Da Troll Cave

Basic Painting Questions

2009-06-18T18:00:00.000-07:00

So there's been an eager new troll player that's just starting to paint, and he/she has been asking me questions through PMs on Dakka. I figure I might as well post up my answers here in case anyone is wondering about the same questions as well. Plus I think one of my answers will be pretty long...

Q: How do you do the skin on your trolls?
A: Here's an old post where I talk about painting the skin:
http://datrollcave.blogspot.com/2007/02/painting-maulerbegin.html

I've since sped up the process though to cut out the regal blue and electric blue steps. I now base with GW electric blue (also available as the same color in Vallejo) and mix in more and more space wolf grey as I highlight/blend up.

Usually around 3 steps for infantry, and probably about 6 steps for beasts. I'll then sometimes do a very very watery wash of electric blue again in the crevices only (i.e. use your fine detail brush and get a very watered down electric blue droplet).

Q: How do you do the leather?
A: This one is a little tougher to answer for me as I don't have a very standard process. I'll break it down into the various types of leather I've done:

Cowhide/White Leather: This was done on the impaler and you can read about it here.

Yellow/Brown Dirty Leather: Can also be found on the impaler post above.

Red/Brown Leather: This is (surprise) also on the impaler, but I use it on the Axer, and Grim Angus as well (Better pics of leather here). The painting process I used is found here.

Champions Leather Bits/Kilt: For these guys, I used a similar technique, but with more steps. I based in good ol' Scorched Brown (GW), lay down a layer of Bloodtracker Brown (P3), and then Highlight with Beast Hide (P3). Then I washed with brown ink and re-highlighted with beast hide. This was really fast and easy and for a unit of them, I didn't want to spend a ton of time on them.

For the unit leader's eye-patch I spent a little more time on it and highlighted with Bleached Bone (GW) also.

Q: What's your definition of a wash?
A: For me, a wash usually consists of a drop of paint on my brush and then dipping my brush in a clean cup of water (very rapidly). One dip for a dark wash (i.e. if I want some heavy shading in the crevices), two or three dips for a very watery wash. It's not a very scientific method, but it works for me. The first time doing this during a paint session, I'll usually test it on a piece of paper to make sure the consistency is right before applying it to the model.

Q: How do you mix paint and water without wasting a lot of paint? (you dont really know how much you need when you pour some out do you?)
A: I kind of don't have this problem due to the weird way I paint.

I don't really use a mixing pallette (tiles or those plastic paint trays). I've found that the paint dries quickly on those anyway and I actually end up wasting more paint than if I just do things my own way.

What way is that? Well I get some standard computer paper, and basically use that as my pallette. Le gasp! I know tons of people swear by tiles, or pallettes, but they just don't work for me. I've found that while using paper does make paint dry quickly, it's not much more quickly than if I were to use a painting pallette. This is mostly because I'm very very slow at painting, so regardless of what I use, my paints dry out by the time I go back to the pallette.

The other benefit of using computer paper (aside from being cheap, plentiful, and requiring no cleanup), is that as I do a lot of watery painting, I find that it has just the right absorbancy for my tastes. I don't want it to suck up too much water when I dab my brush on it to get rid of excess water. Brown paper, newspaper, paper towels, tissues, and the like all suck up too much water. Whereas tiles, palletes, and print magazines all wick away too little water if I have too much. Computer paper works great for this purpose.

So if my paint is always drying out on the paper pallette, how do I avoid wasting paint? Well, I basically only put as much paint as I need for one application at a time. So basically dip brush in paint, dip brush in water, wick away excess water on pallete (and check color at the same time) and then apply to model. Then I wash brush quickly, and repeat. For blending two colors, I add the first color to the paper, and immediately after, I dip the brush in the other color and add it to the paper. Then I use the brush to mix to my desired color, add some water if needed, and apply to model.

Keep in mind when I say I dip my brush in the paint, I'm talking about a drop of paint. Not a huge glob. So I end up using/wasting little paint. Just as a point, in painting all my trolls so far, I have yet to use up more than half of a GW pot of electric blue! While BrokenZealot kindly bequeathed to me his in case I ever run out (it's a discontinued color now) I've yet to pop it open except to move it to a new container.

Also, while this might seem slower, I've gotten quite fast at doing things like this, especially the skin. I can crank out a champion's skin now in about 15-20 min (that's fast for me ok! :P)

For non-watery coats, or non-blended painting (i.e. basecoats), I just paint directly from the paint pot, onto the model.

Whew that was a long and complicated answer! I'm not sure it will be helpful to anyone, as it's a pretty weird way of doing things, but it works for me, so I'm not about to change heh.

If anyone has any other questions about how I do things, feel free to drop a comment and I'll try to answer best I can.

New puppy

2009-06-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

A bit of non-Troll related news, but my wife and I are finally getting a dog. Yay! She's watched me work on this blog over the years and thought it'd be fun if she gave it a go. So we've decided to blog about our puppy as we raise him. If any are interested it can be found here:

Our new puppy blog

In other news, skin on my Fell Caller is done. I'll hopefully finish him off during the work week this week. I'm still debating whether to attempt NMM again or just do regular metallics.

Champions Fully Painted!

2009-05-23T17:07:00.001-07:00

Yay all finished! Here they are in a lineup. They still need to have grass added to their bases (and some rocks painted grey), but overall they're pretty much done.

For those wondering, yes, that one on the left in the group photo is in fact "flying" through the air. There were a number of times that I've thrown my surefooted champs as missiles so I thought it was appropriate. Plus, when I made him, the movie 300 had just been released, so it was a fun re-pose based on the guy that flies through the air in the movie to hack off the Persian emissary's arm.

Here is a closeup of the Kithkar:

It took me a while to get used to painting their skin again, but I think I've got it down again.

I was debating between doing the little bumps on his chin in a darker color as in the Metamorphosis art (Dark Blue) but I couldn't make up my mind so just left them light blue for now. It will be an easy change if I do decide to do that though.

Also, I decided against doing a tartan design for now, though I could add one in the future as the brown cloth is pretty neutral and could easily be converted into a tartan.

I just noticed when I posted this pic that I've forgotten to paint the wooden handle on the Kithkar's axe. Oops. I'll fix that later tonight. Not sure how I missed it, but staring at the same models for hours tends to have that effect on me...where I selectively ignore things about the model while working on other parts, then forget to come back to it.

Also, I'm not a huge fan of how the axes came out for the Kithkar, whereas I'm fairly happy with the weapons for the other members of the unit. I don't like how the axe highlights came out on the Kithkar's axe, and the bronze bolt-on part didn't come out with enough contrast. This is where I suppose NMM techniques would have made a big difference, as it's easier to make gold/bronze metals "pop" like I did with Grim's weapons.

If you look closely, I added a bit of rust/dirt to their armor with a brown ink wash, but it didn't come out quite as well as I had hoped. Still for a quick application, I suppose it gets the job done without me spending a lot of time on it. The other added benefit is that it gives a slight brown tint to the armor, so it doesn't look as "shiny" and looks more weather worn to me.

The second thing to go is your memory...

2009-05-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

So I forgot how to paint gems...had to look this up on the web again. I'm going to post this here for my own future reference. Heh.

Finished the Champions

2009-05-22T00:40:00.000-07:00

Finished, minus basing and four gems. Yay!

I'm going to try and finish the gems tomorrow, get some pics, and maybe start on either the Krielstone bearer or the Fell Caller.

"Sandy" Primer

2009-05-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

Well crap. So I took a closer look at the guys I primed a few days ago and apparently they all have this "sandy" feeling quality to them. I'm not sure why this is...maybe the primer is no good anymore? Maybe it was too hot when it was drying? Whatever the reason, it's left a very rough primer coat on them. The primer also seems to flake off the models fairly easily if I run my finger over it...

I'm not really sure what I should do now...I'm worried that if I paint over it, it may not look as nice...and it might flake off. But then again, maybe if I paint over it, the acrylic paints will "fill in" and smooth out the sandy texture...then I could just seal it as normal...

Darn Arizona heat (if that's the culprit)!

EDIT:

So it seems that fortunately the mauler extreme and the Long Riders mostly escaped the "powdery" fate. Thank goodness for that. The Pygs seemed to have gotten the worst of it...and I can live with that. Borka and Keggy were mostly ok too...just some bad spots which I'll just hand prime over I suppose.

On a side note, the weather hear has been crazy. Today it rained...yep, rain, in the middle of the desert, while it was 87F outside. Go figure...

Did some painting and priming today

2009-05-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

So I got up early this morning (on a vacation day no less :/) to prime a bunch of my trolls. It's been incredibly hot lately and I knew I'd have to do it early before it got too hot. Even at 7 in the morning it was already 85F out. Yikes. I had a lot of trouble with my old GW Black Primer...which seemed to have gotten clogged over the year or so since I last used it. After a lot of cleaning I finally got it working though. So the things I got primed were:

Borka and Keggy
Long Riders
Pyg Burrowers
and last but not least, the Mauler Extreme...oh yea!

I also did some more painting on my champions. I've just got one guy left to do now, and some final details on the others. The last guy should be fast though since he has very little skin and is mostly just armor.

It's about 105F right now...so I think I'm going to like down in a corner of my tile floor and try not to melt...

Retribution Cover Fully Revealed

2009-05-15T13:15:00.001-07:00

So Privateer finally revealed the rest of the cover for the new Iosan faction. At first I really didn't like the look of them. The high-tech rifles bothered me, and they still do. I think the Myrmidon (jack) on the right is pretty cool, but what's with the one on the left? Can we say pinhead? Hah!

After looking at them all again though, they're not too bad, definitely have a different/original feel to them, especially the warcaster. Grittier, angrier elves I suppose. He almost looks like a Nick Fury, but elven. The lightning fists look kinda funky in the picture as well, but is a neat idea. Will be interesting to see the rules for them.

The more I look at them, the more they tend to grow on me. Of course it's still no contest with the Trolls, but really, what could be? :)

Well here's hoping the models turn out well!

PS. Went on to the DakkaDakka forums, and surprisingly most of the people there (mostly 40k players) seem to like it a lot and are talking about picking up the faction as their WM army. So even if they turn out not to be my cup of tea, it's nice that others seem to like them.

Edit: PP removed the pic from their site, so no pretty picture to link to anymore. :(

Retribution of Scyrah

2009-05-12T22:23:00.000-07:00

So it looks like Privateer is releasing the Retribution...and I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed at the moment. They look very "Eldar" to me...I would have thought they'd come with something more original. I was definitely hoping for something a little more unique, and a little more gritty to fit the Iron Kingdoms.

However, it's hard to tell exactly how they all fit together since there's still a lot of the picture obscured...but my current feeling is still "meh." On the other hand, I suppose going with this look could be a play to try and grab some more 40k players.

Here's hoping the models are cooler than my impressions of the art.

Worked on my champions a bit

2009-04-18T22:23:00.000-07:00

I spent about an hour or two working on my champions today. I started base coating the skin on the other three. Two of them are pretty much done now except for some fine details and their tartans. I still am not sure how to do these, so I may just experiment randomly tomorrow. I'm thinking about going with an orange/brown base, with blue, white and red smaller lines. We'll see how it goes...probably poorly hah!

As a side note, I also had to re-learn how to do armor properly. I completely forgot that I need to wash the silver armor with a black ink/watery base before highlighting. The rediscovery today was funny, but also sad. I wonder what else I've forgotten in the last year!

In other news...I'm really tempted to start up a Cygnar army...I'm not really sure why though...might be all the Mk II talk on the forums. That and I've always thought it'd be nice to have a Warmachine army too.

Mk II Warmachine Thoughts

2009-04-11T11:10:00.000-07:00

So, while I haven't really be able to play any games in forever, I have been keeping up with the changes to Mk II Warmachine and overall I think the changes are really nice. Things I particularly like:

* I love that warjacks are actually good and cool again. That was primarily the reason I first got interested in the game way back before Prime and where there were only the Battleboxes.

*Warjacks getting +1 MAT/RAT. Nice! One can only hope that warbeasts get this too when they get around to redoing Hordes. I always hated how my beasts had such a tough time hitting things...I basically always had to boost to hit.

* Less special rules and exceptions to rules overall for units across the board. This was a huge turnoff for me (and it's a problem in some ways with Hordes too). There were so many special exceptions to rules, and unique abilities per unit that it was getting impossible to remember everything. Even in games with Scott, as a "new" player, it was really really hard for me to remember all the things his units did. It also slowed down my decision making a lot with my own units, let alone trying to remember what everything else on the other side of the table did. It would be nigh impossible for someone new to wargaming to pick up the game in the state it was in.

* Warjack points for warcasters. Initially I thought that the warjack points could be used to get whole warjacks. E.g. Haley with WJ Pts. +5 could get five additional jacks. That would have been sweet. Sadly, not the case, but still good as it gives most casters a free light, or half a heavy, which is better than nothing.

* Warjacks getting tougher. I always thought that warjacks were pretty fragile when compared to beasts in Hordes. Now they don't die completely until you've marked off every box, which makes them a whole lot tougher.

All in all, there's a lot of positive changes to the game that I like. Things I don't like are the new LOS rules. These just seem obtuse to me...and the old LOS rules never really seemed to be a problem point for me, so I'm not sure why they changed these.

Also, there's a huge amount of whining and crying on the official forums. It's really kind of pathetic and ridiculous. You'd think that Privateer had cut off some players' fingers or something. A lot of the whining seems to be coming from the Cryx players in particular, who got "hit" the hardest by the removal of all the special rules and exceptions.

I for one am glad a lot of the special rules and exceptions were removed. Good riddance.

Anyway, I'm sure once the frothing dies down, people will once again return to sanity on those forums and realize that it's not the end of the world. Looking at all the Cryx units with relatively "fresh" eyes (i.e. I have not followed any rules for anything Cryx since original Prime) a lot of the stuff doesn't seem as bad as people on the forums make them out to be.

Champions...some progress

2009-04-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

So I didn't quite make my painting goal, but I managed to squeeze in a couple hours of painting today. This weekend was pretty jam packed as I have a presentation on Wednesday, and was working on a procurement model for a simulation I'm doing. My entire Saturday disappeared into the depths of an excel spreadsheet.

Anyway, I did get the armor for one done, and the armor for the other basecoated. I also finished up their eyes and mouths. I tried to do a rusty armor wash for the one on the left, but it didn't come out quite right. I'll probably have to revisit him with a once over again later. But since I'm just shooting for tabletop quality with these, I'm not too worried.

I've definitely taken a step backward in painting ability...hopefully it will come back quickly, but it's why I wanted to start with some troopers I guess....to work all the bugs and rediscovery process out of my system.

As a side note, I still hate GW screw cap paint pots. A bunch of my paints completely dried out. Blargh! I'm going to need to buy some new paints when time permits.

On another side note, my wife did some mini painting with me today too. That was fun and nice. She started painting up an old cryx bonejack a college buddy bequeathed to me a long time ago (when the Warmachine battlebox first came out). If you're reading this, it's not too late to pick up Hordes/WM! You know who you are! ;)

Champions starting point...

2009-03-30T21:12:00.000-07:00

So, as promised here is the starting point of the two champions I'll be working on. As you can see, the skin isn't that great, but it should be good for tabletop quality. Also, I'm planning on doing the armor with metallics since I don't want to attempt NMM at this point, especially not for the entire unit.

More later this week I hope. I've got a busy schedule this week, but I'm determined to finish at least one.

P.S. Changed the blog format template to a new one. How does it look? Or should I go back to the original template? The other one I liked is the one Brokenzealot uses, but I didn't want to completely rip him off. :D

The fixed width definitely seems to make the posts easier to set up with pictures!

Back to the Trolls

2009-03-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

So after that brief stint (brief being about 3 months...hah) of building 40k Orks, I've now got that out of my system and am again excited about working on my Trolls and with Warmachine/Hordes. I've also been listening to Fell Calls podcast again during my drive to and from school (about an hour drive both ways, so just about a full episode!).

I think for me the most truly difficult part is just getting started. I've been trying to get started again for the last week or so, but something always seems to come up. A group project, yard work, the need for sleep, job interviews, taxes (ugh! still not done yet....) etc. etc. I just need to get off my arse and get something painted. It's just tough when you don't get to play any games...that was always a good motivator for me to paint.

Even so, I'm going to paint one champion this week. He's had his skin done for a year or so now, but never got a good coat of armor and is still sitting in his black primer. Well no more! I'll aim to have him done by this Saturday (I hope). No doubt my painting skills have greatly deteriorated so I'm just going to shoot for tabletop quality and take it from there.

I'll post up a pic of how he looks currently tomorrow night.

Started a Small 40k Ork Army

2008-10-31T10:42:00.000-07:00

So I picked up a bunch of Assault on Black Reach Orks over the last couple weeks and have been slowly assembling them. It's been fun putting them together, and the warboss model is just cool. Really good detail for a plastic 3 piece model. GW definitely has their plastics tech down. The deathcoptas are also neat looking and should be fun to paint.

Plus, the price for these was pretty good. I think in total I spent about $50 for 60+ models and the new rulebook. Not bad. Ebay for the win!

Short update - Warmachine Demo

2008-08-26T22:52:00.000-07:00

So school has started in earnest now, and I must say, it's a ton of work. The first 3-6 months I hear are the worst, and the first couple weeks certainly seem to be keeping up appearances.

In gaming related news, I ran a demo of Warmachine for my long time 40k buddy and also my wife last week. I think fun was had by all, though I actually did forget a couple of rules...embarrassing! Well not really, but it's funny how I didn't pay as much attention to the Warmachine side of things as opposed to Hordes.

The game was one of Cryx (wife) vs. Menoth (friend) box sets. Both sides were plagued with pretty bad dice rolls, which added to the humor at times, but also made it frustrating too. I think Cryx definitely got the worse end of the bad dice though, missing a couple easy spells (missed two 5+ rolls on two dice) and slams (7+ on 3 dice). Those misses really tipped the game over to Menoth's advantage.

In the end, Menoth was victorious with a great showing from the Crusader, mightily smiting the Slayer in two massive, flaming hits. My wife was a little disappointed with her game, but wants to give it another go. I must say though that Denehgra is a bit tough for someone new to the game to use. I think my friend also found the mechanics of the game interesting/different, so I'm glad he got something out of the game too.

Anyway, off to bed for another fun filled day that begins at 5am. :/

Pics of Extreme Mauler and Special Edition Eyriss Assembled

2008-08-15T13:43:00.000-07:00

So, a little late, but here are the pics of the mauler assembled:

This guy took about 5 pins, one for each arm, 2 for the main body, and one from the legs to the body. I also filled all the gaps with plenty of greenstuff. The model didn't fit very well together, and there were quite a few large gaps between the pieces. I'm not sure if this is because the individual parts had warped over time, or if it came like that.

Again, I used the greenstuff + a small dab of superglue at each of the joins. I've found that doing this really gives the greenstuff an easy time of drying correctly, as the superglue mostly holds the pieces in place while the greenstuff dries overnight. It also makes for a super strong bond.

And here is Eyriss. Was pretty easy to put her together...just required a tiny dab of greenstuff in her shoulder joints and some to cover the slot in the base.

Just need to add some sand to her base and she should be ready for primer. The only problem is I still haven't set up any place to do primer spraying yet. I might need to go pick up a bunch of old cardboard boxes outside home depot or Walmart as I don't want any errant spray particles hitting the house when I spray outside.

The other concern I have is that it's really really hot here, and I'm not sure how that's going to affect the consistency of the spray primer.

Lack of Warmachine/Hordes in the area...back to 40k? Eep

2008-08-12T16:10:00.000-07:00

So it seems that there is a distinct lack of Warmachine/Hordes games being played in the greater Phoenix area...most players seem to play 40k/Fantasy. That makes me a little sad. I haven't investigated too many game stores around here yet, but the two I did go to seemed to be very focused on GW games. The selection of Privateer Press products seemed rather scant at both stores. Only one of the stores I went to carried any P3 paints as well. There is one store a bit further that I'm hoping runs regular games, but it is about a 30min. drive.

In other news, my old college roommate is out in the Phoenix area for the next couple months, so I may play some 40k games with him in the near future, depending on how school/work goes. Good thing I didn't actually sell my old Tau army, though it's in pretty bad shape: lots of busted models, several unprimered (stripped the paint off after I bought them off ebay/craigslist), and some still unassembled vehicles.

The good news is, I probably could field a fairly sizable force, maybe 1500-1750 pts. I'll probably want to start playing some smaller games first though since I have been out of the game for almost 2-3 years now I think. I do hear some decent things about the new 5th edition rules though, and hopefully the games will be a little more interesting than they were before.

I watched my friend play a game last weekend, and it does seem much more objective based which is nice, along with a bigger focus on using troops and cover. They've also taken several queues from the Privateer games it seems such as deployment, who goes first, and some of the missions. The downside was that it's still a game about rolling bucketloads of dice, and also that movement and placement really doesn't require much thought or planning. In fact most of the game is still very straight forward, mostly about who can unload more fire into the other guy's targeted unit.

Sidebar: I suppose it's why I liked the Warhammer Fantasy system more than 40k...movement and positioning mattered. Unfortunately, they ripped out all the fun aspects of my beloved Orc and Goblin army, and it just feels very vanilla now.

That's where I feel the Privateer Press games really have an edge over the GW games still. The amount of brainpower that I burn in one turn of WM/Hordes probably equals the amount I'd use in an entire game of 40k. I really loved those games I was able to play against Brokenzealot because they really made me think hard every single turn. Sometimes I could swear steam must have been coming out of my ears. Movement, positioning, unit synergies, and planning ahead are super important. Furthermore, there are tons of fun aspects about the game such as throwing, slamming, feats, special abilities, etc. etc. There is a ton of "fun" variety...the kind that I used to have in my Orc and Gobbo army.

Anyway, I still plan on continuing to model/paint my Hordes army. I love my Trolls to much to stop, even if I can't find many games in the area, though I'm still hopeful I'll find some folks somewhere that play.

Worked on the Extreme Mauler some last week

2008-08-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

So I was able to finally finish building the Extreme Mauler sculpt yesterday. It took a ton of pinning work, lots of green stuff, and several hours, but he's finally put together. I've left him off the base because I want to paint the base separately first. Also, I still need to drill some pin holes for attaching him to his base.

This guy is a total beast. He has to weigh in at about a pound of pewter, and I pity anyone that had this guy drop on their foot!

I also worked on one of my Trollkin Champs, laying down some basecoating for his armor, leather, and weapons. It's been tough doing painting since I don't have a well lighted area set up yet in my house. I also don't have a modeling/painting table set up either, so I can only paint for very short periods before my back hurts too much from hunching over my coffee table. I'm not too happy with the results, so I'll probably improve it a bit before posting pictures.

Later this week I should have a table all set up though, so I should be able to paint for longer stints.

No pictures yet, but I will post some up tomorrow of the Extreme Mauler in all his unpainted (but assembled) glory!

I'm not dead yet!

2008-07-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

So it's been, what, a measly 10 months since I updated this thing?

Yikes.

Anyway in that period of time I managed to:

1. Get into a MBA program.
2. Move out of state.
3. Quit my job.
4. Watch an amazing cancer recovery that my mother-in-law went through.
5. Get nothing modeling or painting done. At all. :)

But! Now that I'm settled in, I'm going to try to do a little bit of painting every week. Most likely no one reads this thing anymore so I'm doing these updates more for myself I suppose than anything, but it should be fun.

So picking up where I left off, I think I will be finishing up my Champions next. Let's see if I can still remember how to paint their skin...

Managed to do some painting and modeling

2007-09-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

I was able to get some assembly work done this week on the Long Riders and the Extreme Mauler. The Long Riders are all done and assembled, but the Mauler still needs a lot of work. That guy is a beast! He must weigh about a pound.

I also did the skin on two troll champions. It went a lot more slowly than I thought because I've not done the skin for so long that I completely forgot how I normally paint it.

Even so, it was a ton of fun to get back into the painting/modeling groove. It was especially nice because I was able to paint with an old college buddy (who happens to be working on a GW Tomb Kings army). Painting with a buddy always makes it seem to go a lot faster and it's really nice to just relax on a Sunday afternoon and chat. The football game was also on in the background too for added entertainment.

It was really nice to catch up with my old buddy, and I got a lot done to boot as well! All in all quite a wonderful day.

Borka's Night on the Town

2007-09-08T20:24:00.000-07:00

Had a fun game tonight with Scott and his Menoth. I brought the Borka beast list I posted in an earlier entry. I had to proxy the Pyre Troll, but everything else was correct. I'm not going to put up a full report, but instead just go over some things I learned about Borka today.

1. Borka is TOUGH! With Champs and a Kriel Stone Bearer, they are all DEF14 ARM19. They took a full barrage from zealots and only lost one champion.

2. The Mosh Pit spell is nasty! Anyone ending their activations in melee range of a troll gets pushed back one inch, generating free strikes. This totally fouls up any melee troops.

3. The Keg Bearer is awesome...because Scott didn't want to kill him, Lil' Keggy was able to kill 3-4 zealots and get in the way of others. It was a lot of fun running him in like the crazy kamikaze drunk pygmy that he is.

4. I need to remember to transfer damage when I get hit. I had two fury and forgot to transfer damage when some Daughters got in and backstabbed him.

5. The High Reclaimer is pretty gross when he can get tons of soul tokens...he got I think close to 20 focus one round and almost killed Borka in one round. Amazingly, Borka lived with 1hp to spare, and the Arm19 from the KSB really paid off big this game.

6. Borka is pretty bad with three beasts. I found that I couldn't really support three and had to make many frenzy checks during the game. I just couldn't pull enough fury off to keep the beasts cool. Also, he doesn't really have any spells that help beasts out. I need to drop one for more troops.

7. When the Fell Caller gets a free strike, it's brutal! Well it was also a monster roll too, but still, he did a POW 30 hit to a revenger leaving combat. Took out the two middle columns in one giant cleave. Go Fell Caller!

8. I still hate Daughters and Zealots. They're too fast and they do hit very hard! If not for the KSB and toughness of the champs and Borka I think I would have gotten quickly swamped.

Overall I think it was a really fun game, though we couldn't play it out to the death. Borka was on fire with 3hp left at the end of the game, while a lot of the Menoth troops were dead or routed. I think it could have gone either way, though probably was more in the Menoth's favor since my beasts were all mostly wild and I was down to 3 champions.

I'm definitely looking forward to next week, and maybe I'll have my champions painted in time for that battle.

Borka Built for Battle

2007-09-08T12:55:00.000-07:00

I put together Borka last night. No real major issues with assembly and all the pieces fit together nicely. I did however do one pretty major change. I didn't really like his codpiece so I left that off and instead tried to sculpt my own belt and loincloth for him. This was my first major attempt at sculpting anything big with greenstuff.

I found it really hard to get the loincloth folded right; I think I may have been trying to shape it too soon after mixing the greenstuff because it just wouldn't hold it's shape and kept getting stuck to the table or my fingers/tools. I remembered later that to sculpt a wavy piece of cloth, it's best to wait an hour for it to harden before trying.

I also had some trouble doing his belt buckle and so it doesn't quite look right to me either.

I'll post up a picture later today, once it's all dry.

As for the list I'm going to be using him in tonight, I think I'm going to try this out:

Borka
-Pyg Keg Carrier
-Mauler
-Axer
-Pyre (using my Impaler to proxy)
Champions
Krielstone Bearer + 4 scribes
Fell Caller

I know he should be a lot better with just two beasts and more infantry, but I don't have the models to include Kriel Warriors or long riders yet. The Pyre in this list is kinda extraneous since the Mauler is there.

I'm expecting to get crushed tonight by Scott since he'll have his tournament list there, but it should be fun anyway to see what Borka can do.

Hordes: Evolution - Quick Review

2007-09-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

So I'm back from Taiwan now, been back for about a week. It was a pretty good trip; I got a lot of things done work-wise, the people there are great, and I enjoyed my stay there for the most part. While I'm glad I'm back to the US now, I will probably have to go back there again in a month or two.

A nice bonus that waiting for me at GameCastle was my preorder of the Hordes: Evolution book. I spent most of yesterday reading the fiction, which was quite a bit of fun. I really like how they advance the storyline with each new book they release. (No big spoilers for those that haven't read it yet, just general thoughts and impressions).

The Story

The trolls have carved out a little corner of Cygnar for themselves, but things are very tenuous and life is still hard for them. I really liked the way they expanded Alten's character as well as using him to explore Grim's character a bit. I found it interesting that they are making Doomshaper into a serious warmonger, trying to instigate a fight between the trolls and Cygnar. Not really much else of note on the troll story front though.

What I found the most interesting though was the legion fluff, in which they showed the "nicer" side of it, where Everblight is seen as a loving father rather than a crazy evil dragon, and all the warlocks are a sort of weird extended family. Very strange, but interesting nonetheless.

I didn't really like the Circle fluff much...it was all very political, and dealt with characters I'm not really interested in. I was pretty disappointed in Kaya's story progression though. She's just going to be used by Morvahnna now as a pawn. It was sad that she was too dumb to realize this. Oh well.

The Skorne story was pretty interesting in the parts that involved Magnus. The last part was especially interesting, and it makes me wonder what Zaal and Hexeris are up to, and what Vinter's master plan really is. Cool stuff.

The Art

The art throughout the book is very well done, and there's quite a lot of it. I like most of the new troll art, especially the full page picture of the keg carrier and his whelp. Circle art was pretty nice too, though since I'm not really interested in them, I didn't pay much attention though. I do think a lot of their new units looks pretty nice though. I especially like the wolves standard bearer and champion though, and the new Satyr heavy warbeast looks pretty cool.

Legion art was ok, nothing super special. Same with Skorne. The Agonizer art is even worse than the mini, so if the mini bothered you, then be prepared for the art. It's pretty gross looking. Other than that, it seems like more of the same for the Skorne.

The Troll Units

I'm sad that the trolls didn't get a pygmy bushwhacker UA, but happy that there is another pygmy miner unit. I'm definitely picking up a set of these guys as they seem really useful in scenario games and for claiming/contesting objectives. Plus popping out and dishing out a bunch of POW 14 slug gun shots to the face seems quite strong.

The troll bouncer light warbeast seems pretty useful. He's got decent power, great armor, and some nice defensive bonuses for having him near your warlock. Still, I'm not sure how I'd fit him into my army, especially my 500 pt. lists as he just doesn't seem quite good enough for me to want to replace my Axer in most cases. He might be more useful in 750, or maybe with Doomshaper and an Earthborn.

The best new unit/addition though has to be the new Standard Bearer, Musician, and Caber Tosser. These three guys make Kriel Warriors incredibly good. The standard bearer and musician make the Kriel Warriors tougher (tough on a 4+, unit members can't be knocked down) and faster (extra movement if not running, more spread out formation ok), while the caber tosser adds a much needed attack oomph to the unit. With the option to lay down 6" of pow 13 death, or a single target POW 20 hit, these caber tossers are brutal. Plus I really like the art for these guys and I hope the minis look cool too. I'm definitely going to be picking up a unit of Kriels once these additions come out.

Lastly, I've got mixed feelings about the new Solo, the Stone Scribe Chronicler. He's pretty much like the testament of menoth, where he has to read his special abilities in order. The bonuses are nice, but the order might cause some trouble. He's cheaper than the Fellcaller though, but doesn't quite seem as nice. Maybe in larger games he'd be a good addition, but I probably won't be getting one.

And of course there were all the guys covered by the previous NQ magazines (Earthborn, Long Riders, Grim, and Winter Troll). I'm definitely looking forward to some Long Riders soon. I think they should be out in a few weeks.

Which brings me back to painting. I really really need to get started again soon. I think my goal for next week will be to slam out the Champions, who have been sitting patiently in my army transport for months now, waiting their turn to get painted. I also want to get Borka assembled and primed for a game next week against Scott too. I'm sure he's sick of seeing Grim across the field. :)

So the week after will be Borka, and then maybe a break to paint the swamp gobbers or the Rhyas I got just to paint.

Heading to Taiwan...

2007-08-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

So I'm finally done with my GMAT, and I did well enough that I'll never have to take it again. Yay! I'm really glad that's over and done with.

The bad news is I'm getting sent to Taiwan for work starting this Thursday for a week. Doh. But after that, things should be well settled down and I should be able to dive back in to painting. Plus, Evolution should be out by then and it'll be fun times again for games I hope with all new units coming out. :)

I'm thinking about taking some models and paints to Taiwan with me so I have something to do at night...but I'm worried that it won't get through security...they might think the paint was some sort of liquid explosive.

Grim Angus 95% Done

2007-07-25T19:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, I know, I've been really bad about updating the blog with progress on my trolls. Sadly, the reason is that I just haven't made much at all lately. As some of my readers may know, I've been slammed with work and school.

For work I have to set up a whole new engineering team in the US and Taiwan. School sees me getting close to taking the GMAT exam. Anyway, all that in short = BLARG!

BUT! The bright news is that I'm now 95% done with painting Grim now! Woo! All that's left is his tartan, which I'm still undecided on how I want to paint it, and touching up a couple of boo-boos on his gun (there's a slightly messy highlight on the top of the scope that you can see in the closeup of the scope). I like his green goggles, the NMM work on his guns, and his pants and shirt.

Also, I managed to get a couple of Winsor Newton Series 7 brushes via a super sale online that Broken Zealot spotted and alerted me to. They would normally have sold for over $50, but I got them for only $20. As I understand, these are the Ferrari's of the mini paint brush world. Yea, ok that's super geeky, but whatever. :) I'm excited about using them sometime soon instead of the old GW brushes I've been using.

Back to Grim, here are some more pics of him as he is today (click to enlarge):

Summer Rampage Week 1: Picnic by the river

2007-07-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

I played my first game today as part of the Summer Rampage League against Broken Zealot's Menoth. I brought my Grim Angus army, and we played the Menoth scenario. The objective was to be the only side with warbeasts or warjacks in a 12" circle in the middle. We played on a board with two big woods, one on each side, a nice river running down the left side of the board, and a few hills and low walls. The only terrain that really came into play were the two large-ish forests.

The Trolls deployed first, and Menoth went second. Amon came with a Castigator, Crusader, Revenger, full zealots and monolith, Gorman, three wracks, and a full choir. We played five turns with the mission victory conditions, caster kill, or VPs, whichever came first.

In summary I was able to do a good job controlling the board with Grim and his movement spells. For the first time the Gobbers didn't do to much, mostly because I had them on the wrong side and they were blown up by the zealots early on. The Impaler didn't really do all that much either. He got a couple of shots off, but once again no critical slams. It's been several games now where he hasn't really done very much. His animus did prove useful though, where Grim was able to snare gun the Castigator.

Grim was definitely the star of the show, throwing out cross country spells, shooting to throw bait on the Crusader so the Mauler could charge, man trapping to knock down big heavies, and snaring the Castigator to keep him out of melee. You name it, he did it all. I'm really loving Grim for his versatility in missions like this.

The Axer was quite good again, he was able to absorb a fair bit of punishment, slam around some warjacks, and just be an all around nuisance for the Menites to deal with. The Champions, sadly were on the wrong side of the board so didn't get too much done, but thanks to cross country, they were eventually able to get into melee with the choir, and wiped them out. One champion also got into melee with Amon, doing about ten points of damage to him (after concert bonus and a huge melee damage roll).

There were a couple of times that I made some blunders. One was deploying the Champions and gobbers badly. The other was one turn where I forgot to use Grim's feat to keep the zealots from bombing him and it almost proved fatal. Grim was reduced to 5 hp. Thankfully his super high defense (18 in woods) saved him from taking a single direct hit, otherwise he would have been crisped. He was also able to use his feat on a later turn to prevent zealots from approaching him then, so in the end I suppose it worked out anyway.

All in all, I have to say that it was a very enjoyable game, and the win went to the trolls, though just barely and by a sliver via victory points. I had four points and the Menites had two. Plus, the Mauler was on his way out on the last turn, with only about 5-6 damage boxes left. Had he gone down, the game would have gone the other way with a 5-4 win for Broken Zealot.

I'm definitely looking forward to another game next week. As a side note, I almost got a bonus point for killing off all enemy solos...but one wrack remained at the end of the game. Doh! :)

Grim patrols the woods...

2007-07-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

Played a quick 350pt game against Broken Zealot today at Gamekastle. I took a Grim melee list with a Mauler, Axer, Impaler, and Swamp Gobbers. The Menoth came with Severius, a Revenger, two Seneschals, Vilmon, six Daughters of the Flame, and Troll Bosun Grogspar (traitor!). Oh and two wracks.

Terrain of note was four stone walls in the center, each of us had a hill near our deployment, and some woods also. The hill on my side was on my right, and the woods to the left.

Deployment: Menites deployed in a line in the middle, with Vilmon and a seneschal to my left, and Grogspar and a second Seneschal on my right. The Revenger and Severius were in the center. My deployment was slightly off-center with the trolls closer to the forests than the hill. Grim was in the center with the Mauler to the far left, the Axer and Impaler on the right, and the gobbers in the middle next to Grim. The Daughters advance deployed on my right near the hill.

Turn 1
The Menites all push forward in an all out sprint. Everything runs and gets some cover behind the walls, except Vilmon, who goes into Impervious wall and makes a beeline for Grim. The Daughters run up behind the hill to my right.

The trolls move up close to the woods, and the Mauler actually moves into it. Grim casts Man Trap on Vilmon, killing him outright. The Impaler throws a spear at a Daughter killing her. In hindsight he shouldn't have been able to do this, but it probably didn't matter in the end as you'll see soon. The gobbers pop their smoke so that the Daughters can't get LOS to charge anything.

Turn 2
The menites move up again, with the Revenger behind the stone wall closest to my side. One seneschal runs into melee with Grim. Doh! The second Seneschal gets a charge lane on the Impaler for next turn, and the Bosun moves up slightly behind the Revenger but it out of range for his harpoon gun. The Daughters run around the hill and now threaten me from behind. These little gal's speed still amazes me every time. Severius casts ashes to ashes on the Impaler, hurting him some, and also killing one swamp gobber. Luckily only one is hit, instead of two, so the second gobber picks up the swamp fog gun.

The Axer goes first, moves into melee with two daughters and kills them with a Thresher attack. The Imapler goes next and spear slams the Seneschal to the right, killing him, but he could come back to life if someone dies within his command range. I spent some time thinking about this, and what to do, and I think I came up with a solution. The Mauler walks up to the Seneschal, who is in hand to hand with Grim, grabs him with two meaty fists and chucks him far to the left and away from the other Seneschal. The Seneschal is killed by the throw, and since he's too far from the other Seneschal now, both of them die. Nice. Grim shoots a Daughter and kills her. The gobber pops a small smoke cloud in front of him, Grim, and the mauler, blocking LOS to them all from the Revenger.

Turn 3
Severius goes first and casts ashes to ashes again through the Revenger on the Impaler, doing some damage, and more importantly killing the last gobber. Grogspar shoots and hits the Impaler with his harpoon gun, and the Impaler is now stuck with Dynamite. The last two Daughters charge the Impaler and shank him from behind, killing him.

The axer turns around and walks into melee with the unit leader of the Daughters killing her easily. The last Daughter panics and runs. Grim backs up into the woods, and out of LOS of the menites and casts man trap on the Revenger but misses. He shoots Grogspar, doing enough damage to him, but he makes his tough roll. Grr. The Mauler also moves deeper into the woods and out of LOS.

Turn 4
The last daughter runs, but regains her composure after she gets some distance from the frightening Axer. Grogspar shoots the Axer and sticks a piece of dynamite on him too. Ugh. The Revenger moves up around the wall to get LOS on the Axer. Severius does a good amount of damage to the Axer with multiple immolations through the arc node, also setting him on fire, but he manages to stay standing.

Grim moves up and puts Grogspar out of his misery with his rifle, and then heals the Axer some. The Axer regenerates and then slams into the Revenger, knocking it back 5". The mauler moves up behind the middle wall.

Turn 5-7
Basically the last few turns boiled down to the Axer repeatedly slamming the Revenger back, Grim taking pot shots at whatever was available and then finally feating to keep Severius from running away. Raged Axer charging finished the game with one mighty swing, cleaving Severius in twain.

Conclusion
Another fun game with the trolls, and I feel like I'm getting better use out of Grim now. I was able to really put the forest to good use, moving in and out of it as needed. The Axer was great, doing tons of damage, taking tons of damage and finishing off the game in style. The Mauler was also key with a well timed and placed two-handed throw of the seneschal. This let me kill them both in a single turn. Killing Vilmon early with Grim was a fortuitous event too...if he got into melee it would have been a completely different game.

The Daughters didn't do as much damage as in previous games, I think mostly due to the smoke clouds that the gobbers were laying down. Stopping their charges was key, though I did have to sacrifice the Impaler. I didn't think he would go down that quickly, but in the end, he did his job.

Overall I just feel a lot more comfortable with Grim now that I've gone more toward a melee based list. I'm looking forward to new units in Evolution, as well as playing in the upcoming league.

The Black Hole

2007-07-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

So all my time these last few weeks has been sucked down the black hole known as "getting ahead in real life." I've been totally slammed with school, studying for the GMAT, and now, as (if all that wasn't enough) I'm going back to work part time too. My old boss made me a killer job offer, in terms of pay, that I felt I couldn't really turn down. Hopefully it turns out ok, but so far so good.

Anyway, what all this means is that I've had zero time to devote to painting or playing games, and I guess the lack of updates here is a testament to that fact. Every day my Trolls look at me with sad, betrayed eyes, I've become like King Leto! Gah! :)

School should be finishing next week though, so that should free up a little bit of time, and I'm hoping that work falls into a regular rhythm so that I can at least get back to playing once a week and also a couple hours of painting a week.

In other news though, my wife got me the Dire Troll Mauler Extreme for my birthday! Woo! Can't wait till FedEx drops him off later today or tomorrow. Muahaha!

Interesting fact...

2007-06-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

So I remembered just today that I had created a forum account on the PP site ages ago when Warmachine first came out. I tried logging in with it, and after a few guesses at the password I found that the account still exists!

Apparently I was forum member number 740. I think the members have gone up to the tens of thousands now.

It's strange, but it's kinda nice being old school yo'.

Grim vs. Harbinger...take three

2007-06-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

So I played another game against Broken Zealot again with a melee heavy Grim list vs. an infantry heavy Harbinger list with a few jacks thrown in too. We had planned to play two games, but this first game took an unbelievable four hours to play out. Yikes. By then end of the game, my brain was totally fried. I think I have to chalk that up to us both playing semi-turtle casters. The games that we play with melee casters goes a lot faster.

The list I took was:

Grim
Mauler
Axer
Impaler
Champions
Fell Caller
Swamp Gobbers

We both had pretty bad luck on our dice rolls...I missed several key attacks by one or two most times with low required rolls to hit. I even rolled triple ones with a boosted attack (though Grim actually hit better now that I have him painted!). Scott also flubbed several damage rolls by a point or two (i.e. he's need to do 9 damage to kill the Impaler, but only managed to do 8) This happened quite a lot...it was uncanny.

Anyway, I think the most memorable moment was when the Choir charged Grim, taking him down to 3hp with some crazy Harbinger buffs. That was pretty impressive. Fortunately for Grim, the Impaler was able to thin them out enough for them to flee and free up Grim to move away.

Oh, and one other really memorable sequence sticks in my mind. The Axer, charges in to the Repenter and with the Mauler scrap it. But the Axer in turn is charged from behind by a Dervish, who nearly kills him (1-2hp left). The Axer heals up enough the next turn and pretty much cleaves the Dervish in twain. Rupert charges the Axer and almost kills him again. The next turn, the Axer once again heals enough to attack, but fails to finish Rupert off! He's down to a single hitpoint. Mortally wounded, Rupert summons up all his strength for one last desperate attack. As the Axer is leaning in for the kill, Rupert stabs him through the heart, killing him!

That sequence is worthy of Peter Jackson himself. Well ok, maybe not.

The Swamp Gobbers were again really nice...they blocked off some charges, and with Grim's Spread the Net, allowed the Trolls to actually get the charge instead of the usual being charged. I'm thinking about moving these guys up on the paint ladder due to their total awesomeness in game.

More Grim Angus Work

2007-06-11T01:58:00.000-07:00

So I spent a couple more hours working on Grim tonight. I've finished off his goggles (boy what a huge pain that was...I kept messing up the gem effect...I must have done it 5-6 times). I also did the gold/copper metal on his guns. Lastly I finished his pants, the net refills, and his shoulder pads. I didn't really like how the shoulders came out though...I may redo them in the golden/copper color instead. I'm also thinking about redoing his bedroll.

I do think the gold/copper colors came out decently in the NMM style. I used a base of Snakebite Leather, and slowly worked my way up through Golden Yellow. For the very edges and tips I used half Skull White, half Golden Yellow for a very light creamy yellow color. I'll try and get a couple of pictures tomorrow hopefully when lighting is better.

All that's left now on him are his gloves and his kilt. I'm still not sure if I want to do a kilt or just make it cloth. Ah well, I'll decide that later...time for sleep.

Grim Angus Gets Some Color

2007-06-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of quick shots of the work I've done on Grim Angus so far. I've finished off his cloak, skin, bandana, and most of the gun. I just need to change the scope clip to a bronze color and do the medallion. Also, I really like the olive green shirt color. It reminds me of military undershirts. I just need to give it a bit more shading so it looks nicer.

So there's not a lot left to do for him. I'm not sure what color to paint his pants though...and I think I may change his backpack colors...it looks too weird with the beige and red/brown. I also don't like how his sleeping roll looks now that I've seen it on photo. Then it's just gloves, net gun, boots, and shoulderpads. He's a ton of fun to paint too because there's all sorts of things on the model that require different styles/skills. For example, while he has a lot of leather, he's still got troll skin, metal pieces on his weapons, cloth shirt/pants/bandana, glass/gems on his rifle and goggles, etc. I'm hoping he'll be done by this time next weekend or sooner.

I'm also going to get someNMM bronze/copper going on his gun and shoulderpads.

Hopefully with a finished paintjob he'll start doing better in games. :)

Oh, by the way, I tried to make his scope have the reddish-orange reflection found in a lot of sniper scopes these days. Here's the reference photo I used:

Grim Angus...don't go where he goes...there's only death there...

2007-06-02T02:08:00.000-07:00

So I played another game with Grim today against a Harbinger heavy infantry list. Oof. I think I did a lot worse in this one than the last game. The hordes of Menite infantry totally overran my lines. Most of my beasts were totally ineffective, Alten couldn't hit anything, and the Champions got munched by Vilmon. All in all, it was a really poor showing for Grim and his warband.

The Pyre troll (which I proxied) was kinda neat...but in the end he didn't really do all that much. I didn't really need the animus at all (no jacks to attack) and his flame breath was only mediocre. This army is really giving me fits...I'm just not sure how to play it correctly...either that or Grim just isn't meant to go up against Menoth. :)

Anyway, I'm not gonna give up on him yet...I'm hoping eventually I'll be able to figure something that works. If I can make it to my normal game next Wednesday, I'd like to give my Menoth box set a go for a change of pace. It's been sitting here in my army box for years...should be well aged enough to play. ;)

In other news, folks on the forums seem to like how my Axer came out! I think I'm improving my painting skills slowly but surely, and it's nice to see folks liking how he looks. I just need to deepen some of his shadows, fix some boo boos, and I'm going to call him done. I thought about doing some bronze/copper armor pieces...but I don't want to mess him up...so he'll be the meticulous troll...always keeping his armor nice and shiny.

What I will try though is some bronze/copper armor on Grim's shoulder...that's suitably small enough to experiment on without needing a lot of effort...plus if I mess up, I just paint it black and start over...it's easy at this point since I've only finished his skin so far.

Grim Angus needs corrective lenses...

2007-05-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

Grim Angus faced off against the Harbinger of Menoth tonight. It was a pretty grinding fight, and a lot slower paced than the other recent battles I've played. It was also my first game with Grim, and also my first game against the Harbinger, so there was a lot of learning on my part.

Basically I think this was possibly one of the wort matchups for Grim due to the fact that the army I took was very heavy shooting oriented, and the Harbinger army was pretty strong against ranged attacks. I had a really hard time cracking the Menoth knot today. I definitely credit Broken Zealot for an excellent use of his resources to totally neutralize my strengths.

Here are the lists:

Trolls
Grim Angus
Blitzer
Impaler x2
Champions
Alten Ashley
Swamp Gobbers

Menoth
Harbinger
Crusader
Castigator
Devout
Vilmon
Paladin
Seneschal
Choir
Wrack x2

Deployment
Basically, the Menoth deployed in a brick, with the two heavies completely blocking line of sight to the Harbinger, the Devout to her right, Choir following behind chanting no shooting, and the solos on the flanks.

My deployment was warbeasts on the left, Grim and the gobbers in the middle, and Champs to the right. Alten was only deployed slightly forward in a forest.

The Game

I'll skip most of the turn-by-turn commentary and just hit the highlights because there wasn't a lot of action going on for the first few turns. Basically the warjack wall with no shooting made all my guys mill about aimlessly as they advanced. I did try to hit Vilmon with Grim's Man trap, but kept missing horribly (on 3 dice even, needing only a 7 to hit!). He also missed a rifle shot at a choir member and a snare gun shot at Vilmon in the opening turns. I blame his non-painted goggles! (they are still primed black...he was obviously having trouble seeing through them)

Eventually, the Champions got stuck in with Vilmon and the Paladin, who promptly then got butchered by said Paladins. Also, the Harbinger's feat did a ton of damage to the Champions...finishing off any that the Paladins didn't down. The Blitzer took the Crusader down to just systems left (did damage evenly across all the columns, but unable to take anything out), but then the next turn the Blitzer was killed by a fully focus laden Crusader. Ouch, that guy can put out a ton of hurt against other heavies! The Castigator also downed one of my Impalers.

Alten got a couple shots at the Paladin, dropping him twice, but he was brought back by the Harbinger's resurection ability. Vilmon was also killed a few times during the game as well as the Seneschal, but that darn resurection spell kept bringing them back. Alten was also able to cap the Choir leader eventually which definitely helped. But it was a little too late since the warjacks were now in melee. Still it meant that they didn't get the bonus to hit and damage.

One bright point was when the swamp gobbers charged the Seneschal and killed him while he was knocked down (from the resurection ability). The swamp gobbers also helped quite a bit all game with the fog cloud effect. Sadly, I didn't realize I could use it to block line of sight from my own guys to the Harbinger during the feat turn. That would have saved a ton of damage on the first Impaler and also the Champions. Doh.

On the second to last turn, Grim and the remaining Imapler were able to finally take out the Castigator and Crusader, but by then they were the only things I had left. Meanwhile, the Harbinger, Devout, Vilmon, and Paladin were still left. I could have kept running backward and taking shots at the remaining Menoth, but I opted to just go for the kill.

The Harbinger was down to 9hp from all the resurections, but the Devout was still ready to jump in the way of a shot with his shielding stance. So Grim walked up, man trapped the Devout, knocking it down so it couldn't intercept the shot. He then shot at the Harbinger, doing 7 damage (another low roll here with an 8 on 3d6). The Impaler walks up to finish the job, needing a 9 to hit, sadly the spear just misses wide of the Harbinger (8 on 3d6, doh!). Next turn Vilmon and the Paladin finish off Grim.

Conclusion
I guess the theme of the night was a lot of missing on my side. I just could not hit the broad side of a barn/warjack/etc. Even when needing really low rolls (like 6 on 3d6) I just couldn't hit. It was pretty frustrating, but that's just the way of the dice. I guess this game balances out the horrible dice rolling game that Broken Zealot had a few weeks back where he just couldn't hit my guys.

The other thing was that the no-shooting Menoth special ability from the Choir coupled with the warjack wall really threw me for a loop. I just am not sure how to get past that since it's near impossible to kill the Choir since they're behind the wall too. I definitely credit Broken Zealot with totally neutralizing my army's strengths with his list and formation.

That and the fact that I didn't have a way to reliably boost my damage output either through a Mauler or some other spell. This really hurt me because I couldn't take out the heavy jacks with the Blitzer. He's just too weak at POW 15 vs. ARM 19. This makes me sad because I really want the Blitzer to be useful with Grim, but I'm just not seeing him being better than a Mauler which is sad. Instead of two Impalers, the Pyre might have been a better choice also. At least that way I could bump the Blitzer up to POW 17.

Actually one way I thought of to beat the warjack wall is to move the Blitzer up and two hand throw the warjack out of the way. Then I'd need to shoot and magic with everything I had at the Harbinger and then run in a second melee beast. Even then, I'm not sure if I could take her down, especially if she is camping focus to overboost her armor.

Also, the Champions really lose a lot of staying power without the Krielstone Bearer and Surefoot. At 14 DEF they were pretty easily hit by the Paladins. The Harbinger's feat did hurt them quite a bit though, maybe if I had shielded them with a fog cloud they would have been better off.

The best performers for me this game though were clearly the swamp gobbers. These guys blocked charges, lowered melee attack, and even took out the Seneschal. For 15 points, they were well worth the points.

Worst performer had to be Grim. Not being able to hit anything was horrible. Clearly I've overestimated his shooting ability. Thinking back on things though, I really can't see doing anything differently except for the fog cloud blocking LOS to the Harbinger. It was just a tough matchup. Hopefully he'll do better next game though! He definitely very different from either of my other warlocks, and I have a feeling he's going to be a lot harder to learn.

Finished Trollblood Axer Photos

2007-05-29T13:20:00.001-07:00

Here's my finished Axer. But as usual I've found several problems with him after examining the big photos. There's several places where the blending just isn't smooth enough. I've also decided that I don't really like how the axe came out.

Lastly, I don't really like how his bracers and his neck guard look. The bracers are not shaded enough and are too washed out while I think the neck guard transition from light to dark is too fast and so doesn't really look natural.

I've definitely learned a ton about painting NMM (non-metallic metal) from this guy. Honestly though, I don't think I'm going to be doing NMM on such a large scale anymore. It was just super time consuming, even frustrating at times. The end result I think is not bad for a first real attempt, but I think I could do an even better job with just regular metallics.

I will still probably do some NMM on models that don't really have a lot of metallic parts though...just not fully armored guys. (E.g. I'll be doing some NMM work on Grim Angus' gun barrel and nick-nacks).

The good thing about this whole process though is that I feel it will really help me to shade and highlight better and more naturally. Highlighting skin, leather, etc. all seems tons easier to do now that I've tried out NMM.

Axer finished!

2007-05-28T00:55:00.000-07:00

Finally finished off the Axer today. He's looking ok, though I didn't especially like how the leather came out. I also need to touch up a couple spots on his skin where little paint flecks got on it, but other than that he's done.

Pics tomorrow when there is some better lighting.

Madrak and Doomshaper take to the field

2007-05-25T19:01:00.001-07:00

So in my previous post I mentioned that I played two games against Broken Zealot and his Amon army. Both games were really fun, and both games really made me think about my moves. We both won one game which was also nice. I don't really have detailed battle reports for these games since I've forgotten most of the details by now. Doh! I should really write these up the night of the game...but I was just really tired and hungry after getting home.

Game 1

For the first game, it was a very similar list to last week's game I believe. I brought my normal Madrak list. Basically there was a big scrum in the middle in turn two or three when I ran my Champions into melee with his Daughters of the Flame and Herne and Jonne. Madrak got a nice axe throw and ricochet off of an unsuspecting choir boy into Amon, doing a massive 10 damage. During this fight, the Daughters vaulted over my front line of Champions and assasinated the entire Krielstone bearer crew. Ouch! They then proceeded to plink the Impaler to near death by the end of the game.

Luckily for Madrak though, the Mauler picked up the Revenger and chucked it at Amon. Although he missed, since he was so close to Amon, it didn't scatter far at all (half an inch) and knocked them both down. Madrak then hurled his axe into Amon and finished things off.

Game 2

In the second game, Amon came up against Doomshaper and his beast list. Amon brought a lot more bodies this time though, with a full unit of Zealots and Knights Exemplar. Yikes. I think I was outnumbered about 3:1 or 4:1! A notable event in this game was a huge trample attack by the Dire Troll Blitzer, who ran over 3-4 Knights, killing them outright. Had the Zealots not been invulnerable that turn (stupid Monolith Bearer!) he would have snacked on a few zealots as well. Sadly, he wasn't able to kill the Seneschal with the slugger gun after the trample, which proved to be my undoing. The Seneschal and remaining Knights proceeded to slam the Blitzer back with his smite attack and then chop him to pieces. This basically collapsed my whole left flank, leaving Doomshaper very exposed.

At this point I could have tried to pull back and hope to consolidate my forces or go for the all out attack. The Axer had an opening to Amon though, and so I opted to attack. Sadly, because Amon camped all his focus from his last turn (since I feated on my turn, he didn't want to take damage from the feat), he was ARM 20, and the Axer just couldn't do enough damage. The following turn, Doomshaper was bombed to death by the Zealots. Ouch!

Things I Learned:

Trample is awesome when you can pull it off. I was really impressed by how well a trample attack can thin down infantry ranks. I'll definitely be looking to use this option in the future as well.
The Mauler is still awesome. He pretty much scrapped a heavy warjack in one turn in the second game. Also, letting him frenzy is actually a *good* thing sometimes. He can still do a ton of damage and it allows you to leech fury from other beasts you don't want frenzying. Plus his two handed throw of the Revenger into Amon was a key game winning move for the first game.
Madrak's thrown axe is really really nice. Especially with the ricochet rule. Bouncing it into Amon was great.
Fighting in the middle of the board with Doomshaper's beast army is a bad idea. Once my Blitzer went down, my whole left side collapsed. I suddenly found myself surrounded because I didn't have enough guys to screen/block for Doomshaper.
I need to plan out my Feat turn better. I don't want to be feating the turn before I plan to go for the caster kill. Warcaster camping focus = sad times for the Axer.
Daughters of the Flame are just gross. Not only can they leap over units, but they ignore free strikes while doing so. AND they can move around to the back side of a model without taking free strikes either. They basically kept jumping behind my Impaler and plinked him to death with POW 9s. I totally underestimated these gals because of how poorly they did in the last game (though I did remember they were fast). I'll definitely have to be more careful next time!

All in all two very fun games. I'm now looking forward to playing with Grim Angus though as it'll be a really nice change of pace. I've got him primed and assembled down and I'll probably start painting him tomorrow night. Tonight I'm going to try and finish off the Axer.

Colonel Angus Reporting for Duty!

2007-05-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

I finally got my Grim Angus last night while over at GameKastle. Woohoo! The lame thing was apparently mine didn't come with a medium base, and upon inspecting the other ones in the store, none of them had medium bases either. DOH! I guess there was some QC issues over at Privateer with these. Luckily there was a nice guy over at the store that had a spare base and he gave it to me so I could start working on him last night.

I also picked up a Rhyas just to paint up for fun too (ninjas rule!). I finished assembling both of them last night while watching the Shining for the first time. Pretty freaky movie. I liked Jack's weird axe murderer limp. That and his crazy expressions.

Anyway, I played two games last night against Broken Zealot. Both really fun games. I actually enjoyed the one I lost better than the one that I won. :) Battle reports coming in another post. The nice thing was that I think I'm getting faster at doing my turns since we finished the first game in just under 2 hours. The second game we also finished in about 2 hours.

And a last bit of news, I'm pretty much done with my Axer. Just need to finish up the leather straps and his axe and he'll be all done. I'm going to see if I can finish him up tomorrow night. I'm thinking about doing Grim Angus first before the Krielstone bearer so that I can use him in a game. Plus, he doesn't look hard to paint at all...most of him is just leather armor and a few nick-nacks. Should be fairly quick and easy. I'm thinking about not doing him as an albino though...I never liked that look.

Plus, I'm picking up a Swamp Gobber crew and Alten Ashley for my new Grim Angus list. I'm thinking about taking the following:

Grim Angus
>Dire Troll Blitzer
>Troll Impaler
>Troll Impaler
Champions
Swamp Gobbers
Alten Ashley

I might swap out one impaler for an Axer though...I also really wanted to fit in Pygmy Bushwhackers too, but I'd have to drop the Champions for them...and I think I need the Champions more. This list is pretty shooty, but it's still got some melee punch to it. I'm hoping it does well. I think the Impaler and the Blitzer really synergize well with Grim, and Alten should be nice to have too against Hordes armies, though not as much against Menoth. Still, it's another guy who can shoot really far and take out those annoying solos and maybe even some unit leaders. The gobbers are just there to fill up points, but they should help with some nice clouds to obscure certain things.

No game this week...

2007-05-16T12:44:00.000-07:00

No gaming this week sadly, I have finals for my classes. Bah. I did get a little more painting done on the Axer though. I finished up his right leg armor, but it didn't come out as nicely as his left leg. Ah well, it's still looking ok. Hopefully next week I'll have him completely done by Thursday or Friday.

First battle on wednesday night - league game

2007-05-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

So for my first and more enjoyable game on Wednesday night, I played against Broken Zealot and a tweaked Amon ad-Raza list. There were the choir and the same solos as always (Vilmon and his two Paladin entourage, a Seneschal, and Gorman). The difference this time was that he brought a Repenter, a Guardian, and his newly painted Daughters of the Flame. I thought that they looked great for the speed that they were painted with.

I forgot to bring one of my Champions, so I instead used my original Doomshaper list. We played one of the Spring League scenarios (Khador vs. Protectorate), where there is one big hill in the center, with four small forests around the hill. The flash flood rule was also used, but there weren't any floods all game. The objective is to claim the hill by having more units on the hill than your opponent at the end of each round.

Menoth Turn 1
Everything runs up toward the hill, with the Seneschal sneaking around the left woods, the Guardian, Repenter, Amon, and Choir moving onto the hill, and the Paladins, Vilmon, and Gorman also move onto the hill, to the right of the warjacks. The Daughters running incredibly fast onto the right side of the hill, but still screening the Paladins, Vilmon, and Gorman. They are almost in charge range of my army already! That is a truly scary move.

Trolls Turn 1
I now need to get some guys onto the hill as well, else I'll start losing control points. Due to the slow speed of the Trolls, I know I need to run most of my guys, else they will not get there until turn 3 or later. The Axer and Impaler both run onto the hill. Doomshaper casts fortune on the Blitzer and advances. The Krielstone Bearer, Mauler, and Fell Caller all toward the hill as well but don't make it onto the hill. The Blitzer runs onto the hill and now has a clear shot at the Seneschal, to the left of the hill. The Pyg Ace gets two shots with the chain gun, and mows down the Seneschal.

Since Broken Zealot has more units on the hill he gets one control point.

Menoth Turn 2
The Repenter moves up and shoots a gout of flame at both the Blitzer and Impaler, missing the Blitzer, but setting the Impaler on fire. The Guardian moves up and engages the Blitzer in hand to hand and takes some swings at him doing a moderate amount of damage. Amon then casts a Sandblast at the Blitzer through the arcnode on the Guardian, but fortunately doesn't knock it back.

The Daughters of the Flame move off the hill to the right and into a flanking position, also clearing the way for the solo group. Thrice cursed Gorman walks up and chucks his evil black oil onto the Impaler and Axer, blinding them. Vilmon sacrifices his action to enter Impervious wall and moves into combat with the Blitzer, Axer, and Impaler. One of his Paladins also manages to charge as well, doing a bit of damage to the Axer.

Trolls Turn 2
(Here I actually messed up the rules on the two handed throw, where I threw the Guardian at Amon and actually killed him, forgetting that the two-handed throw is only at Str /2 not (Str + Pow) /2. So we had to do a big rewind. Below is what correctly happened after the rewind. OOPS!).

The Mauler moves up onto the hill and casts Rage on the Blitzer causing its muscles to bulge with Troll fury. The Blitzer walks up to the Guardian, grabs a hold of it with both hands, and with a loud roar hurls it toward the Repenter, knocking both of them down and doing a large amount of damage to the Repenter, destroying its cortex. The Pyg Ace riding on top of the Blitzer gets a bead on the Paladin and Gorman not in combat and lights them both up with the chain gun, killing them both!

The Impaler takes some fire damage this turn, and pretty much misses a lot due to the black oil in his eyes, and the Axer, with help from Doomshaper and a fortune cast on him, is able to take out the Paladin. The Krielstone bearer moves onto the hill and casts his aura. All the scribes move behind the woods to get out of Line of Sight of the Daughters of the Flame, and the Fell Caller moves up slightly, as does Doomshaper.

No control points are given out as we both have 5 units on the hill now.

Menoth Turn 3
The Daughters of the Flame run through the woods and engage the the Krielstone bearer and scribes, and one Daughter is just short of getting into combat with Doomshaper. Yikes! I totally underestimated their move distance again. Luckily for me, she was about half an inch short.

The Repenter stands up and flames the Blitzer setting it on fire. The Guardian stands up and (thanks to its reach) stabs the Blitzer, severely hurting him. Amon then casts Sandblast through the arcnode and kills the Blitzer. Vilmon gets three attacks this turn, chopping up the Axer, but it barely hangs on by a thread and has 4 hp left.

Trolls Turn 3
With the noble Krielstone Bearer in danger, the scribes heft their axes and, in a flurry of death and dismemberment, they actually take down 3 Daughters of the Flame! The Fell Caller charges into the Daughters near Doomshaper and kills two as well. He then lets loose his blood curdling Rebel Yell and the Daughters actually turn and flee!

Doomshaper moves over to get a line on the Repenter, but misses with Accursed, needing only a 5 to hit. Doomshaper casts Rage on the Mauler. The Mauler charges the Guardian and slaps him around and then takes a big chomp out of it. He takes one last whack at it and puts it out of commision, having only generated two fury. I'm still amazed how easily the Mauler is able to take things out and still have so much Fury left over. (I bet he could take out two Carniveans at once with a little support from Doomshaper...can't wait to try that out on the Legion player...the guy thinks the Carniveans are the best heavy ever. He hasn't seen a Mauler in action yet though heh heh).

The Impaler and Axer together are able to drop Vilmon. I now get one control point.

Menoth Turn 4
The Daughters of the Flame flee and no longer have any impact on the game. The Repenter moves over and has a clear shot at Doomshaper. He only needs a 7 to hit, but fortunately the flame goes wide. Amon charges into melee with the Impaler and the Mauler. He uses his special "crack the whip" attack on the Mauler, slamming it back through my Axer and the Krielstone bearers, knocking them all down. Ugly. I think a couple of scribes die, but none of the beasts are hurt badly. The Choir charges in to the fray and actually do some damage to the Impaler, who is now at 8 hp left. They also block off all the charge lanes to Amon.

Trolls Turn 4
Doomshaper takes aim at the Repenter, needing a 5 to hit with Accursed, and misses! They seem to be trading misses at each other. Doomshaper then casts Rage and Fortune on the Impaler, and also heals him for some crucial damage. The Fell Caller moves up and uses his special action, Reveille, to stand everyone up that was knocked down. The Mauler comes to, slams one of the Choir into Amon, knocking him down, and splattering the poor Choir boy. The Impaler then, seeing the prone Amon, gives him a couple good stabs and finishes him off.

Victory for the Kriels!

Conclusion
That was a really fun game, and we both had a lot of fun. It's really quite fun playing against Amon as he's got all these neat little tricks and slams that send my guys flying all over the place. The battles between the trolls and Amon have been like watching a WWE wrestling match, with people and trolls flying left and right.

The battle could have gone either way a couple of times, like if the Repenter had actually hit with his flamer those two times on Doomshaper, things would have been very different, and it's likely Doomshaper would have burned to death.

I also learned to really watch out for the super fast moving Daughters of the Flame. The amount of ground they can cover is truly amazing. Thankfully the stone scribes are actually decent in melee with light infantry, and so were able to send them packing. The Fell Caller also proved invaluable once again, standing big blue guys up, and also his Rebel Yell that made the rest of the Daughters flee in terror.

The Blitzer in this game was a terror. Truly amazing. He did it all this game with his throwing and shooting, accounting for the deaths of three solos with the chain gun, and taking the Repenter's cortex down (no focus allocation to it, so it couldn't boost to hit Doomshaper) and damaging the Guardian. Not to mention knocking them both down for a turn. Honestly, I was thinking about not playing the Blitzer anymore and just using Champions instead, but he really showed his stuff this game, and I will definitely not give up on him, especially at 750pts.

Aside from my rules screw up, the game went much more smoothly, and I think I'm getting faster at playing my turns, as the game only took about two hours instead of the usual three. I'm also feeling a lot more confident with how to use the Fell Caller and the warbeasts I have in general. What I need to be more careful with though is the Impaler. I seem to be getting him stuck into melee too early on now. That or Broken Zealot has gotten a lot better at tying him up early. :) Next game I may try to hold him back some and instead let the Axer and Blitzer take the lead.

Sadly, I won't be able to make it down to GameKastle next Wednesday as I have a final early next morning.

Two battle reports tonight...here's number two...

2007-05-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

The first game was with Broken Zealot, and was a blast to play through. We both also learned a lot of rules. The second game was with the Legion of Everblight player, but since it was super short I'll go over that one first.

Battle 1: Trolls vs. Everblight 350pts.

I had about 20 minutes to kill and so we played a quick 350pt. game. I took Doomshaper, a Mauler, an Axer, and Impaler, and a Fell Caller. He had Thagrosh, two Carniveans, and a Shredder. Basically, I went for the turn 2 kill. I had Doomshaper move up and cast Acursed on Thagrosh, doing only a little damage due to poor rolls. He pops his feat and has two fury left on him. Then I had my Mauler through Rage on the Impaler, and then throw the Impaler toward Thagrosh. What I should have done though was throw him AT Thagrosh, thus knocking them both down. Oh well.

Instead, I walked my Fell Caller over, stood the Impaler up and then had the Impaler beat down on Thagrosh. Unfortunately, due to my bad dice rolling (need only average to below average rolls on the two attacks to kill him) Thagrosh had 5hp left. So then I had the Axer charge Thagrosh, needing an 8 to hit, I miss with a 7. Doh. The Axer would have most likely killed him since he was doing straight damage and only needed to roll a 5+ on two dice. What I should have done too, was move the Fell Caller into melee with the Carnivean, speed bumping him for a turn so that he couldn't charge Doomshaper. You make dumb mistakes while playing under a super time crunch.

Next turn, two Carniveans charge Doomshaper and kill him. Once again I forget to roll my tough roll. Grr. Thagrosh lives with 2hp (took 3 damage from the feat). Oh well. The smart thing to do if I had more time to stick around, would have been to instead have the Fell Caller charge and kill the Shredder that was in melee with the Impaler. Then use the Impaler to spear slam the front Carnivean into the back one (they were lined up nicely). If no crit slam happened, the Axer could still slam the Carnivean. And if he missed, the Mauler could have too. Then Doomshaper could cast Acursed on both Carniveans, taking them both out of the battle for a turn (no movement or action after standing up). Then it would have just been a mop up the third turn, where everything just charges Thagrosh and beats him down.

I'm confident this plan would have worked, had I had the time to implement it. Sadly, by the time it got to my turn, I had to go in like 5 minutes, so wouldn't have time for my third turn. Anyway if we play again, I'm pretty confident against his chosen list. It's all about slamming those big beasts out of the way and smashing Thagrosh, who is really squishy compared to the Menoth guys I'm normally facing. If only my dice didn't suck today, it would have been a cool move.

Axer pics so far...

2007-05-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a picture of the Axer's left leg plates. I think these came out looking really nice for NMM. The collar though needs some more work, as does the axe.

The back plates also are done, but they don't seem as nice looking to me as the leg plates. It makes sense since I acutally tried to do the axe and the back plates first...I was still trying to figure out how to get the highlighting just right.

The final picture is of the lower back/side plates. I think these along with the knee plate came out looking the best.

NMM Success!

2007-05-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

So I did a lot more work on the Axer's armor plates today, and I think I've finally got some good looking NMM on him now! I'm pretty stoked as it's been a pretty long road of trial and error with NMM painting, but I think I've got it down, at least for armor plating now. Yay! I finished up his chest, back, and left leg armor plates. I tried to add some rust effect, but it came out looking funny. So I guess no rust for this guy for now. Sadly, I won't have this guy completely finished for my game tomorrow. Ah well. Hopefully he'll be done by next week's game.

I tried to get some pics, but they all look pretty bad now since it's dark...I'll see if I can get some good pics of him tomorrow when the sun is out.

Once I'm done with this guy, I'm not sure who to do next...maybe the Krielstone Bearer and crew...they're always in any list I play, so he might be a good choice for the next up. Plus it will be a nice change of pace from the warbeasts I've been doing.

Some NMM work on the Axer

2007-05-05T20:30:00.000-07:00

I did some NMM work on the Axer's axe and an armor plate today. I'm not sure I like how it came out though. I think the highlights are in the wrong place again (as is usual with me I suppose). Anyway, I'm too bleary eyed to fix it now. Maybe tomorrow I'll take a look at it with fresh eyes and see what can be done. I think the armor plate did come out looking better than the axe, though it's a bit too clean looking and needs some rust/dirt added to it.

No pictures right now, I want to see what I can do to fix it before snapping photos.

An Unlikely Alliance - The enemy of my enemy is...my friend?

2007-05-02T21:18:00.000-07:00

Played a 2 vs. 2 game with Broken Zealot against a couple of other folks at the game store today. It was Menoth and Trolls vs. Circle of Orboros and Everblight. While the fighting with Menoth has been fierce these last few weeks, we decided to group up to eliminate the mutual enemies in the Dragonspawn and the betrayers of the Kriels, Krueger.

Broken Zealot used his Amon ad-Raza list from the previous week and I used my Madrak list, also used the last week. I'm going to try to recount all the parts I can remember, but after the first turn, the battle sort of split into two games, with Trolls vs. Circle, and Menoth vs. Everblight. Here are the Everblight and Circle lists to the best of my memory.

Everblight
Thagrosh
Carnivean x2
Seraph
Shredders x4

Circle (of Betrayers)
Krueger
Woldwarden
Warpwolf
Tharn Ravagers x6
Shifting Stones
Druids (the Circle player totally forgot to put these on the board, so he was down about 84 points this game)

The battle took place on a fairly forested area, four woods in each table corner, about 4 walls in the mid-field, and a medium sized hill right in the middle of the field. The terrain didn't really play much effect all game.

Deployment
The Trolls and Menoth deploy first in a cental position. I am holding the left flank, and Menoth has the right flank. Across from me is the Circle army, and the Everblight army is staring down the Menites.

Turn 1 - The Good Guys
Everything in the troll army runs forward. The Menites mostly run forward as well, some taking cover behind the walls in the midfield. Madrak puts up Surefoot on himself and the champs. Vilmon goes into his Impervious Wall.

Turn 1 - The Betrayers
The Tharn declare a charge on nothing for some odd reason, or maybe one that I don't understand, instead of just running. Weird. The Woldwarden moves up and takes a potshot at the Impaler with Forked Lightning but is just short. Krueger gives the Tharn Lightning Tendrils. On the Everblight side, the Carniveans move through the woods, and the Seraph flies over and I think takes some shots at Gorman. Krueger pops his feat and drops three storm templates, one on the Impaler and Axer, one in front of the Warpwolf who moved up, and the last one on Vilmon and the Paladins. Vilmon takes a couple points of damage, the Impaler takes a few points and that's the end of the first turn.

Turn 2 - The Good Guys
The beasts under the templates now have to test for frenzy due to the special effect of the storm clouds, and the Impaler fails with double sixes! The only thing in line of sight is Vilmon, unfortunately, and the Impaler, remembering the previous fights I suppose, lets loose a loud shout and runs Vilmon through with his spear, doing 27 damage on the attack. DOH! Sorry Broken Zealot!

The Revenger moves forward to line up a beautiful Sand Blast on a Carnivean and Thagrosh, fires and knocks the Carnivean into Thagrosh, knocking them both down, and doing some damage to Thagrosh. Other than that, not much else seems to happen on the Menoth side.

I decide to try and tie up the Warpwolf with my Champions, and so I run them into melee, but can't attack since I ran them. Madrak moves up and casts Surefoot on the champs and, thinking that he was safe, drops the rest of his fury on the Krielstone bearer. This would prove to be a big mistake in the next turn. The Axer, Mauler, and Krielstone bearer both move up near, but behind Madrak.

Turn 2 - The Betrayers
The Circle player start cackling madly, and I wonder what's going to happen. Well, he moves his Shifting Stones so that the Warpwolf's base is now within the three and then teleports the Warpwolf into melee with Madrak. DOH! (Question: Can shifting stones move and then still teleport something?)

The Wolf unleashes on Madrak, and through the flurry of attacks Madrak has to use his scroll and still take I think 8-10 damage. Thankfully, Madrak is tough as a rock and lives through it. There will be much pain for the Wolf next turn, oh yes.

The Woldwarden takes another shot at the Champions with Forked Lightning, but misses due to screening. Go troll brick. The Tharn charge into Melee with the Impaler, Champions, Axer, and Paladins. The kill one paladin, damage the Impaler, and take the Axer down to around half. Again, troll toughness impresses. Armor 20 on the Axer and 18 on the Impaler blunt most of the damage, and they miss or do little damage to a couple of the Champions. Krueger flies over to the middle of the field and casts forked lightning at the Champions. He hits, does some meager damage thanks to the Champion's 19 armor, and ends his activation.

On the Everblight side of the board. The Carnivean charges the Revenger and rips off the Revenger's shield arm, and does a fair amount of damage to it. The Seraph shoots and kills the Seneschal and Gormon. I think Shredders also charge into the Seneschal as well, but I don't think anything else of significance happened.

Turn 3 - The Good Guys
Broken Zealot and I both look at each other and both say, "It's Feat time!" First though, the Dire Troll Mauler needs to take care of business. He shows the Warpwolf what a real beatdown is, killing it in three hits. He also pops Rage up on the Kithkar Champion. Madrak casts Guided Hand on the Champions as well and then announces his CRUSHER feat. The Fell Caller walks into melee with a Tharn, easily kills it, takes his 1" crusher move, and easily kills another. Weapon Master + Crusher = total Tharn ownage. The Axer also moves up, regenerates his Spirit and Body some, and then easily drops another Tharn. Sadly, there is no one within crusher range of him anymore.

On the Menoth side, the Paladin kills a Tharn, which now frees up the Impaler to move. The Impaler charges the Tharn leader, but fails to kill him. However, he's now within melee range of Krueger. He takes a swing and does about 4 damage to him (horrible die rolls since the damage was boosted too...I think I rolled a 5 on 3 dice). The Champions then charge Krueger. Needing 10s to hit on three dice (guided hand) with 3 attacks, and 3 more attacks coming on two dice, I think that this is pretty much a done deal. Not to mention that each hit makes it easier by 1 to hit with the next guy.

The first Champion hits and does about 10 damage to him, but misses his second attack. I then forget to add the +1 to hit for the second guy. Ugh. He misses both attacks, I think one of which only by 1. Agh! The Kithkar, who only needs a 9 to hit, almost misses both attacks due to horrible die rolls. Krueger lives with 2 hp left. GRR!

Back to the Menoth side, I missed most of what happened this turn since I was busy dealing with Krueger, but vaguely, I think Amon casts some spells, and the Castigator slams a Carnivean away, and then beats down Thagrosh in melee, killing him. Here's a link to Broken Zealot's account of his caster kill.

Turn 3 - The Betrayers
Without much left to do, Krueger goes Skyborne and flies next to Madrak to try and finish him off. He takes several attacks, and after a couple of damage transfers, Madrak lives with 1 hp. We call the game there as Krueger is completely surrounded and only has the one Woldwarden left.

Victory for the Kriels! (and Menoth)

Conclusion
Well I have to say, that was a pretty interesting first game against Circle. Initially, I was pretty scared of the Tharn, but it turns out they are really squishy in melee, and they just don't hit hard enough to take down my light beasts, unless all of them are attacking the same one. Even then, with the Krielstone, 20 armor is tough for them to bust through. I'm definitely less scared of them now after seeing what they can do.

Trolls are just so durable and tough, it amazes me every game. I only lost 2 stone scribes the entire game.

One thing I did learn though is *don't forget about Standing Stones teleport ability*! That one mistake almost cost me the game. If I didn't have the scroll, Madrak would have bought the farm on that one turn. The other thing is to remember the Concert bonus for the Champs. That +1 for the second champion and kithkars would have been one more hit that they should have had, which would have finished off Krueger earlier.

The MVP had to be the Krielstone bearer. This guy blocked so much incoming damage, it unbelieveable. Probably upwards of 20-30 damage blocked over the course of the game. The worst performers were probably the Champions...not being able to hit Krueger, even though below average rolls were needed, was really annoying. Next time I might just try slamming one of my own guys into him to knock him down. Actually, I should have just slammed the Tharn into Krueger before charging in with my Champs. Ah well, something to remember for next time.

Lastly, while the Circle player was down one unit of druids, I honestly don't see how they could have really made a big impact. They would have had only one turn to shoot the Champions, and they wouldn't have killed any with average rolls. Maybe one or two with really good rolls. But then, only 3 champs were able to get into contact with Krueger anyway, so again, I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a huge impact.

Oh something else weird I just thought of. So after I killed the Warpwolf, how was Krueger able to get full fury the next turn...doh. He should have only been at 3 max fury from the Woldwarden. So he would have only been able to take the one attack against Madrak the last turn.

While the game was pretty engaging, I felt like it wasn't quite as fun or friendly as the games I normally have playing against Broken Zealot. Our opponents were a lot more high strung during the game, and sometimes it seemed like they weren't having much fun either. I guess it felt more like a tournament game, where people were more concerned with getting the win rather than having a friendly game. One of the guys seriously lost his cool after his caster was killed, and that kinda put a downer on the whole thing. Maybe it was just me though. Hopefully next week people will be more relaxed now that the first game is out of the way. Then again maybe I'm just spoiled playing against Broken Zealot all the time, who is an ace opponent. :)

I still had a good time, and I definitely learned more about Circle, I mean, the betrayers.

Axer skin and face done!

2007-04-29T15:14:00.000-07:00

In a fit of painting I finished off the Axer's skin. Now to start work on his armor plates and Axe. I am going to try to go for a full NMM look this time, instead of the weird hybrid look with the Impaler.

Finished Impaler...Starting Axer!

2007-04-29T00:18:00.000-07:00

I finished the Impaler today, finally! He was actually a lot of fun to paint, but as usual, it took me a lot longer than I thought to finish mostly due to real life, and a lot of experimentation (with NMM this time).

Better Pics of the Finished Mauler

2007-04-29T00:14:00.000-07:00

I never really liked the first pictures I put up of the finished Mauler, so here are some more, in better light, and a better backdrop.

Chief Madrak and his Champions take the field

2007-04-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

Played my first game with Madrak and his Champions tonight against the same Amon list from last week. It was definitely very different from my normal Doomshaper beast-heavy army. I liked having a lot more models on the field and it was definitely easier to manage positioning on the board with so many extra models.

The Champions showed me how tough they could be, With Surefoot and Brothers-in-Arms, they were sitting comfortably at a nigh untouchable DEF 16, and with the KSB, ARM 19. Only one champion was felled all game. They were even able to bring down a Castigator heavy warjack, though it did take a few turns of melee. They also finished off a paladin and Amon on the last turn.

Madrak didn't do too much this game besides casting Surefoot. I might need to be a lot more aggressive with him next time - I'm just used to shielding my warlock from harm while playing Doomshaper, who is much more frail.

Some notable events: pretty much the worst rolling I've seen in a long time on Broken Zealot's side. I think his horrible rolls pretty much lost him the game. He couldn't do any damage, couldn't hit, and just didn't get along well with his dice. He might need to set a few ablaze as a warning to the other dice to get their act together.

One other interesting note: the Mauler charged in for the caster kill on the third to last turn, but just couldn't hit with the last two attacks to finish the job. The next turn he was utterly mangled by Amon. I still need to keep in mind that Warcasters are tougher than I think, and I really need to devote more resources to the caster kill before trying to pull it off.

I can't really say I had a worst performer this game, as every model (including the Fell Caller!) did his part. The best performer would probably be the Champions. They were able to dictate the pace of the battle, and presented a wall of troll that could not be broken through.

Hopefully, next time Broken Zealot's dice will be more accomodating, so we can have a closer game. While it wasn't as exciting as last week, I did enjoy having the unkillable champions. :) I'm definitely looking forward to using them more in the future, and the models are starting to grow on me more now. I've got one guy set up kind of like the jumping guy in 300 (the one who flew through the air to chop off the emissary's arm). I think it'll be pretty fun to have him painted.

New Hordes Evolution Models

2007-04-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

Someone on the Privateer Forums was able to snag a bunch of photos of the new Circle, Skorne, and Everblight models coming up for Evolution. I am really liking the ninja theme and I hope they stick with it. The Tharn Bloodtrackers on wolves I pretty much expected, and they look pretty nice too.

Sadly, no troll pics. BAH!

Didn't make it to the Hordes Tournament today...

2007-04-21T12:17:00.000-07:00

Just too much work to do for next week. I really wanted to see what it was like...but c'est la vie.

Insert frowny troll face here.

Amazing battle against Amon ad-Raza

2007-04-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

Wow. I had a great game tonight. Probably one of the most interesting thus far for me, as Broken Zealot (EDIT: his excellent summary located here) took a pretty neat warcaster, Amon ad-Raza. There were models getting knocked around left and right on both sides, with huge rolls and horrible misses by both of us too. Made for a really exciting and bloody game. On the last turn I only had Doomshaper, a Blitzer and a Fell Caller. He only had a Devout, the choir and Amon.

The Fell Caller actually did some useful things this game! He killed a paladin, some choir, and most importantly he made my warbeasts stand up after getting knocked around by the sandblasts coming out of the arc node. I think the difference this game was I really made an effort to hold him back as long as possible, and only use him to mop up injured units.

Doomshaper once again gets the MVP for throwing around tons of Accursed spells on things, doing quite a bit of damage and shutting down warjack actions on several turns. Other than Doomshaper though, most of my units were fairly useful tonight. The Impaler sacrificed himself for the greater good, with a courageous (and incredibly damaging) charge into a Castigator, the Mauler helped a lot with casting his animus on folks, and I actually used the Blitzer's animus to get him out of melee! I needed to regroup one turn, and the animus actually helped him avoid some free strikes so he could move away unmolested.

The only guys who didn't do much were the KSB and crew. They died pretty quickly to a few sandstorm blasts early on.

At first we tried to play some steamroller 3 scenarios, but gave them up quickly at the end of the first turn since it was clear that it was impossible for me to win since I was too slow. The scenario objective was to hold two points on the field at the end of your turn to win. Even though I ran full speed toward one point, I couldn't get there before Broken Zealot would get his second turn and hold both points. We ended up switching the scenario to Pendulum, and the game came down to the normal caster kill. I probably need to rethink my list in terms of tournament scenario viability, but for this Saturday's tournament I'm stuck with what I've got.

I'm really kind of disappointed with the quality of the Privateer Press scenarios, as they don't seem very well thought through, and definitely favor extremely fast armies. Broken Zealot pointed out that it would have been much better if you had to hold those points for an entire round, not just have an instant win situation, and I'd definitely have to agree. All the GW scenarios I've played have similar requirements.

Overall though, a very enjoyable game, though it ran a bit long. We didn't finish until 9pm, which is pretty late for us. Hopefully he didn't get in trouble with his wife!

Pics of Impaler progress so far...about 90% done now!

2007-04-17T16:08:00.000-07:00

Here are the pics of the Impaler to date. I've just got a few last things to paint tonight and then he'll be finished!

I really like how the Beige leather came out, and it adds a nice mellow tone to the guy. I think I'm going to be using this color for other parts of my warband too. I think it goes very well with the red-brown leather.

To paint this beige color I started with a base coat of Bleached Bone (took about 3-5 coats to cover up the black primer...grr). Then I washed with a *very* watered down wash of Snakebite leather to give it that yellowish-beige 'old' feel. Then I just highlighted with Bleached Bone again and then finally with Skull White on the very edges.

I did his eyes in yellow, like the Mauler.

I also started the leather (cloth?) wrappings on his spears. I've been using Bubonic Brown with a light Brown Ink Wash to get the recesses and then highlighting again with Bubonic Brown. Honestly though I'm not sure if I like how it so far. On the one hand, it matches his leather foot wraps, but on the other hand, it's coming out looking somewhat dirty. I'm not sure if this is because of the old paint, or just my technique.

Looking at these pictures I can also see that I need to do a better job with the studs on his leather pants (the beige part). They don't seem to be showing up very well..I may need to use a darker metallic color to get them to stand out from the beige.

So now all that remains is to finish up the leather wrappings on his spears, the spear wood, the gem on his belt, and touch up his facial skin. I think I'd like to make the highlights a little more prominent in some places as it does look somewhat flat at the moment. Oh, and his wrist wraps, I'm still undecided what color I'm going to make those...maybe beige also?

Finished leather armor on Impaler

2007-04-15T01:43:00.000-07:00

Did a little bit of work on the Impaler tonight between studying. I used a light beige color for the leather armor on the top and bottom of his quiver and also his kilt. I like the beige look as it's pretty unique and will look different from all the browns that other people do. I'd like to tweak it a little more though before posting as I think it really needs some more shadows to make it "jump" out more.

Pictures maybe tomorrow.

Ignominious Defeat Against the Menite Hordes!

2007-04-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

Just a quick batrep update, I played another game against Broken Zealot's Feora list. We had originally planed to play a 4-way troll bash, but two of the people couldn't play/make it. As usual, I had my standard army. It was a really fun game, quick and brutal. I think it only lasted 3 turns total and as par for the course I had a lot of trouble with the zealots again. Their monolith bearer and the fire bombs really mess me up badly. I really need a trade/tie up unit to deal with them, which I just don't have when going beast heavy.

Overall I think I did do a little better than the last game though. I went straight for the caster assasination this time instead of trying to kill all his troops. On the last turn I went for the assasination with Doomshaper and just missed the kill by 2 hitpoints. In doing so, I had no fury left on me for transfers and so she blasted me in return, killing Doomshaper. As usual though, I forgot to roll my tough roll. Doh. I think I need to write it on my sheet next to his life bar. That way when I go to cross of his last box, I'll remember to roll. Ah well, guess I'm learning the hard way. :)

Terrain wasn't really an issue at all this game, and I almost feel like maybe there should be more terrain on the board to make things more interesting. I almost feel like we're just playing on a wide open field some games. Maybe we just need more toward the middle of the board and less on the outskirts where it doesn't really matter anyway.

The Fel Caller did nothing again as usual. I'm really not liking this guy much, at least against Menoth. The Blitzer was actually really nice today, using his Blitzer gun to take out the Choir leader and the Piper, as well as throw and slam some jacks around. The KSB was totally awesome, and his aura absorbed tons of damage throughout the fight. In the end though, I feel that I just don't have enough models on the board to deal with the hordes of Menites running across the field at me. Broken Zealot did a great job surrounding and outflanking my smaller army. Champions are definitely in order for the next game.

Broken Zealot should have some pictures up of the battle on his blog at some point I think, and you can find it here.

Second attempt at NMM

2007-04-11T23:24:00.000-07:00

Here's my second try at the NMM on the Impaler spears. I think it's coming out a lot better. I only did one side of the spears though and I still need to do the other side (the opposite side of what's pictured). I basically wet blended from Shadow Grey mixed with Black up to Skull White on the edges. I think it captures the reflective quality of metal better than they used to, and I tried to imitate the photo that I posted a few days back.

I also did a lot of the leather armor he's wearing. I really like the reddish brown leather colors as it contrasts fairly well with the troll skin. I used a Scorched Brown base coat, and then covered most of that with Terracotta (I'm not sure if GW makes this color anymore...it was part of my 20 year old Space Marine paint set).

Next came a wash of 50:50 Brown Ink and Water. I then highlighted the edges with a mix of Golden Yellow and Terracotta, I think around three parts Terracotta and one part Golden Yellow. Doing this adds a nice "worn edges" look to the leather.

I also did the armor plates he's wearing on his forearms. I did these in metallic paints before I had decided to give NMM another try. Even so, I think they came out looking pretty nice, but it doesn't quite fit stylistically with the NMM spear tips. I'm undecided if I should redo all these armor plates or just leave them.

I do like the rusty, dirty look so I may just leave it as is. At least for now...maybe after I finish all the other models I'll come back to it and decide then whether to redo them in NMM.

All that's left to do now is to finish off the last parts of his leather armor (top and bottom of his quiver, and his loincloth). Oh, and his little wine barrel. While it's taken me a long time to finish up this guy, I think he'll look pretty sharp when he's finally in full color. I only wish I had more free time to paint, but sadly real life has gotten really hectic with multiple exams, projects, and taxes needing to be done. I hope I'll have him finished by next Wednesday though!

Some work done on the Impaler

2007-04-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

I did a little bit of work on the Impaler today. I did the metal armor plates and some more of the leather armor he's wearing. I didn't get to work on him long though...just only about an hour or maybe an hour and a half. For his armor plates I just went back to metallic paints...I'm going to give up on NMM for now I think...it's just out of my ability range at the moment. I may try coming back to it later at some point in the future though...maybe redoing some of these early guys when I have more skill.

EDIT: Ok, after browsing on the PP forums and seeing this picture, I'm inspired to try NMM again with the Impaler. I think I can do the paint techniques, it's just that I have a really hard time with knowing what needs to be bright and what is dark.

And I think I may have found something that will really help me get the right effect, namely this picture, which shows what a vertical "spear tip" should look like. I'm going to try copying this lighting and see if it helps.

Once more into the breach

2007-04-04T23:03:00.000-07:00

I had another game this afternoon against Broken Zealot at GameKastle with my 500pt. Trollbloods force. This time I was going up against his Tournament 500pt list so I knew I was in for a tough fight! Once again it was another nail biter and came down to the last few models battling to the bitter end. We played a straight up battle, no special scenario yet. I'm definitely looking forward to trying some different scenarios out though.

The Lists

Menoth
Feora
Revenger
Repenter
Devout
Zealots x10 w/ Monolith Bearer
Choir x8
Vilmon
Gorman
Piper of Ord
Wrack x2

The Trolls
Doomshaper
Dire Troll Blitzer
Dire Troll Mauler
Troll Axer
Troll Impaler
Kriel Stone Bearer (min.)
Fel Caller

Deployment
Once again, the Trolls are outnumbered about 2:1. Just the way we like it! Most of the terrain didn't come into effect 90% of the game except for a centrally located forest about 8 inches long and 6 inches wide. Most of the fighting in the game took place in or around this terrain piece. I deployed with the Blitzer and Impaler in front, Axer on the right, Mauler on the left and KSB, Doomshaper and the Fel Caller behind. Menoth deployed mostly in a line across from me, with Jacks on my left side, Zealots on the right. Feora deployed in the middle next to Gorman, and both the Piper and Vilmon deployed near the Zealots.

Turn 1 Trolls
I ended up winning the roll to go first and so my general strategy was to use the forest to hopefully funnel some of his troops down there to be more easily dealt with. I ran most everything forward to a low wall in formation and ended my turn.

Turn 1 Menoth
The Piper increases the movement speed of the Zealots, and they all run forward with Vilmon nearby. They are just in the woods. Vilmon is out in the open a bit. The Jacks on the left also run forward and Feora and Gorman both move up behind a low wall. The Choir chants the no shooting prayer. Grr. Fortunately for me, the Choir is lined up itself for a nice Impaler bolt next turn.

Turn 2 Trolls
The Impaler walks up, casts far strike on itself and boosts the attack to hit the front Choir member. The spear throw scores a critical slam, knocking the front member back into the warpriest, killing them both!

The Mauler moves up somewhat behind the Impaler ready to countercharge should the Repenter or Revenger charge the Impaler. Doomshaper casts Rush on the Blitzer and it charges into combat through the woods into the Zealots. He picks up and eats two of them, then shoots another 3 with his chain gun.

I move the Axer up toward Vilmon. I was thinking that I would use him to take the initial charge and to protect Doomshaper from getting charged. I wanted to cast Acursed on him with Doomshaper, but he was just short. The Fel Caller moves over to get a good charge lane on Vilmon. KSB moves up and sets up the Protective Aura.

Menoth Turn 2
The Repenter moves up and fires it's flamethrower at the Impaler and Doomshaper, not doing any damage to the Impaler and missing Doomshaper, but setting the Impaler on fire. Unfortunately for my opponent, because of the way the Repenter moved, the Revenger can't charge the Impaler now, so just moves for a charge next turn.

The Zealots, who are not in combat anymore with the Blitzer move through the forest, with a song from the Piper giving them pathfinder, and throw bombs at the KSB. They manage to kill two scribes and almost kill the KSB but I make my tough roll. The monolith bearer also now makes them invulnerable next turn. Vilmon then charges the Axer, swings twice, and takes it down to about half.

Gormon moves up and throws an Oil bomb at the Blitzer making it blind and basically unable to hit anything. The Devout and Feora then walk over the low wall and attack the Blitzer, who is also taken down to about half.

Trolls Turn 3
The Blitzer tries to hit the Devout but just misses all his attacks. Darn black oil! The Axer hacks down Vilmon into little bloody chunks. Doomshaper casts fortune on the Mauler, then he casts Rush on the Fel Caller. The Fel Caller then charges into two of the Zealots to tie them up so they can't throw more bombs at my guys next turn. The KSB and remaining scribe also charge two Zealots to keep them from bombing Doomshaper next turn.

The Impaler charges the Revenger and does a bit of damage to it, but not enough to really damage it. The Mauler charges the Repenter, casts Rage on itself and rips both arms off the jack.

Things are looking pretty grim for the Trolls at this point...they are pretty much outnumbered and surrounded now.

Menoth Turn 3
Feora casts Engine of Destruction and kills the Blitzer. She then casts her feat and sets everyone except Doomshaper on fire. Zealots fail to hurt the Fel Caller, but some are able to throw bombs at the Axer and kill it, though one also dies in a throw that deviates onto itself. A lone Zealot kills the last scribe in hand to hand. The Choir charges the Impaler and do no damage. But add more bodies to tie it up. The Revenger hurts the Impaler, who is dropped to about half.

Trolls Turn 4
Lots of fire checks all around. The last scribe burns to death, and the KSB almost dies too, but makes his tough roll. The Fel Caller kills two Zealots, Doomshaper blasts one with Acursed (but it makes it's tough roll from the Piper), casts Rage on the Mauler, and then Feats. The Mauler kills the Repenter. He then takes a hold of the Revenger with two hands, and chucks it straight toward the Devout, kocking them both down, and destroying the movement of the Revenger. The Impaler kills a couple of Choir. It's now looking a little more even, but with the

Menoth Turn 4
I forget exactly how, but Feora takes about 8 damage from Doomshaper's feat from using focus for something...I think she may have killed the Fel Caller with spells. I forgot to make a tough roll for the Fel Caller here. Gotta remember to make tough rolls! One of the Zealots gets close enough now to throw a bomb at Doomshaper, and he has to transfer the damage away to the Mauler. Gorman then walks over and throws another oil bomb at the Mauler. Arg! The Choir then walks into melee range with the Mauler to keep it engaged. A zealot hits the KSB but fails to do damage.

Trolls Turn 5
The KSB burns to death, fires go out on the Impaler and Mauler. The Impaler who has an extra fury on it fails his Doomshaper then goes for an end run against Feora. He's got 7 Fury. But to get to her with a spell he'll have to first kill a Zealot in the way. So he walks into combat with a Zealot and a Monolith bearer and...rolls snake eyes and misses. Arg! He has to use another fury to attack again and then easily dispatches the Zealot.

Ok, moment of truth, Doomshaper targets Feora and casts Acursed on her. He needs a n 8 to hit, so I boost the attack roll. Hit. Roll to damage with a boosted die. All I need is 8 damage (13+ on 3 dice). Or really any damage at all since she'd then have to forfeit movement or action. Sadly, the roll is so low I don't even get through her armor. Ugh. I can see the end now. The Mauler then leaves combat and runs in a desperate attempt to block off Feora's LOS to Doomshaper.

Menoth Turn 5
Gorman tries to move away from the Impaler toward Doomshaper, luckily the Impaler kills him with his free strike. The Monolith Bearer and the Zealot that Doomshaper is engaged with walks out of combat. Doomshaper takes his free strike and misses with snake eyes again. Doh! The Zealot throws a grenade and does 7 damage to Doomshaper, and he transfers it to the Mauler.

Feora then pulls out her flame spray guns. She hits with one and does 7 more damage, which Doomshaper then can't transfer. Feora then fires again, and just *barely* hits Doomshaper....had she rolled one lower she would have missed. But she hit, and killed him. Unfortunately I forgot that Doomshaper has Tough and I could have tried a tough roll, which would have actually won me the game, since the Mauler was in position to wail on Feora and probably kill her next turn. MEGA DOH!

Conclusion

Well this was another really close game that could have gone either way several times during the game. I love these kinds of games, win or lose. Doomshaper will have to retreat back from the Menoth for now...but he'll be back!

Things that worked well:
The Mauler and the Impaler once again did a good job handling the flank and taking care of the jacks. The two hand throw by the Mauler was nice. Overall though I really can't think of any real stand outs this game. Something that worked fairly well was engaging the Zealots so that they couldn't throw any bombs. They're pretty weak in close combat so keeping them there works fairly well. Rush helped a lot in many cases, where I would need the extra 2" to get into close combat or to rush through the forest.

What didn't work so well:
Trying to channel the Menoth through the forest didn't really work so well since the Piper just gave the Zealots pathfinder anyway. Plus, since the warbeast I had would kill the 2-3 in base contact after one round, the rest will no longer be engaged and can then walk out away and throw more bombs at people. The Fel Caller also disappointed again this game, only managing to take down two zealots before getting blasted by Feora.

I'm seriously thinking about swapping him out with Alten Ashley. I could definitely see Alten being a lot more useful in this game than the Fel Caller. The ability to pick off unit leaders and solos would be really really useful.

And lastly, I need to remember to roll TOUGH rolls! ARG! :)

For the Hordes tournament coming up this month, I think I need to bite the bullet and drop the Blitzer for a unit of Champions. I'm finding that I really need more model count in my games, especially against Menoth. I'm also lacking a unit that has more staying power...two Dires are nice at times, but they are still fairly fragile and can go down fast. With the low model count I'm just not able to protect Doomshaper well enough...the enemy models can easily get around my guys and assasinate Doomshaper fairly easily. I think that's why I did better in the previous games too, since I could hole up in a defensive position, I was better able to protect him.

Did some work on the Impaler tonight

2007-04-03T02:53:00.000-07:00

Quick update: I worked on some of the leather pieces that are on his clothing tonight. Not a lot of work really, so no pics for tonight. In fact, I just haven't had a lot of free time to paint lately as classes have really picked up, and I'm working on another side project (work related).

Basically I did the belts and wrist wraps. I also did his head spines and touched up some places of his skin where I missed the first time through. I really like how his wrist leather pieces came out, but am not so happy about how his footwraps look. I think they turned out badly though because of the consistency of the paint. Yea, I'm going to blame the paint! Seriously though, it is a pretty old bottle and I think it's just gotten "clumpy."

On a positive note, I'll be playing another 500pt. game this coming Wednesday, so look for a battle report then!

First attempt at Non-Metallic Metal

2007-03-31T02:16:00.000-07:00

So here is my first ever attempt at doing some Non-metallic metal (NMM) painting. Basically the idea is to use flat paints to achieve a metallic looking paintjob.

Most of the examples I found online were of swords or armor. It was really hard to find examples that other people had done where there were large flat surfaces so I wasn't really sure how to proceed. I spent about three hours just experimenting and trying different techniques and looks.

I experimented with several different styles on the spears in his quiver, most of which just don't look very good. These are ones that I'll definitely have to paint over and try again. I think the spearhead that I did for the one he is throwing came out much better than the ones in the quiver though.

For this spearhead I used a base coat of Shadow Grey. I then painted the edges of the spear with Ghostly Grey. Then I blended in Ghostly Grey and Shadow Grey for the rest of the spear, with a lot of Ghostly Grey on the top part of the spear. This is because I was assuming that light is coming from above him and so would make the top surface very bright and reflective.

For the side of the spearhead, I blended the bottom half to a mix of Chaos Black and Shadow Grey, so that the bottom side would look darker the further away from the light it was. I noticed that a lot of people that do NMM greys have this effect on their armor pieces so I tried to replicate it here.

Then as a last touch, I took some Ghostly Grey and "steaked" it across the top side of the spearhead, at a slight angle to try and get the reflective effect going. I think it's getting closer to what it should be, but it's still not looking right. I'll probably try hitting up the forums and seeing if anyone has any more tips for this specific mini.

I think maybe something that might help would be to highlight the edges again in skull white to really bring out the edges. I'll probably give that a try tomorrow if I have some time.

On a side note, there's a Hordes Coin tournament tomorrow at GameKastle, but I think I'm going to pass this time as I've got tons of real life work to get done, and I'm still really slow in finishing my moves...I don't think I'd make a good fit yet for the tourney scene. There's another one next month though that I'll try to make it to.

Impaler Skin and Chickens Done

2007-03-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

I finished the Impaler's skin today...including his face (but not his eyes yet). I think it came out well and am pleased with the results. I also finished the chickens he has tied to his belt, but they don't quite look right...they don't really look like they're natural. I looked at a photo of our Thanksgiving turkey and I think I need more yellow splotches on it...it's just too evenly cooked the way it's painted.

I also started painting the spear tips...but but stopped because I'm debating whether I should use this opportunity to try doing some really simple non-metallic metal. I've never tried it before, but the best way to learn is to just try so I think I'm going to give it a shot...if it doesn't work out, well I'll just paint over it again. :)

The Trollbloods get burned, but live to tell the tale!

2007-03-28T23:03:00.000-07:00

My Trollbloods faced their second battle against Menoth tonight. Once again, I played against Broken Zealot, though this time at 500pts. It was a really close game, and could have gone either way many times through the game. No deployment map this time, but it was fairly basic...I set up most the same as my last game. I'm also fairly hazy on the Menoth details, especially with the spells, but I'll hit the highlights.

The army lists:

Menoth Forces
Feora
Castigator
Devout
Revenger
Knights Exemplar
Paladin of the Order of the Wall
Vilmon
Senechal
Wrack x2

Trollbloods
Doomshaper
Dire Troll Mauler
Dire Troll Blitzer
Troll Impaler
Troll Axer
Fell Caller
Kriel Stone Bearer (min.)

The Battlefield
The battlefield was pretty balanced, with each person having a hill on their side, and each person having a forest. There were also a few low walls, distributed around the battlefield, but those didn't really come into play during the game. Actually not much of the terrain saw much use today besides the hill closer to my side.

Turn 1 Trolls
I mostly moved forward with the Blitzer and Impaler leading the way onto the hill. Mauler and Axer on my left flank, and KSB, Fell Caller, and Doomshaper bringing up the rear.

Turn 1 Menoth
The Menoth army surges forward, everyone pretty much running. What scared me was Vilmon being able to go into the Impervious Wall form and then running forward with the Paladin behind him making him immune to knockdown and invulnerable to everything except magic. Yikes! This really freaked me out because I only had one magic attack that did any damage, but it was only a POW 12 attack. I have imaginings of this guy tearing through my army, an invincible wrecking ball.

Turn 2 Trolls
With only one spell that could hurt Vilmon, I took a deep breath, cast the spell Accursed.....and killed him with a boosted damage roll that was pretty big! Woo! Then the Axer charges the Paladin and kills him. The Impaler I think slams the Castigator back through the Senechal, knocking them both down, and the Blitzer's chain gun does a bit of damage to the Revenger.

Turn 2 Menoth
The Knights Exemplar charge my Axer, but fortunately only 2 make it into contact. Even so, they take him down to about 1/3 life left. One Knight charges the Fell Caller and chops him to pieces. I think I forgot to attempt a tough roll here. Another Knight Exemplar charges toward the Blitzer trying to tie him up, but doesn't quite make it.

Feora arcs a spell through the Revenger and hurts the Impaler. The Revenger charges the Impaler and Blitzer and does a good amount of damage to the Impaler, who is now about 2/3s dead.

Turn 3 Trolls
The Axer regenerates some health and then does his Thresher special attack on the two Knights in contact with him, killing them both. The Mauler charges another Knight and eats him as payback for killing the poor Fell Caller last turn. The Impaler attacks twice and does some damage to the Revenger but can't remove any systems off it. The Blitzer then grabs a hold of the Revenger with both hands, and chucks him over at the last Knight, killing him and damaging the Revenger more.

Turn 3 Menoth
The Castigator charges the Blitzer, and does a fair amount of damage to it, but doesn't kill it. He has some special attack though and kills the Impaler. The Seneschal run around the hill and tries to get a bead on Doomshaper. Feora Arcs a spell through the Revenger at the Axer and almost kills him, but thanks to the KSB, the Axer's extra armor saves him from death. Things are looking kind of grim now for the trolls.

Turn 4 Trolls
The Blitzer throws the Castigator off the hill, doing some damage to it, then opens up with his chain gun and hurts it some more while it's knocked down. Doomshaper blasts the Seneschal with troll power, killing him outright, and saving himself from certain death. The KSB and crew charge the Revenger to stop it from casting spells and also keep it from charging Doomshaper. They plink the Revenger for some minor damage. The Mauler moves up some, and the Axer regenerates.

Turn 4 Menoth
Feora moves up and feats, catching everyone in her flames. The Revenger tries to kill the two scribes in contact with it, but I make two tough rolls. Yes! Feora does some damage to the Axer with spells also I think.

Turn 5 Trolls
One scribe dies to fire. Doomshaper takes huge amount of damage from fire too...I think around 10 damage, which I have to transfer to the Mauler. ow! Ow! OW! Two more scribes take damage from fire but make their tough rolls, and the Axer almost burns to death too. He's hanging on by a thread at this point (2-4 hp left on him now). He Regenerates some of it back.

The Blitzer slams into the Devout, knocking it into Feora, doing a good amount of damage to the Devout, and I think two damage to Feora. The Axer charges the Devout and finishes it off with three attacks. The scribes get up and plink at the Revenger some more. Doomshaper moves away from the Castigator slightly and casts Accursed on it, doing some damage. He then pops his feat.

Turn 5 Menoth
Feora runs far away with her weird machine speed spell (?). The Castigator moves up onto the hill. The Revenger kills two more scribes. Feora sits on her focus since Doomshaper feated last turn.

Turn 6 Trolls
The fire goes out on Doomshaper and the Axer, but the Blitzer and Mauler take more fire damage, bringing them to about 1/2 and 1/3 health respectively. The last scribe burns to death, and I think the KSB burns to death at this time also.

The Axer walks into Melee and finishes off the Revenger in true Axe-wielding maniac fashion. Doomshaper moves back again away from the Castigator and casts a big Accursed spell on it, finally destroying it. Whew. That was a big sigh of relief because there was now nothing between the Castigator and the old man.

Now seeing only Feora on the board, I make a really dumb mistake. I try to go for the caster kill with my Blitzer and Mauler. The Mauler moves into charge range for next turn, and the Blitzer charges in. Unfortunately, the charge takes the Blitzer out of Doomshaper's control area. DOH! So now I can't force for extra attacks, or boost to hit. Which means I miss both my attacks. Ah well, how much damage could she do in melee anyway.

Turn 6 Menoth
Well to answer that, Feora does a little sidestep around the Blitzer to get out of range of the Mauler and proceeds to drop the Blitzer in two hits. DOH!

Turn 7 Trolls
We decide to play out the rest of the game. To the death! Watching the Blitzer get killed so quickly makes me bring back the Mauler closer to the Axer and Doomshaper. I take this time to heal up some. I think Doomshaper is safely screened behind the Axer and the Mauler. WRONG!

Turn 7 Menoth
Feora moves up and uses her flame throwers on Doomshaper. One hitting for 5 damage, which I take, and another hitting for 7 damage. I think about transfering this damage, but then decide to just take it and save my fury for a kill next turn. Doomshaper lives with 3 hitpoints!

Turn 8 Trolls
Doomshaper moves slightly to get line of sight on Feora and casts Accursed on her twice, but fails to hit with one (on three dice!) and does very little damage with the second which does hit. It's up to the beasts now. The Mauler charges in, hits her with his first meaty fist, and then picks her up and eats her with his second meaty fist! (Had to boost both attack rolls). Go Mauler!

Conclusion
That was a nail biter of a game, that really went the distance. It could have gone either way at several points, and while I jumped out to an early lead, Feora's feat really leveled the playing field as my Trolls just could not put out their fires. Stop, drop, and roll guys! The fire and spells accounted for more damage than anything else from the Menoth side I think.

I also totally underestimated how incredibly awesome a Warcaster is when fully loaded up on focus. Ouch. I guess I'm just used to thinking of my caster as a real pushover, but that's definitely not the case with warcasters. It was pretty scary seeing her drop the Blitzer in two hits after buffing herself up. So much so, that I pulled back the Mauler to regroup for a round.

My MVP this game is really hard to pick...it's either the Blitzer, the Axer, or Doomshaper.

The Blitzer was key in doing a couple key two handed throws at very critical times. Between him, the Impaler, and Doomshaper the Castigator only got in one round of combat. He also threw the Revenger into a Knight that had a charge lane to Doomshaper, which probably would have ended the game there if he didn't do that. Not to mention the slam on the Devout, which set up the Axer for the kill.

The Axer. What can I say about him. He just would not go down, and kept dishing out the pain. He accounted for two Knights, the Devout, the Revenger, and the Paladin. He was an awesome killing machine, and with armor of 20 with the KSB, he was really hard to hurt and kill. If he did get hurt, he could get some of that back with regeneration and healing from Doomshaper.

Lastly, old Doomshaper. The spell of the day was Accursed. He killed the Paladin, the Seneschal, and the Castigator, as well as helping to keep the Castigator locked down a lot of the time. Without him, those enemies would have made short work of my army.

In the end, while the Axer did a ton of damage, I think I'd have to go with the Blitzer as my MVP - those throws and slams were just so key, and saved me on two occasions from a loss. The least useful part of my army is a lot easier. The Fell Caller. This guy did nothing, and died before he really got to do anything. Though that's mostly my fault for moving him poorly and letting him get charged by a knight. 4 dice on damage is not good.

Things that didn't work well:
One is remembering to rile my beasts in the early phases...there were a couple of turns I forgot to generate enough fury, so I didn't have any to leach the following turn. That could have been disastrous. Luckily, I didn't need the fury as badly on those turns, but it certainly could have gone the other way too.

Another is using my Fell Caller more effectively...I'm just not sure how this guy fits into my army yet...I certainly didn't get to see what he could do since he died so early. Lastly, don't charge a warcaster that is out of your control radius. :)

Things that really worked well:
I'm starting to get the feel that my Trolls really play better as a punch/counter-punch type of army. Keeping the Mauler in reserve to help clean up really seems to help. For example, using the Axer to charge first, then take the hits on him from whatever charges it, then counter charging with the Mauler and cleaning them up. He's got the ability of "whatever you have me charge will die" which is really really good for counter charges.

Additionally, I found that by keeping my forces relatively close, and using throws and slams to space out the opposing forces, works really well together to concentrate most of my army against a small portion of the enemy. This is where I'm really loving the Blitzer...he's able to two hand throw big nasty things away, and he can hold down one flank by himself or with the help of an Impaler by throwing and slamming things away. Meanwhile the rest of my army can focus on killing on the other flank.

All in all, another fun battle, this one much more exciting than the last, which bodes well for the future :)

Fallen off the wagon a bit...

2007-03-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I admit having fallen off the wagon a bit in terms of doing some amount of painting each day. Last week was a really slow week due to school and also a seminar on startups at Stanford I had to go to.

But that's all in the past now, so I'll be back to painting a few hours each day now, and hopefully will have most of the Impaler done by next week. Actually I hope I'll have a good amount of him done by this coming Wednesday, which will be the next time I'll be heading in to the store for a game (I think).

Plus, I'm hoping that having done the Mauler's skin and gotten down the process for it, doing the skin on the rest of my army should go faster now.

Edit (2am): Finished a lot of the skin on the impaler. Only one hand and his face left to do in terms of his skin. Yay! I feel good about how it came out and it's in the same style as the Mauler. Tomorrow (err I guess today) I'll do his face and armor pieces.

Finished Mauler Pics

2007-03-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

Here's the Mauler all done (except the base flock and grass). But the painting is all done! Yay!

I ended up going with the grey rocks after all as I just didn't feel like re-doing all the rocks. I'll probably try touching them up some at a later time.

All in all, though I'm pretty pleased at how he turned out, and I really like the bright color scheme as it really stands out from most other armies.

Below is a pic of the right arm rocks. I'd say I'm about 60-70% of my satisfaction. Definitely still want to touch them up when I come back to flock and add static grass to the base.

Up next, the Impaler! I've already started base coating his skin, so I'll have pics up of the skin once it's done.

Mauler finished!

2007-03-22T00:32:00.000-07:00

Finished all the rocks and base. I think I will not seal him yet though as I really want to come back to him at the very end of painting my army, and improve him even more once I'm finished with the rest.

Pictures tomorrow, Impaler is up on deck next to be painted!

Trial by fire - Menoth invading our Ancestral Homelands!

2007-03-17T18:26:00.000-07:00

I got to play my first Hordes game this afternoon, and it was a blast! I was able to play against Broken Zealot, whom I met through this blog incidentally, at GameKastle. I wanted to bring my camera along, but forgot at the last moment, so I couldn't snap any pics of Broken Zealot's really nicely painted Menoth army. I love the purple and white theme (very similar to my Menoth test theme!) As one of my friends likes to say, "Great minds think like me!" Hah! Yea right :)

I had thought that we were going to play a 350pt game, so that's all I brought along. I must have misread his email though cause he thought we were playing 500pts! Doh! He pointed down quickly though, and we started our game soon after.

I'm thinking about writing this up in short story format, but then again maybe it's best that the world isn't subjected to my crappy writing (more than it already is anyway). Below is a map of what our battlefield looked like which my wife drew up quickly in paint (yes, I also have horrible paint skills):

Menoth Forces
Severius (S)
Revenger (R)
Vanquisher (V)
Choir x6? (C)
Knights Exemplar x5 (KE)

Da Trollbloods
Doomshaper (D)
Dire Troll Mauler (M)
Axer (A)
Impaler (I)
Krielstone Bearer x4 (KSB) (SS)

I won the roll to deploy first or second and opted to deploy second. Why? I'm not sure really. I just wanted to hopefully get a first turn thrown spear shot in.

Menoth Deployment: From my left to right there was the Vanquisher, then the Revenger, with the choir and Severius behind. The Knights Exemplar were in a line facing me, on the right most flank.

Trollbloods Deployment: From my left to right I had Axer, Impaler, Mauler, and behind them and slightly more to the right I had the Krielstone Bearer and crew and also Doomshaper.

In front of me was a pretty huge hill (closer to me than Broken Zealot's side), and to the left of the hill there was a patch of rough ground. I was hoping to get up on the hill first and hopefully get one or two turns of shooting with the impaler. I'm worried about the masses of people he has compared to my relatively low model count army.

Turn 1 - Menoth
Pretty much everything runs forward with the exception of Kreoss. The Knights Exemplar run up the right side of the board toward the hill, but take cover along a low wall first, about in the middle of the board. Severius casts some buffs, I think Eye of Menoth and Holy Vigil and that's the end of his turn.

Turn 1 - Trollbloods
I walk my Impaler onto the hill, he casts his animus on himself, and then finds out that everything is still out of range by just a tad. So he throws his spear menacingly through the air. The Axer runs but stays below on the left side of the hill, in between the rough terrain and the hill. The Mauler runs onto the hill also, to the right of the Impaler.

Doomshaper moves forward some, casts fortune on the Impaler, and transfers 4 fury onto the Krielstone bearer. The Krielstone bearer and crew move up slightly and activate their protective aura.

Turn 2 - Menoth
The Menoth line advances, the Knights Exemplar move over and through the low wall and are getting dangerously close to my Mauler on the hill. The jacks both move up some, with the Revenger taking the lead. I'm please when I see the Revenger in range of the Impaler now and he's lined up nicely for a slam into the Vanquisher, but alas, the Choir chants the "No shooting" blessing on them. Rats.

Severius casts some damage spell at me through the Revenger's arc node, but fails to hit through horrible dice rolls and my Impaler also getting the +2 def bonus for being on the hill. He also buffs the Knights with +4 defense.

Turn 2 - Trollbloods
Krielstone bearer and crew move onto the hill and keep the aura going. Doomshaper moves onto the hill also and casts Fortune on the Axer. He also dispels the +4 defense on the Knights. They pass their command check. The Axer charges and slams the Revenger back into a Knight Exemplar and kills him, doing only minimal damage to the Revenger. The Mauler charges the Knights Exemplar, and gets into combat with two. He slaughters them and is now out of combat. The Impaler throws a spear at the Knights and skewers one.

Turn 3 - Menoth
Severius puts 2 focus on the Vanquisher, puts up Eye of Menoth, has the Choir chant +2 damage and to hit, and then unloads on the Mauler with the Vanquisher gun. He boost and rolls huge on the damage something like 31 or 32 total. Thank goodness for the 18 armor on the Mauler, else he'd have been fried to a crisp! Sadly, I find out that the Mauler was out of range of the Krielstone. Doh! As it was, the Mauler loses one aspect, Mind, and most of his Spirit.

Then the last 2 Knights Exemplar move in to finish off the Mauler. Lucky for me they just barely don't do enough to kill him, I think he had 4 hit points left! His Spirit and Mind are both gone now.

The Revenger gets up and moves next to the Vanquisher.

Turn 3 - Trollbloods
The Impaler throws a spear at the Revenger and hits for some slight damage. Still no slam! And I've boosted every shot so far. Ah well. The Axer charges in and Slams the Vanquisher away. Then he forces an extra attack on the Revenger, boosts the damage and destroys his shield arm, but the Revenger is still up and active.

Doomshaper casts Fortune on the Mauler, heals one point in each spirit and mind, and then lets the Mauler loose. The Mauler proceeds to tear up the two remaining Knights using only 1 more fury and eats them as a snack, regaining 6(!) health. He then forces himself to regenerate another 2 points. He's now back in action!

Krielstone bearer and crew move up some, sitting on top of the hill now.

Turn 4 - Menoth
I'm a bit hazy on this round, but I think this is what happened. Choir does the +2 damage/hit chant. Severius gives 3 focus to the Revenger and moves away from the Mauler and behind the Choir. The Revenger then goes Balistic on the Axer, doing tons of damage to it and kills the Axer in two hits. Ouch! Oh, and the Axer was just out of range of the Krielstone Bearer. Yup, I suck at moving these guys apparently. If he had been in range he might have lived.

The Vanquisher stands up, but is now out of range of the Mauler.

Turn 4 - Trollbloods
The Mauler charges the Revenger and scraps it easily with 2 hits. I then forget to regenerate him some more this turn. Doh! Krielstone bearer and crew move up behind the Mauler, near the low wall. Doomshaper follows them, casts Far Strike on the Impaler.

The Impaler hurls his spear at the Vanquisher with all his might and finally slams it back 2", right into a Choir member. No damage is done to the Vanquisher, but the Choir member gets crushed.

Turn 5 - Menoth
Severius puts 2 focus on the Vanquisher and fires off a salvo at the Dire Troll. He hits, but rolls horribly for the boosted damage, only doing 2 damage, helped out by the Krielstone. I think Severius may have also tried casting Ashes to Ashes on the Dire Troll, but failed to do much damage. Choir and Severius shuffle around some.

Turn 5 - Trollbloods
Mauler and Impaler move up. Impaler misses with his spear at the Vanquisher. That's about all that happened this turn. We're now fighting along the long way on the board...with the Menites on the left side, and the Trolls on the right. Doomshaper casts Dissolution again to get rid of Eye of Menoth, uses his Feat (I actually forgot to do this, though I had planned to, but at the beginning of Broken Zealot's turn he let me have it go off as planned. What a stand-up guy!).

Turn 6 - Menoth
Severius feats, casts Eye of Menoth, puts 3 focus on the Vanquisher, and charges in. It uses it's circular strike hitting both the Mauler and the Impaler. Mauler takes some damage, but stays up. He's down two aspects now again.

Severius then does the sneaky sneaky attack by casting ashes to ashes on a choir member close to the Krielstone Bearer, a stone scribe, the Mauler, the Impaler, and but is out of range to Doomshaper (whew!). Dire troll and Impaler take no damage, but the Krielstone bearer and the scribe both take enough damage to go down. But amazingly, both make their tough rolls! Shifty eyes and ponderings about my weighted dice abound. :)

Due to Doomshaper's feat, the Vanquisher takes 3d3 damage, Severius also takes 3-4 damage.

Turn 6 - Trollbloods
Doomshaper heals the Mauler's damaged aspects casts Rage on the Impaler, and the Mauler, the champ as always, unloads onto the Vanquisher, scrapping it in 3 hits. The Impaler then walks over to Severius, boosts the hit roll, hits, boosts damage, and runs him through. Severius shish-kebab tonight!

Conclusion:

Victory for the Kriels!

All in all, a very enjoyable game. Broken Zealot was a lot of fun to play, and was very accomodating of my several screw ups and allowed me to go back and fix some of them. I think that I got really lucky in this game, as he really did roll badly with a few key rolls, as well as being just out of range of Doomshaper with Ashes to Ashes. Plus, I think he had really planned his list for a 500pt battle, so I got off easily. In his 500pt list he had a good helping of zealots which scare me to no end.

Things that worked out really well for me was constantly slamming his jacks away from me. There were several turns where they weren't really doing much, which was great for me. The MVP definitely goes to the Dire Troll Mauler though. He's brutal! The ability to heal him back to almost full after munching through the Knights was amazing. Just goes to show that fortune favors the painted. :)

I also really liked the tip that someone gave on the Privateer forums where you activate the fortuned model first, then activate Doomshaper, cast fortune on a new model, then activate that, effectively giving you two fortunes per turn which really helped quite a bit.

Things that I really need to improve on though is the positioning of my guys relative to the Krielstone Bearer. There were several times I overextended my beasts, and was therefore out of range of the aura. This could have saved my Axer. I also need to remember to use my feat when I actually plan to!

Another thing I noticed is that I never had any excess fury on the board after Doomshaper Leached. This is pretty encouraging since I can definitely field more beasts without worry. The problem with Doomshaper though was that he couldn't use most of his spells because they have such short range, and I was worried that he'd get blasted if he got too close.

Anyway, hopefully next week we'll be able to get in another game, this time at 500pts. I'm really excited by this first game and definitely want to play more now :) As a side note, I found out that Ray, the store owner also has a Trollblood army and seemed interested in getting in some games too. Plus, there was one other Everblight player there (sorry didn't get your name!) that would be playing more regularly also.

Exciting times, I hope more people will pick up Hordes now that they've seen the a cross-game battle.

Spines and Rocks and Paint! Oh My!

2007-03-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

Yay, I really liked how his spines came out. Here's a super bright picture showing off the highlighting effects of the spines.

I went with a Black -> Red -> Orange blend. It's very J-pop like hah! But in all seriousness (well as serious as one can be talking about troll miniatures) I think I did pretty well getting a good transition, and it looks pretty sharp on the table. It's also slightly different from the standard red/black that a lot of folks do.

I started with Chaos Black, Painted about 2/3 of each spine with Scab Red. Did a second coat of Scab Red. Then I covered about half of each spine with Blood Red.

Next, I washed all of the spines with watered down Chaos Black.

And lastly I took about 1 part Golden Yellow, mixed with 2 parts Blood Red and highlighted the tips of the spines with that orangey-yellow color you see in the pics.

For the rocks, I'm still not so pleased with the results so far...I'm just not good at painting rocks...GRR!

I started with the Chaos Black basecoat, then highlighted with Shadow Grey, and then highlighted again with Ghostly Grey.

A lot of the rocks just don't look clean or realistic to me. I dunno...I just don't know what to do to make them look nicer. I'm going to ask on the forums and see if anyone has any tips. Blue Troll needs food badly! Err, rock painting lessons anyway.

In other news, I'm getting my first beatdown this Saturday at GameKastle against Broken Zealot's (have a link to his blog in the link section, check it out) Menoth. We'll be doing 350 points so it should be a good way for me to try and get the rules right.

I'm going to try and bring my camera along so I can take lots of pics and post up a battle report when I get back. Exciting times!

Fingernails and Toenails

2007-03-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

Here is the pic of his fingernails. I tried to make them look really yellowed and nasty...like he'd been digging on the dirt with them and such for a very long time.

I think the effect came out pretty nicely...they look really grungy. Looks like I missed the inside of his thumbnail though as it doesn't look right...it needs more brown.

For the fingernails, I started with a base coat of Bleached Bone, then added a wash of Brown Ink. I then took very thinned down bleached bone, and using the fine detail brush, I added thin streaks of Bleached Bone over the brown washed fingernail. I made sure that you could still see the brown between the thin streaks of bleached bone.

And here are his toenails. I made them even more dirty looking since, well they are walking through mud and dirt day in, day out.

Same technique as before, except this time I didn't add any Bleached Bone over the wash and instead just did the "streaking" with a clean brush while the wash was still slightly wet.

Overall, I'm liking the effect. I definitely would not want to be the pedicurist that has to deal with those nails!

Tonight I'll be finishing up his spines and rock protrusions. I've given up on the "brown" rocks and will instead go with the grey highlighted rocks instead. I'm ready to "finish" this guy off and start on the next trollkin.

I put "finish" in quotes by the way because I really have a hard time calling a model finished. I will probably come back to this guy again after I've done the other models so that I can clean up all the tiny little details that I've either missed or messed up on.

Stuck between a rock...and uh...more rocks...

2007-03-13T02:24:00.000-07:00

The cheesey titles for these entries continue! Ok, so I tried to work more on the rocks sticking out of him and just can't get the look right, like the one model on the box. I tried all sorts of browns and just couldn't get the right color. I may just have to go with the more standard grey-highlighted rocks that people ususally do. I really wanted to try those brown rocks though.
Plus, I found out today that my Snakebite Leather Brown paint has gone "flakey" on me. There are these tiny flakes of hardened paint floating around in it, which make it impossible to paint with now. :( This makes me sad because I've had this one bottle since the early 90s? Maybe late 80s. It came in my old school Orks and Eldar paint set I got when I first started painting GW minis back in the Rogue Trader days.

Ah well, I'm amazed that it's lasted this many years...it's probably older than a lot of people that play at the local GW store hah! The other paints in that set are still going strong though! Now if only the new GW paints would last this long.

Some positive news is that I've got the spines well on their way and they should be done tomorrow. So all that's left will be his base and those darn rocks...maybe I'll ask on the forums for some tips.

Sorry no pictures tonight...for some reason I can't pull the pics off the camera right now and it's really late, so I'm going to bed. :)

Troll Mauler Update - Fixing my mistakes...

2007-03-10T23:32:00.000-08:00

So, looks like I may not be able to finish this guy this weekend. What looked like an easy task of finishing the rock protrusions from his skin has turned into a major undertaking. While painting the skin, I painted over several of the black rock protrusions sticking out of his skin. It definitely made blending the large skin surfaces easier, but now I'm paying the price.

I now have to paint black over all the places I covered in blue. Ugh. The problem is that I have to be really really careful not to get black paint onto the skin that the rocks are touching, which means I need to go in with the fine detail brush and carefully paint the border in black. There must be 40-60 of these little rocks all over his body that I need to paint over.

It took me about 2 hours today just painting these little rocks...and I still have to do the ones on his arms and legs. I just can't paint any more for today...my hands keep shaking when I try to keep going, so I think it's time to stop. :)

The good news is I've finished off his finger/toe nails and his loincloth, so this is pretty much all that's left besides his back spines. Also, I've got the rest of my army assembled, based, and primed, so I'll be ready to work on them once I'm done with the Mauler.

Mauler's Face, Take Two

2007-03-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

Here's more work on his face. This work took me about an hour and a half. Most of that time was experimenting with the pink and cleaning up some mistakes I made while experimenting.

I've got his eyes done, and I think his teeth are coming along decently. I used Golden Yellow for the eyes. I wanted to have purple eyes, but it just didn't show up very well as his eyes are so small they're literally pin points.

I'll be cleaning up the space in between the teeth and possibly adding a bit more brow/yellow to make them all tartar covered and nastier. I definitely need some darker lines between each tooth to make them look more defined and clean.

Also, I think I finally got the correct shade of pink for the gums. It took me a ton of experimentation, but the color is finally right. I just need to highlight the edges a bit more and they should be set.

I think overall the face is pretty decent looking, but it could certainly be improved still now that I see it magnified. Especially the gums and teeth...it's a bit sloppy. The tusks though came out nicely and are a nice blend from tartar like yellow/brown to white at the tips.

For the teeth I used a base coat of Bleached Bone, washed with Snakebite Leather (the yellow/brown color) and then blended it up to skull white.

So all that's left now is to finish off the spines and rocks protruding from his skin and also his toe/finger nails. I'm really not looking forward to all those rocks, as I've covered some of them in blue skin color, so will have to paint black over them again before I can work on them some more. That's what I get for being sloppy I guess.

In your face sucka! (Well, his face anyway...)

2007-03-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

Started his face today. It's coming a long decently, though I'm really having problems with the pink gums and tongue. For the gums I tried starting with Red Gore, and painted over that Blood Red.

Problem is, the black primer makes the red looks really dark.
So I tried the tongue, with a mix of 1/3 Blood Red and 2/3 white, but it just looks too pink now. I'm thinking maybe if I try to add some more blood red to the pink tongue and blend that in that maybe it will be the right tone. I'm also wondering if a really watered down flesh wash might do the trick, as it's actually pretty reddish-brown when watered down.

Also, the teeth really need a ton of thin coats to cover up the black. I'll have to keep working on those later, my hands were just getting too shaky toward the end of this painting session.

The facial skin I think is coming along pretty nicely though, which is definitely a plus. It looks a lot better in person where you can't see all these small errors magnified like 20X though.

The good thing though with these huge sized pics is that I can see exactly where and what I need to touch up and also what to leave as is.

Here's a pic of the left side of his face. It's a lot more rough than the right side, which is why I wanted to snap a picture of it. That way I can see the problems blown up and fix them the next time I paint.

I'll need to deepen the shadows, and the crevices, and also clean up the blending here.

Lastly, I'll need to blend his teeth with more brown toward the roots, and more white toward the ends. I'm really dreading this part because the teeth are so darn small. Especially his molars, which are currently only black (haven't even tried base coating them yet.

Anyway, things are moving along smoothly and I'm pretty positive I can have him finished up by the end of this weekend. Or at least, everything except the super fine detailing and cleanup I'll undoubtably have to do after I photograph the "final" paintjob.

Till next time!

Troll Shoulders Painted - Assembly of army done!

2007-03-07T23:32:00.000-08:00

So I did some more work on the big guy. Here are his shoulders painted. Basically more of the same technique for blending. All that's left now are his legs, face, quills, and base. I'm pretty excited about finally finishing this guy off this week. It'll be my first fully painted model completed in a long long time (I think the last one I finished completely was done about 3 years ago).

I've also finished assembling the rest of my army, and based them. I'll probably prime them tomorrow since it should be warm and dry, perfect weather for priming.

Dire Troll Mauler - Baby got back! Big update!

2007-03-05T18:44:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I did a fair amount of work on the Dire Troll Mauler's back today and a bit on Sunday. It's about 40-50% done now. Just need to smooth up the blending (I think I'm getting faster and better at it now, yay!) and finish off the rest of the surfaces, like his lower back.

I'm really liking the super bright blue color over the more standard darker colors other people use. I think the neon blue will really make the army stand out from the crowd when it's on the table.

Here's another picture of his back with less lighting...you can also see that I did some work on the left arm, and also the right arm.

The right arm I think actually looks better than the left, at least the blending I think is smoother and more natural looking.

Plus, the dark recesses are darker and so I think it looks more crisp and sharp.

I have a feeling I may have some trouble with his lower back. I always have a tough time shading and highlighting large flat areas, as I'm just not sure exactly how I'm supposed to paint the lighting on them.

Oh, in this picture you can also see some of the work I did on his left leg. Here's a closeup of that leg, and a bit of his lower back. Oh, and a glorious shot of his plumber's crack. Hah!

I think the leg and foot came out ok. Just a bit of touch up work on his foot is all that's needed.

The blending technique I used for all these parts was a "wet" blending. Where I start with a watery coat of darker blue paint. In this case, I start with Enchanted Blue. Then, while that coat is still wet, I add a little bit of Space Wolf Grey to my palette, throw it over the part I just painted, and swirl it around a bit so that it mixes in a bit. I repeat this a few times, slowly adding more Space Wolf Grey color until it is completely grey/white. As I'm adding the color and swirling it around, I cover less and less area with each pass.

The result is pretty much what you see in these pics.

Lastly, here is the right arm. I think it looks pretty nice so far.

I'll be finishing off the Mauler this week, hopefully by Sunday since I have a break from real life for a few days.

Look for a completed Mauler then!

Also, I've started assembling the rest of my warband, so pics of them later this week also!

Getting some gaming scheduled

2007-03-03T19:04:00.000-08:00

So, amazingly, there are actually people following this rambling troll blog now! :)

I've had a couple people contact me about getting some gaming in around the San Jose area, specifically the local shop, GameKastle, or Endgame in Oakland. I'd love to start up some regular gaming as I think there isn't really anything going on at either store at the moment.

If anyone would like to get in touch with me, you can PM Zugbart through the Privateer Boards so that maybe we can get enough folks together to work out some sort of regular meeting time for some good ol' beat downs (of me most likely! :) ). Plus, it'd be a good way to start gearing up for the Summer release of Evolution and also the new Hordes/Warmachine campaign.

I imagine I'll have enough models assembled for a 500pt game in about 2-3 weeks, though obviously not fully painted at the rate I'm going.

PS. I am still waiting to get registered for the GameKastle boards so won't be able to post there for a while longer.

Got my copy of No Quarter #11

2007-03-01T21:54:00.000-08:00

So, my copy of No Quarter Magazine #11 arrived today at the local game store. This is a great issue for anyone interested in Hordes, especially since they have a preview of the new warlocks and warbeasts coming this summer.

All I can say is, I will definitely be getting a Grim Angus and a Winter Troll. Grim Angus has a ton of movement control spells and special abilities that should allow the Trollblood army to really pick and choose where the fight will happen and who will be fighting.

The Winter Troll just looks awesome rules-wise. His animus is incredibly good. It basically freezes anyone that ends their activation within 2" of it (or whatever your warlock casts it on) for one round. I can definitely see throwing this on whatever I have in my front line and charging right into the fray. Anything that lives and doesn't kill what I have it on is frozen next turn.

Ohh, I just thought of something else. Slam oir knockdown something with one warbeast, then cast Accursed on whatever just got slammed so that all they can do is get up next turn. Then, walk another of my units with the frost animus right next to what was just slammed and Accursed. Instant freeze so that both of the beasts can now wail on them with autohits.

Anyway, I still have to read through the rest of the articles, but there looks like an interesting battle report as well as a pretty good modeling and painting article.

Definitely looking forward to the next issue already too. :)

A small update

2007-03-01T21:45:00.000-08:00

Just a small update today. Worked a little bit in the Mauler's chest and arms. I think the chest came out pretty well. I also did the other side, but it basically looks the same also, so no point showing it in a separate pic. Though the top of his chest looks really blurry in the picture, it actually came out really nice looking in reality. I'll have to try to get a better picture of it later.

I'm going to try and finish off the arms tomorrow if possible, though I'm having a heck of a time getting them looking right to my liking. For some reason I just can't get a good blend on the arm muscles ... they always look unnatural.

More boys is arrived ta join da crew!

2007-02-28T17:03:00.000-08:00

So, UPS finally decided it was about time they delivered my starter box and also the Blitzer! I have to try really really really hard to resist the urge to start working on these guys instead of finishing the Mauler off. I've always had problems finishing off models, especially when I get new toys...I just want to start playing around with the new stuff. But I have to keep my eye on the prize...and that prize is a pissed off rampaging Mauler that's fully painted right now.

With that said, I've done some more work on the Mauler as time permitted.

As you can see from this pic, I cleaned up his stomach area a bit more, with some advice on blending from the Privateer forums (specifically Malveaux). It's still not as smooth as I'd like (dang perfectionism), but it's getting better, I think.

Also, I started and finished the top side of his right hand, and also started his right forearm and bicep. Additionaly, you can see in this pic, I added the base coat to a lot of his upper back, and though you can't see it here, his lower back is basecoated too. I'm really hoping to have the bulk of this bad boy done by the end of next week. I'd say the end of this week, except I have a ton of work to do by Monday for real-life stuff. Darn real life, always gettin in the way.

The last bit of work I did was to start his upper left arm and to finish off the bottom of his left hand, which turned out to be a HUGE pain.

For some reason I could not figure out how to highlight and shade his left hand. Everything I did seemed to come out looking horrible. Eventually, after about an hour and a half of work, I reached something passable and called it quits on that part. I don't have any pics of it, but suffice to say, it's not really picture worthy yet.

I should have probably stopped painting then too, but I forced myself to keep going on his upper arm. BIG MISTAKE. When you get the feeling you should stop or are tired, you should listen to your body.

I was so tired that I horribly messed up his upper arm, as can be seen in the picture...it's all blotchy, messy, and generally ugly looking. It's as if he's suffering from some horrible degenerative troll skin disease or trollish leprosy!

And the worst part was I couldn't really tell because I was so tired, I thought that it was coming out ok. But after stopping and taking a look later that night, and now later looking at these pics, I can see that it was a pretty shoddy job. As it is now, I may have to start over again on his upper left arm.

So I hope people can learn from my mistake, it's not worth it usually to keep going when you're tired. Take a break and come back to it later, else you might have to spend even more time fixing your mess-ups!

Anyway, I'm rested up now, and will try to do some more work on this guy later tonight for an hour or two. See you next time!

Painting the Mauler...begin!

2007-02-26T16:07:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I fixed the Mauler's broken toof, and have started painting him. Here's a pic of him with primer only. He's looking, uh, very black. Nice even coat though from the GW Black primer. While quite pricey (~$10 per can) I find that the GW primer really does go on very smoothly and doesn't cover up any of the details while having a very deep black color. Much better than the black primer I would get from other brands.

On with the painting. I've never painted blue skin before (starting to see a trend here on this blog? :) ), so I had to go through some experimentation, as you can see from the various different patchy areas on other body parts. Also, like most people out there, I really don't have any clue how to blend well. So these Trollbloods will be my first real attempt to learn some blending. Hopefully they don't come out looking like garbage.

I started with the hand and arm since those seem to have the most defined ridges and I figured it might help me with what I need to highlight and what needs to be shaded (I'm also terrible at lighting...guess it's why I didn't go to art school and instead became an engineer).

I started with a basecoat of GW Regal Blue (the very dark blue) and worked myself up through light watery coats of Enchanted Blue, Electric Blue, and then Space Wolf Grey.

I think that the result is ok, and will probably go back and clean up the edges and also try a tiny bit of ink in the crevices to deepen the color just a tad.

The blending though still isn't very smooth and I wish I could make it smoother, so hopefully as I go through the rest of the model, I'll get better at it and can come back to the earlier parts like this hand and touch it up.

Having tackled the hand and forearm, I decided to attempt his stomach. Same color steps as before, except instead of waiting for each watery coat to dry before applying the next, this time I tried blending while the paint was still wet.

This was a pretty stressful exercise as I had to move really fast and keep adding lighter and lighter shades while the paint was still wet, and normally I'm a pretty slow painter.

The good thing about doing this though was that I think it actually became easier to make a smoother looking blend.

The bad thing is, as can be seen in this pic, is that it was really hard to tell how strong of a blue each section was while it was wet, and while I was frantically trying to add more shades.

Toward the end, I paniced because I thought I was seeing "rings" of blue and so I added a ton of Space Wolf Grey and Skull White all over the stomach.

The result is kinda what you see here, where there's a lot of white, and then it makes a pretty jagged transition to blue.

This is a shot of the side of the stomach, where in the upper left corner you can see a couple more color steps between the transitions.

I think this is closer to what I would like to see on it, but I want to have a smoother set of steps. I'm going to go back to it today and see if I can smooth this out some

One thing I'm really liking about this blog is that I can see all my mistakes magnified in hi-def when I go to post these pics up.

Below is a final pic of the work done so far from the front. Here I guess the stomach doesn't look too bad and would just need a bit of touchup. Maybe a bit more blue around the upper right edges.

Ok, back to the work at hand. I'm going to try to finish up the underside of the left arm, touch up the upper side (the thumb and sides of the fingers), and touch up the stomach today. Also, if I still have time before 24 comes on, maybe I'll start the right arm too.

Trollbloods Update

2007-02-24T14:39:00.000-08:00

Bases done, priming underway, pics later.

In other news, my Starter Box and Dire Troll Blitzer are lost somewhere in the midwest according to UPS :(

EDIT: TRAGEDY! Well sort of. Apparently the solvents in the spray paint eats into greenstuff/superglue and so the tusks on the Dire Troll fell off!! I told him to cutback on his candy consumption, but nooo....

Ah well, hopefully I can fix it later today after the primer is dry.

Bah, stupid rain...

2007-02-22T19:40:00.000-08:00

It's been raining all day today...so no chance to primer anything cause there's too much moisture in the air outside...I'll have to wait till it dries out more...hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to work on them some more.

In other news, my Trollbloods starter box and dire troll blitzer is on it's way from thewarstore.com and should be here, I hope, end of this week or early next week.

Menoth Experimental Color Scheme

2007-02-22T15:11:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of pics of my work-in-progress/experimentation with a bone/purple color scheme for my Menoth warband. This is pretty much the first time I have ever tried painting bone as well as purple. Most of my other painting experience has been with orcs and so a lot of greens, browns, and metals.

I think I like the color combination, but I need to touch up the purple areas, as well as make some of the bone areas more brown. I was being very cautious with the bone color since I didn't want it to look too strong, but I think I ended up going too far the other direction, and now it's too light and lacking that contrast needed to make it really look good.

This is also my first attempt at sculpting bases out of greenstuff. Disregard the brown color...just a basecoat color for now to see how it looks. By the way, I did the sculpting with no sculpting tools (don't have any yet...). I just used a plastic knife, my x-acto knife, and my fingers. Given that, I think it came out ok, but could definitely use some improvement, and I think a lot of the problems I had were that I didn't have the right tools for the job.

This guy will have to take a back seat though while I work on my Trollbloods warband. Purification by holy fire will have to wait until the Trolls are ready for bashin'.

Doomshaper and Dire Troll Mauler Assembly

2007-02-22T02:00:00.000-08:00

So I finally finished working on assembling Doomshaper and the Dire Troll Mauler. Doomshaper fit together pretty well and so didn't need very much greenstuff work. Just a little around the arm and hand joints did the trick.

Unfortunately, the Dire Troll Mauler didn't fit together well at all and required a ton of greenstuff to fill in the gaps. It looks pretty bad in the pics, but I'm pretty sure with some paint over it, it will look fairly smooth.

I also tried my hand at a very very small amount of sculpting (extending the thorns on his back, third pic) and I think it came out ok so I might extend the thorns for the rest of the mohawk too. We'll see how it goes.

Lastly I started on the bases for these guys and will post them up tomorrow when I get better shots of them...the camera didn't like the sand and couldn't focus for some reason.

Starting the Trollblood Warband

2007-02-21T21:22:00.000-08:00

I'll be using this blog to chart the progress of my Hordes warband for the Hordes tabletop miniatures wargame, along with any other mini wargame projects I have going like my 40k Tau, and also my Fantasy Orcs and Goblins and Tomb Kings. I'll be posting regular updates as I build each model, paint, and post battle reports too.

So, without further ado, my new Trollblood Warband list:

Doomshaper
^Dire Troll Mauler
^Dire Troll Blitzer
^Troll Axer
^Troll Impaler
Fell Caller
Kriel Stone Bearer (min. squad)

Total: 499pts.

I really wanted to try a list that was beast heavy, and I love the models for the Blitzer and the Mauler. Unfortunately, the model count for this list is pretty low, and I think that it may have some problems against infantry heavy hordes, especially in Warmachine cross-over games. But it should be fun, and I'd rather have an army whose models I like rather than one built purely for game min/maxing. A special shout out to Malveaux on the Privateer Press Forums, who has been a great help in deciding this final list! Thanks!

I currently have the Dire Troll Mauler and Doomshaper, with the warband box and the Blitzer on the way. Pics coming soon!