New puppy

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!

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.

Finished the Champions

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.

Did some painting and priming today

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...

Worked on my champions a bit

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.

Champions...some progress

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...

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

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.

Pics of Extreme Mauler and Special Edition Eyriss Assembled

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.

Worked on the Extreme Mauler some last week

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

Grim Angus 95% Done

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

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...

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

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!

Grim vs. Harbinger...take three

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.