Under a veil of flame and a shroud of ash he will walk amongst them

 

Here is the latest product of my painting endeavours:

I’m pretty pleased with how this guy came out, I’ve figured out how to do purple and I’ve decided that when it comes to highlighting the brighter the better. I’ve also added some greenstuff parchments to this guy a-la Fires of Salvation and written some text from the Cannon of True Law on to give him a bit more character. The left one turned out alright but the one on the right dried funny and went a bit weird…

The Reckoner eh?

Out of the wonderful selection of 8 point Menoth ‘jacks it is arguably the best. I’ve painted him up for a list I’m planning for the UK masters in about 3 months. An eSev gunline which made fellow blogger Chris/Procrastinator cry. Asking Sam what I should write about the Reckoner he said “write “its fucking awesome!””

Its a beatstick.

Its got a powerful gun.

And some fancy-pants shenanigan buff/debuff abilities.

So the Reckoner has pretty much the best ability in the game – reach. With speed 5 and reach its got a pretty impressive threat range. But rather than regurgitating its stats and vague opinions how about some interesting combos for its unique abilities.

The flare ability on the Reckoner’s gun drops the defence of any model hit by 2. This makes him a great combo with casters like the High Reclaimer and ToM who use their feat to get infantry onto the enemy caster. By popping a shot in with the Reckoner first you can make the ropey infantry based assassination run a bit more likely.

His other unique ability is Ashen Veil which gives living enemy models -2 mat while within 2”. If the same model is within 10” of the Harbinger or you have forced it into one of the High Reclaimers smoke clouds the Reckoner hits the heady heights of def 14, pretty impressive for a Menoth heavy! In the aforementioned eSev gunline two Reckoners hang out behind a unit of TFG, if the opponent has a lack of reach models the Reckoners can get close up behind them and debuff the mat of models attacking the TFG.

So there you go, some slightly out of the box thoughts on the Reckoner. Cheers for reading.

in a bit

petezilla

Every army needs scumbags

Wow, remember this place? I wonder if Jase ever put anything on those fancy bases… 

So what calls for this first post in 4 or 5 months? Well, I’ve finally finished a unit that I’ve been working on for longer than this blog has been quiet. Behold! The militarized peasants of the Protectorate!

Check out my awesome basing skills.

Not to mention my awesome photography skills...

 I’ve not been painting much in the last few months and my Zealots have been done inbetween other bits pieces so its taken a while. Now they’re finally done I’m not really that happy with them, I wanted more browns and leather going on to make them look more common, I’ll get over it. I am however really pleased with the Monolith Bearer, I went for some pretty extreme highlights on the stone which I think really make it pop.

So Zealots, what can I say about them other than take them with pSevvy to make them awesome?

(he really does make them quality)

One of the Zealot’s weaknesses may be what makes them so useful. They don’t buff well (Eye of Menoth aside). Low defence and generally low armour means defensive buffs aren’t best used on them, especially compared to our other 4/6 unit TFG. And they don’t really like being in melee so Ignite casters don’t want to know, although when I think about it bumping them up from mat6 pow9 to pow11 is quite tempting. Fortunately they’re fairly self sufficient which means they pair up with most casters quite happily.

In my experience the Zealots have the potential for an impressive offensive output. They have a pretty big threat range, great base power on their bombs which are AoEs with high blast damage. So when they’re not accidentally blowing themselves up they can be threatening to most things on the table including ‘jacks and even the classic problem unit Iron Flesh Kayazy! However, “potential” is the key word here. They are quickly neutered when engaged and generally die even when the Kossites pop out of the woods and start flinging poop at them.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Zealots are in fact another piece of the extensive Protectorate support crew. You don’t really bring them for their bombs, if they kill some stuff its a bonus. You bring the Zealots for Greater Destiny. They become more or less invincible and thus for one turn are the games greatest cock blockers! While your opponent is stuck doing nothing more than staring menacingly at your front rank all of the Protectorate’s lovely ‘jacks or elite infantry can get into position for next turn and hopefully prepare for a decisive counterstrike.

Thats what I’m thinking at the moment anyway and it makes me think it might be worth bringing the minimum unit with the Monolith Bearer for a disposable blockade… but 2 points for 4 scumbags is hard to pass..

In other news, my second Reckoner is now on the table and ready to get some paint on.

In more other news, a month or so ago me and Sam came first in the North West Gaming Center’s Hordes/Warmachine doubles tournament! Calandra and the Harbinger are a gruesome combo. Why does Calandra’s feat effect friendly models rather than friendly faction?! Ajay and Chris (aka Procrastinator) came 3^rd with Terminous and Krueger so the Barbed Thorn and RGMB Chester are showing the world how its done!

 

Sam and myself. That, dear friends, is what winners look like.

 

 in a bit

petezilla

BBC – Back to Base-ics, Tales of a Master Baser

So i cracked on with my bases, and only just managed to get them completed. Now i decided coming into this project that because this was going to be one of my new demoing battleboxes i would a) Paint them in the standard colours and b) not go OTT on the basing. This meant i got to ply my trade at doing some pretty basic bases, which i haven’t done in a long time. so my tools of the trade that i used:

GW sand
GW Gravel (not sure if they still do this)
PVA glue
Super glue
GW Scorched Grass flock
GW Burnt Grass flock

I unfortunately managed to lose all my pictures of me making the bases, but the process was simple:

Super glue and glue down some gravel in patches
Water down pva all over the base and dip in sand
PVA in splodges on the base and glue down some more gravel
Seal the whole lot with Watered down PVA

the painting side of it i managed to capture however, with some decidedly dodgy photos!

a basecoat of Umbral Umber, or GW Scorched Brown

a second coat of Thornwood green, or GW Charadon Granite

a light coat of Bootstrap Brown, or Calthan Brown GW

a very light drybrushing of Khemri brown

Paint the rocks, i did greatcoat grey, codex grey, fortress grey. the greatcoat grey could be missed out.

I mixed scorched grass and burnt grass together to create a darker flock, and applied with super glue.

Painted edges, i like to call this 'Rimming'

Next update Tuesday: WIP Sorscha!

BBC (Battle Box Challenge) – Day 1

So i tootled up to my FLGS, and i picked myself up the Khador battlebox. Whilst there i had a looksee around to see what else they had, this is what i ended up picking up….

Swag! Yarrr!

Now i’ll explain why i bought these. I generally have always used GW paints (used to be a GW staffer, so it made financial sense). However, lately i’ve been expanding my painting style, and i wanted to try different paints, so i ordered some P3. They were amazing. Thinner than GW paints and so much easier to blend with, i was in love. When i knew i was going to be painting Red, i knew i had to get the P3 red, and someone mentioned to me that the P3 black was also really good, so i decided to pick up both the Khador paint set and the IK paint set.

Now i cracked open the box…

Baggies! yay!

…and i got to work…

Beware sharp knife! well... it was sharp once... now it's kinda dull.

Now there were 2 things i quickly remembered about the PP plastics…

1: I hate Mould lines. Whilst Sorscha was relatively free of them, the Plastic jacks are covered in them.

2: I need a sharper knife to remove those mould lines.

Next update is Sunday, hopefully it will be about Basing! I am, after all, a Master baser.

The Battle Box Challenge!

So i realised the other day when i posted the Cardboard battle report up, i’ve really dropped the ball a little bit. I felt a little ashamed when Iron Agenda linked us in show notes and we were lacking any form of new post…

I need to explain my absence a little. First of all, i’ve got a little bit into Malifaux. so my recent (but little) hobby has been focused on painting up my Kirai crew. Secondly, i’ve been working like a fricking mad dog, but as a result, i now have a fair whack of monies available.

Now, feeling the urge to get back into my Warmachine hobby, i decided i needed a new challenge. Something akin to the original BTC, but something that would keep the Blog ticking over aswell. After seeing Lost Hemisphere’s plastic casters article, i knew i had to get one of these new battleboxes.

So here’s the Challenge:
Starting from the 15th October i shall have fully assembled, painted and based one Battlebox from a faction of my choice by 31st October
There will be updates every other day.

now i know what you’re thinking, ’16 days? pff easy’. Well let me answer that… This isn’t a challenge that is meant to be tough, or difficult, it’s just designed to get me back blogging regularly, and get me painting what will hopefully be a new faction for me (even though i can guarantee i WILL be doing gators) and it’s a little fun.

Now here’s the real fun part!

I’m basically throwing this challenge out to everyone who reads the blog. Build a battlebox with me! send me your WIP photos, any Photos you have of recently painted battleboxes, or any battleboxes you’re particularly proud of!

Oh and just so you know, the battlebox i have chosen to do is…

For the Motherland!

P.s: My username has changed on the PP forums, now look out for me as PG_Tips!

The Cardboard Cutout Genre…

So, this wednesday just passed me and PG_Sanj wanted to throw down a game with our proposed new factions, only there was one problem…

Neither of us have the models yet.

Yeh we both want to do Minions, Sanj is doing Carver and the Farrow, i’m doing Barney and the Gators. we decided to cardboard cutout proxy this game, and it was a lot of fun.

First of all, the lists. We decided on 25 pts, and Sanj ran:

Carver
War Hog
War Hog
Gun Boar
Full Brigands
minimum Bone Grinders

I, on the other claw, ran:

Barnabas
Wrastler
Wrastler
Full Gatormen Posse
Totem Hunter
Croak Hunter

Now, i kinda shanked on our deal a little bit… i used Gatormen posse figures, and didn’t manage to get the extra 2, so i ended up proxying 2 Deathrippers as GMP. I also used a totem hunter model that wasn’t entirely put together, by which i mean it was stuck to a base.

The deployment:

Oink!

The Gators. no where near as cool...

So i won the toss off to go first and off we went! i popped up two Swamp pits and advanced the GMP and Wrastlers into them.

Sanj’s first turn was just a small advance to catch up with his AD’ing Brigands. Carver put up Batten down the Hatches.

My second turn was very similar to my first, i popped down some Swamp pits and advanced into them. The croak hunter tried to shoot a Brigand through the trees but was out of range.

Sanj popped a Quagmire on the Brigands and ran them into everything in my lines. he advanced everything up behind them.

My turn three saw me pop up Warpath and my Feat. One Wrastler went to town on the Brigands in B2B with him, the Gators finished off the other Brigands and the Totem Hunter mopped up the last ones tying up the 2nd Wrastler, Warpath triggered and the Wrastler went running off into combat with one of the War Hogs. I learnt one thing from this endeavour, Wrastlers can’t kill a Batten down the hatches Hog.

Sanj’s turn saw one of the Hogs finish off the Wrastler after being healed by Carver.

there once was a wrastler in combat with the Hog...

Sanj then used the rest of his turn to back up a little bit, due to having to recover from the feat.

Over the next couple of turns, i managed to gator charge the Gun Boar and kill him off (with some help from Barney). The Totem Hunter went for some cheeky stab at Carver due to leaping into range, the Croak hunter had a pop at Carver aswell, again doing minimum damage, The 2nd Wrastler got a warpath charge on the 2nd Warhog, again failing to kill it, and we ended in a situation like this:

Iron flesh Barney. Yes.

After this, Carver popped feat, healed the Hog, killed the Croak and advanced out of Barney’s charge range. The hog killed the Wrastler and the turn flipped to me. I Gator charged the Hog and Carver, killing the Hog and missing Carver. Barney popped a swamp pit and advanced into it, forcing Carver to pop mobility if he wanted to get to me.

Sanj then did something which completely took me by surprise. He popped mobility, took 2 free strikes (one missed, the other left him on 2 health) and Trotted up to Barney. After the Hand of God had gone to town, Barney had 5 health left.

Rargh! Fucking Gators!

Barney then went to town and finished up Carver, serving up a Ham sandwich for himself.

At the end of the day, i like how the Gators play, i’m eagerly awating the Bull Snapper, and maybe if they get another unit it’ll be cool. I didn’t play this game to the best of my ability, but i don’t think Sanj did either.

Parting thoughts? Here’s what Sanj thinks of Barney….

Ravagore

Portsmouth Tier Challenge: Pete takes the PoM to Pompey

This weekend saw myself, Sam and Jase travel all the way down to Portsmouth (thats 200 odd miles) for Jase’s first tourney as TO/PGer: The Portsmouth Tier Challenge. It was 35pts tier lists only. I made a mockery of the system and brought a tier 1 eSeverius list which looked like this:

Hierarch Severius

Repenter

Revenger

Reckoner

Reckoner

Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts)

Temple Flameguard (Leader and 9 Grunts)

Temple Flameguard Officer & Standard

The Wrack (3 wracks)

Vassal of Menoth

Vassal of Menoth

I was supposed to paint Sevvy and Reckoner no.2 the week before the tourny, it didn't happen.

I’d had a fair amount of practice with this list and it seemed to work pretty well. eSev’s Awareness spell means its got a constant assassination threat by allowing the Reckoners to ignore line of sight. Holy Ward makes the TFG def 15 (thats before set defence kicks in), theres nothing like high defence infantry to ruin your opponents day!  And enemy infantry can be taken out of the equation thanks to Fear of God, Influence or Sev’s people jacking feat. If all else fails Creator’s Wrath gives Sev additional attack a damage dice making him a fairly lethal combatant himself.

Game 1 – Ed & eDenegrha

Hot damn, eDenegrha! I thought tier lists where for the fun loving types! To make it worse we where playing the scenario with the 3 flags across the middle of the board. To make it worse Ed got first turn. To make it worse Denegrha’s tier gives her +2” on her deployment. I ran my TFG in a desperate attempt to contest but Ed feated and killed most of them and won on scenario. eDenegrha, bad times.

YOU! Are going to lose.

Game 2 – Tom & pNemo

Old man fight! Tom had 3 light jacks (Lancer, Charger, Sentinel) and a Stormclad along with a gang of Stormblades with all the trimmings plus the usual support pieces (Junior and Squire). As our frail old men spent the game cowering behind their ‘jacks this game went on for ages on top of that my jacks kept getting disrupted and having bits chopped off them.  In the end I won by scenario tie break as I had more points in the box. Points of interest include:

• Tom sidestepping Holy Ward’s anti-magic buff by targeting his Storm Blades with Chain Lightning so it arced to the TFG.
• My Revenger decided it could take out Tom’s Charger and did a pretty good job of crippling it but then spent the rest of the game being head butted by it and disrupted from one place or another.
• Severius, after seeing both his Reckoners lose their arms to the Stormclad, took matters into his own hands and wrecked the thing himself.

It was a good game and we both had mental good dice, although I felt bad winning on tie break I think I had him on the back foot by the end and my Repenter was revving up his flamethrower to douse Nemo in Menoth’s Fury.

May the oldest, wimpiest man win!

Game 3 – Callum & Mortenebra (Debora)

Slightly anxious going into this one as I wasn’t sure how well I’d deal with a load of heavy ‘jacks. We where playing destruction and I got first turn. I was feeling less confident after deployment as I had a forest in the middle of my zone meaning that I could only really cover one destruction objective whereas Callum had a 14” deploymet zone because of the new Steamroller rules and Debora’s tier benefits. This meant that the Deathjack ADed 20” across the board and was looking hungrily at the Destruction objective I hadn’t covered. In reality this game was an easy win. Callum’s list included two Seethers, a Leviathan and the Deathjack plus Sirens. Callum didn’t have much experience against the Protectorate and ran both his Seethers into my face apparently expecting that to end well. My TFG charged the Seethers and promptly decided it was a bad idea and shat themselves (failng a CMD 9 check twice). Fortunately my Reckoners where waiting in the wings and took down a Seether each. At that point it was just a case of mopping up. Although Debora ran in my face and overboosted as much as she could surviving a couple of turns I eventually got her. There was a moment when it looked like Callum might have snatched a win when the Deathjack overran and ran towards Sev ready to eat him next turn but I killed Debora just in the nick of time.

Callum looking just gorgeous.

Sev just pooped a little

Game 4 – Simon & eKreoss

eKreoss, Fires of Salvation and loads of Exemplar of various flavours. I ran a similar list the other weekend at the Southport Showdown and its pretty nifty. We where playing killbox so I didn’t have to worry about him swarming objectives. This was a slightly silly game. We both moved up and I finally got a good opportunity to try out the Awareness assassination, Kreoss was camping a lot of focus so he survived but had taken a fair lump of damage. I then decided to move Sev up to ensure he stayed in the killbox, there where some Knights Exemplar looking at him but they’re slow so I figured they wouldn’t get him. Next turn Kreoss feated and one of those Knights did get him… twice. Game over, in the crappiest way ever… Looking back I might have had a chance if I had feated with Sev and taken over the Bastions hanging around Kreoss as he was on -2 Def because of the Reckoner shots, 4 or 5 pow 12 weapon master attacks might have done the job.

Overall it was a fun day and probably the most chilled out tourney I’ve ever been to. Getting drawn against eDenny on an objective based scenario and brain farting in my last game was a bit of a bummer but hanging out and watching games is good fun too.

in a bit

petezilla

Portsmouth Tier Challenge!

So this Saturday just passed me and PG_Sanj ran a 35pt, 4 round, tier tournament. it was 1 list only with the only stipulation being: you had to hit a tier!

It was a great event, we had 16 sign ups, but only 15 turned up, but everybody seemed to enjoy themselves! We had lists featuring the following casters: pMagnus, 2x eAsphyxious, 2x pCaine, pButcher, eButcher, pNemo, Amon, eDenny, Shae, eKreoss, eSeverius. Durgen and Mortenebra (forever known as Debra). Below are some pictures from the event:

So there you have it! a great day was had by most if not all! We had such great fun we’re already planning another tournament for next year!

If anyone wants to know anymore about the lists that were used just ask in the comments, i’ll make sure i reply and let you know what was in the lists 😀

Fatman Falling From Favour

So, as Jase has already pointed out, we had the world famous HUGS Southport Showdown last Saturday! It was pretty epic to be honest; plenty of laughs, some great games, and the stuff from which legends are made!

I, not so wisely, decided to go out the night before and get steamingly drunk, so I spent literally the entirety of the 12 hour marathon dry heaving, moaning about my headaches, drinking gallons of water, and subjecting the guys to my own rectal version of Rasheths feat (Sam loves it, official).

So I didn’t take any pictures, but heres a quick run-down of how Fats Dominar performed!

Lists –

15 points

Rasheth, Bronzeback, Gladiator, Min Paingivers, Min Bonegrinders  (tier list, titans are at -1 point)

25 points

As above +

Drake, Min Praet Swordsmen

35 points

As above +

Max Arcuraii

50 Points

As above +

Brute, Agonizer, Min Ferox, Expand Praets to max unit

Game 1, 15 points, vs Buxton’s Trolls

Game ended with his Mauler in b2b with Rasheth after a refuge move.  He then kindly pointed out that my Gladiator could get to Doomie. Which he did! Win for me. (Highlight – My gracious opponent pointing out how I could win, which was nice of him considering I was struggling to see straight)

Game 2, 15 points, vs PeteZ’s PoM

Game ended with Rasheth by himself, eKreoss Bloodmarked, and 3 exemplar dudes charging fatty. eKreoss took something like 15 damage from the transfer, but then fatty got butchered. Loss for me. (Lowlight – Not managing to convince PeteZ that charging Rasheth with eKreoss’ AP attack would be the best course of action…)

Game 3, 25 points, vs Jase’s Cryx

I forgot what Perdition could do every single turn, and therefore miscalculated how far away Fatty needed to be from his Seether. Enough said really. Loss for me. (Lowlight – losing to Jase. Something has changed since he moved down south…)

Game 4, 25 points, vs Andy’s Circle

After a massive failure to eliminate Megalith and get the upper hand, Morvhana regrowth’d a few wolves to charge Rasheth. And that was that! Loss for me. (Highlight – The smug smile I felt creep across my face when telling Andy to remove from play his wolves. He had to make two seperate casualties piles. A moral victory!)

Game 5, 35 points, vs Sam’s Trolls

Kicked ass for 9/10 of the game. Stupidly left enough room for 2 fennblades to charge Rasheth, thinking Rasheth could take it. Which he could. He could not however, take the feat attacks granted by eMadrak. Eurgh. Loss to me. (Highlight  – Mulg wiffing 4 attacks in a row against my BB. 5’s to hit, it’s never guaranteed)

Game 6, 50 points, vs Buxton’s Trolls.

Grudge match from last week.  Unfortunately for Buxton, Rasheth flexes his debuff muscles on the Dires and grinds them down, with eDoomie being the last Troll to fall. Win for me. (Lowlight – Knowing that forever more, Buxton will hate me)

So only won 2 games, both against Buxton which only served to fuel the fires of his hatred for my Skorne.  Made a couple of stupid errors with Rasheth which led to him being assassinated from somewhere I hadn’t considered (Seether Perdition moves, regrown Wolves), but overall I think I used him quite well!

He’s still not a contender for my favourite warlock (Xerxis, pMorgs) or most competative (eMak, Zaal), but he won’t be sitting in my model box collecting dust (unlike Mordikaar).

Until next time!