Dreaming of Lock and Load – First Hardcore Kill Box Game

I headed down to One Stop Shop in Tinseltown mall after work today and who did I find, but Ben, with his freshly painted Cygnar. Ben graciously agreed to play a kill box scenario under the hardcore rules, something that neither of us had ever done. We pulled out 50 point lists and ended up with a tier 4 epic Nemo list against a tier 4 Butcher list. These lists are from memory, but hopefully Ben will chime in if I got something grossly wrong…

• Butcher of Khardov (-6 pts)
• * Sharkie the Devastator 9 pts
• * Llama the Marauder 7 pts
• * Kodiak 8 pts
• * War Dog 1 pt
• Kossite Woodsmen, minimum, 4 pts
• Man-o-war Demolition Corps, full, 9 pts
• Man-o-war Shocktroopers, min, 6 pts -1 tier discount
• Widowmakers 4 pts
• Widowmaker Marksman 2 pts
• 2 x Manhunter 2 x 2 = 4 pts
• Yuri the Axe 3 pts

Opposite me on the far side of the table was old man Nemo and his zappityzapzap mczappity squad.

• General Adept Nemo (-6 pts)
• * Thunderhead 12 pts
• * Hammersmith 8 pts
• * 2 x Firefly 5 x 2 = 10 pts
• * Squire 2 pts
• Storm Tower – zero – zip -nada – free as in beer!
• 2 x Storm Guard, minimum, 6 x 2 = 12 pts
• Journeyman Warcaster 3 pts
• * Charger 4 pts
• 5 x Stormsmith Stormcaller 5 x 1 = … wait… what? I mean 5 pts. Really?

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A Reasonable Dream part II

In our last installment, we heard about the beginning of my journey towards trying to get 100 points of my Cygnar army painted in 3 months, ending roughly at the halfway mark with a pitiful 5 models painted, out of 58 that I had planned to paint. Whoops.

Shortly after that point, a Warmachine/Hordes league was starting up. I decided that I wanted to try something new for this league. Specifically, I wanted to use Epic Stryker’s theme list. I wanted to do this for 2 main reasons. First, I’ve never actually used Epic Stryker before, mostly because I have a tendency to only play with casters who are painted. Second, I wanted to have an army with 2 units of Stormblades assaulting everything in front of me.

Based on that, I knew that the models that I would paint next would be Epic Stryker, and the unit of Stormblades plus officer and standard bearer. The fact that I had already begun the basecoat on the Stormblades sealed the deal. The fact that I hadn’t begun the basecoat on the unit’s weapon attachments, the Storm Gunners, meant that for now I wasn’t going to bother with them. (more…)

A Reasonable Dream part I

In late 2010, the staff at Privateer Press (the makers of Warmachine and Hordes) had an in-house “Impossible Dream” challenge, in which they each attempted to paint a 100 point army within one month.

When I heard about that, I thought to myself: “Self, I think I’d like to try that.” I tossed the idea around amongst the regulars over at Vancouver Gamers and was ultimately convinced by them that it was a ridiculous idea, but changing the timeline to 3 months would make it a fun thing to attempt.

A few of us decided to take on this challenge, with the ultimate goal of having some sort of show-down at the end, where we would take our newly-painted 100 point armies and battle it out for bragging rights. Unfortunately, it looks like that grand finale probably won’t be happening, due to waning interest, one of the participants moving to another city, etc.

Anyway, for me the most important part of the challenge was always trying to get that army painted. I really enjoy painting, but for some reason I always have trouble getting myself motivated to actually do it. I tend to find that unless I’ve got some kind of deadline in which to get a certain number of models done, it just won’t happen. Because of that, I’ve got a firm rule that I’ll never take an unpainted model to a tournament (I will sometimes use unpainted models in casual play, but I greatly prefer not to). I also take on whatever painting challenges come my way. If I didn’t, I’d probably only have a half-dozen Cygnar models painted right now.

The first step for this particular challenge was to look through my depressingly large collection of unpainted miniatures, and decide what to include in this 100 point army. My primary focus was to include models that I’ve wanted to get painted for a long time, with a secondary focus on ending up with a playable 100 point force, and a tertiary (yes, that’s right, I just used the word tertiary in a sentence – thank you AD&D module D01-02 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth for teaching me a word that I could then insert into a blog entry many years later in an attempt to make people believe that I’m educated!) focus on making it somewhat reasonable from a painting standpoint. No massive infantry horde for me! (more…)

GottaCon 2011 – Steamroller Report from Bwafer

The intrepid Ben, aka bwafer, well known among the Vancouver scene for his affinity for speaking the unknowable (except to him) language of Swans, was among the attendees of GottaCon’s Steamroller event.  He originally posted his overview and summary in the forum at www.vancouvergamers.com, but I have stolen it from under his nose to repost here for those of you who might not frequent that particular part of the internet.  Without further introduction, I cede the floor.

Bwafer sez:

It was a very well-run tournament that went off without a hitch (at least, if there were any hitches or glitches, I was unaware of them), so I have to give props to Rida and Darren for ensuring that things went smoothly.

I only ended up facing one person who I’ve played before (Will), which was nice, because one of the reasons I wanted to go was to play against new people. The Vancouver crowd is great, but it’s always fun to play against fresh faces every now and then. I must say, I met some very friendly people who were lots of fun to play against.

When I arrived in Victoria on Friday evening, several things went wrong for me, including the fact that I realized that I had left a fairly important element of my Caine army at home – Caine himself. On Saturday morning I tried to buy a new Caine from a vendor there, in order to quickly glue him together so that I wouldn’t be stuck with just the one list. Unfortunately, it turned out that the vendor had already sold the only Caine that he had had in stock. Fortunately, he happened to have an already-assembled and undercoated Caine lying around that he was kind enough to let me borrow for the tournament. I was very impressed – this guy didn’t know me from Adam, and had no way of knowing whether I would walk off with the miniature, but he heard my plight and jumped in to rescue me. I made sure to give him my thanks and buy some stuff from him to reward his good karma before returning the mini.

The most tense and suspenseful moments for me came after the end of my last game. Going into that game, I knew that Paul (ed: that’s me!) had lost all of his previous games (ed: that’s not quite how I remember it…  who let this guy post this?), while there were four or five of us who had won only one game so far. If Paul lost his last game, he would take the coveted Whipping Boy title. If he won, there would be a number of us with the same win-loss record, and it would go to a tiebreaker. I lost my last game against an opponent who would have been in the running if he hadn’t beat me. Uehen had also lost his last game, giving him the same win-loss record as me. We both anxiously waited to see who would win between Paul and Ryan, to see if we still had a chance at the title and trophy. Paul won! We had a chance!

Uehen and I asked the others who had only won a single game whether they had won any control points – the first tiebreaker. It quickly became apparent that this was down to Uehen and myself, as we were the only ones who hadn’t won a single control point all tourney. It would be down to the second tiebreaker – points killed.

The scores were tallied, and it was announced that Uehen had taken it by a narrow margin. My heart fell, and I cursed him emphatically! In the heat of the moment, I might have even cast aspersions on his parentage – I was blinded by despair, so I can’t really be certain. Almost immediately, however, it was announced that a mistake had been made in the tally! Uehen’s total was actually higher than mine by a narrow margin, not lower! I leaped in the air in triumph, and gloated unrepentantly! Sorry for being such a poor sport about it Uehen, I got caught up in the moment. Maybe next year you’ll be able to take the title from me. Maybe next year.

It should be said that the local Vancouver Whipping Boy trophy is indeed coveted.  One of the fantastic local painters, Chad, did up a Skorne Paingiver Beasthandler plying his trade against an innocuous looking agonizer,  mounted on a base of a dark wood.  Take a look!

There are a couple more shots of the trophy here.  I wouldn’t have minded too much had I gotten to take that piece home.  Erh, I mean, lies!  Damn lies and falsehoods, I was never in the running for whipping boy!  I recall winning seven games out of the five played, and I rode across the water back to Vancouver on a unicorn, borne up by victory and the adulation of my peers.  cough.  I mean, thanks for the write-up, Ben!  Also, another round of thanks to the vendor who loaned the Caine model!  I would hazard a guess and say it was someone from Dice Bag Games, as they had HordesMachine stock at the convention.

If you are interested in seeing a small selection of Chad’s other work, check out his blog:  http://chadspaint.wordpress.com/ Therein you will find some shots of his work and information on how you too can commission something from him.  There are many instances of his work out in the wilds of Vancouver, as well as further afield.  I’m a big fan of his work, it is second to none.

GottaCon 2011 – Steamroller Gallery

These photos come courtesy of the dapper and dashing Uehen, who was Johnny-on-the-spot with the snappity-snap.

A strange thing happened…

Ben ‘Whipping Boy’ Wafer came over yesterday for an impromptu game of Warmchaine. Ben brought Caine and 50pts of Cygnar and I used Deneghra and built a 50pt Tier 4 list with an incredible number of Bonejacks. I say that the game was impromptu because Ben’s intended opponent didn’t show up (a recent injury kept him away) and so Ben played my hastily assembled Cryx force.

Not that the time available was an impediment to building the list since the Deneghra Tier list is fairly prohibitive in what you can take and emphasises the use of a lot of Bonejacks. So creating an army from this themed list is actually quite simple since a lot of the options are basically made for you in advance.

Sadly there are no pictures of this game.
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Warmachine @ Strategies

Today was the first gaming day, at Strategies, for the Warmachine Blasted Heath League. Strategies is one of the only stores in the city that has an “all painted” policy and so I had to make sure that my Satyxis Raiders were finished so I would be able to field an all-painted army or two.
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100pt Cryx v Cygnar battle report

Last Sunday Ben and I went to One Stop to have a massive, for me, 100pt Warmachine Mk II battle. We started at noon and I think that we only managed to finish 3 and a half turns before I had to go. It was an insane game as we had way too many figs to use properly (at least I think) and even working at breakneck speed the game often bogged down as we both considered the best way to move our troops or take out an opponent.

Despite this I had a lot of fun but I’m certainly not trying something like this again until I get a bit more experience with my army and with the game. You can see a gallery of some, blurry, photos that I took that show some of the action.
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100pt Cryx v Cygnar photos

Some photos take at the 100pt melee that Ben and I played at One Stop last Sunday. Check out my battle report and hopefully Ben will have some time to post his thoughts as well.
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Easter Weekend Gaming at Connections – part 2

This post is more than a little late, so I will keep it brief. The start of the Shattered Grounds league as well as other types of gaming (and work too) kept me from finishing this post up in a timely manner. The group of six or so that showed up on the Friday holiday was outdone by the larger group that showed up on Saturday, April 3rd.  There were gamers there that I had not seen in quite a long while, as well as some I had never met.  Connection Games 2 filled up throughout the day, which was cool to see.  I took a few notes on other games but am not sure the results of most, so I’ll stick to the games I played.
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