Painting Table Tuesday

This week on Painting Table Tuesdays, a little from column A and a little from column B.

First up, a return to my beloved Retribution mage hunter strike force (Privateer Press).  Still finishing up the base coats.  Generally, I paint models individually.  MHSF models are covered in fine details (chain, leather, and plate armor, two kinds of cloth, buckles, wooden crossbows, metallic swords, faces, and hair.  Quite a lot of fine work.  To save paint and (try to) maintain consistency, it seemed time to try an assembly line.  So far, I can say it is unsatisfying to still have eleven unfinished models, but very satisfying to see them coming together.

Also starting an Oniwaban (Corvus Belli) master ninja for my Yu Jing campaign army.  The studio models use a beautiful black-on-black and neon green scheme, but I wanted him to match my existing red/white, black, and olive drab army.  Just base coating and one level of highlight on the hakama so far.

The background serendipitously captures the rest of my hobby state: Kaelyssa, an incomplete Raven Guard cyclone terminator, unattached Knights exemplar errant seneschal flags, and a Gūijiǎ TAG, also for my Infinity army.  Maybe you'll see them next week on Painting Table Tuesday!

Warmachine Batrep: Borka vs Rahn

Our club wrapped up its Umbra league a few weeks back and I was able to catch a quick game.  Turned out to be a fairly one-sided match versus Monte and the infamous Borka Kegslayer, Most Difficult Warlock To Kill In The Whole Game.  Or, at least I think that's his title.  Seeing him, I insisted on scenario.

Borka Kegslayer and "Kenny"

Borka Kegslayer
- Pyg keg carrier ("Kenny")
- Dire troll mauler
- Troll axer
- Troll impaler
- Swamp troll
Fell caller hero
Trollkin fennblades (full+UA)
Troll whelps
(note: List is 39/40 points due to not enough models)


... versus ...

Adeptus Rahn Shyeel
- Phoenix
- Phoenix
Arcanist
Arcanist
Dawnguard sentinels (min+UA+soulless)
House Shyeel battle mages
House Shyeel battle mages

Monte deployed his entire collection of trolls.  I am not any kind of expert on trolls, but I suspect this may not have been Borka's finest list.  Borka an the beasts deployed in a clump slightly left of center and the fennblades and posse deployed right of center so the groups were about a foot apart.

Rahn's feat was devastating, allowing Rahn and the battlemages to pull all four warbeasts close enough for phoenix and sentinel charges, who were then controlling the central and left-most objectives.  The fennblades spent several turns trying to crunch through battlemages to get to Rahn -- and they would have -- but Retribution had won on scenario before then.

Not one attack was made against Borka.

Warmachine Un-Batrep: Old Witch vs Rahn

Steve and I setup to play a game this Saturday morning.  I should have seen it coming.

Zevanna Agha, The Old Witch of Khador
* Conquest
* Scrapjack
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Battle Mechaniks (leader+3)
The Great Bears of Gallowswood
Kayazy Assassins (leader+9+UA)

...Versus...

Adeptus Rahn Shyeel
* Phoenix
* Phoenix
Arcanist
Arcanist
Dawnguard Sentinels (leader+5+UA+WA)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (leader+5)
House Shyeel Battle Mages (leader+5)

Retribution won the roll and advanced.  Khador advanced.  Conquest fired at one phoenix doing six boxes and killing a nearby soulless escort, then setup a line of AoE and clouds across the board between our armies.

Dawnguard advanced with their vengeance move.  Rahn used Telekinesis to move both phoenixes forward, then tried to use it a third time to move a phoenix again.  Whoops!  That's illegal.  One advanced to combust and clear out the kayazy.  I misjudged the distance and only got three.  The other advanced to combust and clear out the great bears, but because I needed the second Telekinesis, he was short and missed all his attacks, leaving him two inches from the bears and five inches from Conquest.  Looked at the board… saw what was coming… saw no way out of it... and scooped.  The end.

Steve generously spent the next half hour talking through alternatives plans and how that might have affected the remainder of the game.  He strongly recommended I should have used the dawnguard's vengeance plus run to have them engage the kayazy, tying them up for a turn, and sacrificed one phoenix to the great bears to draw them out of position so I could kill them the next turn.  These still don't sound like very good options.  The battle is still replaying in my head, looking for alternatives.

Lessons learned: Telekinesis can only only affect a model once per turn.  And I need a serious revamp in my lists to deal with kayazy and underboss.

Warmachine Batrep: Magnus1 vs Rahn

Magnus the Traitor

Tuesday, Maz and I played a 35-point Warmachine game with the Longest Night scenario rules.  We missed out running this last year and he might before Halloween seemed a perfect encore.

Maz has been switching over to Magnus lists, beefing out a mercenaries army.  I somehow have never played against mercenaries and have only seen them (beyond admiring the models) once when a nearby tournament player experienced Gorten's Landslide feat for the first time.  A few pirate-y words were uttered.  But today we did not face Gorten; this was Magnus, bane of Cygnar!

Magnus the Traitor +6pt
- Mangler 8pt
- Nomad 6pt
- Renegade 6pt
- Renegade 6pt
Horgenhold Forge Guard (full) 8pt
Kell Bailloch 2pt
Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile 2pt
Rheinholt, Goblin Speculator 1pt
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord 2pt

Serious players will no doubt notice several problems with this list.  First, no mercenary contract allows Horgenhold Forge Guard to be taken with Magnus1.  The will only work with Cygnar, the Protectorate or Searforge contract.  However, Magnus' Four Star contract only allows models that work for Khador or Cryx.

Furthermore, we didn't realize until I started writing this battle report that he was running six points down.  But, more on this later.

Adeptus Rahn Shyeel
- Phoenix
- Phoenix
Arcanist
Arcanist
Dawnguard Sentinels (6+UA+WA)
House Shyeel Battle Mages
House Shyeel Battle Mages

(Getting close to my goal.  This list is almost fully painted.  One unit of battle mages to go!)

The Mercenaries won the roll and opted to go first.  He setup the forge guard on his extreme right flank with Rhupert and the rest of his force on the extreme left.  Facing a (generally) slow Rhulic force with a (generally) quick Iosan force, a denied flank setup was obvious.  Rahn's models setup far right, directly across from Magnus and the warjacks.  It would take the forge guard three or four turns to arrive -- assuming they could get past the thralls spawning from the tents.

Top of turn 2

And that's exactly what happened.  Maz played ten points short (for the mispositioned forge guard) and another six point short for using a list builder that didn't remind him about warjack points.  It was a rout.

Maz built his list with Privateer Press' new War Room application and it was a severe disservice.  As a relatively new mercenaries faction player, he was not intimately familiar with the contract requirements of his caster and units and War Room did nothing to remind him of those limitations.  It silently allowed him to create and use an illegal list.  Furthermore it did not remind him that his list was incomplete.  It blithely displayed "35 points" where it could have displayed "35/41 points".  Bad experience for Maz; bad experience for me.  Bad for the game.

For these and many other reasons: Don't use War Room.  Don't allow your opponents to use it.  Don't give Privateer Press or Tinkerhouse Games any money for it.  You will only encourage them.

Lessons learned?  Not many.  It wasn't that sort of game.  Battle mages towing enemy warjacks into melee range of a focus-charged, concentrated power phoenix is lovely to behold.  MacNaile's artillerist power with the renegades is a nasty trick, but only once per warjack and it's nicely negated by Rahn's force field spell and the battle mages' inherent blast immunity.  Pretty straightforward and short game.

Hope to try this again sometime.  Maz is always a pleasure to play with, and mercenaries are a fascinatingly fresh opponent.

Warmachine Batrep: Makeda2 vs Vyros1

Chad and I had a helluva game tonight. It wasn't a great game, sadly. They're never great when one side brings a strong counter to the other. But much smashing was had.

Supreme Archdomina Makeda

Supreme Archdomina Makeda
* Archidon
* Cyclops Shaman
* Molik Karn
* Titan Gladiator
Paingiver Beast Handlers (4)
Praetorian Ferox (full)
Praetorian Swordsmen (6+UA)
Tyrant Rhadeim

...Versus...

Dawnlord Vyros (Legions of the Dawn, Tier 2)
* Banshee
* Hyperion
Arcanist
Arcanist
Dawnguard Destor Thane
Dawnguard Sentinel (10+UA+WA)
Dawnguard Sentinel (10+UA+WA)

So, here it was: melee assassination Skorne versus melee attrition Retribution. Fight!

Bottom of turn three

Yeah, that about sums it up. Dawnguard sentinel swarm was irresistible force; Hyperion was an immovable object. Makeda was caught in the middle.

n00b-perion is displeased.  Very displeased.

Incidentally, do you like my n00b-perion? He's a Blizzard marine n00b from last year's BlizzCon. Think he needs some green arcane traceries?  I hear there's a real one in Santa's sleigh.  Might keep this one, though.

Lessons learned:

Molik Karn should not try to trample ARM 19 weapon masters. He's a terror with those blades, but only STR 10 in a trample. Whoops!

Get your armor piercing Tyrant Rhadiem into melee with the colossal, not stuck in with a four point destor for three rounds.

Molik Karn has a 19" threat range with Makeda2 and a tyrant gladiator. Tyrant Rhadiem and praetorian feroxes have a 17" threat range with Road to War. You need to know this. Lives will be saved.

Make sure your Banshee can get within Wailing distance (5") of the enemy warlock. Molik Karn badger doesn't care about Wailing. Derp.

SPD 5 colossal plus Mobility (+2 SPD, Pathfinder) means a colossal running
14" through a forest. Zoooom. Hello!

Starburst = MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

No, wait. Starburst plus 2x 1d3 POW 12 attacks *plus Vyros' feat* means potentially over ten focus for Hyperion on feat turn. Plus whatever you catch in the 5" AOE. kthxbai.

Colossals. Wow.

Thanks to Doug for a little list tune-up before the game (-manticore, -thane, +banshee, +soulless), and thanks to Monte for the blank Terran Marine n00b. And thanks to Chad for enduring that game. You guys are awesome.

Wrath/Domination Event

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war." --Sun Tzu

Shrine of the Medals

Last Saturday we finally held our club's Wrath/Domination combo-release event.  It was a six-hour, all-factions event using both special events rules.  Much as I would love to write about the event design, prep, operation, and post-mortem, but those topics can wait.  But rather than share all that Event Organizer work, I would much rather talk about greed.

First and foremost, you need to know that the prizes for these events are custom-molded and painted faction-specific coins made by Privateer Press.  They are exceptionally cool, and as much as I love the other two Retribution players in our club (Hi, Brandon!  Hi, John L.!), that coin was coming home with me.

Warmachine: Unbound Test Drive

Who thought this was a good idea?

Steve W. and I played an apocalyptic 150 point game of Unbound on MLK Day. Unbound is a relatively new set of rules for Warmachine that allows extremely large games of 150 points or more with three warcasters in each army.  Rules for Unbound can be found in No Quarter magazine issues 36 and 38.

It hadn't been done before in our club. The models were sitting in our bags, daring us. Something had to give. We decided to start at 9 AM, but logistical issues and setup delayed us until noon.

One does not simply begin a game of Unbound. One must prepare, mentally and physically. One must ... unpack. One must pull up an extra table upon which to place models and cards and magazines with rules. One must take a very deep breath.

We began to set up.

Warmachine Batrep: Siege vs Ravyn

Major Markus 'Siege' Brisbane

Finally got a chance to play against Mike G. this week. We've been trying to play for months, but schedules never seemed to work out, until now.

Mike has several armies, but tonight he brought Cygnar and insisted on a 35 point game. What the heck. I put the Rahn list away and started rummaging iBodger until I found an incomplete 35-point Ravyn list from before the holidays. It felt too light on melee units, lacked any tar pit, and didn't have enough shooting to take good advantage of Ravyn's feat.

Or so I thought.

Warmachine Batrep: Xerxis vs Rahn

Tyrant Xerxis

Chad and I played a good old 50 point Kill Box game Tuesday night.  Chad's list was allegedly taken from PG Lord Tyrant Watt's 2011 tournament list, with the exchange of a unit of Cetrati for Tiberion, the new character tyrant introduced in Wrath.

Tyrant Xerxis
- Aptimus Marketh
- Basilisk Krea
- Cyclops Shaman
- Tiberion
- Tyrant Sentry
Agonizer
Cataphract Cetrati (leader+5)
Nihilators (leader+9)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (leader+3)

My list remained the Rahn list I've been playing the past few weeks:


Adeptis Rahn
- Manticore
- Phoenix (x2)
Arcanist (x2)
Dawnguard Sentinels (leader+9+UA)
- Soulless Escort
House Shyeel Magister
House Shyeel Battle Mages (leader+5)
Mage Hunter Assassin (x2)
Narn

Warmachine Batrep: Skarre2 vs Rahn

Malice

With the League and Unbound out of the way, Chris and I thought it was high time to throw down a fifty point game.  Chris brought his Skarre2 list, upgraded and improved for fifty points.

I've played Chris' different versions of this same list at 35 points a few times now, and knew what to expect.  Cryx is full of nasty little tricks, but one of the dirtiest plays out like this: Malice harpoons one of your warjacks and tows him across the board, and spends a soul to possess it.  He then activates the 'jack and sends it running deep into the Cryx lines where the Withershadow Combine uses their Dark Industry power to wreck it and replace it with a new helljack.  Hooray.  What could be more fun?  He fills the rest of the army with units you can't really ignore, like The Deathjack and a full unit of satyxis raiders with UA and solo support.  And at fifty points, he throws in some pistol wraiths to ensure your 'jacks are easy pickings.

But it didn't quite play out that way.

Doubles Night

Our club had a doubles game night this past Tuesday.  Phillip and I decided to form Team Angry Elves with my Retribution and his Legion, and we challenged Team Too-Tough-To-Die with Steve's Khador and Jenn's Trollbloods.

The lists were:

Zevanna Agha & Scrapjack

Zevanna Agha, The Old Witch of Khador

- Scrapjack

- The Behemoth

- Sylys Wyshnalyrr

The Great Bears of Gallowswood

Iron Fang Pikemen (leader+5+UA)

Kayazy Assassins (leader+5+UA)

Widowmakers (leader+3)

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender

- Dire Troll Mauler (extreme)

- Dire Troll Bomber

Pyg Burrowers (leader+5)

Fell Caller Hero

Krielstone Bearer & 3 Scribes

Kriel Warriors (leader+9)

- Kriel Warrior Caber Thrower 

- Kriel Warrior Caber Thrower 

(Incomplete.  Maybe another min unit of Kriel warriors.  There were an awful lot of trolls.)

...versus...

Journeyman, End of the Road

Retribution of Scyrah

The Journeyman League is at an end.  Twelve weeks ago I hadn't put brush to mini in over twenty years. Now, I own a wet palette and sixty-two points of painted Retribution of Scyrah.

Pleased to Bits

Happy holidays.  The whole family is in town and we're enjoying some time off from work.  All's well.  To put the cherry on top, our friendly postal carriers dropped off this week some little treasures.

First, the replacement Dindrenzi Carrier model arrived.  The store-bought kit had a shrunken starboard half and significant over-pour.  This one appears perfect.  My hat's off to Spartan Games for their excellent customer service in replacing this model, no questions asked.  He'll join the rest of the fleet shortly.

Dindrenzi Carrier replacement

Then the No Quarter Eiryss figure arrived.  This is just an alternate sculpt of Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios, but quite a nice one.  Thanks again to Anthony, our local pressganger for the advice to purchase NQ back issues fifteen through seventeen to acquire the coupons.  That was this summer.  Now, unfortunately, issue fifteen is out of stock.  

No Quarter Eiryss figure

Hope you are having a great holiday, too.

Junior Warcaster

"Are you going to paint robots and monsters tonight? Can I help?" She's too small to paint or play, but Hannah still makes a point of overseeing the entire Retribution war effort, from manufacturing through transport loading.

Here she's literally inspecting the primer coverage. Amazingly, she's pickier than me. Perhaps her heightened sparkle-detection ability is able to find shiny uncovered metal. She's quite good.

Her latest contribution has been organizing my paints into pretty colors (Necrotic Green, Beaten Purple, Carnal Pink, Molten Bronze, etc.) and ugly colors (anything remotely brown, grey, or ferrous).

Journeyman, Week 4

Played Monte this week. He's still at fifteen points with his Legion, so we didn't follow the week's rules (Battle Box upgraded to twenty-five points with a different caster).

Monte ran:

Lylyth, Herald of Everblight- Carnivean
- Shredder
- Shredder
- Shredder
- Shredder
The Forsaken

And I ran my fifteen pointer from week two, again:

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper- Manticore
- Griffon
- Chimera
Mage hunter assassin
Mage hunter assassin

Legion had advantage in mobility and model count, so the first order of business was to clear shredders and dent Lylyth's fury generation.

Journeyman, Week 3.5

Tonight was the second week of twenty-five point games in our Journeyman League. Over the weekend I finished the last two myrmidons from the battle box, a manticore and a griffon, and blocked out a full Mage hunter strike force and commander. So it was nice to field a nearly fully-painted army for the first time.

Turnout was up, but we gabbed a while and didn't start until almost eight.  Diane has a fully painted Circle army, so we had a beautiful table for Kill Box.


Kaya the Wildborne
* Argus
* Argus
* Feral Warpwolf
Druids of Orboros (+UA)
Lord of the Feast
(one point short)

And I ran my same list from last week, partly because it was designed for Warmachine opponents, and weak against Hordes; and partly because it's almost fully painted.

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper
* Manticore
* Chimera
* Griffon
Mage hunter assassin
Mage hunter strike force (min+UA)
Mage hunter strike force (min+UA)

Kaya setup center with her beast, druids on her right in a forest, and LotF on her left on a hill. Kaelyssa setup center-left with both squads of mage hunters left on a hill and assassins far right across from LotF. My plan was to flush Kaya to my right using the mage hunters where she'd be open to an assassin or griffon charge. I'd use Kaelyssa's anti-magic spells (Arcane Reckoning and Banishing Ward) to counter the druids' spells. Oh, and Witch Hound, too (thanks, Brandon!).

Early Game

Everything was working great.  By the botton of turn two, things were looking great for Retribution.  The LotF had made a dangerous advance on turn one and fell to the griffon and assassin on turn two.  Kaya retreated to the back right corner of the kill box, fleeing the mage hunters.  A druid spell deviation onto my chimera got the griffon into melee with her.  Lovely.  All's well.

Mid Game

And then Circle shows why they are masters of movement and surprise.  One argus is waaay in the back, behind some forest, hiding.  I'm hardly thinking about him.  The second argus uses its animus to give the first one Pathfinder.  It runs through the woods, around my chimera, dodging two mage hunters and into the middle of my lines.  Kaya's standing in melee with my griffon on a hill in the back right.  She runs her warpwolf over, and then casts Spirit Door to teleport into the middle of my lines, about five inches from Kaelyssa.  Oop.  Not done yet.  She then teleports the warpwolf next to her, engaging Kaelyssa.  Yikes!  But, wait.  It gets better.  Then she feats, allocating three fury to all her warbeats and reaving six back to herself.  For three more she teleports the first argus up next to her and the warpwolf, about two inches from Kaelyssa.  Lucky for me we're in Mark II and none of them can activate after Spirit Door.

Late Game

Frightening and impressive as the situation was, it was a bad tactical move for Circle.  She had put her DEF 16 ARM 13 caster right in the middle of a fully-operational assassination army.  We played in for keeps.  The manticore got three focus, performed a two-handed grab on the argus and hurled him into Kaya.  Knocked down, she was easy prey for the thirteen remaning mage hunter strike force.  The end.

Lessons

Like my games against Kommander Sorscha, Kaya has taught me about movement and unorthodox charge lanes.  Watching the movement of the warbeasts will be a high priority in our next game.  The defense on the argus beasts was very impressive!  I had not expected warbeasts in the DEF 15-16 range.  Fortunately, I did not need to deal with them.  And I continue to enjoy the manticore in my lists.  Its utility has never disappointed.

Thanks for the game, Diane.

Gemology

Tonight was Manticore night. I planned to spend the evening finishing a heavy myrmidon for the Journeyman League tomorrow night. It was already base-coated and the weapons blended and washed. "How hard could it be?"

Fun Retribution Fact: A manticore heavy myrmidon figure sports sixty-seven metallic gems. If you ever want to become good at gems, forget Eldar: paint a manticore.

Journeyman, Week 3

Tonight began the third "week" of the Journeyman League, so lists bumped to twenty-five points. Mike K. and I played a nail-biter rematch of Kommander Sorscha versus Kaelyssa. Mike's list was:

Kommander Sorscha's Battlebox

Kommander Sorscha
* Juggernaut
* Destroyer
Great Bears of Gallowswood
Assault Kommandos (min+flamethrowers x2)
Widowmaker Marksman

Versus my:

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper
* Manticore
* Chimera
* Griffon
Mage Hunter Assassin
Mage Hunter Strike Force (min+UA)
Mage Hunter Strike Force (min+UA)

We played Kill Box again, but on a regulation 4x4 table.




The Plan

Retribution's strategy was to use Kaelyssa's Backlash spell against the Khador 'jacks and then use my fourteen mage hunters, Manticore, and Kaelyssa to dink Sorscha to death, one hit at a time. It almost worked.

Early Game

The destroyer came forward, received Backlash through the chimera's arc node, took a hail of fire from two units of mage hunters, and fell back on turn two.  They had taken Sorscha down about a third.  This seemed to rattle the Khadorans, as they all rolled left and the destroyer fell back to get out of range.  The Great Bears stayed well out of range, and the kommandos formed up in shield wall centrally within some hills.  Juggernaut came forward to press the attack and cover the destroyer's retreat.

Mid Game

More Backlash, more shooting from the mage hunters, the manticore, and even Kaelyssa.  The kommandos moved forward for some countering fire through the chimera and griffon into mage hunters. By now I'd lost about six.  My assassin decapitated Volkov (grants Pathfinder on charge) to prevent the Bears coming across a linear obstacle, midfield.  Backlash damage against the 'jacks had left Sorscha with a dramatic single box remaining.  Uh oh.

Late Game

Sorscha outflanked on my left, passing the assassin, dashing through a mage hunter's threat range, and Windrushing/charging entirely behind my line and across the board to Kaelyssa, on my extreme right.  An intricate dance of Khadoran power ensued, as Mike and Doug (our Press Ganger) meticulously carved a charge lane for Sorscha from my left flank.  Tricks flew.  Great Bears were engaged by my griffon, but used his reach range to back off and pivot so they could swing at the assassin but still backswing at the griffon.  Assault kommandos fired flame templates through their own (immune) friends.  It was a beautiful display of game rules mastery.  By the end they had killed an assassin, formed a lane passing behind all three of my warjacks, and killed two of the three mage hunters who would have threatened free strikes.  Deep breath.

Then it was Sorscha's turn.  Seeing a full-focus warcaster charge twenty inches across the table never fails to impress.  Naturally, the mage hunter missed his free strike (MAT 6+2 versus DEF 16, I believe).  Had he hit, she would have died.  Kaelyssa, at full health but with no power field stood to take it on the chin.  Unfortunately, the dice were not with Mike, either, and he only scored a few points of damage. With one-health Sorscha three inches from a full-health manticore and a warcaster, Khador conceded.

Backlash... it almost worked.

Into Every Life a Little Paint Must Fall

Out club has recently taken up a Journeyman League, which is a slow-growth Battle-box based painting and playing hybrid league.  It's a peer pressure perfect opportunity for beginners to get into the hobby and for pewter-pushing generals to get some paint on the board.

Years and years ago I used to paint – mostly 1:72 scale aircraft models, but also model rockets and some BattleTech miniatures.  Over three years in this hobby and I haven't once put brush to mini.  My excuses seemed reasonable: small children in the house don't mix with mineral spirits and paint thinner and I'd prefer to spend unallocated with the kids.  But, social competition is compelling, so I did some research.  And – Great googly moogly!  The paints are acrylic now!  No more bowls of liquid petroleum.  And, frankly, I'm tired of being that guy.

Steamroller, Round 1

First mission was Destruction, where each army must destroy two 50mm twenty damage bases. Lost a quick game to Steve's Thagrosh the Messiah list, which stormed the objectives faster than I could handle.

Thagrosh the Messiah
- Scythean
- Carnivean
- Raek
Spawning Vessel (full)
Blighted Nyss Legionnaires (full)