Circle Doesn't Take the Square

Well tonight saw a less than inspiring first outing for Kromac and his cannibalistic tree huggers. Two games, first one lost in turn three, second one in turn four. Legion in game one (damn flying Legion lists are nasty!) and Menoth in game two. Game two went much better, but I still just didn't have the striking power to take out three jacks + the infantry and the darn book was keeping me shut down.

Unit by Unit:
Kromac: I like his spell list and his mobility. He doesn't hit as hard as say pSkarre when in human form, and I feel like I need to learn when to beast him out a little better. I never got to pop his feat tonight, as the time just didn't seem right.

Pureblood and Feral: Super impressed with both wolves. I put them out front a little too often tonight and may want to be a little more sneaky with them but the options these two models have are great. Might have to drop one of them at 25 points though and find a way to get in two lesser beasts just for fury production.

Druids: What a great unit. The clouds and magic denial are awesome as is the improved defense. (I was sitting on def 20 in cover tonight with magic denial up at 10 inches.) 9 points for the unit + UA is a little heavy in smaller games, but I will say they were totally worth it.

Shifting Stones: Meh... I got a cool teleport off with Kromac in game 2, but overall they seem very difficult to line up appropriately to be effective.

So looks like more WM this weekend as the wife is headed to the in laws. Probably will play Cryx... Circle might just sit out until MK II Hordes hits in July. Tomorrow back to the painting table and maybe some pics of my WIP Black Ogrun boarding party.

Breaking Out the Circle

Check me out with two posts on consectutive days! Like I said, with life finally slowing down, it's time for hobby time.

Wednesday night is Warmachine night 'round these parts, and this week I'm taking my Circle Orboros list out for a shakedown cruise. Newly painted Kromac will be leading the 25 points of angry werewolves, spell flingin' druids, and... rocks? That's right, my army list has rocks as a key part of the plan...
The List:
Kromac the Ravenous
Pureblood Warpwolf
Feral Warpwolf
Druids of Orboros
Druid Overseer
Shifting Stone

The plan? Does "win" qualify as a plan? The warpwolves are my primary assasination tools, especially with the pureblood giving them ghostly. The druids are there to shut down magic and put out some ranged firepower. The shifting stones give me an extended threat range for Kromac himself. Kromac brings more anti magic with Bestial, and warpath should make for some nice synergy with the druids. I'm interested to see if Kromac is a good front line assasination option. I'm hoping jump and his bestial form will allow him to take down any caster that evades the wolves.

I'll post Thursday on the results!

Helljacks! Cryxian Heavy Metal

Light the necrotite fires and kick the Cryxian tires! (come to think of it... does anything in Immoren have tires? ) Today's entry is all about HELL JACKS! I've had a great long weekend and am coherent enough to actually type some thoughts, so here goes...

The Cryxian Heavy Jack: Everyone has read the facts about Cryxian heavy jacks before, high defense, low armor, high hitting power, small damage grid. Our jacks are fast though... incredibly fast, and often allow us to bring the pain where we want it. My personal experiences with helljacks are confined to the Slayer, the Leviathan, the Reaper, and the Seether. The Deathjack also has found its way to my table, but we'll save him for another blog entry.

Slayer

The slayer is a heavy jack costed like most faction's light jacks. When I first started WM a few months ago, the slayer found its way into all of my lists. Skarre can load a slayer with focus and it can tear apart anything short of a Khadoran heavy jack with ease. The two open fists are tons of fun enabling all the throw shenanigans you can think of. Recently, the slayer has been more of a body guard for my casters. Kept close to intercept anything nasty that comes their way. The 6" move gives him plenty of threat range.

Leviathan

I'm still not so sure how to use this bad boy. I started a thread on the PP forums that went on for a week as people argued for and against this jack. In my eyes, the no knockdown and rather impressive ranged attack make it a good choice if you have a caster who can fuel its focus habit. This thing is the crack head of focus. It needs all three focus to be efficient, one or two focus just won't cut it. My favorite trick of late has been to couple this with eSkarre so procing Black Spot can lead to 6 shots, great for thinning infantry or for putting a whumping on a heavy jack. Worth mentioning is also the fact that this thing is amphibious (see my base!) which may seem kind of pointless, but we have a few water features in our terrain respository which allows my some interesting options. I love the look of this jack, and thematically he fits with my "Black Ship" army, so he figures into my lists quite often.

Reaper

Other than my propensity for the Mortal Kombat line, the Reaper is just not my favorite jack. The harpoon is cool, but I can't seem to ever get it to land, even boosted. I'd rather save the point and take the Slayer. I have run the Reaper with my Black Ogrun in a crazy "let's move everything around" list, but in the end it just seemed rather silly.

Seether

Best. Jack. Ever. Period. Free focus every turn, free runs and charges, hits like a tank, chain attack for free power attack... the Seether has become my favorite jack and my main assasination tool. The Seether is so focus efficient, it's feasible to have a turn when you don't allocate him any focus, and he still can go to town. Coupled with a Siren, the Seether really rarely needs his warcaster to give him any help short of buffs. The Seether is in pretty much every one of my lists these days.

Painting wise... here's the three Helljacks I have finished. I've continued my beach bases on these, including the leviathan who is still in the water. The seether is the only one to pick up the purple that is the unifying color of my army. Any comments on the other Helljacks would be very appreciated!

Kromac the Ravenous: Painting

Here's a few rough shots of Kromac (who is 95% done) Even though I'm not going to paint my circle army anytime soon, Kromac really had to be painted in parts, and I wanted to get him together so I could get him on the table.

The skin is a different mix than I normally use. I worked up from a brown base, with no washes or glazes. I'm quite happy with the finished product. As anyone who has painted this model can tell you, the sheer ammount of brown doodads hanging off this guy can be maddening. I used three shades of brown and my trusty pot of devlan mud to get it done relatively quickly.

When it comes time for the entire Circle army to get some paint, I'll be sticking to the dark nuetreal tones for all of the Tharn units and switching to a dark green theme for the Reeves and Druids of Orboros. But... there's a lot of horny pirate ladies and undead pirates who need paint first!

My Hobby Workspace

When I moved into my current house almost 9 years ago, one of the selling points was a great little room in the basement with built in shelving that just screamed "hobby room!" While that room holds all of my various hobby stuff, armies, books, terrain, etc. my painting area has invaded the main downstairs family room and is pictured above. The table is an old wooden table that I saved from an untimely end at a yard sale. Makes it a lot easier to ignore all of the paint stains and occasional knife marks in it... I have two paintere 80 paint organizers. The first has my citadel colors and washes while the second holds all my P3 and Valejo paints. The white metal rack on the cart has all my "craft paint" which is mostly used for terrain and such. The wooden cart holds my airbrush and all the supplies that go with it as well as my foundation paints and all the misc. wierd stuff like water effects, foam snow, etc. My water cups have been the same plastic cups for the last five years and my pallet cost somewhere around .50 at the local craft store.

I have two gooseneck lamps set up, one with a daylight bulb the other with an old fashined 75 watt bulb. The light is vital.

Just a quick shot of the inner nerd sanctum.

Well that's all for tonight's re-boot entry. Next time, look for some updates on my Cryx army, a WIP of my first Hordes warlock and maybe more...

REBOOT

So I've been thinking about this blog a bit, and would like to give it a bit of a revamp as the summer months come rolling in. I've been very hobby oriented lately, and as I'll have some free time on my hands, I want to add a little to the hobby community in the shape of this endless ramble known as my blog. So... look for some rapid fire new posts talking about various hobby topics, starting this week with a quick series on the Workspace I've built for myself.
Until next time
-D-9

CryxTier anticipation and Some Reflections

So after my thumping last night I think the leviathan may be a bad idea... In the first game I played he shot well and then got torn apart by angry elves. In game 2 he missed... and lost me the game. In other game revelations, aggressive play is definitely the way to win at Warmachine. Looking at my list from last night (pSkarre, 3 black ogrun, 6 satyxis raiders, sea witch, 6 mcthralls, necrosurgeon, skarlock, leviathan, and deathripper) I feel like I need to use the speed of the army more effectively. The win seems to hinge upon something being in melee in turn 2. If that doesn't happen, I tend to lose. The min raiders and sea witch almost dropped Typhon last night (3 bubbles) and the mech thralls almost dropped a carniveran, a few more lucky dice rolls and they would of demolished two of the tougher beasts in the Legion list.

So the question I've been pondering is, what will Skarre's tiers look like? I'm assuming she'll have satyxis in both her prime and epic incarnations. I'm concerned that the necrosurgeon and skarlock won't be in the running, especially after seeing the squire not show up in a lot of the Cygnar lists and now the choir lacking in many of the Menoth tiers. I'm hoping that the ogrun will show up since they certainly fit the pirate-y theme, and then? Revenant crew? Blackbanes? Mech thralls? It's probably safe to assume that she won't have access to the Deathjack or Sirens, so some of the jack management tools that eSkarre likes will be gone as well. C'mon may 19th...

So another week of work, but with my schedule starting to clear a little bit (there's light at the end of the tunnel!) I hope to be updating this site a little more often. Keep an eye out!

Go O's!