Welcome!

Oh, I'm so going to have to change that...

Continue for the scribblings of a slightly (many will beg to differ) mad Englishman with an overactive imagination and nothing to lose (well, not much).

If you get stuck in the quicksand that is the insides of my head, good! Stay there and bask in the euphoria of my insanity.

(Yeesh, sorry, that sounds a bit flat, doesn't it?) Anyway, I hope some of you will be able to immerse yourself in the rubbish that I post.

Bye for now,

Bubi

Sunday 22 March 2015

First Medium Based Infantry Unit... w~hoo! ¬_¬

Oh, look, I have a blog! ¬_¬

Anyway, first time in a while I've done a battle report, and this time, as I promised shaggy during week, I threw him a curve ball. His other half had bought him some Iron Fang Pikemen and was giving them a run-out with pButcher. As for me, I had taken delivery of some new stuff on Friday and feverishly set about assembling them and half-painting them yesterday. -_-

What, you may ask? Well, shaggy estimated that my curve ball was going to be my colossal (Hyperion) and that I'd bring it in a tier list with Adeptis Rahn (Fires From on High) and the thought had crossed my mind, but the general consensus is that FFoH doesn't work so well at points limits below 50, so I gave him a rather obtuse answer and left him to think.

So, what then? Well, Lano had played against them... a little, in the past and this was the first time I'd taken them down at Tanelorn, which, it has to be said, was rather disappointing for its turn-out today, unfortunately. Four guys turned up and only one game took place, which was a pity. But never mind, I got my learning experience in, as did Jack with his new acquisitions.

And... am I going to answer the question? Well, eventually!

Ta-da~:


Still need to paint their muzzles and the rest of the fur on their cloaks... and their Poleaxes etc. etc. etc. but for a couple hours' work while playing Rome: Total War... not bad by my standards... *ahem*

Yes, so Circle Orboros, and PaulO screamed 'CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!' at me, but hey, at least I'm not chucking Bradigus/Wold War or eKrueger or Goatvahna... or Kromac HnR at shaggy. I was being nice... nice as in eKaya. -_-

Me being the silly phool that I am, forgot to take pics of the deployment. *sigh*

Anyway, a first for both of us:

Kaya, the Moonhunter (with her pet wolfie, Laris)


Kaya, the Moonhunter
Laris
Druid Wilder
Feral Warpwolf
Warpwolf Stalker
Rotterhorn Griffon
Shifting Stones
Warpborn Skinwalkers (max + Warpborn Alpha)

vs. Orsus Zoktavir, the Butcher-blahdi-blahdi-blah! =P


The Butcher
War Dog
Spriggan
Gorman, Rogue Alchemist
Kovnik Joe
Iron Fang Pikemen (max + UA)
Winter Guard Infantry (max, max Rocketeers + UA)
Widowmakers

We hearkened to olden times and played a mission out of SR-2013 because neither of us could be bothered to look up the 2015 edition and there was a hard copy of SR-2013 lying about... -_- (Incoming, with two zones and two objectives). Getting first turn but needing to set up with rough terrain on the left (Pathfinder galore, woohoo, Feral Warpwolf without, not so much, but he'd wade through it quickly enough) I set up my caster smack in the middle of the deployment zone, put Laris, then the Skinwalkers in a line on her left and the Druid Wilder on her left with the Rotterhorn further on. The rest of my force would AD (yeah, Call of the Wild tier 1 benefit, heavies get AD... wut?!), so over to shaggy. His pikemen went on his extreme right (on the other side of a forest), with the Spriggan on the near side in front of the Butcher, Gorman and the puppy. The WGDS rounded out the line. Back to me and the Stones set up in front of Kaya while the Wolves looked across from the Spriggan, while shaggy's marksmen set up shop on the hill in front of his control zone. Oh, and before we started, the Skinwalkers advance moved (tier 2 benefit) towards the Winter Guard.

And off we go. Kaya cast Shadow Pack & Forced Evolution on the Feral Warpwolf and everything ran, the Stones shifting forward and towards the right. Most of shaggy's force ran in response, but he took some speculative shots at the Skinwalkers (damn near everything else I had was Stealth'd). He outright killed one of them before he ended his turn with Gorman dropping a smoke screen around the Butcher.

Yay, Relentless Advance meant the Skinwalkers could charge and wreak havoc on the Winter Guard... with their DEF 12... with Bob 'n Weave... and Iron Flesh! DEF 17 made it annoying to do anything about, but amazingly, got two hits and cleaved a couple of the bearded buggers in twain. However... they forgot to take a drink afterwards (yeah, didn't kick Blood Drinker in). Then Kaya activated, cast Acceleration on the Druid Wilder, moved around the building and feated. Most of the beasts were now outside of CTRL range, but no matter. Feat negated it. The Stalker charged the pikemen with Berserk up and cleaned out five of them before zooming back to Kaya's side. The Feral went next and had to boost its speed to get close enough to the Spriggan to give it a clobber or six. Did respectable damage, but all of it was right down the middle of the 'jack's grid (more than half-damage dealt but no systems disabled). Laris chomped a pikeman as well while the Rotterhorn, stuck behind the building, could only run up. The Wilder then Conditioned the Feral and used Spirit Shift to have Kaya in shaggy's control zone to hopefully dominate next turn.

shaggy responded by running the pikemen into Kaya's zone to claim. The Spriggan waded in and poked two of the Skinwalkers to death, while the Winter Guard ambled around (one of them died to a free strike, at DEF 17 considering the model's points value... worth it!) and shot the Alpha, killing it with a couple CRA's.

Back to me and I actually made rather heavy work of winning it given that shaggy could have contested his zone to deny me the dominate (my bad, the Skinwalkers had no arc markings, but should have been alright in any event due to base size and proximity of the edge of the zone). The Skinwalkers took a few swipes at his objective, taking it down to 3. The heavies ran off to do stuff which was mostly unnecessary (the Feral managed a Sprint (from the Wilder) to contest Kaya's zone)... including (damn you, Lano for telling me about failed charges wrong! You're wrong for once!! Failed charge = Activation over, no side-swiping!) the Stalker getting nowhere near the WG UA. The Rotterhorn's shriek got rid of the nearest Khadorans from his zone while Laris finished his objective off. Kaya was still in the zone for the dominate, so 5-1 at the end of my third turn.

Thusly (a bad pic, but a pic nonetheless... -_- ):


An educational first go with eKaya... need to brush up on FURY arithmetic and permutations for the future, definitely. A couple games with and without the Gorax will see whether I need the cantankerous bastard or not!

B.

Sunday 1 March 2015

The Heroes' Path

Well, with the release of the Death Jester and Shadowseer today, it was rather obvious that I was going to acquire some... or a whole load... *ahem*

I took a bit of a risk when assembling the Death Jester (which was mildly annoying because of the way the top of his coat fits in place) because it'll be quite difficult to properly paint his trousers when fully assembled, but eh... I'm a poor painter at the best of times so it'll hardly matter. Either way, stonking model!

Herewith his fellow characters within the Masque:


For these three, I'll paint them all side by side and, hopefully, have them as a work in progress here (so long as I remain motivated to do so... chances are, I'll get suckered back by a new release for WarMachine... like yay! Moros is coming soon...! *ugh*). Moving on, both the Shadowseer and the Death Jester are pretty good sculpts, and personally, I consider them better than the Solitaire. The Death Jester is better than its metal/Finecast predecessor in particular, perched on a stone ruin, looking down at its next victim, his shrieker cannon held rather casually. The Shadowseer is also a great model as well, but isn't so different from its older version aside from the weapon option and the scenery. With pinky stuck out on her right hand, though, she's gloriously English!

Still, I like the lot, heroes old & new!


Now to let them make someone weep! -_-

For the hobby...(!)

Oh, the things we do for our hobbies...


And...


*ugh* Why do I do this?!

Anyway, X-Wing Miniatures' Scum & Villainy was released, Friday so I picked up the Most Wanted pack (because three ships, 2 Z-95 Headhunters and a Y-Wing, plus cards for six all for the price of two is a pretty good deal) and the StarViper (because it looks bizarrely cool). All told, the two expansions are pretty good. The colour scheme for the new faction-old ships is certainly more interesting than for the Rebels, while the StarViper brings in a new manoeuvre (3-slight-turn with a facing-flip, rather curious).

As for my Imperials, an interesting one is the Autothrusters Modification (long range/outside of firing arc evade buff) that'll mean that the Rebel large ships (Millennium Falcon and motley co...) will have a much harder time of it when being zapped by loads of Interceptors. Need to get a few games in again, though to check it out. As usual, though, the pilot abilities are a mixed bag, and there's a new add-on that looks to be intriguing.

And... back to the Harlequins...