Can I still post here?

 Yes, yes I can!

Is This Blog Dead?

I'll answer my own question: Not yet!  I'm going to be posting some WIP pictures of my new Earthbreaker.  The "metal bits" are airbrushed black, steel, silver.  The rest of it was airbrushed with a kit I bought for some WW2 American gear (an M24 Chaffee, Jeeps, M5 HMC, etc.) that I loved so much I decided that it should be my "dwarf scheme" if you will.  The kit is called AFV Painting System; US Army Olive Drab, Verde Oliva USA 78.402

It's got 6 paints in it, in order of application they are:
608 - US Olive Drab Primer
013 - Yellow Olive
016 - US Dark Green
043 - Olive Drab
044 - Light Grey/Green
522 - Satin Varnish (not applied to the mini)

Vallejo also makes similar sets for German, Russian and British tanks too in case you're interested.

Like I said it's a WIP and I took the photo on our dining room table so the quality of the lighting is off but still, that Earthbreaker is CRABTASTIC!

Back, From the Grave

Well not really as I'm neither dead nor am I playing undead but it has been quite a long time since I posted and quite a long time since I played WarmaHordes, well, I played again!

Jason and I got together last Tuesday at Total Escape, with both of us playing for the first time in a very long time.  I decided that I was going to play my professionally painted (by an award winning painter.  Seriously.  He's won awards.  And some of them are even for painting!) Legion and Jason decided that as he bought some new miniatures (!) he wanted to try out a new Circle army.

Arriving at the store, after a pit stop at the worlds worst Burger King for dinner, we noticed that the place was freakin' packed with gamers.  This is totally different than any other Tuesday we'd been there.  Sure there were three games of Bolt Action going on but there were also three other games of Warmachine.  We settled in to our half of one table, gamely ignoring the rising temperature and BO of those around us, and got to the serious business of having fun.  Consistently through the game we screwed powers and such up but that was pretty evenly distributed so I doubt the game was impacted too much in aggregate.

My army was:
pThagrosh
Typhon
Carnivean
Shredder
Swordmen
Blackfrost Shard
Forsaken

Jason's army was like:
Kromac
Warpwolf
Purebred Warpwolf
Stones w/ Keeper
Lord of the Feast
Ulna the Falconer
Razorwing Griffon
Scarsfell Griffon
min Farrow bone Grinders

Some substituting for Ulna there but shiny new Griffons on the prowl.

Thagrosh says "Smell the Glove" to Typhon!

Blackfrost in action, with the Carnivean lurking behind them.

Low quality picture but you can see we're swarming forward there.

Badly staged picture of Jason's guys on his right.

After we each ran forward I charged the LoF with the swordsmen (well 2 of them, the rest ran) and the one guy in contact managed to kill him.  The next turn Jason attacked my swordsmen with his Griffons and killed two of them.  On his right his white warpwolf with some bonus movement got into contact with Typhon and I forgot about Death Shroud, and Jason managed to kill him with his very last attack.  On my turn I activated the swordsmen and managed to kill one Griffon and left the other with two points so he ended up getting gorked by my fully charged Forsaken who blew off his fury and, in addition to killing the Griffon put some more hurt on the white warp wolf.  There was too much stuff between my Carnivean and the white warp wolf so Thagrosh killed it and feated bringing Typhon back as a meat shield between him and Kormac.  The Carnivean advanced and with boosted breath attacks managed to hurt no one.

 Before the end... and before I brought back Typhon

So Jason ended up beasting out Kormac and nearly killing Thagrosh but almost only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades!

Almost but not quite, two transfers left and still alive.

So on my activation Jason conceded defeat as both my beasts were alive and standing next to Kormac and Thagrosh was right there with them.  Fun times!

Pictures Found!

Apparently I have too many devices to keep track of which one I used to take pictures with versus which one I used to run War Room...  So here's some "snaps" as our non-existent readers from the UK might say.

Jason's Jacks and casters.

Jason's Troops

My Army

From the front, he's so tall!

Jason's army deployed. Stormblades, knights, and the rest.

After my first movement.  Everyone runs forward...

After my shooting.  You can see the lack of Stormblades there on the left, the Nyss just outside the "crater" that Siege made for his Long Gunners to hide in.  And you can see the cluster of knights, the guy I targeted is behind the Jack there and hard to see but you get the idea that there were lots of guys under the template and they were getting thrown back into the wall for even more damage.

Picking up after the sadly short game.

Guilt and Vanishing Pictures

Guilt and Vanishing Pictures indeed, so a few weeks ago Jason and I played at Total Escape, it was meant to be an epic 50 point battle for the history books but it really didn't turn out that way and to top it off my pictures of the game were deleted off of my tablet by person or persons unknown.  I describe it a bit, based on my memory my army was:

LVlad
Conquest
Uhlans
Outriders
Nyss with Valachev
Widowmaker Marksman
Harlan Versh

Jasons army was:
Siege
Reinhardt
Minuteman
Triumph
Ironclad
Journeyman Warcaster
Capt. Strangeways
Long Gunners
Stormblades
Precursor Knights
Piper of Ord

I deployed and went first, clustered up in the middle of the board so everyone is within 6" of Vlad for spells and then within his control area for Dash, Outriders on the left ran their measly 25", Conquest in the center ran 12" forward, the Nyss ran 14" forward, the rest ran into the space between the Outriders and the Conquest.  Going left to right I was over, near, and at, the center of the table.

Jason was tightly deployed in the center as well, ran the storm blades out front and spread out to cover most of his army.  Precursors were to their left rear (so close to the middle of his army) in shieldwall, the Long Gunners to their left ran into the 5" foxhole that Siege created for them.  The Ironclad to Sieges left Triumph to his right was just out of range of the Conquest.  the Minuteman and Strangeways were on his left and both ran forward.

My turn, my marksman shot and killed Strangeways stranding his Minuteman with no focus and out of Sieges control area.  The Nyss advanced, were Zyphered 3" more, and shot into the edge of the Stormblades killing only two.  The Outriders advanced 9", sprayed the Stormblades killing all but 2 of them and killing the Piper as well.  They then moved 5" further forward to get into spray range of Siege et al next turn.  The Conquest  was too far away to charge so he walked forward 6" and fired his main guns targeting the Knight at the end of their line, that Knight happened to also be close to Siege, Reinhardt, and the Ironclad. DEF13 knight, boost to hit, dice 4, 3, 3 = Critical Devastation.

We put the 4" template out and 7 of the 12 knights, Siege, Reinhardt, the Ironclad, and one of the surviving stormblades were all under it with the  Reinhardt and the Ironclad also being also thrown back into a wall.  Before rolling damage Jason threw in the towel as I had two more focus to boost damage and his plan to take out my Conquest was in tatters as it relied on all of those guys being up and functional and even with bad rolls on my part he was convinced that it wasn't going to happen.

I felt very guilty about it as he only got to move once and then lost nearly half his army.

Pre-Game Photos

I'm scheduled to play my first 50 point battle in nine or so hours and, while I plan on doing a post about that battle, I have something old and something new to post.  The old guys are my Nyss Hunters that I painted eight or nine months ago and have used in two battles but that I've never posted a picture of.  The new guys are my Assault Kommando's that I used in the battle of shame and finished up last week.  They're the last Khador unit that needed to paint, all the unpainted guys that I have now are Solo's, two more WG Rocketeers, and my pile of Legion some of which I sent to my great friend Craig to paint for me.  I might have to start working on the rest of them as I'm nearly out of other stuff to paint and we can't have that!

Something Old

I'm not now, nor have I ever been, happy with their skin, I don't like the official "blue skin" color scheme and their skin was actually my first attempt at using a glaze and it's safe to say it failed spectacularly!  I'm comforted by the fact that they look really bad close up but on the table they're not that bad.  Their black armor I painted using only black wash, I put about four coats on over time and that turned out pretty well, that technique pretty much made them auto highlighted and shaded.  I did the same thing with purple wash for their belts and sashes.

Something New

And Assault Kommando's, they're ok I suppose, nothing great and nothing bad.  Sort of like what they are in the game come to think of it.  I hope that they come out with an officer & standard UA or a AK Kovnik solo for them to push them into relevance.  Like I said in my battle report the gas is, in my opinion, worth while against Hordes but there are so many lists that it won't help against that you're essentially buying them for the flamethrowers and the tons of dice they can roll under Assault and Battery.

Nearly a Charge of the Horse Lords

So another battle post, which as we all know, is merely a vehicle to show my guys on the table.  Jason and I met up at Total Escape Games in Broomfield, great store BTW, and he played his Dr. Porkulus list again.  I faced him with the guys that I've been working on, LVlad, Drago, Uhlans, Outriders, Nyss and Valachev.  I showed up late, won the roll, and went first.

Most of Jason's guys (the rest hidden by those tree's over there on the right) and showing the "ammo dump" marker we used.  The other two objectives were marked with Man-o-War Shocktroopers so don't freak out when you see them later on.

My whole army.  Kinda small in size... they're all grouped up so Vlad can activate first, cast spells (Infernal Machine on Drago, Hand of Fate on the Outriders, and Dash) advance and keep everyone in his control area so when they activate everyone gets the bonus inch of movement.

Profile shot of Drago looking down my line and showing the Shocktrooper markers.  I asked if they had any of the objective miniatures but they didn't and so we improvised.  As you can see the Outriders, faced as they were by all three of Jason's Warhogs, moved their 25" into the left center of the table by the Nyss.  Ah Super Movement, is there anything you can't do?

Jason advances, I'm sure someone over there in the pigs shouted out "Take the high ground!" and it was done!

The end of my second turn, Vlad activated, moved to the left, cast Dash, the Nyss advanced, got Zyphered another 3", so with their total of 11" moved they then rained down CRA's into the pigs with guns and shot them up pretty good even though they were dug in and thus harder to hit.  The Outriders moved forward their 10" (Dash!), sprayed the guys off the High Ground, and killed a few more of the pig gunners, then moved back 5".  I could get to like this, I'm thinking to myself!

A close of of the situation, Jason thinking "What am I going to do about this? And why am I not playing Cignar?"

Jasons Warbeasts heading towards the ammo dumps with Porkulus lurking in the trees with evil in his heart.  So Jasons beasts are getting closer but they're not close enough for me to charge them even with the extra movement and reach. So I try and line up for the next turn when they're sure to be. 

As you can see I made A Mistake, in order to get the benefit of Vlads feat he has to activate before the Uhlans but I was paranoid about the war hogs getting a path to him so I put him in back and put too many Uhlans between him and the enemy and that hosed me next turn.  The Second Mistake was charging the Nyss into the surviving gun pigs, that took them out to the side and make sure that they were at turn away from the decision in the middle.  They killed almost all of them but still it wasn't worth it.

You can see the Outrider on the hill, the rest of them (he'd killed one) are behind the hill closing in on the soft and squishy Porkulus.  Jason decided that he needed to get stuck in and win on VP's, so he destroyed his target ammo dump and got the other two Warhogs into the middle VP area, destroying that dump as well.  He cast Crippling Grasp on the Outriders (pretty much making them ineffective as they can't do special attacks and that's what the spray is) killed two more of them, and killed a Nyss with the last of the pig gunners.

Since, due to the wall of Uhlans in the way, I couldn't Feat and charge with Vlad then follow up with the Uhlans and Drago I had to charge with the Uhlans first.  They did a decent job, only one of them missed his charge attack roll and they managed to beat the two Hogs in the center down to ~6 points each.  Drago charged one, and I nearly needed the focus I put on him to kill the Hog as my damage rolls were for crap even with the bond letting me roll three and keep two.

Vlad charged in and killed the other one, camping 5 focus and having a blood marker for the living Warhog he killed making his armor a respectable 23.  The Third Mistake was stopping him about .5mm outside the zone thus giving me only one point and giving Jason a chance to win the game if he could get Porkulus into the zone and kill Drago and the three Uhlans in it.

Jason activated Porkulus first, Feated, which allowed the surviving Warhog to charge and attack, he was about 1/2 inch short on the charge but that gave him the movement to get there on his activation, cast Crippling Grasp on the Uhlans and moved into the area after failing with one of two damaging spells.  That failure made it a moot point, he couldn't kill everyone in the zone but we diced it out, the Warhog killed the two Uhlans and Drago (his damage dice were very kind to him).  But he was undone.

Vlad pranced over and killed Porkulus with the second of his two attacks.

So, my take from this is Speed Kills!  And absolute speed kills absolutely.  Or something, in any event I had fun and got to play with the horses.