Every ending must have a start.

My resolution to paint (reduce) my pile of miniatures didn’t seem too daunting until I actually started looking at some numbers. I thought it might be wise to know what lies ahead and so took a tally of the stuff in my room.

This is just the stuff I have to hand and doesn’t include anything back at my old home in the loft and I have focused on games that I currently play or plan to relaunch during 2014.

• Batman Miniatures Game – 4
• Confrontation – 24
• Relics – 25
• Infinity – 22
• Hordes – 11
• Warmachine – 86
• Flames of War – 14 Bases of Infantry, 2 AT Guns, 2 Jeeps
• Warhammer Fantasy – An entire Vampire Counts Army – I couldn’t be bothered counting
• Warhammer 40k – 7 Marines, Necron Battleforce, Necron Lord, 3 Tomb Blades
• Malifaux – 12
• Dystopian Wars – 59
• Dreadball – 4

I think given we are currently playing Dreadball and Batman that these will be my focus (plus they have low model count).

Keep watching for news on how it goes.

Hordes – Gargantuans. Oh My.

Well, isn’t this a nice treat for a Friday.

Mountain King - Trollbloods Gargantuan.

I wonder what the next Hordes book is going to be called 😉

#Warmachine #Hordes Journeyman League – Thoughts and Doubts

There are only 3 weeks now until my LGS 4Tk Gaming starts its slightly modified, running for 8 weeks rather than 6, Journeyman league. I mentioned the league back in September but we are only just getting round to running it after our Infinity league.

For this league I have opted for the Searforge Commission  contract from the Mercenaries book. This means to start with I have to use Gorten Grundback, Driller and 3 Gunners – the contents of the old starter set.

I had already purchased 2 of the Gunners back in September and have now built Gorten and the Driller so just one more Gunner to go – hopefully picking him up tonight from a Searforge player with one spare.

Gorten and Driller

The trouble I am having is with the outlay that this league entail in such a short space of time. The contents of the Gorten starter are only 8pts so after week one I need to add 7pts to make it to the 15pts required. This will be Thor Steinhammer and a small unit of Horgenhold Forgeguard – in total about £32. Week 3 sees the jump to 25pts and I plan to include Brun and Lug, a 9pt unit, but that is another £25 and I am unsure how I feel about spending that much money in such a short space of time, finances being what they currently are. There is a week respite till the jump to 35pts where I will be adding an Ogrun Bokur, a model I already have waiting to be painted, and a Wroughthammer Rockram to go with Thor who is thankfully only £16.

I have no qualms paying to play my hobby, just a little uncertainty about the outlay in the timescale (oh, and the fact I need to paint).

Details of the basing and painting scheme in the next post along with some feedback on how the list plays hopefully.

Club Night @4tkgaming 20/9/11

Another Tuesday passes me by with a night spent at my LGS. Last night had me playing a 200pt Infinity game – Nomads (Me) vs Yu Jing (Rich). Rich is new to the game and it was hard seeing every dice roll go against him, rolling high when he needed low and vice-versa .

It did mean I broke my losing streak though so I don’t feel too bad.

There was a large game of Incursion going on which was cool, I love that game, although I had forgotten to take my MI-13 down – Lesson 1: I should stick things in my case when I agree to take them.

There was discussion about us running the Privateer Press Journeyman league in the New Year which a few changes to the official rules – will keep you updated on that one. I did purchase some Grundback Gunners ready though as I am adding Searforge to my Mercs.

Lastly, on the journey home the conversation turned to painting and I realised I haven’t painted anything for ages. This is quite frustrating as I was on a bit of a roll with the ‘Try Something New’ event. Going to pick a mini tonight and just paint it – hopefully this will spur me on to getting back in a routine.

Hopefully.

Glad I chose Circle

I still haven’t had much joy with Hordes. I tried Baldur with the Constructs which didn’t really do anything for me, I still prefer Mohsar.

When I chose Circle I wanted to play differently to my Warmachine Mercs list which is all 6 Focus casters, I fancied something more spell orientated.

I bought the constructs and Mohsar after reading the fluff in Metamorphosis when he meets Kreuger but it isn’t working for me in game terms. Maybe I need more beasts, maybe it just doesn’t play well at 15pts.

The pictures of the Celestial Fulcrum though have, for the time being, made me want to stick with Circle – at least I get a Battle Engine (unlike my poor Mercenaries).

Circle Orboros Battle Engine

 

I think it will be a long time before I am playing games that will fit one in though.

Woe-locks – #Hordes Issues

Last night was an eye opener in just how much I don’t know about Hordes. I am trying to build a small Circle Orboros force up starting at 15pts.

Last week I used Mohsar the Desertwalker and some constructs which wasn’t too bad but lacked the ability to heal the things and he is so high Fury that at 15pts it was hard to keep him charged up.

This week I tried Baldur and got my arse handed to me twice. My Woldwarden got killed both games by a Legion Heavy – Scythean and Carnivean – before he had a chance to do anything.

Is it just that Circle/Legion is a bad tie up; am I just a shocking player; does Dave, my opponent; know his army really well (even if he was using a new caster); will it play better at games of more than 15pts.

One of the things I love about gaming is thinking about how to overcome these issues – a problem solving exercise. I can’t afford to throw money at it so really have to learn my army and make careful choices.

I am sure there will be more moaning and whining before I am up to speed on the game though.

#miniaturemonday 29/8/11

I have been quiet I know. Exams, holidays and the like have thrown me off track and as such I haven’t done any painting but I thought I would share this instead.

My recent foray into Hordes has led to me playing a Circle force with, at present, Mohsar the Desertwalker as my Warlock. His fluff has him coming from the Bloodstone Marches and as such I wanted to base my army in that parched desert/salt flat look that you see.

I found this product in my LGS. Made by Ziterdes it seemed like it would be perfect for what I had in mind.

The contents consist of a squeezy bottle of priming liquid, a tub of paste and a speading tool (or lollipop stick if you will).

The instruction are on the backing card but are fairly simple. Apply primer, wait 30-50 minutes, apply paste and wait for it to dry.

Here are the results.

Primer

Paste Applied

One hour later

Fully dried

The thicker the paste is applied the wider the cracks that form apparently. I intend to paint it a reddish colour to represent the Bloodstone Marches but that is for another day.

#miniaturemonday 25/7/11

Miniature Monday is here again and I haven’t finished painting anything, my bike accident put paid to my ability to hold a brush properly for a few days.

I have though built my Circle Orboros 15pt list including the rather annoying Woldwarden. The arms on this mini are in such an annoying pose as seen on the studio model below.

All I did was move the left arm up more to give him a grabbing motion and cut the right arm with a bone saw followed by pinning back into place to look more like him creating a low fist.

The broken log under his foot was to give him a more upright position. I am quite happy with the way he has turned out and look forward to being able to apply some colour to my force.

Weekend Plans 22/7/11

Well it’s Friday and that means, if I stick to my plan, that I announce my hobby aims for the weekend.

Sadly a bit of an off on my bike has caused me some pain, cut up my hands and the like so I don’t know what I can achieve at all.

I was hoping to get a game in tonight as the wife is on a staff do but that is unlikely as well.

I have started gluing together my Circle 15pt force but have realised that I don’t have enough beasts to generate fury for Mohsar who is a Fury 8 warlock. Back to the drawing board with the list I think.

First Friday post is a bit of a duffer all in all…Arse.

Club Night @4tkgaming 19/7/11

This is the first Wednesday post about what went on at the club on Tuesday and will, hopefully, become a regular update.

Last night saw some Secrets of the Third Reich going on with new players being shown the ropes. I heard that the American player had a hard time putting down the Soviet zombie horde.

Plenty of Warmachine/Hordes was in play with three tables worth of games on the go at any one point. There doesn’t seem to be one faction that dominates in the club. Cryx seems to get slightly more love than most but it depends on who is down.

Finally there was Infinity. I had one game against Dave where we decided to just use a TAG and one other mini at 200pts. My Marut and a boarding shotgun toting Achilles against the Caskuda and a Charontid. Achilles ended up getting hit by E/M which wasn’t good in a game with no engineers but thankfully the Marut saved the day with some lucky BS rolls.

After that there was another ALEPH vs CA game with Jay’s Achilles/Myrmidon/Dasyu list against 200pts of CA which went ALEPHs way.

Finally we had a go on the club 40k City board using 250pt Yu Jing vs Nomads and I got hit bad. The bike troops that YJ have wiped out one side of the board with some excellent BS rolls from their Spitfires. My Chimera earned her points back – just need to learn how to use her properly. The game was won by Yu Jing in the end. It may have been close but it was always in their court.

A good night all in all, here’s hoping for more of the same next week.