The Lightning Will Strike Again...Promise!

Well, it seems the lull of waiting for Mark II has fully enveloped me. We're at the end of our League, the final week, and the last hurrah for 2009 and the old Mark I, and my blogging motivation has waned to the wee recesses of my life. Sorry about that.

But I did want to inform the readers out there that November is NaNoWriMo (or for the uninitiated, National Novel Writers Month). If you're interested you can check out their website here. I am putting aside all of my various interests and hobbies and pasttimes so that I can participate in this, and today was the first day. As you might imagine, it is a challenging month to try and write a complete (50,000 word) book. So if you were wondering what happened to Red at the end of October (doing plot notes and character sketches) and throughout the month of November, it's because I'm tucked quietly away, being obsessed with my writing. My NaNo profile can be found here. And if you happen to be a NaNo too, send me a buddy request!

See everyone in December!

Red

Long Lost Update

The final Call to Arms league is slow going this time. Participation is down, which is to be expected I suppose, given the imminent release of Mk II, and perhaps lack of desire to continue with Mark I. My own schedule has been thrown topsy-turvy, and I have only been able to get in one game so far; we are in week three of our league if that tells you anything. I was able to get in a 500 point game in week 2, when I noticed I had left most of my unit cards at home somewhere, so had to put together an all-beast Kaya list, which was a lot of fun. Mark brought a Xerxes list and I got subsequently trounced. Oh well.

On the modelling front, I have been primering like crazy. I want to get all of my Circle models and what Retribution models I have, all primed, so I can spend my winter months painting. The only place I have to prime is in my garage, and it will quickly become too cold in there to do it, so the rush is on!

The new pictures of the Caine sculpt and the Cyclone heavy cygnar warjack are posted on PP's front page, and all I can say is woo hoo! The anticipation of some Mark II Cygnar is almost unbearable, and I can't wait to paint the Cyclone. It is an awesome model.

I also love the idea of multiple sculpts of warcasters, and Caine's new one is sweet. I hear that pNemo is getting a resculpt as well, and that one is probably the warcaster (of Cygnar) who is most in need of one. His old model is sorely lacking in the quality the rest of the models have (remember I'm talking pNemo here; eNemo is freakin' awesome in the aesthetics dept), so I am eager to see what's in store for the old man's new look.

Still have the last Schism post to write and post. Until next time...

Red

Schism me this, part three...

So, as previously stated I was originally going to take my Circle models to the Schism event this past Saturday, but the closer the date got, and the more I began to read the Mark II Cygnar rules, the more I wanted to field the boys in blue again. Any ambitions of playing the tree huggers quickly vanished. I spent Friday night and Saturday morning finalizing the three lists I’d need to take, but this time refitting them for Cygnar. The warcasters I was most comfortable with using were Stryker, Haley, and Siege, and I tried to plan my lists accordingly.

Round One:

I showed up to the FLGS right on time and four people were already there and paired up. Lesson to me: show up a little early! Being the odd person (you may indeed interpret that however you wish), I was waiting either the end of one of the games so that I could cycle in, or wait for a sixth opponent to show up and begin our first round late. An odd number of players is not impossible to accomodate given that in the cycle of defending and attacking, people are constantly switching tables anyway.

As it happened, a sixth participant did show up and I got to play against a Vlad-led Khador list (not again!) and my designated first “A” list was my Siege list. The last time I used Siege I had beaten Airport’s Vlad army, and I knew once again I would have to strike during a time when Vlad was low on focus and did not have Wind Wall up.

Here’s my list…

Markus Siege Brisbane
Defender
Lancer
Squire
Reinholdt
Journeyman WC
Hunter
Stormsmith (1)
Black 13th
Precursor Knights (7) w/ UA
Trenchers (6) w/ UA

I really like this list as it has a smaller model count and only comes in at 24 VPs. As it would turn out, VPs would not be as important in this event though.


Here's a picture of Siege, the Squire, an inert Hunter (JWC had been taken out) surrounded by the Great Bears and MoW. Not a pretty end-game scenario...

My Precursors got into the thick of it as fast as I could get them, but were initially picked off by Widowmakers and then got engaged with the Kodiak. The Black 13th in turn picked off the Widowmakers but then got charged by the Great Bears, and, well, that was that. In the meantime I was able to get Siege, Reinholdt, and Squire close to center where Vlad was in my control range, popped off Higher Ground to elevate Vlad into my LOS, and gave him a double shot of rockets. It’s only now that I realize what went wrong. I forgot to use Siege’s feat (now I'm slapping my head in V-8 fashion). Of course Vlad lived through the barrage, and next turn Siege was besieged from the rear by the Great Bears…

This was my first tournament with timed rounds, however, and 10 minutes is hardly any time to move 750 points about on the table (I believe hardcore is 7 minutes and Steamroller either 12 or 14, right?). It was fast and furious and a boat-load of fun. I don’t feel too bad about missing Siege’s feat. My brain was a blur. The rationale, I believe, for having only 10 minutes is because the games themselves were not timed. Each of us played to completion, so timing the rounds kept things moving quickly.

Next, we broke for lunch while the judges examined the candidates for the painting contest. The only model I had to submit was Carvolo, and I don’t even have him detailed. Although he is based, he is still pretty roughly painted. If I had won the contest I would have cried foul because there was better painting there. But I felt I had to submit something just to say I did it, you know? In the end Tyler’s Gorman di Wulfe won best painted model.

Left to right, the painting competition entries... Brun, Molik Karn, Gorman, Piper, and Midwinter. (please ignore the looming fleshy bits in the corner)

Next post, round two (the last round I would play).

Red

Schism me this, part two

If anyone out there was wondering how I might have fared with my Circle list at the Schism event today, I have but one confession: I reneged. I've been reading up on my Cygnar rules in Mark II so much that I was itching to play them. Plus I feel more comfortable playing them, especially in a tournament setting, so I chose the boys in blue over the tree huggers.

Details to follow (hopefully) but I can summarize it like this... I played two rounds; first against Khador and the second against Circle. One of my lists was using Siege, and the other one I used Stryker. I won one game and lost one. I'll let you guess which one was which, but let me tell you, the outcome surprised me.

I didn't do well enough to get a medal, but I did win the "Spirit" award for being such a nice guy. Honestly, that means more to me than anything else I could have gotten. Winning is great, but I'd rather meet new people and have a lot of fun. Mission accomplished today on that!

More to come...

Red

Remember the Ugly Duckling?

...It turned into a beautiful swan. And speaking of ugly ducklings, err swans, I found the Mk II typos for Cygnar on the forums. I do lurk on the forums occasionally, it's just that I'd rather post here and then complain about how I can't find anything on them. =)

As I figured in the last post, the trencher rifle grenadier's POW on the bayonet is wrong. I rather like my creative explanation, though.

If any Cygnar players are interested in catching up on the Mark II typos and clarifications, you can find them here.

Red

The Gilette Mach 3 of Bayonets

Since Privateer has been so nice to make available the Mark II rules and stats for download, I've been analyzing the changes in some of my favorite models.

Then suddenly I noticed that the bayonet on the trencher rifle grenadier is a POW 4 weapon.

Huh.

The normal trencher infantry has POW 3 bayonets. The trencher officer and sharpshooter has bayonet POW 3. So what makes the rifle grenadier so special? Perhaps it's House Shyeel arcantrics with power field honed blade edges stolen by an elite unit of rangers and then given to the rifle grenadiers to bolster their melee attacks. Or maybe to give them closer shaves.

Yeah that's it, or it's a typo. Any other Cygnaran out there notice this?

Red

Mark II Trencher Rifle Grenadier field allowance, huh?

I'm making my first "real" Mark II lists for Cygnar now that I have the rules and "cards" printed, and I noticed something possibly amiss in the Grenade Porter's info (I don't know why PP decided to change the name, only making it more confusing for me to distinguish it from the light warjack; what was wrong with the name "grenade porter" anyway?).

It says the grenade porter is FA:2, but then under cost it says up to 2 additional grenadiers for 1 point apiece. Does this mean that the field allowance is actually 3? Or does this mean you can have up to 3 grenadiers per group, and the FA refers to 2 groups (i.e. you can field up to 6 total grenade porters by placing 3 in each unit of trenchers if you have two units of trenchers)? I guess now that I write it out, the latter makes more sense given the new group-FA rules, which is the case with groups of Scrap Thralls or Brute Thralls for Cryx.

Nevermind, I think I got it all figured out now! Guess I'm going to have to buy some more grenade porters, errr, rifle grenadiers that is...

Red

Talking 'Bout Some Re-tri-bu-shunnnn...

Although my plan was not to invest heavily in Retribution at Gencon this year (for that I would take my money to the FLGS that I support), I did pick up Kaelyssa and a Chimera light myrmidon. Both of them are put together and are primered now...

I wasn't sure which warcaster to go with first because each one of them looked and sounded cool (well, I'm not too keen on Vyros's look, but I love his game stats). Kaelyssa was the one that spoke to me most, and although some people have commented on those huge thigh guards, I think they're rather cool.

But what to do about a color scheme? I did NOT want to do the white with teal energy veins, so I sat on the idea for a while and thought about it. Then it came to me when I went back and looked at the cover of my Gencon book. Two tones of gray, kakhi, and some type of orangy-red (which would serve as my energy "glow" effect). I know, it's not very "camo" for woods setting, but maybe these are sun dwelling elves on the outskirts in a desert. I haven't actually started to paint them yet, but at least I have an idea now...

Then my FLGS (finally) got the heavy myrm models in. Boy are these sweet! I know I was critical of them when the images were first released, but these things are hulking beauties, and the plastic is spectacular to work with. I finished building the Phoenix in one evening. Here's a picture of the parts after pulling them out of the box. (kudos to g'daybloke at Lost Hemisphere for beating me to the punch this morning...)

The first shot here is without any glue. The pieces fit well together, but every other picture, step by step below, had to be done with glued parts. First are the two legs attached to the hip segment. Also notice the new textured base (it will someday be covered with flock of some sort, but for the time being it looks nice).

Next in the building process came the torso and ever-fashionable codpiece...

...then the knee pieces and the right arm. I had to consult the picture of the Manticore online for the knee caps, because they confused me. They look like another shin/boot, and I tested the fit several times to make sure I was positioning them right. I'm still not sure I like the aesthetics of this part of the sculpt.

Next the left arm begins to take shape, and the arc node vanes in the back. The arc node vanes are NOT glued in and are just sitting in the slots. I know a lot of people out there paint various parts of their model first and then glue everything together, but generally I like to assemble the model and then paint it. Sure, there will be tight spaces in which to get the brush in, but I figure those are places better left dark and that the casual observer won't see on the table. There have been a couple of times where I have not permanently attached parts to a model so that I could better get in and paint in between. The first was my trencher sharpshooter (I blue tacked him to the base so that I could paint under him and around the sandbags). The other was the Thunderhead, blue tacking the back coil (as suggested in No Quarter long ago) so I could better paint in and around the smaller coils.

Next is the fully assembled Pheonix, with sword arm and oh-so-tiny left hand attached...

And last, here is the start of my vengeful little battlegroup, pictured so you can see the size differences. I figured whatever caster I ended up with, a light and a heavy arc node should be the first myrmidons I should take. I can't overstate how nice the new plastic is to work with. And it actually has a heft to it that I wasn't expecting. No, nothing like metal, to be sure, but it does have a noticeable weight to it, and the level of detail it can support startled me. These are awesome models and I can't wait to see what plastics are in the pipeline for my beloved Cygnar.

Red

Schism me this...

The final tourney for the year (and for Mark I) in the Fort Wayne area is a Schism event. Our two local PG's Alan and Jason managed to acquire a Schism kit recently, and the tourney is scheduled for Oct 3. Just the basic eight slots, and I believe only four or five are filled so far.

This is a new format for me, so here's the chant (in case you're curious)...

It's a defend the table type tournament. You win and you get to stay and defend the table using the same, albeit slightly depleted list against a new opponent. Lose and you rotate to another table, using another list (out of the three) you brought. Each of your three lists must have a different warcaster/warlock, and no list can repeat a character model.

This is mixed tournament, both Warmachine and Hordes, and I really, really, really want to take Circle. The problem? I've hardly had a chance to play my Circle army. Maybe five games tops. With this I have to bring three different warlocks, and I really only have experience playing with Kaya and Morvahna. My third choice will probably be Krueger.

So what do I do? I'm thinking of creating three lists that are very similar to each other, that cover a lot basics, nothing fancy, swapping out the warlock. Is it painfully obvious that I'm not expecting to win? (Which brings back memories of my first tournament last September when I had only played the game a couple of times). That tournament was a headache but it was a learning experience. This one will be too. At least this time I know the game a bit better than I did a year ago, and it comes down to my learning what the models can do.

There is an award for best painted character (non-caster/lock) miniature. I'm not sure what I can do in the next week or so, but Circle doesn't have many character models. Primal introduced Lord of the Feast (which I have) but I'm not planning on using him. Evolution had no character models for Circle, and Metamorphosis has Megalith (yes, he's in one of my lists), and Morraig (but he's not available yet). I could include Pendrake, but I don't really feel like painting him quite yet. So I guess Megalith will be my painting emphasis of the next week or so. Nothing else will be done, but c'est la vie.

Red

If Nostradamus were alive today, would anyone know who he is?

If anyone asks why I choose to maintain a blog rather than post on the PP forums, it's because of the Doomsayers. Apparently they reproduce in vast numbers like rabbits, because they're everywhere.

I'm a parent of one, and by profession a teacher to many. I hate whining. I hear it all the time, and it seems to me there's too much whining on the boards. Drives me nuts. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to read the forums.

The latest outbreak of doomsaying, of course, is a result of the final Mark II changes. Cygnar players are crying foul again, as I'm sure is happening in other factions as well. I endured reading through the long postings of criticism because I didn't have time to read all the card info on the pdf, and I wanted to see what changes were made in a relatively quick amount of time. So I got wind of the changes but had to eat a big ole side-helping of bellyaching with it.

Perhaps this is because a lot of people out there foolishly began to play Mark II with the field test rules exclusively after the field test date was over. There were Mark II leagues, people loved the FT rules so much.

Me? I knew there would probably be changes to the FT afterwards, I just wasn't sure how many or how widespread they would be. What I did NOT want to have to do was learn Mark II and then RE-learn the game again in January after the final changes are made. I wanted to play in the final Call to Arms, as well as other events to round out the year, all of which were going to use Mark I rules.

It doesn't bother me so much that the Gun Mages' range has been shortened (or whatever else it is that they're complaining about). I can learn the Mark II rules and abilities/stats of my models feeling confident that they're not going to change (much) at least until the errata begins to roll. But that's a topic for another post.

Play the game, people. Doomsaying = whining, and whiners never win. And they certainly don't play like they got a pair.

Red