Progressing visibly now

As I said last time, I have to get a move on to have my army painted for the Altrincham Altercation. I took a group shot today of how far I am. This shows 7 models finished. I still have 5 to paint of my first 500 points, with another 3 models to go to take it to 750.

Hopefully, with 4 of these being Tharn Bloodtrackers they should be done in a week or so. I finished another Bloodtracker and the Gorax today while we had a workman tarting up our house. The Gorax was a bit of a pain to get done. The main reason was his balance; he leans so far forward, straining on his chain, that he is a constant balance risk. There is a ton of Green Stuff under the rear half of his base as balast, but it is still touch and go whether moving him will end up face down or not. He is one of the few models I have done in a monocolour paint scheme. I did use a couple of tricks to vary it though. The fur got a wash of Ogryn Flesh at the end to add a hint of colour, and the face was highlighted with adeptus battlegrey/bleached bone mix instead of just adding more light grey/white.

A couple more of the Bloodtrackers are almost basecoated, but since I started them I have been distracted by an old Marneus Calgar model for my Ultramarines of all things! I may polish him off ASAP so I can get back to Hordes.

Not enough hours in the day!

We learn by doing?

So, I sent off my entry form for the Altrincham Altercation today. It is a one day tournament hosted by Dice Not Included on 21st June. Three games of Warmachine/Hordes at 750 points. This has me very excited and, at the same time, absolutely petrified. This will be my first ever tournament and as a one dayer will be much easier both for endurance and the amount of personal time it eats. No need for a hotel either as I live so close.

How do I fear thee though? Let me count the ways. First off- I have played four games of Hordes total, all of them against Trollbloods. This is a boon if ever have to play an army with the same models Rich fields... My experience of playing a Warmachine army is nil, zip, nada. My experience of playing Legion of Everblight and Skorne is equally non-existant.
Secondly, I don't actually own 750 points of Circle yet. I will have to get a wiggle on and find a handful more models. My gut reaction is add a Woldwarden and Woldwatcher, stick them with Baldur as a second warlock and see how we go.
Thirdly, my army is not painted yet! In common with most Warmachine/Hordes tournaments, their is no firm requirement to have a fully painted and based army (unlike, say, Games Workshop) but there are benefits. For me, the main appeal to playing new people, especially in a competitive setting, is to see new armies and new ways of playing. A pile of bare metal does not delight the same way as a fully painted army does. Don't get me wrong here- I am hardly a Golden Demon quality painter. I would, however, much rather play against myself with painted models than bare ones. You can see my latest model above. This is the test mini for my Tharn Bloodtrackers. I tried to keep her earthy and deliberately didnt use any metallics. The speartips are a grey/bone mix to give the look of rock. This model takes my painted count to 5 models, with 7 still to paint. Adding the final 3 models to get up to 750 points will mean I have to paint 10 models in about 7 weeks. I better get cracking!

Kaya and Alten, sitting in a tree- h u n t i n g...

A pair of lovely single minis finished this week. Kaya the Wildborne is the warlock for my hordes army. The focus is a little out on the shot due to her right arm thrusting forward with her staff. Because she is the only warlock I have at the moment, a lot of my strategy is based around her Spirit Door power which allows her to teleport a warbeast to her, or her to a nearby warbeast allowing some nice hitman style jobs.

Alten Ashley, Monster Hunter is a solo minion who has joined my Hordes army to snipe at big enemies. His special rule allows him to destroy a single aspect of a warbeast if he hits. This is basically a third of the warbeasts hitpoints without a need to roll damage, thereby bypassing high ARM models' main defense.
This week will see my start on the Gorax. Once I have this painted, a small group shot may be in order. The wood elves have not been abandoned by the way- I have started on a test model for the Wild Riders and will post that when he is finished. It does remind me how much I hate painting cavalry though!

Warpwolf ready to roar

Although his partially basecoated tush could be seen in my previous blog post, this model is now finally finished. I am very happy with him. Privateer's sculpts are so much fun to paint and the musculature made highlighting a pleasure. I wonder if this is because they sculpt in slightly higher scale than GW? (30mm vs 28mm) Anyway, without further adieu, here is the finished model. Given how well he performs, game in-game out, he may be a staple warbeast for the rest of my Circle playing days...

How to play Hordes.. a masterclass in mistakes

On Wednesday night I went down to Stafford Games with Rich to play some Hordes. We played two games of 500 pts, my Circle Orboros vs his Trollbloods. His army consisted of Hoarluk Doomshaper, Axer, Bouncer, Trollkin Champions, Fellcaller, Trollblood Hero and a fecking HUGE Earthborn Dire Troll. (the gorgeous extreme sculpt) My army had Kaya the Wildborne, Argus, Gorax, Warpwolf, Pureblood Warpwolf, Tharn Bloodtracker and Alten Ashley. It was rather busy when we arrived so our first game was on a table that was about the size of a teatray. Here is a photo of the deployment. Our warlocks and warbeasts were both opposite each other in small brick formations. The units and solos were on the other side and my Bloodtrackers and Alten both used advance deployment to get so far forward. Here is a shot of the table after deployment. It might be a good time to point out now that this was as good a position as I was in all game...
On my first turn I activated the Bloodtrackers who romped forward and used ambuscade on the trollkin champions. This killed a couple, but due to them having multiple wounds, this was not what I planned- they were now next to almost certain death due to failing to kill enough enemies. Alten took a potshot at the trollkin hero but this pinged off him. I didn't feel that the Earthborn Dire Troll was in range but in retrospect I should have risked it due to a huge chance of hitting and Alten's monster hunter ability allowing him to kill off one aspect without needing to roll damage. The warbeasts all bounded forward and the Gorax cast primal on the Warpwolf, the Warpwolf and Pureblood did some self buffs and Kaya just followed them forward. Rich used his first turn to beat the snot out of the Bloodtrackers and advance on Alten. His brick of trolls shuffled forward.

My turn two then started. This was where I realised a collosal mistake had occurred. The Gorax had fury on it from the previous turn. Kaya was on full fury due to not dumping any in the previous turn. Therefore, she couldn't drain the Gorax' fury and it had to make a threshold check, which it duly failed. Frenzied in my own lines! The nearest thing ahead of it was the Warpwolf so it charged in and started pounding some damage onto my poor wolf. This was also a good time to learn that a frenzied warbeast gets boosted attack and damage rolls... doh! At this point I wanted the ground to swallow me up, but we then realised that as the Warpwolf recieved primal last turn, that he auto-frenzies the following turn! Being in melee, he therefore turned round and started wailing on the Gorax. This took both of them down about half way. Jesus wept. The picture shows them wailing on each other. Rich pissing himself with laughter is just out of shot...

The rest of the gang advanced up. Kaya dumped some fury ready to sort those two out next turn! Rich then advanced and charged in the big troll who laid down some pain on my Pureblood. His bouncer put Bounce on the Earthborn so the next person to hit the Earthborn would be bounced away and unable to apply sustained damage. His trollkin chewed through my right flank. To counter the bounce, on my next turn I activated the Gorax early, stuck primal on a warpwolf and charged the Earthborn. This hit used up the bounce pinged the Gorax away, leaving the Pureblood to kill the Earthborn. I followed this up with a quick Spirit Door assassination run with Kaya and the other wolf. OK idea, very badly executed. I should not have killed the Earthborn first as Hoarluk was able to reave the loose fury when it died, leaving him sat on full fury to transfer away my assassination damage. I failed to kill him, and on his following turn the troll warbeasts gangbanged poor Kaya to death. In this picture, just imagine that Kaya was in the middle of this circle...
So, lessons learned-
1- Always plan how much fury you will need to drain down on your following maintenance phase.
2- Know both the pros and cons of any animus.
3- Frenzy can be great for getting boosted attacks and damage, just be aware that your beasty needs to be facing an enemy!
4- When considering an assassination attempt, be aware of how much damage the Warlock can pass away. Also remember that damage cannot be transferred to a warbeast on full fury.

Here endeth the lesson for now...

Stealth update

Time for a quick update before I go out for a fun evening of game and games (Venison and Settlers!). I have spent more time playing than painting this week, a very rare occurence and have a couple of battles to report on. I played a couple of great games against Rich at Hordes on wednesday night- Circle Orboros vs Trollbloods- and 2 fun games of 40k against Joe on Good Friday- Tau vs Ultramarines. Hopefully I get the time tomorrow to post some more.




My warpwolf is almost finished for my Circle army, and Kaya will follow him quickly I think.




For now, here are my latest Wood Elves, a Noble who will most likely be the ICBM Alter Noble set up, and the musician for my Wardancers.

Arrooo!

Warhammer is not the only game I am painting up models for. A few weeks ago I played some starter games of Privateer Press' Hordes game with a guy I met over at The Warhammer Forum.
If you don't know this game, it is the sister game to their massively successful Warmachine game which is about to undergo Beta testing for its second edition. Whereas Warmachine is all about huge mechanic steampunk constructions of death, Hordes is the primitive partner game and is all about ravening Warbeasts controlled by Warlocks ripping their opponents apart.


<--- Huge mechanical steampunk constructs of death!

The game seems to follow the golden rule of game design-" simple mechanics, complex dynamics" and has simple and easy to follow core concepts which are based around your Warlock and his/her Warbeasts and the Fury they have. Simply put, the beasts get angry when you force them to do things, and the warlock can tap this fury to cast spells. The complexity comes from the dizzying array of special abilities each beast and warlock have. It seems to me that for army composition, synergy is everything.


Ravening Warbeasts just ripe with synergy!-->







The starter boxes for each of the four factions, or "warpacks" as PP call them, contain a small balanced force of 1 warlock and 3 or 4 warbeasts. The warpacks are designed to be balanced(ish) to play each other to learn the game. So I played as Circle Orboros, a bunch of mysterious druidic sorts and their animals, and Rich played as Trollbloods, a bunch of huge blue troll monsters who delight in chucking large heavy things as my poor doggies. I lost both games (1 by the skin of my teeth- how can I fail to roll 6+ on 2d6?!) but for the rematch I shall try and get some shots and give a battle report.

Since the intro games I have used the mysterious ways of Evilbay and obtained some beasties of my very own. I have started to paint my Circle warpack. Kaya the warlock and the big evil Warpwolf are still WIP, but for now I have a finished Argus to show off. Here he is!


Yes, he has two heads. 360 vision is nice unless he frenzies and then as your warlock is likely the nearest thing to him, you have a problem! His Doppler bark can be used to make you opponent either move OR fight, severely limiting melee models for a turn. On balance, it seems he is not that popular a model though, compared to the others in the army.

I have also been painting up some Wood Elf characters and may post shots of them soon. Hopefully tomorrow I will finish either Kaya or the Warpwolf and get some photos taken and posted. I am feeling very motivated right now. I am totally looking forward to getting some payback with Rich too!