Hobby Update - Legs!

Got the first unit done. Many of them will need me to go back and add some fur where the leggings are gapping, or just fill in around the bottom. But im happy and it wasnt as hard as I feared. 

WaaaghPACA! – Round 3 – Chris Walker – Warriors of Chaos

Chris and I have crossed paths before, though I have no idea where.  Maybe if I looked back in my blog I’d find that we’d played before.

This game was in the back room, where there were only 3 tables.  I was in this room the previous year for the same mission.  This way everyone gets to hear me sing, yuck (my singing, not them hearing it).

Deployment: Blood and Glory

In addition, the player with the least facial hair deploys first and the game ends should either army reach the breaking point of 2.

Man of Intrigue: Remember the fortitude generation listed above.  A wizard in the MoI unit may enhance a cast or dispel by singing during the roll (enhanced changes all rolls of 1 to 6, which can cause irresistible force, roll twice and apply both results).  Singing must be 15 seconds or more and cannot be used on bound spells.  Should you have no wizard, the MoI’s unit can cast a signature spell from any of the 8 lores as if a level 1 wizard, but must sing to cast it and any irresistible force causes the unit to take d6, S10 its instead of miscasting.

Scenario Points:

                  4 Points – Your opponent’s fortitude was broken

                  3 points – Win by 100 points

                  2 Points – Tie (within 100 points)

                  1 point – Lost by more than 100 points

                  0 points – You were broken

Objective (1 point): Sing exactly three times.

The List

Daemon Prince, Daemonic Flight, Level 4, Mark of Nurgle, Lore of Death, Warrior Bane, Charmed Shield, Dragonbane Gem, Soul Feeder, Scaled Skin

Exalted Hero, Mark/Disc/Third Eye of Tzeentch, BSB, Enchanted Shield, Talisman of Preservation

Chaos Chariot

Chaos Chariot

15 Warriors, mark of khorn, musician, banner, banner of rage (MoI)

5 Marauder Horseman, Mark of Slaanesh, musician, banner

4 Chaos Trolls

Hellcannon

3 Skullcrushers, musician, banner, ensorcelled weapons

Chris’s list has the same problem mine did.  With our only caster unable to go into our MoI unit, the only way we could score the bonus point was to have our caster die.  I offered pre-game to let him kill my wizard (but not the dragon) in exchange for him allowing me to kill his Prince so that we could both score.  He didn’t seem to interested and I can’t say I’d blame him.  I knew I needed to get into the warriors and take out that fortitude, and somehow figure out how to kill either the daemon price or the Skullcrushers (which I now knew was possible).

Also, since this was going to be a fortitude mission I knew that I needed to focus.  I wasn’t really worried about killing the warriors, but that BSB, Prince and Skullcrushers were going to give me problems.  I didn’t manage to kill Skullcrushers before, but I wasn’t positive I could do it again – and not with a daemon prince waiting to counter charge.  I decided first priority would be the warriors (and marauders of course) and that I would keep in mind fortuitous charges at the skullcrushers and BSB.

Magic

I took fireball and flaming sword.

Chris took Spirit Leech, Caress, Soul Blight and Doom and Darkness on his level 4.

Deployment

I went with my normal spread deployment on the fast cavalry.  I weighted the phoenix sort of on the left as they were across from my primary target of the warriors.  The dragon played the other side of the building to give him a second direction to look.

Chris played right in the center with only a little bit of chaff on the left flank.  He put his trolls in front of his warriors.

Turn 1 – Warriors of Chaos

Chis surprised me in the beginning by just marching up 12” with his trolls and 8” with his warriors.  Defiantly asking me to charge the trolls and overrun into the warriors.  I wasn’t really sure what to think.  The prince and the chariots were defiantly lining up for the counter charge should I take it.  Those warriors were a must have for me though, as they were worth 3 fortitude on their own.

Chris starts out with a 11/6 magic phase, and I know I’m in for a painful game.  A 3D caress is allowed on a phoenix and doesn’t do anything.  A 4D Doom and Darkness is dispelled.  A 2D irresistible forced spirit leech on a phoenix also does nothing and the miscast just takes the rest of the dice.

The hellcannon hits the right most phoenix and does 4 wounds.

Turn 1 – High Elves

My turn and I’m back to the dilemma of what to do with the warriors.  His spacing doesn’t allow me to fly over the trolls and the warriors, so I’m forced to either move around and effectively do nothing try to take the warriors head on.  Due to my only having to risk 2 fortitude in a chance to take 3 I decide to go for it.  I do make a mistake here.  What I should have done was charged 1 phoenix into the warriors to gain a second combat, but what I do is charge all three into the trolls.  Maybe at the time I considered it and decided the distance was too great, I can’t recall (24” automatically apart + 3-4” inches he deployed back -8” he moved forward means the warrior unit was probably 20ish inches away from phoenix).

I also try a long bomb by a reaver unit in the flank of a chariot.  I need a 12, but making it will lock the chariot out of the counter charge and the 5 pack wasn’t going to do anything else that turn but move.  The phoenixes all make it, but the reaver doesn’t.

I roll a 10/6 magic phase and thankfully get the 4+ wardsave as its going to be a rough game turn’s worth of combat.  I start with a 4D flaming sword onto reavers, which he allows and a 6D fireball which is dispelled.

In shooting I knock off the Prince’s charmed shield.

In combat my general only manages to do 1 wound, but then the phoenix do 6 wounds.  the trolls knock off my charmed shield and then get over run (with three phoenix overrunning into the warriors).

Turn 2 – Warriors of Chaos

Chris goes in with both chariots, but the one of the left fails.  He doesn’t go in with the Daemon Prince, probably because the right phoenix only has 1 wound left and he doesn’t want to reduce his magic.

An 11/6 magic phase justifies keeping the Prince free.  He starts with a 3D caress on the dragon rider, which I allow.  He does 4 hits and 2 wounds and kills my caster.  I sort of let this go off because I was looking for my wizard to die.  He wasn’t worth any points, and I still had the dragon.  What I wanted was to open my MoI unit to the mission and allow me to sing to cast signature spells and earn my +1 point.  What I didn’t expect was for the dragon to then fail its leadership and then roll unbreakable (and unable to move).  Not happy.  A 4D spirit leech is then dispelled and a 4D bubble soulblight fails.

The right phoenix dies to impact hits.  I then only kill 6 warriors and he holds on steadfast.

Turn 2 – High Elves

On the left I have two units of reavers tag team a chariot.

A magic phase of 8/4 has me 6D iceshard blizzard onto the warriors.  It is dispelled.  I sang “We didn’t start the fire…” by I think REM.

Shooting kills 1 of the fast cavalry.

In combat I wound and then chase down the chariot.  My general kills a warrior, the phoenixes only kill 1.  Each phoenix takes a wound and then I thunderstomp the unit to death.

Turn 3 – Warriors of Chaos

Left hanging back killing the warriors on my own turn, Chris goes in for the counter charges.  The Skullcrushers charge my general.  The last chariot and the Daemon Prince both charge the other phoenix but I flee to safety.  The chariot redirects to my general.  The marauder unit charges my MoI unit, and I flee.

A 7/5 magic phase sees a 3D irresistible soul blight on my general.  The miscast wounds the prince and takes 2 dice.  A 2D Doom and Darkness on the fleeing phoenix is dispelled.

Impact hits kill my rider (sad, now he can’t come back).  The phoenix is killed before getting to swing.

With 2 phoenix currently down I’m now 3/6 for come back.

Turn 3 – High Elves

My turn 3 and I’m hurting.  Thankfully, both of my fleeing units rally.

I sing my opponent happy birthday on a 5/4 magic phase and chuck all 5D at searing doom.  He dispels it.

I kill 1 marauder and put a wound on the last chariot during shooting.  I waste my breath weapon due to the hellcannon being in range and the monster table forcing me to use it.

Both Phoenix come back to life, the normal phoenix at full wounds and the general’s with 3.  Now 5/6 for come back.  Doesn’t recover me any fortitude though since the rider died before the mount.

Turn 4 – Warriors of Chaos

The hell cannon, which you may have noticed hadn’t been shooting, charges my dragon.  I don’t get this play.  The dragon couldn’t move and the cannon could have been trying to take out reavers, which had my fortitude.  A chariot charges reavers – I didn’t see this coming, because I didn’t see the hellcannon charging, so I guess I understand the WHY it charged, just not the why it moved up for 2 turns to be in the position to charge.  So I hold with the reavers, even though it means he will likely overrun into another.  He was still close enough to redirect so I didn’t want to flee both off the table.  Getting a turn may give me a chance to save myself.  The crushers hit a phoenix.

A 6/4 magic phase has him3D Spirit leech to kill a reaver.  I dispel caress on another.

The chariot blows through and goes into the other.  The phoenix takes 2 wounds and dies.  The dragon does a wound to tie the combat.

At the end of the turn the Phoenix comes back with 3 wounds to make me 6/7.

Turn 4 – High Elves

A phoenix charges the marauders in the rear, yay coming back!  I move around but don’t do much.

A 5/3 magic phase has me singing Smashing Pumpkins for a 5D Iceshard on the chariot, which he dispels.

Phoenix kills 2 marauders and the unit.  The chariot kills the dark riders and the cannon and dragon do nothing to each other.

Turn 5 – Warriors of Chaos

No charges, little movement.  A 7/5 magic phase has him throw two kills spells on a solo banner.  I dispel the first but the second gets through and kills the rider breaking me.

A great game.  Crazy that all three phoenix comes back.  If this had been a game for points I would have been up, but alas it wasn’t.  This is my fourth game with High Elves and only my first loss, so I was pleasantly surprised.  My goal going in was 2 wins, 2 losses and a draw (which is lower than my normal 3/2 goal).  I knew I was now out of anything (and probably was by not getting a 5 on round 1), but with the soft scores being so key, I knew I could easily place high – except that I still expected to lose 2 more games.

Sadly, I didn’t get to kill the daemon prince, and so Chris was only able to score a 4.  Though, if I had killed the prince I would have won so I guess Chris was ok with that.

Hobby Update - back on track

Chicken knights done but for the missing shields. That was the plan for tonight. 

Tomorrow, I think I will start the bolt thrower. Well, the platform… something simple I think. 

Hobby Update - 2 day miracle

Miricle is that I got stuff done 2 days in a row.

Got both of my orders done, bits and foam.

For some reason I was especially exhausted. I kept putting feet on the wrong side. 

Second unit mounted up and Im now ready for green stuffing. 

Tomorrow i will hopefully get the stormvermin mounted and nearly done. Their shields were included in the bits order.

Hobby Update - The Return

So as you've probably already realized I have been very bad and havent hobbied in the last three days. Fortunately I have the day off so I am going to be able to get a good amount done, I hope. The goal is to catch up on everything that I've missed over the last three days and hopefully get started on the plague monks mounting. I really need to get these guys done so that I can get working on the green stuff, as I still need to figure out I'm going to do it.

Wings on

Casters mounted with a very nice background. 

Legs

Mmm… movement trays

My desk was getting cluttered so I decided to get the trays done earlier in the process to keep things more organized. Blank spaces are for those characters. 

Switched around the order and added the cork. The order of the wolves will be finalized later in the process due to the cloth possibly taking enough space to factor in. 

They actually fit pretty well. 

Test look for riders. Its between more monks or stormvermin. Leaning towards stormvermin. Will be easier and I think makes more sense for chicken knights. 

And a units worth of plague monks ready to go onto the wolves. 

First unit mounted up

Went back and worked on the green stuff on the bugs. When I first did it i hadnt finished all the details because i wasnt sure where i was going to put the legs. Now that the legs are set I went back and filled in some more of the gaps. i also added a layer over the wing bulbs as I didnt like how the joint fit together. 

Just a little smoothing over. Here is a before and after. (Ish , i worked on it a little more. 

Goal for the next three days:

1. Mount last 8 monk riders

2. Mount, arm and head stormvermin

3. Figure out what third bolt thrower will be

4. Bits order

5. Foam order, going to have to be pluck. 

Friday i got a friend who has agreed to show me the cloth ropes. 

Contest of Champions – Round 1 Recap

Well, I think the event ran very smoothly.  We started early, every round started on time and we were only 10 minutes late on the final scores – mostly because we had a traffic jam of people at the top and needed to actually go down to the 4^th person for best general, and then only have a tiebreaker to determine that.

So congratulations to our winners:

Overall:  Joe Finlayson, playing High Elves (and reader)

Sportsman: Jeff James

General: Mike Carbone

Appearance: Sean Smaker

Player’s Choice: Micah Pierce

Wooden Spoon: Troy Perez

Most of those names should look familiar, as I think all but Jeff has been on the other end of a battle report at least once.

At Great Escape Games, we don’t have the same person winning more than one award, so I also want to acknowledge that Joe was top General.  The second place General was Jeff, who took Sportsmanship.  The third best General was Sean, who took Appearance which left the prize going to Mike, but only after a tiebreaker to beat out Greg Barret.  Jeff won sportsman ship only on the second tiebreaker to top Jesse Cuccia.  The other awards were easily taken by Sean, Micah and Troy.  Congrats.

The final standings are:

Player	Club	Army	Overall	Sports	General	Paint Award	Player's Choice	Wooden Spoon
Joe Finlayson	Redding Gamers	High Elf	108	32	52	26	0	57
Sean Smaker	Guns N' Warpstone	Lizardman	103	37	42	32	3	47
Greg Barrett	Guns N' Warpstone	Empire	98	34	40	27	2	45
Jeff James	N/A	High Elf	98	38	42	18	0	27
Van Nguyen	Guns N' Warpstone	Ogre Kingdom	92	35	35	15	2	35
Zach Brooks	Guns N' Warpstone	Bretonnia	92	36	35	13	1	35
Doc Glenboski	Powers of the North	Orcs and Goblins	89	36	31	23	0	31
Mike Carbone	Min Max	Dwarf	86	37	40	6	0	35
John Lee	Bizarro Hammer	Vampire	85	35	29	21	0	29
Darrell Grigsby	Min Max	Orcs and Goblins	84	35	30	19	0	30
Jesse Cuccia	Rogue	Bretonnia	79	38	19	16	1	19
Troy Perez	Guns N' Warpstone	Warrors of Chaos	79	36	22	12	2	7
Paul Kuehnert	Bizarro Hammer	Ogre Kingdom	77	37	36	0	0	31
Rhett Ussery	Rogue	Bretonnia	76	31	38	5	0	23
Steve Fox	Powers of the North	Warrors of Chaos	75	35	19	22	0	24
Drew Seagle	Minions of Mayhem	Warrors of Chaos	73	37	27	7	0	27
Henry Griep	Min Max	Chaos Dwarf	69	32	14	25	2	29
April Hall	Minions of Mayhem	Daemons of Chaos	66	34	27	1	0	32
Nick Adams	Bizarro Hammer	Warrors of Chaos	63	35	12	12	0	17
Micah Pierce	Min Max	High Elf	60	37	19	0	7	19

Only a 20 person turn out, which was disappointing, but it did seem some of the Modesto guys who usually come up, instead went to Las Vegas Open (where I hear they only had 24 on the fantasy side).

Based on my running of the event, I have now retooled my excel sheet to more easily include sorting and tiebreakers.  Basically, I just automated it all so that I just have to click buttons and enter data and not actually have to think of which fields I need.  Made things very smooth last time, and now without having to do all the sorting each time, should make it even smoother.  I still haven’t figured out a good way to automate the pairings, so I will have to be careful not to pair people with those they have already played.  Easy enough with 20 people, but I would want an upgrade before going to 60 and 5 rounds.

At Great Escape Games there is also a prize for the yearly winner, based only on Overall score.  I have already set up a page to keep track of that, and will start to include it after the April event.  I was also thinking of entering the event into RankingsHQ, and had already created the event.  I’m reconsidering now that he is again asking money from players.  I have no problem with him getting paid through sponsorship (where every player gets in), but feel that charging individuals for entry invalidates that system as players drop out.  So if he wants to charge, that’s his business and he can, but I think I will be choosing not to support it by uploading scores.

Now back to your regularly scheduled Waaaph!PACA battle reports and hobby updates… so behind on Adepticon.

Note:  I did include comment space on the after game/event sheets.  I however went to have a meeting with the store owner to review and that turned into him taking them and being too busy, so I can’t yet go over the feedback and therefore have no changes to make at this point.  I expect they will mostly be mission comments which I will try to keep in mind as I develop future missions.