Iron Dice and Bloody Paint

Good tidings to you my fellow gamers and welcome back to another exciting (maybe?) post by yours truly!  As usual, I hope things are going well for your all in your lives and I hope whatever progress is being made in your hobby life is going better than expected.  Today’s ramblings are a bit of a mix between your usual “this is my update lulz” dashed in with some talk about recent games I’ve had.  So let’s get on with it!

It's a good day when you have updates AND games to talk about!

Since the start of the New Year I’ve finally adjusted myself proper to the new work schedule, which is a normal routine one, and as a result, I’ve been able to get some regular painting in.  I’m not a fan of making hard deadlines like “in three weeks I’ll paint a whole army” because I can’t predict what will happen in life.  Instead, the approach I’ve gone with has been “try to do something each day because some progress is better than no progress.”  With that motto, I’ve got to say I’ve been able to get some progress in!  For one I am almost done with my Gates of Antares Algoryn army with only 4 vehicles and 20 troopers left before having a fully painted (i.e. until I get more models) force.  I’ve had to divert some of my attention away, however, due to more pressing events in terms of gaming and commitments.

Most of the Dust Reaper force, for more info check them out here.

If you’ve been reading this for a while you’ll probably remember that I put Warmahordes on the backburner as it was just not the game focus at the time.  Since the release of Mk3 I’ve not had a lot of incentive to go back and with the community changes PP had (i.e. getting rid of pressgangers and the implementing of CID), it felt that the focus of the game was slanted more towards tournament players.  Recently we’ve had a local resurgence of the game and the old fires have started kindling again.  We’ve had a total of 30+ players join this shindig, myself included, and we’re going with an alternative setup with the Journeyman League rules.  With this run, I’ve decided to refocus one the Warmachine side of things and I’m going with the undead forces of Cryx!

Old color scheme

New color scheme!

Since we’re not doing weeks per se but rather 4-week cycles it’s taken a lot of pressure off of me to rush and get games in like a madman.  It’s also helped me with the painting portion as I can take some time working on models instead of rushing as I have in the past.  Unfortunately, my color scheme idea has changed from my original run with Cryx and so I’ve had to strip a lot of models, but that is ok with me as it saves me some money and time assembling.  For my initial battlegroup, I decided to stick with a simple choice and picked up Bane Witch Agathia and her battlegroup in the Mk3 starter box.  We had the option of picking our own battlegroups but truthfully I didn’t care enough at the time to bother with it.  One caveat I will need to keep in mind with the league is that our lists do not change at all, so whatever I choose to take in the upcoming cycles will stick with me for the whole league.

75 pt game Asphyxious2 vs Elara2

As I said I managed to get some games in with some of the other leaguers and they’ve been great to game with.  Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of my matches with them, but I have some when I played against my wife (which after hearing about the league games wanted to get one in herself).  Last Saturday I was able to get a total of 5 league games in and got some decent practice with Agathia as a warcaster.  Her battlegroup consisted of a Slayer, Reaper, and Deathripper.  Considering my loadout my general starting strategy would be to put Parasite on a target, drag it out with the Reaper, and then finish it off with a Slayer.  If I was lucky to put Parasite the turn before, then if need be I could further debuff ARM with Agathia’s Dark Shroud for a nasty -5 to the stat.  Most of my games didn’t really follow through with this strategy but that was my initial plan at the very least.  If I won the roll-off I generally chose to go second so I could react to my opponents, a strategy I’m not sure

 

After 1st turn move my right side is under attack with her Myrmidon's and I'm taking a beating from Imperatus, while on my left side her infantry fall to the combined might of my Mechanithralls and spell slinging Gaspy (who sucks up those souls).

Another round of engaged combat and her jacks put many of my troops back into the ground while the Satyxis Gunslingers sneak around the side and help clear out more infantry.  Gaspy is getting ready to pop his feat down below.

I started off the day playing a game with Jared and his Mk3 Legion battlegroup.  Despite the nerf to Shredders, they hit pretty hard against Cryx’s paper-thin armor (also not helped by Jared’s great dice rolling) and so I had to rely on my Reaper’s harpoon drag to pull his beasts out from position and take them down bit by bit until I could charge in for the assassination.  My next game was against Cody and his Mk2 Skorne starter battlegroup.  Cody had some great placement for his models and if he hadn’t told me he was a new player then I wouldn’t have thought he was.  Unfortunately, the dice were really against him and both of his Cyclops’ charges failed terribly leaving him wide open for the counter-attack and refocus onto his Gladiator and caster for the second win.  My third game was with Mark and his Mk3 Khador starter box, a matchup I was concerned about due to Khador’s high damage output and my terrible armor.  Unfortunately for Mark a Parasited Juggernaut combined with some lucky damage rolls (a combo-striking Slayer with triple 6’s on the damage roll for example) took his jack out before he could get some mileage out of him.  With one less jack, I was able to maneuver around more freely and eventually I was able to charge Kozlov for an assassination win.  My fourth game was against Tom and his Mercenaries Magnus battlegroup, which was a hard-fought battle.  I went with an aggressive move and ran up towards mid-field cover, popping my feat early to take advantage of the stealth it brought.  Tom just wait the feat turn out and in the following turn blasted my jacks out of cover.  He was able to take apart my battlegroup easily with his high P+S and my low ARM, so I had a desperate gamble to try and snatch victory.  I charged with Agathia and plinked his health down 3 pts, then 3 pts, then 2pts, and with dice -3 for damage I needed boxcars to pull it off.  Luck was with me because boxcars it was and just barely did I manage to secure victory!  My last game was a rematch with Cody and this time he was more prepared for my battlegroup’s shenanigans.  His charges were more successful this time around so I lost some key momentum to maneuver around for a warlock kill.  Due to losing my Deathripper and Slayer, I did not have enough activations left to take advantage of an opening to Morghul, and so in his following turn, Cody was able to secure the victory against me.  Overall 4W-1L was not a bad way to get back into WM/H, and the opponents were all great gents so truly that was the best part.

After Gaspy's feat turn I chunked her Manticore and took out Imperatus but I didn't have enough activations left to take Elara down.  She gambled on leaving melee as Elara only had 5 boxes left...

With all my free strikes missing by 1 each Elara was able to walk around my troops, got Marked for Death on Gaspy, and took him down for victory to the Retribution!  It was a good game overall.

As far as hobbying goes I am doing the bare minimum for my Cryx, not in terms of painting effort but in terms of numbers.  I still want to finish my Gates army and since I am also concurrently in an Age of Sigmar campaign I need to get my ghostly Ironjawz painted up.  So my plan is to paint what I need for the current cycle in the Journeyman League, and then paint something else up.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to balance the games out and get some overall progress done as needed.  I am also looking forward to some more games as well in the future, and hopefully, I’ll have pictures to go with the games I actually played.  That’s it, for now, gamers and I hope your dice run hot and your paint flows smooth!  Until next time, happy gaming!