OK, first off, I’ve played one game of Warmachine and worked far too much, so this might be a short post. This post may also ramble on a bit so you have been warned.

Once again, I’m a little late with the regular blog update, but on the bright side, this means I can report back from my game on Tuesday night. This week Kaelyssa faced Mercenaries led by Drake MacBain.

It did not go well. And it was completely my fault.

OK, in fairness my opponent did also completely out play me as well. However a few things might have at least given me a chance…

• Umm, I have a big anti infantry warjack. So the Phoenix walked straight past the tarpit unit of Trollkin (Greygore Boomhowler & Co). Oops.
• I managed to get myself into a position where only my (squishy) warcaster could contest a central control zone. Bad idea that one…
• Should have up kept Phantom Seeker on the Hydra. Nuff said.
• Banishing Ward would have stopped the Jack Hammer thingy MacBain cast (repeatedly) to smash my Heavies into little tiny pieces.
• I must remember the Hydra has a Kinetic Capacitor and gets Focus when it is hit by something. Kind of important that one.

All of this goes to show that I must (a) play the same army until I fully understand it and all of its special rules, and (b) expect to royally cockup games after I’ve had an intense day at work.

Anyway, the Mage Hunter Strike Force is coming along nicely. Together with another solo, this will bring this army up to 35 points. I’m also considering swapping out either the Hydra or Phoenix for a Banshee so that might be the next project together with some wreck markers.

To Infinity, and Beyond!

In other news, Corus Belli have updated the Quick Start Rules for their sci-fi game Infinity (edited by Andy from Beasts of War).

Infinity is a anime based small scale skirmish game using an interactive turn sequence so both players always have something to do. However far more importantly the miniature range for Infinity is simply stunning. Plus they have ninjas.

Suffice to say, as I bit of a techhead, this game really appeals to me. However I will probably wait until later in the year as I quite enough things on at the moment.

Anyway go here to download the rules.

Did I mention the ninjas?

The elves have now had their first game and I have to say I learned quite a bit. To put this into context, I haven’t played Warmachine for nine months, I’ve never played my Retribution, and I’ve never played against Legion of Everblight.

Yep, I learnt a lot.

The game was a 25 point straight caster kill scenario, and my Kaelyssa list faced Epic Thagrosh (a fantastic big winged monster), Typhoon (a big three headed monster), four little monsters, and a spawning vessel; all under the command of the fearsome Alex (a very nice chap from these parts).

I took what I have painted, so Kaelyssa, backed by two heavy myrmidons, a Hydra and Phoenix, some Stormfall Archers, two Mage Hunter Assassins (groan if you like), an Arcanist and the Artificer.

Overall, this was a bit of a strange match up. Most of Kaelyessa’s spells were absolutely useless  as they are focused against warjacks and warcasters. Although Banishing Ward would have been good, if I remembered to use it. And Kaelyessa’s feat was also pretty useless in this game. No point being stealthy if your opponent’s warbeasts do not need eyes to see you!

Anyway, what exactly did I learn…

• I really must remember putting focus on the Hydra extends range as well as increasing the strength of his force cannon. I must also remember to load it with focus in the first turn instead of camping focus on my caster.
• Nobody likes Mage Hunter Assassins. Alex was very keen to remove them so they did absolutely nothing before being eaten.
• The Artificer rocks and is surprisingly good in melee. Beat back  (thump something, move it an inch) saved me twice in this game. He was my man of the match, working on the principle Kaelyessa is a girl.
• Kaelyessa’s Energy Siphon ability is cool, especially with her quite high RAT and True Sight. Want to hide in an ash cloud? That’s fine, I’ll just ignore the penalty then, shoot you, and use your fury to boost the damage!
• Headbutting warlocks is great! And then obviously you have to punch them whilst they are down.
• It is a risky business shooting in combat, however Kaelyessa stealing a point of focus from her own Hydra is just plain funny.
• And finally, it is very difficult to transfer damage when someone is continuously stealing your Fury.

In the end there was very little left on the table, especially from my army. However in the last turn Kaelyssa put down Thagrosh with a single shot which was rather cinematic.

I think I will try to find space for the Artificer in most of my Retribution lists because despite costing 3 points, he is good on protection detail and has some surprising utility in melee. I’m thinking of saving the Mage Hunter Assassins for the Garryth list so Kaelyessa may gain a pair of Ghost Snipers instead.

The next step of course is fielding a 35 point list and for that, I really think I need another unit in here. Umm, Mage Hunters or Dawnguard…

And the nice people at Triple Helix also ordered in a new Vyre Heavy myrmidon, so that also came home with me. Out of the three options in the box, the Banshee has the most potential in my eyes. The shenangans possible with knocking over and slamming things with its ranged weapon just make me smile inside. Combined with Mage Hunter Assassins, this could be horrible.

When a finally got home, the Artificer and Arcanist quickly found their way onto the painting table and a week later, my Retribution can now field four points of new stuff! More importantly, my new Artificer will provide some defence for my very squishy warcasters while the Arcanist is there to give my big jacks a nice boost.

I am intending to build three Retribution lists at 35 points each as this seems to be the level played over here. The plan is to enter a Steamroller tournament at some point, so amongst other things, I really need to learn to play a lot faster! Three standard army lists should help a lot.

As I already have Kaelyssa painted, she will be my first warcaster. My second list will be based around Lord Arcanist Ossyan and will be very, very shooty to take full advantage of his amazing feat. I already have some Invictors on order, so those and the Mage Hunter Strike Team will probably put in an appearance in this list.

The final warcaster will probably be Garryth. His army will be very direct and include a fair few shenangans type abilities, including that new Banshee and the Artificer I’ve just finished.

Actually, to be honest, just playing some games would help, so that’s the first task; play some games and relearn the rules.

OK, firstly an apology. I know I said something rash about updating this blog every Monday, however the past week I’ve been on a bit of a road trip for work, so that didn’t happen.

However, on the plus side, this has enabled me to be in England for the Sad Muppet Society’s annual Warhammer 40000 tournament, A Small Matter of Honour; this year held at Triple Helix Wargames in Westury, Wiltshire some miles past Stone Hedge…

Regular readers will know I brought Grey Knights again this year, mainly because there are not many of them, so they are easy to transport.

A Small Matter of Honour features four games at two different points level, 1250 and 1750 points. At 1250 I had Coteaz, ten purifiers, two units of five normal grey knights, a Dreadnought, a Stormraven and a Land Raider.

My 500 point reinforcements added a Grand Master, five terminators, and a henchman squad. In total my army has 34 models so it is, err, compact.

On the plus side, this should make my games fast, speaking of which…

Grudge Match!

My first opponent was Doug Dowling whom I know well, but haven’t played for several years, so accordingly our master of ceremonies, Roger, kindly organised a grudge match for us.

The first game was at 1250 points, which I thought might be challenging because I’ve never played this army at this level, and I only have two troop choices. Happily, this game was an annihilation mission with dawn of war deployment. Doug brought is really pretty Thousand Sons army.

I chose sides and took first turn and charged my Stormraven and Land Raider straight into the middle of the table. Doug strolled on to the battlefield from the board edge and proceeded to not kill things, which was nice.

In the following turn I moved up and disembarked the purifiers and dreadnought, and didn’t do very much. Surviving the assaulting Obliterators, my Stormraven turbo boasted behind Doug’s Land Raider (which blew up), teleported in my two Strike squads right into the midst of the Thousand Sons.

This was a mistake as apparently Thousand Sons have AP3 bolters. I forgot this.

These ten marines were my casualties for this game as my following turns were devastating. In the end I tabled Doug in the seventh turn.

Mr Coteaz I presume…

My second 1250 point game was against my first Grey Knight opponent of the day, Lewis. In fairness, Lewis only had three actual Grey Knights, a Techmarine and two ‘Psyrifle’ dreadnoughts, because like myself he had Inquisitor Coteaz leading the party.

This was unfortunate, as under the rules for ASMOH, if the same special character appears on both sides, they are both removed as casualties before the game starts. As I wrote this rule, quite some years ago it should be said, I thought it was rather ironic it affected me.

Anyway, Lewis’ army was based around two Stormravens filled with nasty scoring henchmen, and our mission was a modified version of Seize Ground called Booby Trap!

Over the course of the game, the objectives moved or exploded until only one remained. My very aggressive strategy in this mission paid off as I removed one of Lewis’ Stormravens on the first turn, and locked one of his dreadnoughts with mine on the second.

Lewis did have a late surge throwing a unit of assassins and crusaders into my troops, however I managed to beat them off (shooting them helped a lot). In the end it was down to the two remaining member off one Strike squad to whizz off in my Stormraven to claim victory.

Bad Pixies…

After lunch, Dave OJ, my normal sparring partner, was second in the tournament and on table one. Given that he won VonWar a few weeks before no one was very surprised. However, I was rather chuffed to be fourth, and on table two.

The second special mission of the day was another Seize Ground variant using five objectives, one in the centre of the table and one in the centre of each quarter. Now my Grey Knights do not excel at objective missions so imagine my delight when I learned I faced Dark Eldar. Umm, tricky…

The blow was softened because George’s Dark Eldar are beautifully painted (he went on to win best army). Anyway, George deployed and a chose to keep my entire army in reserve rather than try to seize the initiative.

This decision some what backfired because my Stormraven (with Coteaz, ten purifiers, and a dreadnought), did not arrive until turn four. This gave George plenty of time to pick apart the rest of my army.

However, when the Stormraven finally arrived, it and its passengers made an appropriate mess but unfortunately it was too late and George won by one objective point.

Next door, Dave did not do much better against the Sister army that went on to win the tournament.

Rematch!

I was back on table four for the last game of the day and my opponent was, Mr David Offen-James, complete with the Grey Knight army that comprehensively beat me just five weeks ago. This one…

Again, we had another kill point mission. My army only had 11 kill points, but Dave’s only had 8. This was going to be interesting.

I won first turn and side, and deployed the Land Raider and Stormraven (didn’t take long). Dave then lined up his horde of Grey Knight infantry. He promptly stole the initiative, and then Coteaz make him unsteal it!

Learning my lesson from last time, I moved quickly to one flank and the middle of the board. Suffice to say I would not be able to win a shooting game against THAT many psycannons.

Dave promptly blew up my Stormraven, which was annoying. My Dreadnought killed a Dreadknight,  but exploded at the same time. However my purifiers got into a large strike squad and slaughtered them. In return, they got shot, and then stepped on by a second Dreadknight.

The turning point I think was Dave losing his terminators (ten of them) to my Grand Master and a Strike Squad after making no invulnerable saves at all. At the same time the rest of his army peppered my Land Raider with psycannon bolts to no effect.

This was perhaps balanced by my ‘to hit’ rolls in close combat which were frankly rubbish. After four rounds of combat Dave’s remaining Dreadknight was still tied in combat with my terminators.

The final result was a draw, six kill points each. Considering our last encounter, I’m quite happy with that.

And so the dust settled

When the final results went up, I was twelfth overall, but more importantly I had four great games against four great opponents; and I also got to catch up with loads of friends I haven’t seen for a long time.

Doug Dowling won (very well deserved) best sportsman and Dave OJ won a Necron Battleforce in the raffle.

I really enjoyed playing this Grey Knights list which surprised me. I suspect this is because I have learnt to play them in a far more aggressive style than I’m use to.

This will be my last tournament in the UK for quite a while, so next up will probably a more local event. But first, I need to get home…

And having just got back home, I can safely say they are a great and friendly bunch of gamers! As well as catering for 40K, they also include a fair few Warmachine players (which is handy), play boardgames, play CCGs, do roleplaying, and even indulge in a bit of Blood Bowl (they have Blood Bowl tournament next Saturday, although I’ll be damned if I remember how to play). Better still from my point of view, they all talk perfect English. This is great because my Swedish is rather lacking, however it is a good opportunity to improve!

Anyway, this evening I played Alex’s Dark Eldar with my Grey Knights as I continue to try and figure out how to play them! This was my first game against Dark Eldar since they gained their new codex, although apart from gaining a bit of ranged firepower, they are largely the same, ie a glass fist.

I won’t going into a huge amount of detail, however suffice to say we played a kill point mission which gave me a big advantage. And I won.

However, I did learn a few things.

1. Sanctuary is fantastic. This saved the game for me by thinning Alex’s assault squads, and completely saving my Land Raider from ten haywire grenades. Coteaz earned his points tonight.
2. Vect is horrible. Really REALLY horrible.
3. One Dreadnought is disgusting if you have nothing to deal with it.
4. Coteaz, and the Dreadnought, performed much better when fully painted.

Now I’ve all but finished the Grey Knights for A Small Matter of Honour, my gaze is already slipping back towards Warmachine. Whilst I’m suppose to be having an ‘elf’ year, I’m awfully tempted to build and paint some gun mages first.

Either way, I will be taking a break from painting over the next few weeks so I can game and enjoy some family time.

Until next time, hej du!

There are weeks where it feels like I’ve done nothing hobby related. This is one of them. However despite the lack of anything finished to show for it, there has been some work going on.

Finishing Touches

I’m not sure it counts as actually finishing the Purifiers (which where varnished and used last week), but the last touches have been applied to their bases in the form of some Woodland Scenics grass and water effects.

Those water effects still require a light white drybrush, however, almost there…

Airbrushing Arms

The second task for my Grey Knights is to paint the replacement arms for my dreadnought. On the Dread these make it a close support machine, backing up whatever is in the Stormraven at close quarters. These were undercoated several years ago when the dreadnoughts were orginally built and painted, however just not finished.

Anyway, as an excuse to use my airbrush some more (and the spray booth I built on Monday), the base coat has been done with that. I’ve even used some marking tape so I could apply two different base coat colours.

The next task with these as to breakout a paint brush and do all the detail stuff. On the plus side, I will not need to clean the airbrush again for a bit.

Filling Holes

I won’t go into too much detail about my first encounter with a Finecast miniature here (there is another blog post about this), however suffice to say he took a while, but is now assembled and satisfyingly undercoated black.

So once the dreadnought arms are painted, Inquisitor Coteaz is next on the list.

And There’s More…

Err yes. In addition to this lot I have digitised three designs for Ruth’s embroidery machine, which are now dice bags and almost ready to be shipped.

And I’ve ordered some more bits for the airbrush, including a nozzle cleaner as this is the most awkward bit of the thing to clean.

Yep, a strangely unproductive, yet rather busy week. Ho hum.

With a big project at work, I suspect next week will be very quiet on this front, however my plan is to start blogging weekly, probably on Friday, or on Monday when the wife is doing scouty things. That’s the theory anyway…

As mentioned in a previous post, I really needed to have a spray booth to use my airbrush in. So I’ve built one!

The basic box was from Ikea, and the (very cheap) fan and hose came from Homebase Newbury (I’ve just visited the UK), and the power cable came from Bau Haus. In total, I think this has cost me less than £40. For the record, the hose is held onto the back of the fan with a bright yellow hair band.

The rather stylish motif in the centre of the box is glue, because my eldest son distracted me at just the wrong moment, and I broke the bottom of the box.

One thing I’ve added to the original design is some sticky fabric furniture feet to stop it moving around whilst the fan is on. I have to say the idea of using a clear box is very good, as is placing the fan off-centre (I’m left handed, so the fan is on the right).

Anyway, it has been tested and works great. The next task is to find some time to actually paint something!

Well, I’ve finally buckled and purchased my first Citadel Finecast miniature, Inquisitor Coteaz for my Grey Knight’s army. Given that this is my first foray into this controversial product, I thought a review would be in the order.

Price

The first point to get out of the way is price. Yes, Finecast is relatively expensive. In this case, Mr Coteaz cost me £10.50.

This is approximately the same price as a comparable Warmachine model such as a Warcaster (and they come with a couple of stat cards).

First Impressions

However the biggest complaint about Finecast is not price, it is about quality.

I purchased my Coteaz in Games Workshop Basingstoke (very nice people by the way) and he was one of two on the shelf. The other model was on a slightly deformed sprue, resulting in his hammer being bent. This is fixable, however given the choice, I picked up the other model.

Apart from this, my first impressions were good with no large obvious air bubbles or missing details visible through the blister.

Unboxing

Getting back home to Sweden, I finally got an opportunity to open up the blister and have a proper look at the model.

One of the big criticisms of Finecast is the number of bubbles in the miniatures. Whilst there are no big bubbles in this model, there are a number of small bubbles in hammer and on Coteaz himself. Nothing major that can’t be fixed with a little bit of modelling putty.

The other big Finecast criticism is miscasts. Apart from a slightly bent hammer which was fixed in hot water  (yes, even the straight hammer, was bent in the other direction), this model was fine.

The Finecast material itself is a soft compared regular resin but is really easy to work with. The parts where removed from the sprue and cleaned up in less than five minutes.

Conclusions

I held off purchasing any Finecast models for almost a year, because I simply didn’t need anything and GW’s price point put them beyond the impulse buy level.

There is no question that Citadel Finecast is rather ambitiously pitched at the top-end of the market, however I don’t think the quality is there yet. However the material does hold a huge amount of detail and it is easy to clean up.

Anyway, I’ll get this guy assembled and painted and hopefully get some pictures up before the end of the month.

My better half’s dice bag business, KOed, has been running for about a year now, and ahead of her updating some of her designs later in the spring, I thought it would be cool to show off some of the dice bags she has already made.

Most of these are custom designs for people or limited runs with special fabrics, however if you want anything in particular, contact koed.dicebags@gmail.com or look on the website.

In the meantime, enjoy…

Camo Fabrics

These are the core of the standard KOed range.

Limited Edition Fabrics

These are normally runs of ten of less bags depending on the availability of the fabric. Many of these are made from very rather posh quilting fabric.

Embroidered Designs

KOed can digitize most designs and embroider them onto a dice bag. Here is a selection of some of the ones that where made last year…

Furry Fabrics

And finally, the furry dice bags, to keep your dice warm and cosy during the dark winter nights…

Mine, I’ve already discussed (here is a PDF if you are interested), however Dave’s Grey Knights are a completely different spin from the codex.

Dave has put together a horde Grey Knight  army, trying to squeeze in as much infantry and as many psycannons as possible. His HQ is two Inquisitors whose primarily purpose is to control his reserves. Then Dave has 35 Grey Knights in power armour, ten in Terminator armour, and two Dreadknights.

Our game was Annihilation using pitched battle deployment, and I got first turn.

My first trick was to take out Dave’s Inquisitors, however Dave cleverly opted to walk on from his board edge which I missed. This was my first mistake, so when Dave’s troops came on in turn two, he was well within range to make the most of his superior short range shooting.

Unfortunately for me, my first causality was my Dreadnought. My second mistake was not to push my Purifiers forward once I was committed to Dave’s half of the board. In the following turn Dave removed the Stormraven and with it my biggest advantage, mobility.

From here in Dave simply outshot my army, all but wiping them from the board and obviously getting a very convincing victory.

The biggest lesson from this game is that I really need to pay attention to the scenario, and remember that my army is very much a glass hammer which has to be used decisively.

In this game I had all the advantages of terrain, mobility, first turn, and was even two kill points up in turn two; and by making two or three mistakes (and getting suckered by OJ into a very good trap), I lost the game.

Methinks I need more practice. A lot more practice!