Feb Painting

Herald on palanquin & 3 bases of Nurglings

Blue scribes 

Karadrian 

Griffon 

Hunters

So after a frantic January Feb has been rather slow, what I have painted has all been additions to armies/crews for using at events, though I wont be using the daemons myself. 

But actually I've also been busy ticking off my New Years resolution of getting the basing and movement trays done on my Bretonnians.  That project got finished off this month but I'm adding a new unit to the army and will do a grand reveal once it is finished. 

Gertfaux

A mere 2 years after my last malifaux tournament it looks like I'll be attending another one.

The event is Gertfaux in Bristol, helpfully being held 10 mins from where I live.  I'm actually in as the spare player but due to drop outs I'm currently playing.  Rules for this particular event is single master and 100ss pool, being sensible I should probably only write a single list and stick with it, but I'm being ambitious and I'm submitting a pool.  That said schemes and strats are pre-announced so I should really go in with a good idea of what I'm going to do and pick the crew to match.

Here is the pool I've put together, not because any of it is particularly synergistic but mostly because it's what I have painted and lets me run a bunch of stuff at different point costs and see what it all does!  I'm going to try and read the strats & schemes tonight and try to design cres for each of them, which might result in me chaning some of the pool if there are things which are entirely useless in there. 

The draw has gone up and I seem to be playing another player not on the UK rankings, so seems it will be a total 'noob' off to start the day, lets see if we can 'noobstomp' each other out of existance, or more likely only get 3 turn in as we look up the rules for everything!

 Now all I've got to do is hope that nobody else drops out and I become surplus to requirements again!

Organising my collection – Downsizing/offloading junk!

So unusually it’s not actually a new years resolution to offload my junk, yet I’m looking at it in a serious way.  Oddly this all seems to have been spurred on by the possible changes to Warhammer forecast for 9^th edition.

For those that don’t follow the game the rumours suggest there will be drastic changes to how the game looks and plays in the next edition which is rumoured for the middle of 2015.  From 16 factions down to 6 (and there is already track record for this from the End Times books coming out at present).   So why should that really impact my collection?  Well it has been a long term goal to own one of every army for Warhammer.  But if the armies are no longer in existence do I really want to own them?  If they’re combined then what overlap do I have in my figure collection, what could I sell off vs keep without impacting me?

All of that got me thinking about the mountain of figures in my cupboards and how seldom some of them see the light of day.  For instance I have a 40k space marine army that hasn’tcome out the box in over 3 years I suspect.  It’s a battle company too, so not a small collection!  Then what about all the old games which I have stacks of figures for, will I end up playing them ever?

So I’ve begun the process of firstly carrying out an audit of what I own and the next step will be deciding what to do with it.

Warhammer – My biggest commitment, and the one with least certainty going forward.

Bretonnians – Full 3,000ish pts army, all models painted except 6 mounted yeomen but still needs based but that means I can match it with my empire to roll it forwards (it’s one of my resolutions to base it) HOLD & PAINT. SUBJECT TO FUTURE SELL ARMY.

Chaos Dwarfs – Big hat metals army.  These guys are money.  I paid a pittance for them as bought off someone that won the army in a raffle!  But I think I’ll paint them up and not just sell them off, there is something about an army that has been discontinued on multiple occasions that says holding them will only see the value increase. HOLD & PAINT

Daemons of Chaos – Chaos Legion will be one of the armies to exist in future Warhammer so no risk attached to these.  Already future proofed with my consistent basing scheme between them and my WoC.  Have a small selection of unpainted bits but only a handful of models, so should get them painted up so I can call it done.  Organised these recently into one place so can actually review what I have. HOLD

Dark Elves – Have a box full of stuff in my ‘to paint’ queue.  This is a tricky one, with the combination of the elf armies into one they are entirely redundant as I have painted WE and HE but on inconsistent basing.  Assuming 9^th makes them one army then anything in here must become duplicate with stuff in the other two books surely.  Consider selling? PAINT/SELL

Dwarfs – Massive army and a box of spares which are unpainted.  Unload surplus stuff barring things that are genuinely useful, sounds like army will cease to exist as a standalone but given a lot of what I have is 3^rd ed metals it’s holding value and desirable. HOLD & PAINT,  SELL UNWANTED figs

Empire – Bound to exist going forward in some form.  I’ve most of an army painted and plenty to expand with, these are the next army painting project, not too much additional unnecessary stuff to offload really. HOLD & PAINT

High Elves – Army done in 2014, still adding bits.  Have a box full of stuff I should just sell as of little value to me, but keep pulling bits from it to use at present, so loath to flog it quite yet.  Again the combination of the elf armies gives me some concerns over what to do with this stuff. HOLD, SELL UNWANTED, POSSIBLY SELL ARMY?

Lizardmen – Could be written out Warhammer based on some current thinking, personally doubt it but who knows!  I have a box of unpainted stuff but not masses so another one which I should just finish everything off and offload what is left. PAINT O/S, SUBJECT TO FUTURE SELL ARMY.

Orcs & Goblins – Army painted but very limited options.  Really should paint some more bits but also have a load of crap I should ditch. A staple of the GW universe, can’t see them going anywhere. HOLD, SELL UNWANTED

Skaven – already unloaded most of the unnecessary stuff, so just things I want to paint at some point left, army looks safe to exist going forward HOLD & PAINT

Tomb Kings – Got fully painted then bought a few more bits.  Get it all painted again! Becomes part of undead legion army, assume will exist going forward. HOLD & PAINT

Warriors of Chaos – will combine in UL, keep and paint what I have, some surplus stuff to unload. HOLD & PAINT

Wood Elves – Again elf legion problem, but have an attractive army that I like, so should be a definite keeper.  Have a box full of extras but a lot of it could find its way into an army, so think this is paint rather than sell, but a lot of it is metals which are replaced by new plastics.  Should I trade out? HOLD & PAINT

VC, OK, Beasts – These are the armies I don’t own at present. NOT AS STANDALONE ARMIES, ROLL INTO UL AND LOC, rumours suggest that beastmen are done for but hard to believe.  OK… combined with O&G, so an easy option to add them to what I have there.

Malifaux - Played 2 games of M2e which is now over 2 years old... Suggests I shouldn't really be too attached to it, but I've really enjoyed painting the figures so not about to sell it off, plus it's not exactly a huge model count I have.

Relic Knights - This is just a cool model range.  Again not a huge collection so I'm going to commit to painting up a force and stick with it for now.

Warmachine - This is probably the game I'm least attached to.  Played a few games a few years ago and it was ok, but since it's just sat in a box untouched.  I recently went and painted a few figs which I've rather enjoyed so might paint up the army but imagine just to increase its sale value.

Rivet Wars - never played, some of it still on sprue.  Basically on hold due to current life (small kids).  This looks like fun to pull out for a gaming afternoon when I get back to doing those.

Sedition Wars - Dead on arrival, get rid is the sensible thing, but at the same time I quite like the idea of the game and should paint it up for fun at some stage.

Necromunda - Did a good job of downsizing the collection last year, should continue to ditch this as it's just a waste of space.  Will keep 1 gang for sentimental reasons.

40k - Space marines should get offloaded, they're just dead space.  Eldar is a painting project that I want to get back to at some point, so keep those.

Infinity - Again no desire to play the game ever, should just shift it on.

Epic - I sat on stuff in a box for donkeys years and last year painted up a force, still never played the game but have a cool army ready to go when I get round to it, as had such fun doing it have actually picked up a bunch more stuff too.  Being sensible have a load of stuff I should get rid of, but enjoy painting it so gonna keep it and hardly takes up much room!

Overall I've basically got a load of stuff I should sell. But in reality I've so little reason to sell it I can't see myself offloading any.  Instead I'll just focus on painting the things I want and keep the rest hidden away in boxes!

HE painting updates

As ever an upcoming event has spurred me into action and I'm working on some stuff I can't currently field in my list.

The rather unloved griffon is getting to show his face, but not the usual IoB version. This is a reaper bones model:

And I've also done a rider, he might actually end up on a Phoenix as I think the bsb will get the griffon but still useful!

All of this being work towards a silly HE army which I'll run at a local 1 day event.  I think with that model I have everything I need for the list so can go back to painting stuff 'because I want to' rather than any need.

Sheffield Slaughter

This WFB event is a long lived beast indeed. 2015 was the 18th anniversary (older than one of its entrants!) and continued to make waves. 

It featured full end times goodness (save no khaine Magic) and a new and different scoring system. 

All in all I had good fun though I think that was aided by not coming up against any end times mega characters.


I played 3 new opponents and 3 id played once before over my last 5+ years of tourneys.


Here's my army:

My list was smashy fun and will definitely be coming out to play again. HE with 2 star dragons and 2 frostheart phoenixes plays a bit differently from anything I've used before (as you'd expect!) and led to a lot of things dying in all my games.


Summary of my games below for those that care about the detail.


Game 1 Woody
We put our armies in the middle, anything there was two of we took one each, then did alternating picks for the rest. Then shoved it forwards and called as many T1 charges as we could. Ended up a small win to woody because we didn’t add points and I think that was about right. Amazing fun to play and a great start to the event, can’t really comment on army matchups tho!

Game 2 Jake Corteen
Diagonal deployment meant I had to set up a bit more defensively as he had an entirely mobile army but he then just hid morathi behind a large building and purple sunned at me all game. Killed the warlock bunker and phoenixes got the dreadlord (eventually!) but he then purple sunned both dragons T5&6 having shot/magic’d off the characters. Think I had a phoenix at the end so lost 0-20. Typical avoidance DE with 3 bolt throwers (but I couldn’t really run at them due to the scenario) and it all went wrong!  Also Jake is a rather good player too, so not overly unexpected.

Game 3 Bryan Hatchett
A EK (DE) list with BoWD 10 warlocks, mage, bsb, lord. Peg cloak guy, 5 more warlocks, 24 xbows and some dar riders. Oh and 3 bolt throwers. This was the watchtower scenario so I knew if I killed the xbows I could probably win the scenario. He pushed them up and I failed a charge with a (both?) dragons so I blocked him from the building with a phoenix. On the other side tried to get the long charge on the peg with another phoenix but failed. Archers got to charge dark riders and beat them in combat, other unit got shot off in a couple of turns. Phoenix held the peg but then he charged in the bus and I fled (off table) but that stumbled both units allowing me to smash his xbows next turn with no come back. Put one dragon (prince) into the bus to let BoWD keep me there all game and just ate the characters one at a time until only BSB was left when started on the warlocks. Xbows lost 21 guys in a turn to dragon & phoenix (helped by an 11 on the breathweapon!). Game 20-0 with 3800ish vps!

Game 4 Kieran French
More Morathi DE, another warlock bunker but no pegs (yay)2x10 dark riders, 4RBTs. Was winning this comfortably having managed to get an early charge into a DR unit with a phoenix and other one on a double 6 with the mage dragon (just did it for the terror test) but then had a mega brain fart. 2xdragons, 1 phoenix (on 1 w) fighting bsb, lord, hero(1w) & lvl2 beasts (1w). I get greedy with the phoenix and try to kill both mage and hero. Mage survives and bubbles savage beasts. I take all 3 monsters off for 1500vps. Would have been a draw but he then shoots 1 RBT at long through a wood at archers, kills enough to panic, they run off table, unit within 6” of edge panics off too breaking my fortitude and he wins 12-8

Game 5 Andy Lewis Dwarfs
I had no magic by the end of my first phase (archmage ate a cannon ball his T1, lvl 1 spell eaten). Andy gives me the game by blowing up a cannon and failing a panic test on an OG stood 6” from a 1w dragon. Dragons (without riders who died horribly) & 1 phoenix eat his army as archers stand and watch. Army list was all HW&S guys so nothing about S4 barring characters meant a field day for the T6&7 stuff. 20-0

Game 6 Will Goodwin
Kairos & Friends. Afraid this falls into the category of utter non game. General dead from rain of chaos T1, table kills his dragon T2. Fire mage miscasts and unit flees off board. Phoenix dies to single gateway as I have to save dice for purple fun each turn from guy who swift reformed into building mid table T1. Archmage tries to make a game of it hunting Kairos but 4d6s4 does 1w which he wards then repeated PS, banishment & Gateway kills the dragon then her. I had a phoenix left killing the warriors in the building. I got 70 vps for archers shooting a horror unit to 1 model (who passed 5 wards over 3 rounds to survive!) and possibly forgot to check if the warriors were below 25% but who cares. Utter non game as he never needed to engage once two monsters went down so early. 5 channels & +2 dice from heardstone with that amount of magic & flexible spell choice is horrible. 0-20


So 4 20-0s (2 each way) and one close game where I totally blew a massive advantage. To be fair I could have just not committed and been guaranteed about 16 as he had no ranged threats that would have been able to target the dragons but I went for the throat because it is more fun and I was mid table mediocrity anyway.

Oh and the silly fun game vs woody.

January painting

It's been an odd start to the year.  Usually January is a bit of a slow burn, takes a while to get going after the fortnight of holiday induced sloth.  But this year I have been painting like a madman!  Also been seriously ill and working from home, could the two have a correlation...




First off Epic:

So most of the army was done in 2014, but I smashed out the last 15ish figures in 2015 to get it over the line.  I then picked up a few more trades to get my hands on some more aspects, wraithguard and jetbikes because I wanted to be able to use the army as forces other than Biel-Tan so Saim-haan and Iyanden were the obviously 'different' lists to aim for.

Then with the Epic army done and basing in the glory of another army completed I turned my attention to the next upcoming WFB tournament.  Back in October I wrote a list I thought would be fun to play for this, it's also potentially a bit nasty but hopefully not too awful (we shall see).  I had to paint 22 archers for this, a mage and I built & painted the second phoenix too, it's a conversion using the IoB griffon and the spare parts from the phoenix box for the one I'd already built.  They're intended for a flame phoenix but the real difference is paintjob so did nicely for giving me a 2 for 1 special with a model which would otherwise never make it into my army!

As it turns out the event is going to be a total filth fest so even what I consider 'nasty' is likely to be sub optimal.  But it's one I'm really going to for the social.

Still only mid way through January and I've painted over 40 models!  The last ones being for Malifaux (an illuminated not pictured plus Levi and the Desolation Engine).  As ever their models are such fun to paint and so quick to paint that this was an utter pleasure. 

[EDIT] Update to the end of January and I got to 50 models painted.

High Elves - 23 (1 mage and 22 archers)

Epic Eldar - 20 (assorted inf & tanks)

Malifaux - Levi, Rusty, Waif & Des engine), Tannen & Illuminated

Warmachine - Boomhowler Troll

[/EDIT]

2014 resolutions summed up

So 2014, I said I would:

1. Buy less than 25 models (the mrs said 10 so may try for that but suspect I'll fail with a few bits I want to add to make a HE army). 

Epic fail, over 200

2. Finish painting the last of my TK figs. Not many left about 20 I think. 

Done and then picked up a few more! 

3. Finish my Brets to 2400pts, finish all the models I have for them (again less than 20). 

Painted but still not based. 

4. Paint my HE army. Very specific build planned and have most of the models for it so not too much conflict with 1.
Success/Failure.  The build I painted changed and haven't done some of the original stuff yet, but have painted about 3500-4000pts worth of stuff for them.

5. Get back into malifaux and finish painting all my stuff (7-10 figs for guild/neverborn)

Kinda success. Painted everything. But only played 2 games. Bought a bunch more tho. 

6. Strip the rest of the CD stuff I bought and paint up a few units. (Not committing to a playable army this year as purchases would be needed).

Stripped but otherwise untouched. 

7. Empire or DE 'should' be next army I target as have majority of both owned, commit to painting without buying for either to continue to build them up. 

Ended up doing HE and WoC instead so rolled forwards!

8. Improve the quality of a specific 2400 pts WE list to target a paint nomination at an event (if I get to any). 

Done and got a second best at an event. 

Overall a fairly successful year in actually doing what I set out to do. Also painted close on 300 figures again so not quite one a day but still a good effort. 

2015 resolutions

Hobby resolutions:

Finish epic Eldar 3000pts list

Base Brets

Paint all malifaux figs (2 ish crew boxes plus a few)

Paint 50pts Relic Knights

Assemble guild ball teams, paint 1 team

Finish WoC (3 chariots, 4 skullcrushers, disclosed and hell cannon)

Finish empire (10 Demis, mounted wizbang)

Epic further considers:

Complete aspect formations to 8 of each where relevant (Hawks, spears, spiders)

Warlock Titan (need fist)

Devise storm serpent proxy

Alt lists wraithguard, wind rider - work out how many figs needed for each. 

Squee! It's here!!!

For those that have not noticed the murmers of joy from those of us based in the UK the Relic Knights kickstarter has finally delivered to their UK backers (and presumably all of Europe but I can't confirm this).

I checked back to my original order and aside from the fact that they have repackaged a bunch of the models to be in different groupings from that setout in the original kickstarter pledges it does seem that I've received everything I'd ordered.  Though I've been warned to check through all the boxes and make sure they all have the correct parts as there are some rumours that the Ceri Speed Circuit boxes were missing some bits.

I'd backed to the tune of two factions, but one of those is being passed onwards to a mate, the ceri are his, and I'm left with the Doctorine.  On a quick scan of the hardback rulebook (full colour, A4, appears great quality) it seems there are 3 doctorine units in the book which I don't own, I must have either missed them being in the KS or they were never included as I'd thought I'd bought the full faction.  That said it's no big deal I should have plenty to be going on with.

Opening thoughts, the wait has clearly been well spent by them, this wasn't just a few restic models tossed in a box, this was a full retail packaged set of figs, counters, mini-rulebooks, cards etc.  The finish on everything looks great and maintains that awesome anime look that got me to invest in the first place. 

That said it is restic models so not the finest of materials to work with, I've only pulled out 4 figs so far and to give them their due the mold lines have been pretty easy to remove and haven't resulted in chopping off large chunks of detail so can't complain but still less fun than working with 'proper' plastics.  But the sculpting being bold animi stylings mean there isn't too much fine detail on the ones I've looked at thus far so hopefully it will remain the case that the material isn't a detriment to the quality.

I'll post up some more thoughts once I've got everything built and cleaned up.

Bristol Vanguard Vengeance Tournament Review

 

So Bristol Vanguard (BV) are back running WFB events again, with a new shiny venue.  The wonderfully named Future Inns hotel in the Cabot Circus area of Bristol, I’m not sure what makes it ‘the future’ as it appears to be the same as every other hotel with conference facilities I’ve been to but it does have a couple of nice features.  The room was 2 sides windows so nice and bright and with the balcony door open was reasonably air, anyone who has suffered through gamer stench will be acutely aware of what a wonderful feature this is, the heat and noise also being helped by reasonably high ceilings so I could hear my opponents speaking which has been a challenge at some venues I’ve been to in the past.  Finally to put the cherry on the cake you can park in the Cabot Circus car park for the day and get it for free, if that’s not a selling point I don’t know what you people want.

 

So having sung the virtues of the venue I best get onto the important part, what on earth was the event about?  In sort a nice friendly 3 game (1 day) Warhammer tournament.  There was the usual smattering of army restrictions and special rules set out in the pack, which in this particular occasion were pinched from another tourney.  As a result there were some rather different armies on show which was fun to see, but those who care about balance and ‘the best person winning’ seemed to be of the opinion it didn’t do that very well (and it was hard to argue otherwise).

 

BV have been masters of terrain (and a brief sidenote here, I’m somewhat lucky in that my previous club ELG were equally blessed with an amazing terrain guy) and it resulted in a 16 tables with a really nice mix of different terrain themes, types and variety of stuff on the boards making it a pleasure to walk up to the tables and not face the standard tournament fare of 2 hills, 2 woods, 2 buildings and 2 ‘other’.  If I were to critique one thing it was that the majority of it still sat towards the edges, I’m a massive fan of impassable terrain being in the middle of the board so it actually impacts the game in a meaningful way and isn’t just used to hide something behind during deployment, but I do recognise I’m somewhat unusual in that view as most players I’ve faced at tourneys consider that a chore.

 

I could bore you all with a detailed run through of my games but for a couple of reasons I won’t be so cruel; 1. You don’t care 2. I did really really badly.  I will talk through my opponents though as basically they’re what make or break an event.  You may have picked up from my preramble that I’ve been doing tourneys for a while, so I tend to know quite a lot of folk and this was no exception.  Out of the 30 people present I’d guess there was over 10 BV members, plus a handful of people from surrounding clubs and then a number of faces I’d not seen before.  I managed to get 3 games against people who I’d not met before, a couple of them were Bristol locals so have been playing down the Old Duke (if you’ve not been, get down there, it’s awesome) but given my gaming hermit status I’d not bumped into them. 

 

But to start the day off I had a grudge arranged through the medium of twitter (again seriously, if you’re not on there get on it, there are so many toy soldier fanatics clearly sat bored in their day jobs putting up a host of wonderful 140 character long ramblings), so the grudge was set up a while in advance to play one Andy Matthews (doubtlessly I’ve spelt his name wrong as I’m really bad for that), he’s a tourney organiser down in Bournemouth and a delightful fellow but I’d never had opportunity to play before. 

 

So we rocked up chatted nonsense, hit it off wonderfully as one would expect seeing as our shared joy of toy soldiers and talking nonsense and to top it all off he brought out a flask of coffee and set me up with a delightful homebrew.  Anyways we briefly played a game (where he smashed me) and then with an hour to spare had a good natter and a look round the armies present.

 

For those not familiar with 8^th Edition Warhammer armies have generally grown in size, not always the case but generally speaking, as a result of the increased model count the painting standard had taken a dip a few years ago.  But now we’re 4 years into the edition and everyone knows the good stuff to take in a list the painting quality has been ramping up at a rate of knots.  Locally lots of people will be familiar with Ben and his Beastmen. Frankly put they’re beautiful, and he’s a git for that, but it’s hard to hold it against him as he’s more or less a nice guy, plus they’re Beastmen so it guarantees that he’s not doing it for the filth. There were also some really nice Empire (Richard Burdett, again names, meh), Matt Lees OrcGers (yep that’s Orc themed Ogres but painted white rather than greenskins, matt does all his armies white, it’s his thing), Ian Scovells utterly gorgeous Dark Elves (similar to his previous gorgeous dark elves but an entirely new army), Daemons by Les (I’ve already forgotten his second name) and one of my all time favourite armies in Russ Veals WoC (though he did have a few new bits that he’d not entirely finished to his top standard).  Anyway safe to say that for a 30 person event it was punching well above it’s weight in the painting stakes.  What would have been really helpful would have been some pictures, but I’m far to forgetful/lazy/easily distracted for that but I’m pretty sure Jan has posted some up on the BV forums.

 

A spot of lunch later (being gamers healthy salads all round…) and it was onto round two.  I got a relatively new player with a good looking VC army, lots of terrain built into the movement trays and stuff like that.  Russ is a Bristol local so hopefully will see him down the Old Duke (plug plug) again as I really enjoyed the game and it was actually 2 surprisingly similar lists despite being from different books!  Ultimately I made a stupid mistake which let him get to me earlier than I wanted which tied up my light mage from casting that made my life difficult.  Plus I couldn’t quite kill the terrorgheist despite the 3 WMs shooting it for 4 turns (eventually died to archers).  A fun game and a small loss ensued but at least I had some models left alive at the end!

 

Final game saw me hit my ideal matchup, an ogre army with no magic, I should have just blasted it off the table.  Of course I didn’t!  Again a new player in the Bristol area Matt had a lovely and incredibly fluffy army (no ironblasters, no magic!).  He also had a giant which he informed me had never survived a single game, if it survived it would be named after me… Guess what there is now a giant walking around called Dave Fraser.  God damnit.  I should probably apologise as I got a tad frustrated this game as nothing worked, but Matt was a true gent about it and just played his game and took my army apart, another tabling.

 

So overall a day of results I’d happily forget but 3 fun games with new people so I have to say I really enjoyed myself and will be back for the next BV fantasy event (though maybe I should just help out with organisation on the day given my performance!)

 

In summary there was some winners, some losers and a lot of abuse for the comp pack but everyone (that stayed for the whole event, a story I won’t tell) seemed to have a good time.  Congrats to Warren Brewster (BV member) for winning the whole thing and a massive thanks to Jan for organising and managing the rabble at the event.

 

On a personal note this marks the TK going back in the cabinet for me, they require making no mistakes to work well and I'm not playing often enough at the moment to spot things, so I'm going back to a more forgiving army.