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...

Trickster Dice for the Trickster God...

Oh, the joys of retrieving stuff from one's attic & other cupboards and storage facilities... ¬_¬

Anyway, after a Sunday morning (... yes I'm so on the ball, aren't I?) of rummaging around, I found these!

From the back: 'Quins the New; 'Quins the Old; and 'Quins the Even Older. -_-

Pity I don't have 'Quins the Ancient to round out my (still) unpainted collection. And *sigh* yes... I did buy two Solitaires for teh lulz... -__- Hell, I've ordered a(nother) Dark Elf Shadowblade to do a converted Great Harlequin... its absence from the codex: 'Quins being a source of mild disappointment for me... have I mentioned that already? Eh... never mind.

More importantly, however, is that I've acquired... moar daiss!!

Ten limited edition, Eldar Harlequin themed dice in an appropriately chequered tin...

Right... so far so relatively mundane as far as dice go, but there's a faint colour tint to them... blue for three on the left, green for three on the right and grey-ish for the lower four. Turn them around and it becomes more obvious:

Ooooo, shiny! -__-

Yes, I am one of they who are easily awed by six-sided objects that hold infinite promises of victory, ever to be disappointed, but who cares, 'cos they look pretty!

Uh... yeah... I think I'll be using them tomorrow for Mordheim of all things... which will be a relief for shaggy... according to him, these dice are cursed! Ironically, they were first used for WarMachine. Uh... *ahem*

Bye for now... *I know... must paint more* *ugh*

B.

Quin Fix

Right... uh...

Yeah...

Uh-huh...

Ehm... yes, well... I went and got the Codex: Harlequins... Troupe Master Edition 169/900... Dunno what on earth possessed me to get it, but I got it nonetheless, and that money is now lost to me. However, judging by today's events, I'm not too hard-up about it, considering delivery companies in the UK are getting increasingly questionable (Dark Sphere don't have their pre-orders even though today is the release date and GW had the SE stuff yesterday afternoon).

Still... even though 'Eavy Metal's quality doesn't look as good as it used to be (colours aren't as smooth as I remember them... in bygone years... *ahem*) there was quite a lot of good stuff in the TME codex: the codex in hardback with an different cover (Codex: Harlequins); the painting guide (also with a different cover) (The Warriors of the Laughing God); and all gameplay related tokens and cards (thirty-six tactical objective cards including the six Harlequin specific ones and twenty-one psychic power cards including the Harlequin specific Phantasmancy Discipline, the others being Telepathy & Daemonology (Sanctic), the latter of which I have little familiarity with) (The Gifts of Cegorach). The tactical objectives and psychic powers are all backed in plain black, but have a subtle shimmering of the characteristic Harlequin check. The objective markers are smoky grey/black plastic diamonds numbered one to six and with the Harlequin faction symbol on them. And to top it off... all the pages of the codex & painting guide are gilt edged... fancy! -_-

I spent a bit of today looking over the codex, and now that I know the army list in its entirety, the Harlequins can be summed up with a familiar phrase: glass sword. I'd say "glass cannon", but all their shooting is pretty short range. Veil of Tears would make long ranged shooting both troll-worthy (for the 'Quin player) and, perhaps appropriately, tear-inducing in the enemy player. 24" seems to be the magic distance in the army. I need to brush up on a lot of special rules and mechanisms, but from what I can tell, there are some downright dirty synergies to be had here. Such as the Mask of Secrets on a character (I'm thinking the Solitaire so it can bounce around like a drunk hippy) surrounded by a large bubble of Fear causing models. Yeah... CHARGE, hitting first on 3's... and in all likelihood going to be hit back on 5's. Rising Crescendo alone will be enough to have Tau, Marine and other shooty factions' players crying cheese... I wryly wonder to myself... they're Eldar... where's Battle Focus?! *ahem*

Anyway, the 'Quins will certainly hit fast (yeah, very fast) and pretty damned hard, too... Furious Charge combined with the sheer number of attacks a single Troupe would bring (on the charge, a minimum unit has no fewer than twenty-one attacks) will clear out most infantry. Points vs. points, I don't think there's any non-vehicle non-monstrous creature unit in the game that would be able to go toe to toe against the Harlequins when they've been charged by them, especially when the special weapons come in. Outside of close combat, though, the 'Quins are appropriately quite vulnerable with the thin protection of the Starweaver or the Shadowseer's powers (most notable the Veil and Dance of Shadows) to help keep them relatively unscathed until they get to bury various weapons in their hecklers' innards (hey, a thespian is permitted a reaction!).

The question is therefore, now, how to go about building a list to reduce the Troupe's general flaw in that a 5+ Inv save is usually not enough to see them through an encounter? At first blush, there's either the mechanised route (Starweavers galore); or the Shadowseer route (attach a Shadowseer to each max Troupe and cast the Veil every turn). That said, the Shadowseer is pretty spunky herself, striking at I7 S6 on the charge, wounding on 2's, with 5 attacks. And if she has Fog of Dreams up, whoever she's fighting against will be flailing impotently, so she likely won't need that 5+ Inv of hers.

The other major weakness I observe is that the Quins have no real way of dealing with Flyers or heavy armour. No Skyfire and an insufficient shot count means flyers are able to dart in and hit them, while there's only a smattering of Fusion Pistols and Haywire Cannons to deal with vehicles. We'll see where this leads.

Here for your entertainment... -__-

B.

A Butcher's Mortality...

Sunday just gone, after fawning over my new acquisitions... and wasting more money on some more of the space-clowns *ahem*... off to Tanelorn I went.

First game was Godslayer... and even though it was supposed to be battlebox with 160pts... Nigel wiped the floor with my Halodynes (using wave 2 Troglodytes, who are among the beardiest bunch of bastards going as far as I can tell... ¬_¬ ). Still, it was more to learn the rules than anything else, and three idiots (myself, Nigel and nepalese_ninja) were all sitting there like lemons at several points looking up rules about charges etc. all with our own copies of the rulebook. -_- As I say... learning the rules... sort of.

Anyway, main event of my afternoon was playing WarMachine against major_winters (Nick), who I'd never played before, and is the club's Menoth player, who would play Thyra more if she weren't so shit (his words not mine! Even if I agree...!). Oddly, though, he had these guys...

... instead. *shrug* OK, shaggy plays these hard bastards, so what's the worst that could happen... well... they were led by none other than...

... this ridiculous asshole wearing a cauldron on his belly. Yeah, Butcher3... toting 2 Kodiaks, Beast09 (another first for me... and major_winters as well, as it happened), Doom Reavers, Iron Fang Pikemen, Greylord Ternion a few other bits and pieces... and a puppy. Yeah, Butcher3, who already has two two-headed canines... decides to bring a puppy as well... 'cos why not and 1pt to burn... *sigh*

Anyway, I brought my usual tech with Kae. We had Close Quarters (I think) as the scenario, and I won the roll off, opting to go first. Up everything ran, though Eiryss2 had a pot shot (out of range) at the AD'ed Doom Reavers, while spellcasting of note was Phantom Hunter on the Banshee. Fine fine, the Khadorans ran back at me, the Doom Reavers tying up Eiryss in combat and seeing her run away. My turn 2 and Kae feated, Backlashed one of the Kodiaks, which promptly got pummelled by the Invictors, scratching the Butcher a bit. Eiryss rallied, but still had half a dozen Reavers leering at her. Nick's turn saw the 'Lashed Kodiak run away, the Pikemen shamble forward more while the Butcher himself ran helter skelter down the middle, popped Impending Doom and only managed to drag the unlucky Phoenix in and promptly saw it smacked to pieces. Granted, it needed Red Haze to accomplish it, but Nick's rolling was unfortunately... unfortunate (double one's to hit... next attack, triple ones to damage...) Left on one FOC, the ternion came up and dropped a few clouds to cover. No use... Banshee's boosted shot slammed the Butcher back into one of his Arguses killing it. Kae cycled Phantom Hunter to herself and nicked her opposite number's focus with a Runebolt shot, killed the second Argus with a double boosted Arcantrik Bolt (we rather belatedly realised it was engaged by the Halberdiers... and I forgot that Arcane Secrets expires on the first spell cast, doesn't matter what it is). The Invictors had been tied up by the fresh Kodiak, but enough were available for a grand CRA, and dealt the Butcher a fair shot to the face. Aiyana cast the Kiss and Holt finished the downed Khadoran with a buffed damage roll of nine.

So ends my first experience against Butcher3... and major_winters knowingly advised me that the next time we meet, he'll play something he knows... like eFeora!

...

Oh yeah, hey, mr2key, you like eFeora, too, dontcha?! =P

Anyway, here was the final position:

So... lesson of the day: sure I planned the assassination before Nick even cast Impending Doom, but damn, I royally buggered up the order of activation:

What I did: Banshee; Sylys; Kae; Invictors; Aiyana & Holt; (game over).

For maximum effect, I should've opened with the Banshee, as I actually did do, then have Aiyana cast the Kiss of Lyliss so that all subsequent damage is more effective (Holt's shots would never have that much impact by themselves, not against a caster with ARM like the Butcher's). Off of Arcane Secrets, the first spell cast had to be offensive... so the first target had to be the Argus (being a medium base with just small bases in the way, LOS not a problem), then cycle Phantom Hunter and plink off the Butcher's focus. Thankfully, back-up in the form of a pair (maybe 3 including the UA) of Halberdiers could've finished the Butcher off in a pinch (pop mini-feat, auto-hit with pretty high PS, it was kinda hard not to slice/dice him).

As for Nick... bring a Bokur... -_-

Until next time... and after more 'Quin painting...

B.

The Library's doors open again... pity your face gets shredded the next turn...!

Right... well... today's the day... or rather yesterday was, but this release is certainly less than 24hrs old, and I present:

Yah... the brand spanking new Eldar Harlequin's Solitaire with his (should be her!! SHOULD BE HER!!) cornucopia of special (silly) rules...

I got this sucker at about 3:30pm yesterday... started constructing at 5:30pm... and had seven layers of paint down by 6:30pm... yeah, I did something really strange... primed in metal, 'cos I was feeling... well, weird, though I guess that's nothing new. And here's another pic with an eighth layer of paint and better light...

Anyway, the model is great, easy to put together and mould lines were few and straightforward to get rid of. Only the sprue clumps for the Harlequin's Kiss were annoying, but eh... I'm crap at this sort of thing so I wasn't too fussed. For the model itself, top notch, dynamic pose (well duh) and a fluffy complement of kit/gear.

However, while I'm (by and large) psyked for the 'Quins release in general, my criticisms for the Solitaire in particular would be that I'm disappointed it's not a female, as most of the fluff I'm familiar with (thanks Gav Thorpe... ¬_¬ ) paints the Solitaire as a female. But eh... I'll live... hopefully not much else will, especially those bearing the Mark of Slaanesh (that includes you, too, shaggy, if you're reading this!), but the horns?! o.O Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight... Also, that weird shimmery diamond thingy that sticks onto the back of his coat, I kinda get what they were trying to do there, but it would've worked better if it extended to the entire hem. *shrug*

So, all in all... great model... but not a great Solitaire model.

More progress to follow... in less than a week, hopefully... -.-

B

Some undead... some more undead... and a couple of chaps with hats!

As a bit of a foil to riot's post (found here, curse me for not taking pictures... though given how I didn't have any painted minis... perhaps a good idea), here is the (Mis)-Adventures of the Blademasters... traitors to Naggaroth, outcasts from Ulthuan and Athel Loren, and drunken sots all!

So I'm playing Mordheim... yet another system... though I've got the minis, thanks to never properly starting Warhammer Fantasy Battle. For the first game, however, I was a lazy bastard and proxied a whole load of WarMachine minis in... yay me... -.-

Anyway, here we go with a brief tale of a chance encounter between elves, some ghouls, some zombies and Davy Crockett! Given a combination of silly camping, all round ribbing and bad luck, the elves didn't do much that was productive, hence the light tone. First attempt at tongue in cheek prose in a while... ah well...

Indolence...

*grin*

For two days I've effectively done absolutely nothing at work... managed to get away with spreading an hour's worth of work into eight... spent the rest of the time scribbling Trebbia (one 'b' or two??) or reading about it on the net. Oh, glee, got about five thousand words done. It's great sitting facing the entire office. However, might have made Sempronius look too much of a tosser. Never mind, wait for Sunday. *shrug*

St Christopher's is a nice place, it's got seats (!) and no need to shout all the time... ought to get a game or two in a couple months. (Reminds me... order Death Company.) Closer than B&C. Ah well, how to customize Dante...

Bubi

1500 pt suckiness

So, had my first shoot up in about 10 months... got kicked... absolutely kicked from one end of the table to the other over five turns... still drew though!! Granted, both JL & I were fighting over... our mobile phones... *yeesh* and him with a tournie army. Still... killed 2 Termies (including a TH/SS) in CC and a Land Raider with a single shot! Down... bitch!

And a big WTF to the madman who wrote the new Blood Angels codex... most codices need to be broken in a bit... this one came already broken (PS not a complaint... yet).

Anyway, probably won't get another one in for a bit... want to finish new Marine list first... joy...

Bubi

WH40K

So, what was it this time?

Well, yet more BS*f*G (Season 3, and man Jamie Bamber looks strange with the added weight) (note to self: why do I like gauntness in both sexes?!) (second note to self: not gaunt enough! lol *sigh*) (third note to self: still like Grace Park!!). And... TH/SS termies are absolutely awesome so I'm painting crap again. First Rhino's almost done. And it's all purple!! Who knows, maybe I'm a closet Slaaneshi! *ha*

Anyway, just re-read that chapter. I wrote several versions of a specific sketch where human reporters visit the state institute... all utter BS, so I'm wondering how in hell I'm going to get a plot out of this... *shrug* All I had was the concept and off it went... *sigh* Oh well... probably won't pursue it much since there isn't actually anything I can do with it, apart from chronicle our girl's rise through the ranks. Actually, I seem to remember it was more about our dear friend the descendant. *whack*

Cheh...

Bubi