Retribution Cover Fully Revealed

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

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.

Mk II Warmachine Thoughts

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.

Short update - Warmachine Demo

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. :/

Menoth Experimental Color Scheme

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'.