Christmas Call To Arms 2008

I got to play a unique league for WARMACHINE in Mike Ang's Call To Arms 2008. It's a set of four separate leagues broken into the four weeks of December. Veterans must play a minimum of 750 points though. There's a special global rule and specified scenario for each week.

In the first week, warcasters and warlocks may not use their feats while playing the SR4 Mosh Pit scenario. I put together an all-infantry list with Supreme Kommandant Irusk as my warcaster. And by all-infantry I mean a lot of squishy models like Greylords and Iron Fang Pikemen. I think the only multi-wound models I had were Iron Fang Uhlans and the Drakhun. I got to fight against Jake de Jesus' Lord Commander Stryker, Mang who also used epic Irusk and Arvin Tan's dire troll-heavy Grim Angus army. Apparently, I had a lot of time on my hands and was the only one to play the maximum 3 games in a week. Luckily I also won all my games for that week.

For the first week, it looks like Khador had initiative. Dick Sy, who also played Khador, and myself won the pins for being top 2 during that week.

This week, except for warcasters and warlocks, no other characters may be included in your army. In the case of my Khador army, that would mean no Eiryss, Kovnik Jozef, Fenris, Aiyana and Holt, and Orin Midwinter. That would mean no unique warjacks like Beast-09 and the Behemoth, too. Playing SR4 No Man's Land without them would be more difficult than usual for me.

I hope I can get to squeeze in playing the minimum 3 league games, as well as playing Tuesday nights at Oberon Sector.

November's End, December's Beginning

WARHAMMER FANTASY

I've been able to help organize the Warhammer Fantasy minitournament at Lito Tan's Oberon Sector the past two Fridays. After the dust had settled, Clarence Cua and his Vampire Counts rose victorious above the beaten heap. Looks like I'll have to rethink my stand on the new Zombie rules *chuckle*

I got to play against Sunny Yu's Wood Elves using Daemons of Chaos in a 1,250-point game. Knowing that I can't outmaneuver his fast army, I decided to spread my forces and just get as many of his units into close combat as possible. I managed to score a win in a crucial mass combat at the center of the table, which pretty much dictated the outcome of the battle.

This was my first game against Sunny since several years back. The experience was tremendously fun. I got to apply Page 5 into WFB *LOL* Even if both of us were into technical spots at times during the game, none of it were serious. I'd better pretty up my army real soon though. He has very pretty Wood Elves and well-painted, too, in a winter theme to boot!

Learning points in fighting against Sunny's Wood Elves:
• They can surf in their woods closer or further away from my forces
• They can whittle you down in short range with S4 missile fire
• That wood surfing spell is indirect, and he can use it as often as he can so long as he has Power Dice (which pretty much screws me over in the Magic Phase since I usually run with only two Dispel Dice and rely on Magic Resistance).

WARHAMMER 40,000

I also got to play against Freddie Yu's Imperial Guard using Chaos Daemons in 40K with 1,000 points. This time, I knew I had to risk Deep Striking in the midst of his firing line, hoping that the lone building would provide ample cover for my non-shooting Bloodletters. With a lot of unlucky rolls on his part, and a lot of lucky rolls on my part, I managed to turn a supposed loss into a draw. Surviving the hail of IG fire were the Daemon Prince with only a single Wound left and a fat unit of Bloodletters. Morale victory for Freddie was when a Guardsman brought down the Bloodthirster in close combat (yeah I got some unlucky rolls, too)!

I learned a lot fighting Freddie's IG. Cover rules, assault rules and assault results, I got to fine tune my understanding on those. He did mention that 40K now drew a similar picture to WMH now, and I'll never complain about that one. Maybe he'll jump into WMH, too *grin*

Learning points when fighting Freddie's IG:
• Luck, luck, luck! I really cannot have managed as well as I did if I was unlucky. The numbers game will always work in the favor of the Guard.
• Get into assault quickly!
• Do NOT get assaulted by those Rough Riders. Assault them instead *LOL*

WARMACHINE/HORDES

I put together a 500-point list for Irusk using Beast-09 and my entire Winterguard collection - which wasn't much since it's only the basic 6-man unit, with Kovnik Jozef, the WGUA and the Rocketeer. The rest were two Mortar teams and two units of Greylords. Apparently, the list should have included Orin Midwinter, but I was stupid and left him at home.

I played against Patrick Palma, who used Jeremiah Kraye - something he also wanted to try out. He had a lot of jacks, I remember a Thunderhead, a Lancer and a Centurion. He also had Arlan Strangeways and a Journeylass Warcaster.

We played two games, both at 500 points. One game was using a No Man's Land scenario, and the other was using Destruction scenario. I won both by killing Kraye with well-placed Rocketeer shots, with the help of the Greylords' Ice Cages.

The two games were some of the more enjoyable games I had. Patrick was as much a technical player as he is a good sportsman. I'll be looking forward to playing against him again.

Orin Midwinter

I finished painting Orin Midwinter last night on a sporadic burst of painting interest and effort. I was quite pleased with how it turned out, especially how the blending on the cloth parts of the miniature looked. Also with the magical glow effect I did for the tip of his staff.

I also tried out playing with the Winterguard. Their performance against Karl's Circle Orboros wasn't as well as I expected. All three rockets from the Rocketeer didn't kill the alpha Warpwolf. I was rolling horribly low then. I'll see if they will work better with Irusk. I've always wanted to play with a Superiority Beast-09!

Lito's Oberon Sector seems to be doing very well. I'll be continuing to judge the 2-day Warhammer Fantasy minitournament that we started.

Looks like my Angelic Legion project will hit some snags. Things are getting more and more expensive and I can't go buying stuff like I used to anymore. I'll see if I can get more painting done on my Daemons, since they're pretty much playable between WFB and 40K.

I'm also planning on easing up more on my spending. I hope I can discipline myself from buying more stuff. At least until I get the current stuff I have painted first.

Beast-09

I have to say Beast-09 has to be the BEST Khadoran warjack model every made! The arms were in ball sockets and the shoulders were made for swiveling upon placement, allowing for a wide variety of arm poses lower part. The waist to torso joint was also in ball socket structure, so you can have the Beast lean forward or arch back. The legs would have been better if they made them as dynamic with ball joints like the arms, but then it would make for somewhat unstable base.

I'm still painting it so hopefully I can post up pics once it's done.

WARMACHINE Gaming

I got some WARMACHINE games in via the campaign and some casual games at Fortress. I'm more relaxed with my gaming now since I realized I've already achieved a lot of success in the hobby. I'm still giving my ace game to anyone who wants it - but I feel I'll try to be less of an ass from now on LOL

People will always have something to say despite whatever you do anyway.



I got to try out my new Khadoran warcaster, Koldun Kommander Aleksandra Zerkova - mainly because I got to finish painting her.

My first game using Zerkova was against Fred's Iron Lich Asphyxious in a campaign game. I won via objective in a King of the Plateau scenario - killing as much of his units on the plateau on the third turn. It would have been better if I had Greylords but I opted for Winter Guard Mortar and Iron Fang Pikemen instead. Ah well, winning's winning.




My second game was against Kei's Grim Angus. It was the first game in Fortress that day and I made many mistakes like not allocating focus on the first turn and mistaking the Fury tokens on the nearby Bouncer. I tried to patch up said mistakes late in the game by covering up my warcaster with as much of the troops that I have. But Kei surgically removed all of them via awesome shooting and a well-placed Mantrap, knocking Zerkova down. The Earthborn Dire Troll made short work of her after that.

Third game was against Fred again, but this time I used Beast-09 instead of a Spriggan. It was hilarious because Fred kept on damaging the warjack, and naturally Beast-09 moved closer towards Asphyxious, who was dead center on the table (pun intended). Beast-09 did manage to do a Critical Freeze on the Cryxian warcaster, but failed to finish the job. Then upon Raymund's jolly persuasion, I lobbed a Mortar on the Beast, which hit! Not only did it deal damage to the ARM 20 warjack, it got a high roll on Asphyxious as well! But then the Beast's big nasty axe got an arm bar from the surviving Withershadow Combine. Beast-09 did manage to get the casterkill later on via boosted P+S 14 head spike. Beast-09 = awesomeness! ^_^

My fourth game with Zerkova was against Les' Kaya. We played at home after a very long hiatus (I feared the table would feel bad and give us bad rolls). I swapped the Mortar Crew and the extra Pikemen out and placed in Orin Midwinter and some Greylords. The army performed wonderfully! Orin hid behind a house and spammed Null Magic (although I kinda got too excited because I Nullled kinda early, so my second turn, no spells from Zerkova and the Greylords duh~). With a dead Warpwolf and Argus later via MOWDC and Beast-09, I got the No Man's Land win via objective.

Will post pics as soon as Barby returns the cam ^_^

The Plan

I've always wanted to play using Chaos Daemons, be it in WFB or 40K. Their rules make them awesome and fun to play with. Sadly, the models aren't really appealing to most normal people.

I have tried assembling an Angelic Legion for WFB way back, having bought and coverted some units already. Sadly I discarded the idea in favor of a more tournament-legal army - meaning using the legit units. But that was before I won tourneys in miniature wargaming. Now, I think I've reached a point where I want to play with very nicely-painted models. I've given myself a personal rule - that I must play only with painted miniatures or not play them at all - as observed by the old gods Pork and Luigi.

Admittedly, I've striven to win a lot of in any of the games I play - WFB, 40K and WMH. I have been humbled by my share of losses and have learned to take in victory with equal grace. But in all my years in the hobby, I have never played with a fully-painted Warhammer army. I've played with my fully-painted Khador, but my GW armies haven't been showed ample attention.

That's something I mean to correct.

I have gone over some of my old models in all the game systems I play, and touch up on them again - be it painting over chipped areas, adding highlights or some freehand, or even disassembling whole models to be repainted and converted.

Going back to the "Angelic Legion", I'm planning to put together a WFB army that's heroic-looking, but using the rules from the Daemons of Chaos army book, or even the Warriors of Chaos army book for that matter. But this time, I'm meaning to apply the best that my meager painting skills can offer. I know I can o blending, and highlighting and freehand and convert and sculpt and make scenic bases, but can I pull it off on this planned army of mine?

As Pork would say, "Abanagan!"

WIP Fenris

I've been trying some better techniques with my painting. Here are some WIP shots of Fenris' big horse.

Necromancy

Legion of Everblight Nephilim Warrior completed


My workbench wil a lot of black-sprayed stuff


Some Khadoran models


I am aware I haven't updated my blog for about a month already. Real life got me snowed in apparently. I'm trying to bring back my momentum with updating the blogs I have at present time.

Looks like we'll be looking at megabattles for both WFB and 40K before the year ends, with the WFB megabattle under my coordination.

Tournament/league scene for WMH not looking too good. Most players seem to prefer casual games, with only a few willing to go competitive. Ebb and flow it seems. Hopefully it picks up soon.


Some hills I decided to make, to be donated to Fortress


Here the hills in action


Another shot of the custom hills

Fortress Table

I'm planning to make the table at Fortress prettier to play on. I already started with giving a pair of hills and forest bases.

Yeah the hill is black/somewhat black/grey. That's because the next step would be setting up either just heavy black cloth or black rubber or foam to cover up the table. The black is easiest on the eyes IMHO. The fact that I painted up the bases of my miniatures the same way has nothing to do with it. Really.

Blogroll Update

Kei drops updating his blog and adopts an automatic one for his XBOX. Check it out here.