Hobby Update

It’s been an interesting couple weeks as far as my hobby. To begin with, I am closing the gap on finishing the Wargs. I know I’ve talked about them getting done, but I’m down to the last one, so hopefully the next post is the full unit, painted and photographed in whatever makeshift light box I spontaneously assemble.

I also randomly participated in my local ‘Ard Boyz tournament. I showed up at my FLGS hoping there would be an extra random table open and one or two other Fantasy guys would show up. Well, it worked out better than expected. Due to a lack of publicity/local interest/whatever, two other people showed up for the tourney. I threw my own hat in the ring, figuring I wouldn’t mind partaking in the prize support. I took the first round bye, since only one fantasy guy showed up. I wanted to make sure he got a game in, though I forgot to print out a list, so I ran one of the older lists that I’m now less than fond of. When I matched that up against Dwarfs, albeit not even the nastiest of lists, it didn’t end up spelling much of a game for him unfortunately.

Rolling back to 40K, I ended up with sixty bucks in prize support which I promptly spent on an entirely different system. Actually, I spent it on one fantasy system to convert and play with a different fantasy system if you want to be really technical. I have thought about converting a Fell Beast into a Chaos Dragon for a while now. The model comes with two heads, so with a little bit of green stuff work and some extra bits, I thought I could turn out something reasonably impressive. The other options were the new Dark Elf Dragon or the Chaos Manticore, but they didn’t have the latter, and the former is sweet, but I can probably talk myself into getting it later, plus it wouldn’t dare to try and convert a second head.

So this is how it turned out:

I greenstuffed the second neck underneath the first so I could pin one in the normal position, then pin the other to the first and to the body. Then I filled in around it.

I got a chain from Michael’s to wrap around the neck. This will provide a place for a pendant of some kind for a visual focal point, while also covering some of the larger greenstuff patches.

I did my standard scenic base with the flying stand, but I flipped the stand upside down, sawed off the tip and replaced it with a magnet to make transport not just easier, but plausible.

Hobby Goals

-One last Warg

-Continue reading Caledor

-Resume work on the second Drop Pod

-Prime the Blood Wing Land Raider

Hobby Progress

-Finished most of the Wargs

-Bothered showing up at the local 'Ard Boyz and got a prize for it

-Converted a Nazgul on a Winged Fellbeast into a Chaos Dragon

Hobby Update

I managed to get in two games of 40K this weekend. I had my choice of that or Fantasy, and I thought I’d go for a little change of pace after my foray into tournament play. I packed up the single foam tray that my Blood Wing fits in and proceeded to the store.

My opponent is a local that I’ve played about a half a dozen times. He seems to enjoy quirky lists that make sense in a fluff way, but also are interesting because of some mathematical factor. I don’t know if that is the way he thinks about it, but that’s my third party interpretation. For example, this week he brought a Death Guard list. He was conflicted about whether to run a list with 50 Plague Marines or Typhus, Nurgle Terminators, and 30 Plague Marines. Either way, it was an army that would shrug off any jabs and really only feared the power punches.

For game one, we rolled a Dawn of War/Killpoints mission. He gave me first turn, so I put down my Assault Terminators in a Land Raider in the middle of the board. He kept almost everything to roll on the board after turn one, taking a position along the middle left of his back line. I shoved two of my units forward to multi-assault one of the Plague Marine units, but failed both difficult terrain rolls, including snake eyes on an inch and a half charge. This led to Logan and the Assault Terminators taking 3 units worth of shooting and an assault by Typhus and his Terminators. My guys got wiped out, but not before taking out Typhus and two others. His 30 Plague Marines then tangled with three of my regular squads. I survived the encounter with just a Rune Priest and three other guys left. The game came down to turn six. Entering the bottom of the fifth turn, I was up a single point. His lone, surviving terminator came charging out of a crater, but missed his melta-shot. Then he charged in with his chainfist. I did two wounds, both of which needed a save on a 5+. He makes both, an 11% chance, then blows up my dreadnought, tying the score. We made the roll to keep playing, and the storm bolter from the dreadnoughts drop pod manages to score a wound and avenge his fallen master (roughly a 4% chance). So crazy things happened all over the board, and I took the game, 7-6.

Game two was a Capture and Control/Spearhead affair. Typhus wiped out the squad that deep struck and popped his Land Raider, but he got wiped out in return by Logan and two squads in a counter assault. That left his back line open and Logan and company wiped everyone out. He had one last hope in the form of a turn 5 assault on my objective. He had a decent chance, going first, and he only needed to force a check. But when he absolutely needed it, when he had to have it, his roll looked like this:

Despite the tournament being over, I am still making progress on my Wargs. I’m not nearly as motivated as I was, but I’m close and I keep doing a color here and there and getting closer. My biggest issue is not getting distracted. I look at the big shinies from Storm of Magic and I think, “I’ll magnetize a Black Dragon and a Manticore so I can use all four riders on each one.” Then I think about the Marauder horde I want to add to my Warriors army. Then I think about all the unfinished things I already have. If I don’t buy anything new, I guess I’m sure I’ll be ok.

Finally, not a review or a summary, just a thought. No spoilers either. I finished George R.R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons in a little over a week. I went through all 1100 pages, after having read all four previous books. On the other hand, I read the first 40 pages of Gav Thorpe’s Caledor today, and there has already been dragons rampaging through an enemy army. This is why I read books published by the Black Library.

Hobby goals

- Finish a Warg every three days.

- Read Caledor

- Prime the Blood Wing Land Raider

Hobby accomplishments

- More frequent blogging

- Played two games of 40K

- Read A Dance with Dragons

My Unicorn

I am a lucky man for many reasons. I am fully aware. I’ve rolled the hard six when I needed it. I’ve gotten the timely killing blow in a challenge. I’ve made armor save after armor save when I just needed to survive.

My luck extends beyond the table top though. I’ve been blessed to have a really awesome woman agree to spend her life with me. She is smart, fun, and smokin’ hot. She goes beyond simply living with my nerdy hobby. She really seems to embrace the dorkiness. She sent supportive texts throughout the tournament. She offered to sew a bag for army transportation. She even asked to paint with me.

Naturally, I said yes. I had some spare Cygnar Warjacks lying around from a starter box. They were very close to the bottom of the painting queue. I originally bought them as a way to expose my friends to miniature war gaming. I thought they would be big enough to not be overly complicated while still giving her some fun details to work with.

I told her she could paint them however she wanted. I’m painting a Cryx faction alongside her, which will be dark red and silver, so I don’t feel the need to keep the colors as standard fare. However, she was adamant that she stick to the traditional blue and gold colors. She looked over the artwork and the painting section in the main rulebook, then left markers on the page with the actual jack that matched the model she was working on.

Thus far we’ve had two painting sessions together on lazy Sunday afternoons. I wouldn’t mind if that becomes a thing.

Tournament Post #2, Gaming Side

For the weeks leading up over the tournament, I had spent a decent portion of my unengaged free time thinking about what I was going to bring to the tournament. I wouldn’t say agonizing because I was on vacation for a bit and I spend about two hours a day commuting. I had a lot of time that I could have been thinking about lists because it was just the easiest thing to do. I thought about running a pretty hefty cavalry block, because they really scare folks, but I decided I wanted more board control. I sacrificed half the unit, dropped the champion and switched their role over to monster hunting. I ended up with a list that looks like this:

Chaos Lord of Khorne, Sword of Swift Slaying, Charmed Shield, Favour of the Gods, Talisman of Preservation

Exalted Battle Standard Bearer of Khorne, Necrotic Phylactery, Shield

Sorcerer of Tzeentch on Disc, Level 2, Third Eye, Infernal Puppet, Talisman of Protection

18 Warriors of Khorne, Halberds, Standard of Discipline, Musician

24 Warriors of Khorne, Extra Hand Weapons, Full Command, Razor Standard

5 Knights of Khorne, Flaming Banner, Musician

6 Trolls

Chariot of Khorne

Warshrine of Khorne

Scyla Afingrim

Nothing on the list outside of the infantry blocks and the characters are so expensive that I would really mind losing it. The knights and the Trolls are getting close to there, but not quite. I would also always hesitate to take a frenzied chariot. Nine times out of ten, I’d say it’s a bad idea because it’s so limited in where it can go and it was one bad roll from costing me in that regard, but I really got tempted by the 10 attacks it puts out per turn outside of any impact hits.

Strategically, the list is pretty straightforward. The infantry blocks try to dominate the center of the board, which will usually be achievable for them. The trolls and the warshrine take positions in the line next to the general’s block. The knights and chariot are set up on either flank. They can usually deal with anything that gets put out there, and they act as a pretty nasty pincer if my opponent castles up. Scyla is usually one of the last pieces deployed. He gets stacked up as the bait, or alternatively to hold up something nasty.

In game one, I was matched up against Tomb Kings. I had played them once before, so I had a general idea of how the book worked. I liked my chances, if I could just get past the chariots and Tomb Guard. Scyla bounded forwards, angled in front of the chariots and forcing a decision. If my opponent charged Scyla, he’d end up trapped between the trolls and knights. If not, he’d get boxed in to his deployment zone. He charged and accepted Scyla’s challenge with his Tomb King. Even with impact hits, it took two rounds of combat to kill Scyla, who rolled a pair of sixes for his attacks and managed to take the Tomb King with him. The knights and the Trolls also arrived in that time, and that was just too much to stand up to. On the opposite flank, a failed charge on my sorcerer exposed his cavalry’s flank to my chariot. From there, the tide of battle kept going my way, as the Warriors did what they do best in the centre. Turn six came around and I moved various units onto objectives and picked up a full twenty battle points.

This landed me on the top table, which was both a blessing and a curse, because it was right next to the wall that butts up against the restaurant next door’s kitchen. I also got stacked up against Chaos Dwarfs, which is definitely a match-up that I don’t like. My opponent had two cannons, 3 blocks of Dwarfs with blunderbusses, a Colossus, Obsidian Guard, and a level four wizard with Shadow. I usually prefer to dance around a little and try setting up a favorable match up, but between him being able to lower my toughness and a barrage of Earthshaker shells, I decided to sprint across the field and take what I could get. My right flank was denied by the Colossus and I knew it would take some time for the knights to get past it. I thought I’d try to take a few wounds off of it, so my sorcerer cast Infernal Gateway on turn two. Naturally, I rolled double sixes for the strength, sucking the monster into the warp, and suddenly the flank was wide open. It was one of the more memorable moments of the tournament, but I do hate to see how disheartening that can be. To my opponent’s credit, he looked on the bright side and proceeded to snipe my wizard with his bolt thrower the next turn. He blocked off my infantry with two hobgoblin meat shields, meaning I was grinding my way through about a hundred victory points with my two hardest hitting units. He ended up getting my trolls and my chariot, but not before they had run off the Obsidian Guard. I ended up taking the game 17-3 and stayed at the top table.

My last game was against something of an MSU High Elf army with a big block of White Lions and Korhil, plus three mages. He had way more units to deploy than me, so his Sea Guard with the Flaming Banner got to deploy opposite my trolls, which pretty much doomed them from the start. Both they and the chariot, which charged the Swordmasters, ended up surviving longer than expected, which gave me the opportunity to get my Warriors into his softer archers and spearmen. Scyla apparently hates chariots, because he had two rounds of combat in which he managed to roll sixes again, smashing it to pieces. The biggest surprise of the game was my opponent’s inability to get spells off. I shrugged off a magic missile, and let a couple ward saves go up, but he either failed to cast Dwellers below, or I dispelled it. The match was eventually decided when my Warriors with extra hand weapons charged his White Lions. Their massive strength and re-rolls to hit meant they were chopping down a bunch of my guys, but my weight of attacks meant I was going through his even faster. He fled in his turn, the top of six, which allowed me to complete a charge and wipe them out as the game was ending. The game went to me 14-4.

In all, I had a great time. I think I played really well almost the entire time, with only a few mistakes. My dice were probably pretty close to average, with some timely rolling at memorable moments, and a few whiffs that could have been. I’m looking forward to the next opportunity I have to do this.

I’d also like to say thanks to the guys that said they were following my preparation. It encouraged me a lot to try and get better at this.