought on by a severe lack of REM sleep. My youngest has pneumonia which means she is coughing all night long, despite our attempts to suppress it.

So while I had full leave to go and play last night, I just couldn't summon up the energy to go. By the way, thanks for the advice on the pistol wraith, I will definitely give that a try in my next list. What really kills me is that I'm now looking at a 35pt game I think next week, with no 25pt games under my belt.

I may add another bonejack to my list, as I'm trying to do a Deneghra themed list. I'll need to look over the restrictions again to see how to qualify.

If battlecollege is right, then I think I can go with 2 witches, and 2 pistol wraiths, plus add another defiler. That with a full unit of mechanithralls plus a brute will take me to 35, and then I get a free bonejack on top of that. I'm not sure what the cost of that free jack can be. Based on the models I have, I'll probably just go for a third defiler. That means 5 arc nodes, plus the slayer, but I have denny and two witches to help boost them when needed. Thralls are just there for a distraction.

Any advice on the above list is greatly appreciated. I do have bile thralls too.

Weeks 3 & 4

So week 3 came and went without a game. I have been playing on Monday nights and this past Monday, an opportunity arose which conflicted with the league. As that opportunity was spending quality time with the wife-unit, it easily trumped moving metal mini's around a table rolling dice.

Also, I'm still not sure how I should run my 25pt Cryx list. As I understand it, it is 25pts plus the jack allowance from the caster, and since I run Deneghra, that means 30 points. Right now I've been flirting with the following:

Battlebox Denny group
Add skarlock thrall
Add partial mechanithrall unit with Brute Thrall attached
Add warwitch siren
Add pistol wraith

I have all the models for this, so that is nice. I'm a bit worried about adding so many solos. I just hope I can figure out how to get the most out of them. I had also considered getting a second siren, dropping the wraith, and adding in a necrotech instead. That would give me two solos that could boost jacks, and a way to repair.

So do I go with pistol wraith, or a second siren plus necrotech? Leave a comment below.

Week 2 Recap

So Week Two is a 15 point game. My understanding of the league is that your battlebox (or equivalent) force must stay the same throughout the league. So basically, I got to add a one point unit. I choose the Necrotech and scrap thrall. Mostly because I had the models and I liked the thought of fixing my jacks if need be.

This week I got in just one game vs a very nice opponent named Josh. He was running a Circle alt-list. This would be my first game vs a Hordes army. He had two large construct warbeasts, a tree arch-node thing, a solo, and his warcaster. The game we played had three objectives on the table and you scored one point for each objective you sat on at the end of your turn. First player to 7 wins.

I lost the die roll and got to go first. I deployed spread out across the front, with most of my forces in the middle area. My first turn I ran everything up and originally was going to take two of the objectives, but he told me I couldn't score until turn 2, and that I may not want to get so close to him on turn 1. So advice taken, I moved those units back a bit. On my right, my scrap thrall went for the right objective, a deathripper went middle, and another deathripper went left. Denny and the rest followed up the middle.

His stuff moved up, and he buffed one of his jacks and built up some fury.

Turn 2, the left DR took the objective, and on the right, the scrap thrall took that one. Now he had his solo heading towards the scrap thrall. So I moved my defiler over near him and had Denny Venom him to death. My other stuff all advanced towards the middle, and for some dumb reason, I didn't take the middle objective. So two points for me.

Josh moved up a bit, his tree heading over to my left and zapping the DR, getting a crit and knocking him down. Some big fisted construct took the middle, while the rest moved up center a bit. He spells the other DR I think for a bit of damage and knocks him down too with a crit (his spell had a crit effect of knockdown).

Turn 3, I get a silly idea to have my slayer throw his warbeast off of the objective. All went well until he rolled a 6 and I rolled a 6 on two dice for the Strength test. Ugh. Should have just had the slayer rip him to pieces. Oh well. My other stuff stood up and Denny kicked off her feat. So at least his stuff was slow. Two more points for me.

Josh then had his guy pummel the crap out of the slayer, turning it into a wreck marker. He spelled the left DR again for little damage, and he spelled the right DR and turned it into scrap as well. He wins one point.

Turn 4, I move up my necrotech and pass my scrap test, and then roll a mighty 1 for scrap thralls. yay. I run the defiler around to flank his caster and miss it with the spray by one. Then Denny first throws a crippling on his other construct, and then tries to venom the caster for no damage. Still, I have to points, so now I'm up to 6.

His center guy moves off and beats my necrotech into pulp. Despite the crippling grasp, his other construct gets in range of the scrap thrall and blasts him. He does get another knockdown on the left DR, but doesn't finish it off. No points for him.

Turn 5, I don't have to do anything since I still have an objective, and the game ends with me at 7 points.

So I played smart (mostly) and took advantage of my speed and numbers to capture quick. Getting rid of his solo early really kept the pressure on. I was a bit surprised that he didn't commit more to my left, but he said he was really worried about getting close to my slayer. My other mistake was not letting the slayer go crazy-bat-bleep all over his construct. With Denny's feat and Parasite, the slayer probably could have finished it off with full focus.

For some reason I have this notion in my head that the slayer can't do enough damage. Hopefully that will get fixed by my next game.

Next week is 25 points! Holy crap. I have a few lists bouncing around in my head, and I'll post those up later this week.

As the Cog turns...

So tonight is week 2 for the League. I wasn't able to spend much time on my Cryx as I would like, but I have everything ready that I need.

Tonight is 15 point games, so basically battle box plus a one point solo. I went with the necrotech and scrap thrall. I know people are probably going to say I should have gone with the machine wraith, but I don't own a machine wraith. And truth be told, I like the idea of scrap thralls. I'm sure it won't work out and he'll get blown up, but who knows, maybe I'll get to make more?

I'll have to read the rules again for placement of newly made scrap thralls. Would suck if the very next turn you could just shoot one as they are all bunched up together and wipe them out with one shot. Eh? Who knows. Also, being able to repair my jacks won't be a bad plan either.

Most importantly, this is another learning game for me. My slayer seems to be a big target for enemy shooting, and keeping the necrotech behind him doing repairs sounds pretty darn good. I may also see about using Deneghra's knockdown spell tonight. See if I can set up some combos there.

As to painting, the models have their base primer color on them, and then a little bit of other base colors added. So nothing really to show at this stage. We will see how this week goes for adding more color. I have to say I'm actually a  bit worried about the slayer because I'm not sure how I want to separate the colors on him just yet. But I have my pallet at least.

So wish me luck. I hope to get in at least two games. I think that is all the stress I can handle. :) I know, I really shouldn't worry about winning at this stage in the game, but I can't help it.

Week 1 of Slow-Grow League

So the local warmachine group called the Cog Collective is sponsoring a slow grow league. Basically a journeyman league for new players. Luckily for me, the timing was right and I was able to make the first night.

I've been fighting back and forth between taking Cryx of Menoth. Menoth had the upper hand on the connection part. Who knew it, but apparently I secretly want to set people on fire? Cryx had the upper hand with model collection. I already own enough to go through the whole league without having to buy another model. Plus, I've always been an undead player for other games...so apparently I'm also a closet necromancer. Could be worse I guess.

Well it finally came to a head last night as I had to bring a force. And well the number one most important factor determined the faction...laziness. The cryx was already assembled and ready to go, so cryx it was. :)

So here they are. Now the Defiler in the back is my test model. He's looking quite funny right now because one side of him is painted one way, the other half is painted another style.

Well I happened to get two games in last night. The first was against a Convergence player. Now I already am behind the eight ball when it comes to faction knowledge, but I had no clue as to what this force could do. So my plan was to spread out my bonejacks, get at least one of them close to his caster, and try to burn him down with spells. The slayer hung back with Denny and just applied a threat up the center.

I put a little hurt on one of his jacks in turn two, but he healed most of it (darn convergence), and he countered by moving his warcaster up and shot my slayer. He did a good hit, but didn't take out any system, and then his heavy placed a crater around the slayer so that he wouldn't be able to charge.

Well as soon as he moved up his caster, Ghost Walk came to mind (due to some nearby woods between his caster and my slayer). So it was just icing on the cake to know that the tactic was going to bypass his crater too.

On my turn, focus allocated, Denny kicked off her feat, cast Ghost Walk, and then let the slayer saunter up and lay down the hurt on the warcaster. He was gone and the slayer still had two focus left on him. So not a win by plan, but I was glad for the opportunity.

My next game was against James and his Khador set. James was one of the hosts and had several factions to pick from. I knew I was going to get smashed. I have to say, I just didn't have a clue on how to deal with his jacks. I figured I would simply try the same thing against his caster, get a node within range and try to burn them down.

Turn three was my moment, his caster had popped out of cover to take a smack on one of my bonejacks. Now my plan was going to try to spell down his caster. But after looking at the board, he suggested another tactic. He had me line up my bonejacks so that one of them would slam the other into his caster, and then I would have a much improved chance to hit his caster. It had never even occurred to me that I could attack my own jacks. The dice panned out and down she went. I got two spells off on her, at dice -4. The first damage roll was just silly and I ended up doing 12 boxes to her (boosted). My second spell hit but no focus left for boosting...And his caster only had three boxes left...to which I declared, "now this is when I roll snake eyes" and sure enough I did.

But due to the Withering, his caster really couldn't get away and his jacks were in no position to help. I got a third bonejack behind his caster, and with a boosted spell took the remaining points from her. I don't really count that as a win, but it was a great learning experience. Kudos to James for being a teacher over a player. Had a great time and now gotta start painting to be ready for next week.