Slow Grow League Painting Update

Today was one of the ugliest days that has hit Baltimore in a long time. The weather itsself seemed to be in a crappy mood following the Ravens' loss, and it mirrored pretty much every single person's mood who I ran into anywhere I went today.

I guess now that football season is over it's time to focus on hobby news. Still a few more months before my bike takes over my free time again, and those months jive perfectly with our slow grow league.

The goal (for anyone who just dropped in here for the first time) is to paint an entire 50 pt army as we move through our slow grow league from January to May. There is prize support for our group, but since I'm providing prizes I'm not too excited.

This month was going to be a heavy paint month for me. 15 points of my Grayle list included two warbeasts, Grayle, and 8 wolves of orboros. So with the month winding down...

excuse the crappy photography.

Two warbeasts? CHECK
Warlock? CHECK
Wolves of Orboros? almost...

still have two more infantry plus both models of the UA on my painting table. Hopefully I'll finish them off by the end of the month. The two rank and file guys are already 60% or so finished, so there's a good chance I'll make my goals this month.

Painting up the Circle has been a nice change from all the Cygnar work I was doing. The enameled gold effect is relatively easy to pull off and I like the cohesive look it's bringing to the army. The various greys that I've been blending on cloaks and beasts have been a lot of fun too. Hopefully I'll do a little tutorial for everyone one of the last four Wolves of Oroboros when I bump the list up to 35 points.

The other slow grow member who's going to make his mark this month is Joey Baltimore. A little shout out for his foray into model painting, which I think is going quite good. I'm sure he'll regale everyone with his trials and tribulations in the comments. Hopefully I'll get some pics of J.B's Retribution for everyone... the only problem is they die so easily to Grayle...

I'm an elf killin' ninja!

Slow Grow Week 3 Update

Waiting for the Ravens to take the field... figured I'd type up a quick update!

The slow grow league moved over to 15 points this week and set up some changes in people's armies. I added a min unit of Wolves of Oroboros and UA just to have a bit of a tarpit and some objective holding capability. I feel like with Grayle's relatively limited spell list I'm ok on Fury management at this point.

My first 15 point game was against Vyros and the elves. Joey B. brought along the lesser warlock and her snake which was surprisinly effective at this point level. The game went back and forth until Joe went for broke and wasn't successful in an assaination run. Grayle sliced the elf down in short order.

Game two went against Arkadius and his warhogs. I had this game, but my dice let me down in the end. Grayle was able to cut down two warhogs on his own (with a little help from his wolf... just a little) A final warhog brought the game to an end.

In the painting front, I have finished Grayle, the stalker, the woldwyrd, and 4 wolves of oroboros. 4 more infantry models and I'm done my 15 points in time. Look for pictures soon!

Slow Grow Week 2 Update

Since week three's gaming night is tomorrow night, I guess I should toss a quick update for last week.

After a strong week one, Grayle was a little slow out of the gate. Utter failure in dropping Baldur's VERY hard to kill beasts left me wide open for sudden death and while I don't remember the merc. game I think it had much the same outcome, with me at an inability to finish off two heavies in one turn.

Game 1: Circle vs. Circle (Baldur) LOSS
Game 2: vs. Daimanio LOSS

Then I decided it was time to set Grayle loose and see what he could do. I tried to play him a little more front line so his damage output was finishing off things that the wyrd and the stalker were crashing into.

Game 3: vs. pMadrak: WIN

Ninja Grayle charged through the lines and pounded Madrak into the turf.

Game 4: vs. Vyros: WIN
This time ninja Grayle jumped out of the woods and scrapped Vyros' last jack (a heavy) for the win.

Game 5: vs. Shae: WIN
I had had quite a few drinks by this point, but I'm pretty sure the warpwolf ate Shae. I could be wrong though...

Tomorrow night we move up to 15 points. Grayle and his warpack are getting a min unit of Wolves of Oroboros with UA to give me some tarpit ability and to set up the addition of Moraig later in the league. I figure the UA and CMA will give me another big punch to help drop heavy targets.

On the painting front, Grayle is done as are two Wolves. More to come.

Slow Grow Painting Updates!

Just some pics of my painting progress tonight. The Stalker and the Wyrd are 100% done. Grayle is about 60% done, but man is he a frustrating model. More on him later...

Have a great week!

Grayle the Farstrider: Pt. 1

Welcome back! At each of the point totals for our slow grow league I plan to write a few quick analyses of Grayle and the things I'm learning. Tonight is based on our first night of "quasi battlebox" games. For the sake of completeness, I was running Grayle with a warpwolf stalker and a wold wyrd. The stalker has a fury stat of 4 while the wyrd runs at 3. This gives me enough fury generation to easily cover Grayle in the beginning of the game with his standard fury stat of 6.

In the battlebox format, I had to rely on Grayle to kill things and manage to stay safe. I didn't want to exchange my beasts early on, so I took some risks with Grayle that I probably won't use later on in the league. So in our first Grayle series, let's look at his hitting power and mobility.

Grayle's swords are POW 10 to start, which is unimpressive, however he has two of them and he is a weapon master. This means rolling four damage dice on the charge. Still, un buffed, I found that Grayle could demolish a light, but still struggled going up against heavies of all factions. Once Grayle was toting Storm Rager he was a little more effective. With Storm Rager up, Grayle is an effective MAT 9, meaning I very rarely felt the need to boost to hit. Grayle usually only spent one fury a turn (upkeeping Storm Rager) so when he hit the line with five focus he was getting 2 initial attacks + 5 purchased attacks. On average rolls; Grayle's looking at 19 damage per unboosted attack x6 with the charge attack at 21 damage. Against the heavies I saw on the table, I usually went for good rolling instead of the extra dice and bought attacks instead of a 4th damage dice.

Grayle is fast ( spd 7) combined with pathfinder and stealth (which he has both of) Grayle was able to move around the battle field surprisingly well. Adding to his mobility is sidestep, which allows you to move Grayle along the front of his foes as he takes his (initial only) attacks. The final addition to Grayle's mobility is sprint. Sprint was of limited use when facing Beasts and Jacks only, but I can really see Grayle pulling the hit and run routine once he sees some infantry across the field, especially with sidestep allowing him to duck away from free strikes.

Well that's it for tonight. Next time, Spells and the Feat!

Slow Grow League: Night One

Happy New Year once again from the frozen tundra of Maryland... minus the work removing snow...

Our gaming group is starting 2012 with a Warmachine/ Hordes slow-grow league. We're starting with a rough battle box equivilent (your army has to match the point total of your "official battle box") then moving to 15 points, then 25, then 35 and finally 50. The idea is to get to know one caster very well with the bonus of hopefully getting another 50 point army painted up throughout the duration. (see above warpwolf for my progress painting wise...) Each point level gets a month except for the the BB/ 15 points which get two weeks a piece.

I decided to take Circle for this event and chose Grayle as my warlock of choice. I wanted to get to know him from the ground up so I figured he would be a lot of fun to play in this format. Before tonight, I had never put Grayle on the table.

Tonight started the event with battle box armies. I fielded Grayle, a Warpwolf Stalker, and a Woldwyrd. I was concerned about fury generation, but it ended up not being a big deal at all in the long run. In bigger games, that may change, but we shall see.

Tomorrow I'll write a bit about Grayle and my early perceptions, but here's tonight's standings:

vs. Shae and the Pirates: WIN!
vs. The Old Witch: WIN!
vs. Daimano: WIN!
vs: Vyros: Loss
vs. Arkadius: Loss
vs. The Old Witch (again) WIN!

4-2
not a bad way to start. I still haven't played Madrak and Baldur.

New Year's Hobby Resolutions

Happy New Year Everyone! 

It's time for the traditional New Year's hobby resolutions, which always come back to painting.
On the gaming side, I hope to continue to play games as much, if not more, as we did last year, with a special focus on Pathfinder and hopefully getting 40k back into the regular rotation. Warmachine will continue to be our game of choice though, starting with our slow grow league this week.

Painting Goals for the Year:
-Grayle the Farstrider's Army up to 35 points: This is the goal of the slow grow league, so hopefully this will happen early in the year.
-Kromac the Ravenous' Army up to 35 points: Lots of tharn to paint here. The beasts are already done, so this one is another army that shouldn't be too tough to complete.
- pDenny to 35: this is another army that is at least started and needs to be finished.
- pKrueger to 35: this will bring all of my factions up to three painted 35 point armies.

Happy New Year to All!