Painting Dwarves and Terminators... Not a lot of playing, but...

So, assembling and painting my rebuilt Rhulic force for Warmachine. Going with a Vallejo Green/Grey for most of the armor.  Pretty sure this was one of the WWII paints that I was using with my Flames of War US Airborne army for their webbing IIRC, but it works with the copper/bronze trim.  Need to come up with colors for the Shield Gunner shields, and some color to paint in the forward arc for the army.  The Blue I use for m Cygnar might be good, Royal or Regal Blue I think...  Goes well with the Copper.

Need to come up with a color scheme for my Forge Guard...  Not sure I want them to be the same as the rest of the lads.  On the box there is a scheme with half white and half green...  Maybe half the Grey Green?  Not so sure I will be OK with white.  The few Medics I've painted for my 30/40K forces were kind of a PITA with the white...

Artillery assembled as well, and the Warcasters are mostly done as well...  Well, assembled, and I have some paint on Gorten and Durgen at least.  Gorten is almost base coated, so could field now I think.  Heck, I have almost a full army ready to roll...  Have to admit I am surprised how quickly it is coming together...

With my Warhammer stuff, I have the Knight coming along slowly, Cataphractii almost done and I am deciding on whether or not to sell/trade off the Forgeworld Spartan...  Not sure I will ever get around to assembling it, so might be something to trade for the Rhulic Colossus...

Found one of my old partner decks and just out of curiosity I checked one of the random "we buy MtG" sites...  The deck was one I called a "Drop" deck with 4 Eureka and  4 Concordant Crossroads backed with loads of big trample creatures like Forces of Nature and Colossus of Sardinia (?)...  People are buying the Eureka card for something like $60...  Oh, and found my old Arabian Knights stuff...  Might be enough in the basement to buy the new(er) motorcycle, but I'll probably do something sensible like pay bills and pay down debt...

Heigh Ho! Wonder if the Rhulic Dwarves sing as they march... And 30K Legions mustering.

So, the gathering of the Dwarven Clans continues...  Just needing to complete a few more trades for actual Warjacks but I have the basis of the force in hand now...  Not assembled or painted yet, but I now have:

The Three Warcasters, Thor Steinhammer, Mortar Team, full unit of Forge Guard, full unit of Shield Gunners, with Brun and Lug are in the mail...  Not a bad start at all.  Not sure how many of the Heavy jacks I'll end up picking up, but have to admit more than a handful seems unlikely.  Like the Avalancher with the BFG class weapon, and the Rockham is a pretty devastating if extremely short ranged Jack...  Driller?  Slow, but tough.  Probably have to snag one just to have for the "Battle Box" builds and it is a decent "linebacker" to hang out near the Warcaster.  Probably needing 2-4 more of the Blaster/Gunner light Warjacks because they are pretty darn useful, and with my plan of making them with magnetized weapons swappers they will become my "general" use Warjacks...

Looks like I misread the Arcanists, and so will snag them ASAP.  For whatever reason I was thinking that they could ONLY cast their spells when they killed something in HtH making them "eh" at best, but being able to do that in addition, well...  Not so sure that the wee Rockbottom fig is needed, but he IS a Dwarf, so will probably snag one just to have him to round out some lists.

Looking at the Tier lists as the way this army becomes competitive,..  So, a cheap Solo for the General's force to get my Upkeep spells on at the beginning of the game and not having to pay for them on the first turn seems like a VERY good thing.  I think that if I play it right I could actually get an Alpha Strike type force that can put some real damage anywhere on the field on turn one before the other player can even react or cast spells.  NOT a friendly build, so I'll likely not use it myself, but the potential to do this exists, and I think that there are some forces that would be absolutely crippled if not just wiped off the field with a few well placed shots.  But I think all of the Seaforge stuff is quite strong, albeit not in the most obvious way.  I think Joe and I will play it differently, but there are going to be 2 Rhulic players locally...

So, in the Legion I have my next 5 Cataphract class Terminator Armor suits base coated...  Not sure if I will magnetize them since I now have so bloody many of them...  But with a 10 man squad and a Spartan I have that giant brick that I can just roll up the middle of the field...  The Spartan with all of the upgrades gets stupid hard to stop, especially when I can add the Techmarine and a Medic in the Squad...

Dark Eldar came out with...  Well, it was not really a bang.  Shame that Mike moved off to area 51 with his GK and DE forces.  There were MANY epic battles he and I had, kind of an Army Navy thing with him being former Navy and all...  But I do kind of wonder how he feels about it.  Guessing not so great because they kind of lost a lot of how he played them.  He was more of an Inquisition player with his GK, so guessing his Inq force is fine...  Hopefully his DE force will work out well...  But then, the DLC hits almost immediately to fill in some of the things that the $50 codex somehow just didn't have the room for...  Things like that are keeping me firmly away from 40K, especially with how completely packed the 30K books really are these days...  So, missing the League that starts tonight.  But not sure I'm ready to break out the Wolves again anytime soon.  Especially with my Seaforge coming along so well...

Gaming locally, Warmachine, STAW, and the jobs that support such activity :-)

So, got stomped into the ground last night playing Warmahordes…  Well, it was not REALLY that bad, the game itself was enjoyable, Karl is a fun opponent and it was just a horribly bad matchup for my aged Cygnar list.  LT Caine is not the caster I ever particularly enjoyed using, and with the almost complete reliance on “We Shoot Things” from a distance while we are on the move for a “run and gun” feel vs. a HtH list in a scenario where you simply lose if there is no model from your side in the 8” wide strip across the middle of the field at the end of any turn (starting on turn 3).  Not an instant lose from the beginning, but with the bulk of his forces hiding in instantly cast swamp terrain and thus immune to my shooting attacks combined with the feat of “everything is knocked down in my control area” to make all of my Defense meaningless…  J  Well, it cemented my decision that LT Caine will likely be relegated to shelf duty and never played again.  Too many other casters that would have actually done MUCH better and too much of the old (early MK1) stuff I have simply has no real chance in a modern environment.  I have had some fair amount of success with the “later” casters like CPT Kraye being Cavalry and immune to a lot of things that are “gotchas” dealing with the modern stuff and frankly ALL of the Hordes stuff.  The ability to never be Knocked Down and immunity to Free Strikes is huge.  The fact that his War Jacks are simply better as Cavalry than normal Jacks is a bonus.  Time I think to break out the dedicated HtH stuff for Cygnar.  The things I never used in MK1 because they were silly and OP?  Seems like they’ll be about right against some of the things I’m seeing now J…  Stormguard assuming I can find all ten of them will be a good solid “block” of Infantry until I can switch out to my Rhulic army.  Got the first two of my “new” (to me) “gun bunnies” assembled and ready to basecoat.  Plan is to magnetize the weapons as the two variants are the Gunner and Blaster with only the gun being different…  Top mounted and simple enough to swap, cannot imagine the Dwarves wouldn’t do this themselves being all about efficiency after all.

Finding the Feats are where the older and newer casters are simply built on two very different scales…  The older “REALLY OP” ones like Sorcha are actually toned down now and seem pretty much about equal in terms of power with a lot of the new ones.  The ones that were average or “eh” in the old game are really quite bad now….  LT Caine for example:  Can shoot everything.  Once each with his pistols.  So, it would be the absolute bane of a light Infantry force that for whatever reason decided to bum rush him and wound up with the bulk of their forces within 12” of him.  So…  Not likely to happen, certainly not more than once.  Compared to the “Everything is Frozen” within 12” or bringing back War Jacks/Beasts?  It is pretty obvious that some of the things have simply been overtaken and left far behind, especially in an era where you can shut down shooting or HtH pretty easily.  Or when your big ability affects only “Focus” or “War Jacks”…  Half of the game shrugs and ignores it.  I think the Rhulic casters (all three of them) are all at least beyond the point where the truly aged ones simply cannot easily compete, and so they will at the VERY least be interesting to play against some of the nastiness I see hitting the tables.  We’ll see I guess.

At the store, it was great seeing so many people playing…  Tom got his first win with a really nicely painted Khador force, saw: Gators (Hordes:Minions), Protectorate, Skorne, another Rhulic Merc force, Cryx, Everblight, more Khador, Trolls and some Circle IIRC…  I cannot remember them all offhand, but clearly the Warmachine/Hordes has come back locally at least.  Good to see, especially as I have zero interest being the “Press Ganger” again or running things if I can avoid it.  FAR more fun just playing the game for me.  Unfortunately at the same time it appears that STAW is dying along with 40K…  STAW overall seems a good system, they just clearly made some pretty serious…  Well, I’ll call them errors for lack of a better term.  The Gen Con fiasco hurt Wiz Kids credibility in a fairly major fashion.  Now they lost some good customers and lots more are simply not buying as much if at all.  Personally I think a lot of it is kind of overblown, and if WK had handled it better (sell to the people actually playing the bloody game, not the the speculators with dealer badges that got in before the normal badges, or just release them as a retail product…) would have been a non-issue.  But they seem to have taken a page from GW’s “Customer Service” manual and essentially assured themselves that their business model is superior and those silly peasants will get back in line soon enough to give their money to the Company.  I don’t know.  Looking at the shelves at the Gopher, lots of STAW ships there, OP attendance is bottomed out and not sure it will recover.  OTOH, the Star Wars ships are mostly sold out…  Seeing the same parallel with the Privateer Press stuff seeming to move quickly and the 40K/Fantasy stuff…  Well, not so much.  Heck, if I thought for an instant that I would get a good enough price for all of my 40K stuff I’d probably dump it myself.  Won’t happen, there are not many “collectors” out there looking for GW models from the late 80’s to late 90’s/early 2000’s where the bulk of mine were purchased looking realistically the overwhelming majority of what I have in the basement is just junk, along with my comics and random cards from the games I played back then…  Yes, some things like a VERY few of the Magic cards are worth a bunch, but the other 99%?  Fire hazard really J…

Initial rounds of trading have netted me the bulk of what I traded off, and store credit from one of those valuable MtG cards looks like it will get me a HUGE chunk of the way back to my Seaforge force in Warmachine.  So, just have to sell off a pair of motorcycles, likely a few random firearms and…  Hmmm.  Dunno.  I know my wife is far less comfortable with me riding the bike, but it is one of the few times I really get to relax and feel completely in control of my surroundings with the bulk of my attention occupied with actually riding the bike, etc…  So, we’ll see what happens long term there.  She wants a new vehicle, so I’ll likely inherit the Escape with the Ranger becoming the vehicle for the girls in a few years when they start driving.  Ideally, I’ll sell off my two bikes and get an older Goldwing…  Or the bikes AND a number of firearms go and I break down and get a much newer bike, maybe even one of those HD ones…  Never been a fan of any particular brand for the brand’s sake like a lot of HD fans, but they do make some nice bikes these days.  FAR more likely to go for something from Honda though as the price is more in line with what I could afford, etc…  And I REALLY prefer the shaft dive bikes to the chain, so…

Job front…  On one hand, things were moving nicely getting my line moved to reflect where I actually have been working the last 3+ years and getting my title, etc. correct for my new(ish) role in “IT Management”…  But then it stalled again.  Getting about to the FTSIOH level for me when I look realistically and find that I would have actually been making more had I simply “punched the clock” in Math for the last 4 years and not killed myself doing this.  And now there are some actual “Management” level jobs opening up North of Green in Engineering, so…  While I hate redoing my resume, it is I think time…

Cleaning up... Staw, WarmaHordes and the Basement of Doom (tm)

So, looking around…  Seems that the STAW group is dying off locally.  Darn shame, the game is overall quite good.  Yes, there are some stupidly overpowered units (ships and cards) and some combos that just break the game in silly ways…  The “Collective” OP events were certainly not helpful as they were clearly NOT play tested in anything like a realistic fashion.  But at a local level at least I think we’ve gotten around a lot of this by tending to play in a more “faction pure” fashion (not EVERY ship needs to be Captained by Jean Luc Picard).  The most recent one we played out last night.  No one actually beat the scenario.  The sheer stupidity of a 12 dice attack with re-rolls meant that the only ship to actually survive was one with a broken and silly combo on it (Weyoun/Varel to “discard Varel to cancel an attack, but Weyoun can disable to prevent the discard, re-enable and repeat as necessary”).  They still failed to actually kill the bloody Borg.  Last Month’s was actually a decent one, if a bit uninspiring…  Do as much damage with your Fleet before time runs out or you all die.  Not a whole lot of incentive to mess with each other, and the games were actually kind of interesting seeing just how much damage your Fleet COULD throw out if you build with only that in mind.  Yes J  I did a LOT better on that one…  But back on target, hoping to get in touch with some of the folks who have quit the game for various reasons and see if a few others might be interested in playing…  Scheduling is of course an issue as this is really a small (and currently dying) fringe game J…  But it really does not take up all that much space in the grand scheme…  So, I guess I start posting on the Facebook groups to see if interest and players cannot be drummed up…

Getting a lot more into Warmachine, and I have to say it is a much more interesting game for me at the moment than 40K.  Perhaps it is the perspective of taking several years off and coming back, but I honestly think that the system is far more balanced and the company producing it is FAR more responsive to issues of unbalance or questions/FAQ’s.  For the most part the local group is very low key and quite relaxed…  Always a few power gamers in just about every competitive group of course, and this is no exception.  But overall, WAY more fun, even when being smacked off the table by say, a Skorne build that was built for maximum efficiency…  Dusted off my Cygnar, but to be honest I am FAR more interested in the Rhulic (Dwarven) forces.  Traded them off when last I left the game…  Ironically for 40K stuff and Confrontation IIRC….  So now trading Confrontation stuff and Magic cards for the rebuilding efforts.  Surprisingly already a good part of the way there now.  Several “new” things since last I had this army, but overall a fairly small force, being Dwarves and all J…   Probably have to proxy some of the things like the Ogrun Assault Corps before dropping the $70 on what looks like it could very well be a mediocre unit at best for instance.  The Hammerhold Forge Guard (think plate armored Dwarves with two handed hammers), and will probably be on my “eventually” purchase list unless I can arrange a favorable trade, and the Colossal looks “neat”…  Saying that though, I am quite hesitant to drop that kind of money on a big “centerpiece” unit if it is not going to get played a whole lot.  I HAVE several of those already for 40K with the Imperial Knight being the only one that I suspect will ever really be one to see a LOT of play time.  The Spartan and Warhound class Titan are both VERY niche pieces that look nice, but really how often would I use them?  Yeah, almost never.  So, should anyone make a serious offer on the Spartan at least I would be VERY tempted to sell/trade it off since it is currently completely bare resin and unassembled.  Brun and Lug are headed my way thanks to some Confrontation Kelts, and I think that I have the basics for a pretty decent force after everything gets here…  Well, a fun force at least as I suspect that I will have some trouble dealing with some of the stuff out there.  But per my usual style, at the very least they’ll know they were in a fight as the Dwarves tend to die hard…

Basement cleaning continues, albeit slowly…  Still finding strange and sometimes interesting things down there.  Trying to get things organized and actually throw out some of the old and useless things these days.  Someday I actually hope to finish at least a big part of the basement as the workout room is pretty much just framed in, and laying down some sort of carpet type flooring and insulating/putting up a celling.  Been a LONG time since I worked in the “construction” area, and frankly I was never particularly good at it…  Built cabinets for a while and then houses between College and finding a real job thanks to one of my house mates (Steve) being a Foreman at a local construction company…  Pay was not great, work conditions were also “not great”, but WAY better (in both areas) than my time in the Army with the added bonus of fewer people actively trying to kill you.  But it kept me paying rent and you know, eating when times were pretty tough.  Took me some time to get some things figured out and frankly decompress into a VERY different reality being a civilian after…  Not really something I talk about, but it was such a stark and massive difference that I had a pretty hard time adjusting back to life here in Champaign/Urbana…  Probably took a LOT longer than it should have because I made a number of really poor choices, but made for some interesting stories I think J…  Just really needed a kick to get myself out of Joe’s (local bar where I worked), and back to “real life”.  J  And now things are so very different….  Amazing wife, kids and am moving into IT Management with a career that has lasted for 15 years here at the University alone…  Never would have thought it possible back then… :-)  All in all, things are going quite well...

STAW OP 3 tomorrow... And Warmachine being painted

So, going up against the Borg again for OP3...  Solid second place in this one, and I'm not really sure how well this scenario will play out.  Kind of depends on how competitive it becomes.  Cube CAN have a single attack of 12 dice against a single ship, re-rolling misses...  So, expect 9 hits/turn easily enough on the odd turns when my opponent controls the Cube.  Need something that might survive or at least outlast for the win. So, here's what I was thinking of running:

Fed Borg OP3 2

Resource: Flagship Independent (Romulan) (10)

USS Voyager (30)
Jean-Luc Picard (6)
Flagship (0)
Cheat Death (5)
Cheat Death (5)
Adm. James T. Kirk (5)
Montgomery Scott (5)
Hikaru Sulu (3)
Elizabeth Shelby (2)
Tom Paris (4)
Transphasic Torpedoes (10)
Multi-Adaptive Shields (5)
Ship SP: 80

Total Build SP: 90

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

Gives me 8 Defense Dice with re-rolls and at least 1 Battle Stations conversion, and of course with free BS...  Should get a decent number of hits when I attack, and I attack at Captain Skill 11 ("Ours Goes to 11")...  Faction (Federation) Pure and might be fun.  Not sure i will hold against a well built Borg but we'll see...

Slowly rebuilding my Rhulic Dwarves for Warmachine...  Some trades in the works and I;m almost half way back to what I had before stupidly trading them off.  Not a lot of casters, and being limited to the Dwarves and Ogres not a LOT of stuff altogether, but more than I can buy at once of course.  Now to get them painted up...

Motorcycles...  The Silverwing is working, Magna...  Well, not.  Anyone out there familiar with title issues in Illinois?  So, need to get that straight before I can sell it off of course....  Then probably look to sell the Silverwing and buy a Goldwing...  Probably in the 81-83 Range because I do not want to deal with a Stator issue on the 84-87 ones...  The look nice, but I really like the look of the 81-83's as well because they are really just the 4 cylinder version of the Silverwing that I otherwise like...  Just need the highway pegs and the bigger engine I think for more general riding.

So, the Wheel Turns Again :-)

So, cleaning the basement and doing a bit of painting…  Kind of sad in some ways cleaning up and packing away a bunch of things.  My Praetorian IG are all back in their ancient Chessex containers, and my Eldar are back in the GW cases…  Sadly, the Eldar no longer fit in the case, so perhaps a glass cased shelf?  Dunno.  Pretty sure it will be a while before I play 40K again so it may be a “deep storage” for them.  My Marines of various types are assembling in theory…  Cleared off a bunch of room on my painting table, just kind of depressing looking at all that “stuff” I am just packing away.  Not JUST 40K, I have a FoW force that I was painting up at various times…  Some of my old Divisions (8ID, 3AD and 82^nd Airborne), so was mostly nostalgia but it is a pretty solid game system…  Just not one I think translates well to “the tournament scene”…  And not a lot of local players/time for me to actually play so…

Resin Forge World Spartan that is not even a little assembled.  Not really sure, I may wind up selling It off, or putting my Wolves together as a 30K Legion.  Works pretty well as I had converted both of my ancient MKI Land Raiders to what was called the “Spartan” class back in the 90’s, so now they fit in as the “new” early series Land Raiders that the Legions can get.  Gives me 2 “Protos” class Land Raiders, the Spartan and then 2 of the “New” MKIII Land Raiders (Crusader and normal).  Wound up trading for a bunch of Terminator suits and picked up some of the Siege Breacher Troops, so I HAVE a bunch of 30K specific things…  Just not sure if anyone is actually playing the 30K stuff anymore, I assume that it would be “legal” for 40K play locally at least as it is actually FAR more balanced than 40K is at this point.  Kind of sad saying that out loud, the previously “silly and OP” branch is now the one doing the far better job balancing stuff…  And with GW going to what I consider a “subscription” model for their main game, I really do not relish the prospect of keeping up, and well…  I’m not.  So, have to make the choice of keeping what I have or getting rid of some/all of it.  Something to think about as I suspect dumping the lots would not get me much in return, and the wheel always seems to turn…  Guessing that someday I’ll be back playing 40K.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmOmAuhAQbE

Yeah, kind of silly, but the Mighty Mighty Bosstones are my favorite band, and so...

Speaking of trading, looking at trading off some of my old Confrontation minis for Privateer Press Rhulic Mercenaries (Dwarves mostly, some Ogres).  Feeling especially silly as I traded OFF my Rhulic army for 40K and probably Confrontation stuff years ago.  But I wound up with a LOT of the stuff as people locally left the game and I was the last gamer to move out of a shared house or two…  But starting from nothing again, and having an excellent trade reputation is isn’t too hard I think…  Will have to ping Dave to see if there is interest in some of the more interesting cards I found in random decks from the old “Joe’s Brewery MTG days”…  I had no idea how many more I would find packed away in boxes in the Basement of Doom ™…  But, guessing that I could get a decent restart that way if the Bartertown route fails…  Or if I just decide to get a bigger army (which is FAR more likely)…  Mercs are not really considered an OP army, but I’ve always had fun playing them, and seldom felt totally outclassed hitting the field with the Rhulic lads…  Toward the end of 1^st edition Warmachine, yes…  Things got pretty silly there with some outright stupid combos that killed any interest I had in playing the game, and I guess that is why it has taken me SO long to go back…  Well, that and the group we played with evaporated at that time as a LOT of us were just sick of it.  So, I moved back to 40K…  And the wheel turns again J…  Getting out once/week is pretty much the upper limit with real life and the family having priority of course J….

Journeyman League at the Gopher! Oh, and STAW in a few weeks...

So, made it through the first week of the league...  I played a modified or alternate version of the box set...

Lt Caine
Defender
Ironclad

So far was "Eh" at best...  Such a small force, with huge and glaring weaknesses.  Main one is of course a complete lack of HtH ability.  Anything that can get to me will simply crush poor LT Caine.  No gunfighter on this one, so he is just SOL should pretty much ANYTHING engage him.  So he got crushed by Joe's Gorten and Tim's Skorne monster.  Got lucky and was able to snipe Tom's caster, but I think another turn he would have been in charge range.

Next week we go to 15 points with the above models mandatory...  Since that comes to 10 points, I am pretty much stuck.  Almost all of my "Units" start at 6 points.  I'd not use the Ironclad if I had a choice I think...  So I guess I bring a few Solos like a Gun Mage CPT Adept and Journeyman perhaps?  Maybe the mechanic to repair stuff...

Big STAW event coming up, so getting ready...  Since I will not play Borg, I will I think bring a Federation ship to try to kill the Borg.  The Voyager is the only one at this point I think that can.  This is pretty well maxed out, and it is actually a higher CPT Skill than the 10 of the Borg...

Fed Borg OP3 2

Resource: Flagship Independent (Romulan) (10)

USS Voyager (30)
Jean-Luc Picard (6)
Flagship (0)
Cheat Death (5)
Cheat Death (5)
Adm. James T. Kirk (5)
Montgomery Scott (5)
Hikaru Sulu (3)
Elizabeth Shelby (2)
Tom Paris (4)
Transphasic Torpedoes (10)
Multi-Adaptive Shields (5)
Ship SP: 80

Total Build SP: 90

Generated by STAW Builder
http://www.dracossoftware.com/STAWHome.html

Every other turn I control the Cube, so I know it will NOT attack me (unless there are no ships in range but my own) and I can use Scott for an offensive punch (+2 Attack sice), and Sulu on the turns I need to defend.  On Defence, I have 8 dice with re-rolls and the free BS... Should net me a decent number of evades.  And then I have the 2 Cheat Death cards to play to buy an extra 3-4 turns.  Scott can repair shields to get the Multi-Adaptive Shields back online.  Only one shot with the Torpedoes, likely for the 12 dice, so I'll have to make that count against the 25 Hull cube that gets stronger as it takes Damage...  Still not sure this is a winnable scenario but this looks like the best chance I have.,