Heavy Dosage of Fire

Moving forward in our MK II campaign, CptCalvinus and I are going to be playing a series of 35 PC games with each of our remaining casters. This is going to give us a chance to try out some oldies but goodies and some new ones as well. Don't tell the Cpt. but I plan on picking up one epic Feora in the next week or two. And with her comes a heavy dosage of hunka hunka burning love. It will also roast me some swans. I love it already...

I've constructed a nice list that incorporates models I have and for the most part painted, save for eFeora.

Epic Feora 35 PC
*Guardian - bonded
*Vanquisher
*Repenter
Choir - maxed
TFG - maxed with UA
Cleansers - min
Vassal
Reclaimer

I might swap out the Cleansers for a couple more support pieces but I'm trying to stick to the whole fire theme. The basic strategy for this list to set things on fire. In all seriousness, I think I would have to play a rather aggressive style and try to get Feora in the mix. The Guardian would most likely get either Ignite or Escort. Both are great spells and I would have to decide when I see my opponents layout.

I'm torn on who I would give Escort to, all three are viable candidates for it but I'm leaning towards the Vanquisher. This way it would have a 14' threat range and possibly longer with the Vassal. Just a FYI, I don't have a Reedemer and don't plan on picking one up soon.

I'm looking forward to trying out eFeora as one of my new warcasters because she brings a different playstyle than the other ones I've been using. Plus, her model is pretty awesome as well. I just have to buy her now.

The 50 PC Throwdown

Last night CptCalvinus and I sat down for the last leg of our MK II escalation campaign. We both had new models that we were anxious to use and the game turned out to be pretty fun, for me at least.

With the upcoming release of Bastions and the fact that I already have bases for them, it was time to give them a try. To give you a idea of how they were, I found myself laughing maniacally in bed after the game at the thought of CptCalvinus trying to take them down. Yes, they were that sick, espcially with the High Reclaimer bringing them back.

CptCalvinus decided to give the Thunderhead a shot and had constructed a really cool pose with him. No longer is he the master DJ of Club Caspia, he now aims to punch some poor warjack's furnace out. It should look really nice after he paints him up. Speaking of paint, the good ole Cpt. is already looking forward to painting him... I kid, I kid.

Here are the two lists that were played.

High Reclaimer - bluecardinal's army
*Guardian
*Devout
Avatar of Menoth
Vassal of Menoth
Ruphert, Piper of Menoth
Hierophant
Choir of Menoth (4)
TFG (10) with UA - 2 proxied by Deliverers
Bastions (5) - proxied by a Buccaneer, Talon, Renegade, Reznik, and Bosun Grogspar
Rhoven & Honor Guard
Herne & Jonne - proxied by a Gun Bunny and Dougal McNaile

Stryker - CptCalvinus' army
*Ol' Rowdy - proxied by a Mangler
*Thunderhead
*Centurion
Jr
*Defender - proxied by a Mule
Squire - proxied by a Mangler shoulder pad
Arlan Strangewayes - proxied by Nemo
Stormsmiths (3)
GMCA (2) - one proxied by Caine
Reinholdt - proxied by Gorten

You'll see below, several pictures highlighting the battle. To save time, we didn't write down all of the turns and I'll just pinpoint several key moments. I won the opening roll and decided to go second.

This is the end of turn one, CptCalvinus had his guys ready to land the first strike while the High Reclaimer smoked it up a little.

Ruphert sang a little song that gave the Bastions this smokey haze which some how gave off a terrifying feeling to the enemy.

Both teams rushed for the orange cactus like thing, hoping to find something nice...



At the end of round 2, the Bastions are primed to get a good amount of punishment. Already, Ol' Rowdy's counter charge layed down a good amount of dosage but the hefty Exemplars just dispersed it amongst each other. They ended up taking out a GMCA and prepared for the onslaught.

This was the beginning of my love for them, I know it's only one game but they have some really good staying power. Ruphert sang another song called, "Tough Enough".

The Thunderhead decided to wipe out the two honor guards and Herne & Jonne decided to do a little bit of nothing. My ashes to ashes roll only netted me one more enemy model but coincedentally, it damaged the T-Head.

This is the lay of the land right before turn 3 started. The Thunderhead is in a prime spot to trample the snot of out my TFG. I was thinking this was coming but the Cpt decided to give his new pulse a try.

He only needed a 7 to hit all my guys and (insert drum roll here)....... he rolls a six with 3 dice. Boo for the T-Head. After that, he decides to shoot two TFG grunts and misses his second shot.

The highlight of the round was CptCalvinus trying to take out a full unit of Bastions with Ol' Rowdy, a Defender, Journeyman, and two Stormsmiths. Lets just say it came down to having one left and me needing a tough roll to stay alive. Guess what? I made it and he didn't have anymore models to attack them with. Can you guess what happens next? Oh yeah, he forgot to use Stryker's feat and this is where things turned south.

My Guardian finally got a charge off on the Thunderhead and nearly wrecked it. I got the critical pitch but decided not to do it. Now that it deviates, I didn't want to throw him out of melee range. The Avatar got 4 focus and made short work of the Centurion. Some four Bastions magically came back with full health via the High Reclaimer's feat and decided to beat up on a few things. I decided to put one (Bastion) right in front of Stryker for a slim chance to put some good damage on him, but I missed with the attack.

The final round consisted of Ol' Rowdy and Stryker trying to take out the Bastions. Ruphert's ability to sing whatever song whenever, proved invaluable for the Bastions survival. The Thunderhead's cortex was fried and Arlan did his best to fix him up. At the end of the Cpt's turn, he used his feat to try and stave off the mob of Menoth.

At this point it was around 12:00 at night and we had to work the next day. The good Cpt was gracious enough to let me rethink a move by the Avatar, and I decided to run him forward and activated Menoth's Gaze. The Centurion's wreck marker was in the way but I still had enough room to get in melee with Stryker. I activated the Vassal and gave the Avatar an extra attack. We played "you can use focus at anytime" and the Avatar boosted to hit and boosted damage. Even with Invicibility up, with a infused Avatar, I ended up doing 14 damage to Stryker. My only hope to finish him off was with the High Reclaimer using ashes to ashes. I ended up boosting my damage roll and needed 13 to finish him and got a whopping 14. That was game.

bluecardinal's thoughts

There were two units that really stood out, Bastions and the Choir. First off the Bastions, while they have PS 12 weapon masters, their damage output wasn't that great. They more than made up for it in their staying power. Being able to withstand so much damage was great and not being able to be trampled, even better. At one point, I thought my Guardian was going to get disrupted by a Stormsmith but he elected to go for the Bastions instead.

The choir are self explanatory and in the end, I think I had too many threats going that he forgot to take them out. I'm still interested in proxying Herne & Jonne, just because I thought I would have a lot more squishy troops to fight against. Plus, I played them very poorly and they deserve another chance to do something. In the end, it was a great game for me but not so much for the Cpt. I think the game would've been drastically different if he would've trampled my TFG. This one move alone might have made the difference.

CptCalvinus' thoughts

I'm disappointed in my melee jacks, mostly because I didn't use them the way I should. I tried to keep the THead separate from the other three heavies, because I wanted to use his pulse to wipe out troops. 6 inches doesn't go far enough, especially staying out of the way of reach troops. I should have been less afraid of hitting my own jacks with the POW 12 attack. That way, I can use Ol Rowdy and the Centurion as front line jacks, with the THead behind, ready to get into melee if needed. Too much of my strategy this game was about dividing up my forces. I think the key to heavy survivability is in bunching them together.

The 2 GMCAs worked well. I think that'll be a standard in every game from now on. The JW works nicely, and tying him to a Defender doesn't make his death a huge loss. The Defender is beefy enough without focus. Arlan, the Stormsmiths, and the THead are a good war party with their electric immunity, though it does prevent mobility on the THead to bunch them all together. And with 4 heavies, Ashes to Ashes has plenty of targets to kill my troops.

A battled Crusader

My first "Before and After" project is completed and I must say, I'm pretty satisfied with the end result. The Crusader, in my mind, is a really cool model so I was eager to re-paint him. This was my first time modeling and painting battle damage and I didn't realize how much small detail would incur during the paint job.

Here's his current incarnation.

Here's his old form.



















Unfortunately, I wasn't able to enter him into the No Quarter challenge and didn't use any oils when painting him. I simply ran out of time and didn't want to rush the model. Next up on the painting block is the Repenter. He's not going to get battle damage but I did manage to pick up a pot of Mechrite Red, a GW foundation paint. Hopefully, this will cut back on some of my long painting sessions.

Til next time...

Fun painting

I bought my Devout at the same time as my Guardian. It wasn't my favorite looking warjack but it was the staple of the Menoth army so I thought, I ought to buy the thing. It seems I'm constantly looking for a different pose or some way to give my models a little more character. This guy was no different, I decided to check out Brushthralls to see what they had to offer. Low and behold, they had this nice little article on how to repose your Devout.

Long story short, I had him posed and primed for well over four months. My Crusader project was put on hold because I let CptCalvinus borrow my pin vice set and I needed something to paint. This guy was waiting in the wings and was really fun to paint. I can't really explain it but it just was. It might have been the combination of painting two warcasters and an attachment the past couple months, and my need to start painting warjacks again. None the less, I enjoyed painting him and will probably get another one in the future.

Vassal - First Impression

If you don't know what Vassal is, I would point you to the following forum topic in the PP forums. Here is the description of it, straight from the thread, "Vassal is a game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games. It allows users to play in real time over a live Internet connection." The author of the thread explicitly states that is in no way a substitute for regular table top play at your FLGS.

My current situation in gaming is this, there's one LGS that's 25 minutes away with one other player besides me and CptCalvinus. It only does special orders and game nights are only on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There's another 2 stores that have game days that are an hour away. During this busy time of spring, with yard work, the business of being married, I don't have opportunities to visit these stores and play some games.

I decided to give Vassal a shot because it affords me the time to play Warmachine in a simulated enviroment, without having to spend a whole day doing it. It also gives me a chance to play against armies that I normally don't play against. Literally, I've only played against Cryx maybe five times and didn't really know what Cryx tricks were. Sure, I've heard about them but to actually play against them is another thing. This is by no means a substitute for real table top play, the fun in throwing down the dice is very fun in Geekville.

The first game I played was against pAsphyxious and Amon fell to Breath of Corruption. My opponent was a nice guy and initial reaction was good. It does take some time getting use to all of the hot keys but once you do, its plays pretty quickly. I'm finding myself playing a lot of Mangled Metal in the current MK II ruleset. It's been loads of fun and my third game was against eStryker, who gave Amon the dirt nap of a lifetime.

If you're going to try it out, remember its still the internet and there's always the potential for "that guy". You know the guy that ruins it for you. If you're ever on and want to play, look for me, bluecardinal.

edited for clarity sake...