Home Brew Terrain

I don't know about you guys but have you seen the price of terrain lately? I went into my LGS and they had these nice little sandbags for sale and they cost 20 bucks! Don't get me wrong, I like nice looking terrain and have thought about buying some but I'll stick to the home made walls and stuff. It's a little more affordable for us gaming geeks.

Then again, they're running a 20% everything in the store sale this Saturday so I might be picking up some to go on my desert terrain board. If anyone knows how to make sand bag walls, let me know.

Here's a nice ( I like to think it's nice ) blue wall I made. The concept was taken from No Quarter #16. If you don't have that issue, I highly recommend it for building good, cheap terrain.

Instead of using the pink insulation foam, I used two pieces of cork board and fitted them in a foamcore base. After that, I added some kitty litter to the front and then primed it black. The stone is Vallejo Sombre Grey. I currently only have two of these pieces as my terrain making goes in waves.

My next project is to finish two fairly large hills/cliffs to make a nice sand stone ravine. These should be finished in month or two, I'm thinking after I finish my Crusader.

Escalating to a 35 PC Game

We sat down Tuesday night to continue our MK II escalation campaign and raised the encounter level to 35 points. I would say that this would be the close equivalent to a 500 point game in the old point level and it allowed us to add a couple new models to our respective armies.

bluecardinal's army

High Reclaimer

*Crusader

Hierophant
TFG maximum w/ UA
Rhoven & Honor Guard
Gorman

Wracks

Paladin

Avatar
Deliverers for Cleansers

CptCalvinus' army

Stryker

*Centurion

*Lancer

Journeyman WC

*Hunter - played by a Talon

Squire - played by Nemo

Long Gunners decreased to a minimal unit

GMCA x 2 - one played by Caine

Stormsmiths x3

Unfortunately, we didn't take notes so this battle report won't be as descriptive as past ones. CptCalvinus wins the opening roll and decides to go second. Here is the current lay of the land with my Avatar on the right flank with the Paladin right next to him.

Round 1

Avatar gets 3 focus, activates Menoth's gaze and runs, the Paladin follows suit. One focus to the Crusader and he runs up. Everyone else runs up and then the HR decides to smoke it up....

CptCalvinus gives snipe to one of the GMCA, casts blur on the Centurion, Centurion and Lancer run up. The Hunter gets one focus from Jr. and takes a pop shot at the Avatar doing 4 damage to the right arm. Jr. puts arcane shield on Stryker and the stormsmiths advance looking to triangulate some peeps.

Round 2

For some reason or another, my TFG extend out of the HR's control area so the smoke only conceals them and doesn't block LOS. Deliverers, Crusader, and Rhoven move up. The HR moves up and throws some smoke. The Avatar gets 2 focus, activates Menoth's Gaze and runs close to the Centurion. The Paladin goes into Stone and Mortar stance behind the Avatar.

The El' Capitan upkeeps arcane shield, blur, and snipe. One GMCA takes Gorman to one health while one Stormsmith finishes the deal. A second Stormsmith disrupts the Crusader, the Hunter and Jr take some pop shots at the Avatar, doing more damage and the Centurion puts a serious dent in him. A flanking Stormsmith tries to run away but we remember Menoth's gaze and he fails to damage the Paladin with storm call. The Long Gunners stay put, forfeiting their movement to cancel out the concealed TFG. This wasn't good and they took out 5 TFG in the smoke. The Lancer moved up and Stryker started worrying that his little army of puny men would be crushed, so he feated. (awful joke I know)

Round 3

The remaining TFG charge the Lancer and do a little damage. Avatar rolls 2 for focus... sigh and does little damage to the Centurion but uses one focus for Menoth's gaze. I didn't want his GMCA flanking my HR. Rhoven and his two honor guards charge the Centurion and scratch his paint, better yet, they buffed his paint job and stared wonderfully at it. The HR gets 5 extra focus from the TFG getting picked a part and moves up to cast some spells. I miss the journeyman on 5 dice and I don't think it would've mattered. Some more smoke rolls into the playing mix and I think I have the Hunter's LOS blocked by smoke..... Deliverers move up and take out the one Stormsmith flanking my right with a Rocket Volley. The Paladin charges the Stormsmith on my right flank and does a bit of overkill. The Crusader walks up a bit, pondering the little things in life.

He upkeeps Arcane Shield, gives 3 focus to the Centurion and starts to decimate my army. The GMCA puts some damage on Rhoven's Honorguard, the Hunter is sitting in the smoke, so he has LOS to the Avatar. A big doh! on my part. He puts some really good damage on him and the Avatar is left with 4 boxes. The Centurion takes out Rhoven and his two Honor Guard and with his remaining focus, destroys the Avatar. The GMCA on my right takes out the Paladin and the other one shoots at the Crusader, doing minimal damage. I'm not sure what the Long Gunners did at this point. The remaining Stormsmith fails his skill check so no disrupting my Crusader. Stryker moves up and casts Arcane Blast on some TFG but misses... The Lancer misses his attacks on the TFG.

Round 4

HR gets 3 extra focus and things are looking pretty bleak for me but I try to rally my troops, unfortuantely, the HR doesn't know how to do that... The Crusader gets 3 focus and charges the Centurion, doing some ok damage and boxing the left arm. The Hierophant moves up and uses Harmonious Exhaltation and the HR moves up, casts Ashes to Ashes on the Journey again, boosted the hit roll, and missed again. The last focus is used to put a smoke right in front of him, something totally desperate but kind of funny in a ninja way. He then uses his feat and brings back 4 TFG, including the Officer, and they do some pretty decent damage to the Lancer. Deliverers move up and take out 3 Long Gunners and they pass the command check. HR prepares for the worst.

He doesn't upkeep anything and gives 2 or 3 on the Centurion. The Centurion beats down on the Crusader but doesn't box it. The one GMCA puts some good damage on the HR, the Journeyman charges the HR, passes his command check, and puts some good damage on the HR, leaving him with 2 life left. Stryker moves up and shoots the Crusader and disrupts it, casts arcane blast on the HR and missed...The Lancer didn't do anything because he didn't want to give me any souls. Smart move on his part.

Round 5

There's no soul tokens so I'm stuck with 5 focus and the Crusader is disrupted. What to do, what to do. The TFG disengage from the Lancer and try to walk over to Stryker for the CMA, ranked attack. All of them die save for the Officer and Standard Bearer. Oddly enough, the Officer hits with his attack and sets Stryker on fire but didn't do any damage. The Hierophant decides to charge the Journeyman, its a good joke I know, he whiffs. I cast immolation on the Journeyman, boosted to hit and got the hit. It was dice -2 and I couldn't afford to boost damage so it was only two dice. Thankfully, I got enough damage to box the Journyman. I measured my control area and Stryker was in range for a charge, even over the wreck marker. I'm not sure if CptCalvinus saw this one coming but it was my only shot. HR charges and needs a 10 to hit and rolls a 5, 3, and 2. He hits and Stryker takes 12 damage. I roll for one last attack and miss the attack roll.

It's his turn and I'm hoping badly that fire doesn't go out. This was the only way I was going to win it by seeing Stryker go down in flames. He rolls the dice and looky there, a 2. He wants Stryker to end the game, and I can't blame him. Stryker, for one reason or another, hasn't performed up to his task for him. He boosts his first attack, hits, and seals the deal. Finally a win for Stryker.

Post Game Analysis

I for one, am lacking a arc node and it really hurt in this game. I thought I could get a way with it but in the end, it was my downfall. His solos really shined for him and with me not being able to get to them, put me in a bad spot.

The Avatar is really good in MK II. There was no real support piece for him and he was still able to survie a couple of rounds of heavy fire and hitting. I'm thinking a vassal can follow him around and that extra attack would pay off. I was able to pull some focus off the wracks (didn't mention it in the report) but they ended up getting in the way. The Deliverers were a lot more accurate and I'll have to get them on the front line right away next time.

For CptCalvinus, he had a well balanced army. The solos alone, were enough to cause my army some serious problems. It wasn't reported at all, but he was able to use the Squire's reserve accumulator all 3 times. Both GMCAs excelled and I wonder if we'll see a new sculpt down the line? The Hunter didn't move the whole game but was able to wreck havock on my Avatar. Stryker's feat is still really fun to deal with. :)

Until next time....

Crusader Redo

With my Hierophant painted, Reznik now stands as my last warcaster to paint. I only have four of them(Reznik, Amon, High Reclaimer, and Kreoss) and I'm taking a break from Reznik to redo my original battlebox warjacks. The format is going to be "Before and After". Basically, it'll be a chance to show some improvements of my painting skills. I don't consider myself a great painter by any means, more so, this is a chance to encourage people to keep at it. The difference in a couple of years is pretty amazing.

The Crusader is first up on the chopping block and it's a good time to experiment with new painting techniques. Seeing how this model was purchased some two years ago, I won't be upset if things go badly. I'll be giving him a battle worn look and possibly entering him in the most recent No Quarter painting challenge. There's a nice article on how to use "Chalks Washes and Oil Paints" from Quixotic's blog, and I plan on trying out the oil paints for a good weathering effect.

Here is the current state of my Crusader.

As you can see, it really doesn't match my current scheme, save the same gory red being used. The big difference is the model was primed with white and I found out quickly, I can't paint white very well.

By weeks end, I should have the model stripped, primed, and ready to paint.

Mr. Details

I just finished my Hierophant a couple of nights ago and the little bugger has a lot of detail. So much so, I'm going to hold off on painting Rhoven and his boys. This guy took longer to paint then some of my warjacks if you can believe it. His base got some red paint on it and my touch up work was a little sloppy. This was my first attempt at wet blending as well and it was a little tricky at first, but not too bad.

The photos are a little dark because I took them just before sunset. You can see my beloved white cat in the background. There's nothing like a deaf white wonder...

My painting vow has now changed, I'm going to strip my Crusader, Repenter, and Revenger. Then I'm going to paint my Crusader. I'm tempted to enter the No Quarter challenge for battle damage as I have some ideas on how to make him look battle worn.

C & C welcome.

Stryker's thoughts......

"It was a rough place - the seediest dive on the wharf. Populated with every reject and cutthroat from Bombay to Calcutta. It's worse than Detroit."

Airplane anyone???

On a different note, CptCalvinus and I sat down this past Friday for our first MK II battle. We were anxiously awaiting the new rules and eager to get our first game in. Our original plan of playing a campaign in the old set of rules and then the new set, has faded quickly. I don't even think we'll ever go back to MK I.

With that said, here's our first 25 point battle using MK II. I swapped out Ruphert and put in a Paladin for a little more hard hitting power. CptCalvinus maxed his Long Gunners out and added in 3 stormsmiths.

High Reclaimer
*Crusader
Hierophant
TFG maximum w/ UA
Cleansers minimum unit
Rhoven & Honor Guard
Gorman
Wracks
Paladin

Stryker
*Centurion
*Lancer
Long Gunners maximum
Stormsmiths x 3
GMCA

CptCalvinus won the opening roll and decided to go first. Here's the deployment of both our forces.

Round 1

Stryker gives 1 focus to the Lancer and Centurion and they both run. He puts Arcane Shield on himself and casts Snipe on the GMCA. The Long Gunners and Stormsmiths run up, along with the GMCA

HR gives one focus to the Crusader and it runs up. TFG, Cleansers, and Rhoven run. Paladin advances and goes into Stone & Mortar. I should have run with the Paladin but I was a little worried he would get shot down pretty quick. Gorman moves up, throws some smoke. The HR moves up and throws even more smoke.

Round 2

He upkeeps snipe and Arcane Shield, two Stormsmiths take out two TFG, while the third puts damage on Guis. Stryker advances and casts Arcane Blast on the TFG Officer (I still want to call this guy the Preceptor) but misses. It deviates and does nothing, then shoots the TFG Officer. I put the Officer up front thinking he didn't have any wounds because it looked like the Standard bearer had a grid on the statcard, plus, I thought the unit kept ranked attacked and fire but I was wrong. Whoops! GMCA Shoots at Gorman and does 4 damage. LG move up and take out 2 Cleansers. HR gets a good 5 soul tokens.

Cleansers advance and spray 1 LG, killing him. TFG charge the Lancer and w/out ranked attack do 1 damage to him. Rhoven gives the run order and the two honor guards run to engage the GMCA. I could've charged him but I'm not sure if the unit leader has to have LOS to the target or if he just gives the charge order and then the guys charge. Gorman moves up and throws some more smoke. The HR moves up and casts A2A on the Centurion, takes out 2 Stormsmith, and puts 2 damage on Stryker

Round 3

He upkeeps Arcane Shield while dropping snipe. 2 focus to the Lancer and 3 to the Centurion. The Lancer decides to trample some TFG, we didn't realize that only heavies could trample but now we do. The Lancer takes out 4 TFG, misses the Paladin, and fails his extra attack on the Hierophant. Rhoven passes the command check for the TFG. Stormsmith takes out another TFG. The Centurion hits the Crusader with his shield, crits with his spear, and takes out or should I say, system failures the left arm and movement on the Crusader. GMCA moves out of melee with the Honor guard and dies to free strikes. Long Gunners stand still and take out Guiss and Cassian, and 5 Cleansers. Cleansers make their command check from Rhoven. Stryker retreats and shoots the Crusader, disrupting it.

HR has 11 focus for himself, Gorman advances and throws black oil on Stryker and it deviates on top of him and a Long Gunner. HR Feats and brings back 3 TFG, the Preceptor (Captain), and Guiss and Cassian. The HR moves out of melee with the Lancer and the free strike does nothing to him and misses the Hierophant. I cast 3 immolations on Stryker doing no damage, 3, and then 9. Rhoven gives the charge order and Guiss and Cassian make short work of Stryker.

CptCalvinus' thoughts

Had a lot of fun in this game. Stryker is tougher with his MAT increase, so he can get into melee with less fear. I made use of the Trample rules with the Lancer and managed to take out 4 TFG. New snipe allowed me to cast it and AS and still give each jack 1 focus to run in the first turn, so that was a plus. Spreading out the LGs in the new formation rules allows them to live longer, especially against Cleansers and Deliverers. I'm actually glad the Centurion's Polarity Field is a *action now. It makes me think about using it, especially whether it is worth it to forfeit my initial attacks to use it and buy additional melee attacks afterwards. In retrospect, I should have done this in the top of Round 3, since I was charged by the Paladin and a fully rejuvenated TFG Unit after HR's feat. He was still left standing though. We didn't have any terrain that could qualify as cover, so we didn't need to make any use of the new LOS rules. We got the updates just before the game began, but glancing through them, we felt that they made more sense. I was personally glad the moving in formation rule was vetoed.

Bluecardinal's thoughts

My original plan was to use the HR's new feat to good use. It can really catch the opponent off guard because there's a lot of different angles that one can come in from, plus they activate normally. The new formation rules help this out a lot and I hope to use in great effect. In fact, that's specifically why Rhoven and his Honor guard were in the list. You have to keep one of them alive but you can bring them back, behind enemy lines for a great charge. I'll have to double check the charge rules because I'm not sure if the leader of the unit has to have LOS to the target or if it's just a order and they charge whoever. These guys are getting a lot of tough love on the PP forums but they're going to be a auto include for my HR lists.

Another thing is the HR's spell list. It stayed the same for the most part but he lost soulstorm becoming an inherent ability. I like this but it doesn't help if he plans to go on the offensive. The only way to get it back is to goad my opponent into taking a free strike against some grunt. His sacrificial lamb spell, in my opinion, needs to be reduced to one focus. The crusader is a great choice for him because its a cheap, beatstick heavy. I'll normally cast A2A on him and with the Hierophant's "spiritual conduit" effect, it lets this become a 10" spell. Plus, he can always measure his control area to see if the Crusader is in range.

Wracks are really great but I found they got in the way of all the troops on the battlefield. Call me crazy, but I'm not sure if I'm going to bring them in the next game. Speaking of which, the next game is going to be a 35 points. I'm going to be adding one model and replacing one unit with another. Can you guess what it'll be? :-)

I'm planning on getting a Reckoner to go with Reznik/Amon and then it's going to be a second Crusader. For 6 points, it's really a bargain, then maybe a Dervish.