Troll Whelps

These little bundles of joy have been sitting on the side, skin base painted, but neglected.  Today I decided to reward these little guys with a finished paint job, and I liked how they came out!  The skin came out very well plus, I did enjoy how the bottle on the 'drunken whelp' came out.  I had a good relaxing time painting these.  Enjoy!

Painting Challenge "whoopsies"

So I made an aggressive painting challenge to myself, and life got in the way and I was unable to fully finish the challenge.

What I did get done:
A full squad of Houseguard Halberdiers with UA to tabletop quality (bases done, but I need to finishing highlighting and the face/eyes).
Adeptis Rahn

As for the tournament, I did well.  I'm getting better, but again I was assasinated before I could assassinate. The last game falling under the NQ Challenge, which I failed, but figured out later.  Rahn had a Destroyer in his face, a Guard Dog barely within 6", and eIrusk behind him and a wall with defenders ward on.  Rahn was the only piece I had left, with the full 8 focus.  I was in line to do a direct hit  with Force Hammer on eIrusk, but he was at DEF 22, so I would have needed to roll above average (14) to hit.  I could have moved around the Destroyer (staying in melee range), to get an angle on the dog (who was in line within 2 1/2" of eIrusk), but if I moved, the dog would have been able to counter charge.  I could have teleported over, but then I didn't have the right angle on the dog to hit eIrusk.  I gave the game to my opponent, but later I realized I could have teleported the Destroyer, then teleported myself, and have the best roll to hit the dog, who would have hit eIrusk and do collateral damage.  That was my best chance of killing him and winning the game (he was down to about 5 boxes), but I would have needed to roll above average again to kill him outright on the collateral damage (POW 12).  I don't think the chain blast would have done better, boosted blast damage would have been about the same, but it would have been 3 focus allowing me to boost damage once, and the possibility of hitting him with the 2nd blast.  But it would have meant even more lucky rolls.

Pictures of the Halberdiers will come along when I finish the face/flesh highlighting

Adeptis Rahn

One model down! Adeptis Rahn here.  I really am digging the "petina" of the armor and the green and how the leather is coming out.  I think I need to do a bit more tweaking on the highlighting and everything will look how I envision it.  Again, the flesh tones and the eyes came out spectacularly, plus the freehand tattoo on his head wasn't too shabby at all.  Without trying to sound egotistical, I impressed myself with my first attempt at it working so well.

Painting Challenge! Plus, how I did over the weekend

   I believe my Trolls are upset with me.  Heading down to the Bay Area last time, my Trolls utterly failed me.  The next week, I went to the LGS and again, my Trolls utterly failed me.  I think they are upset that I'm cheating on them with some Legion, making the "Trollsaken" (Which was submitted to PP for their magazine contest, I should find out tomorrow what happened when the new No Quarter comes out)
   So, we are benching the Trolls temporarily.  The Retribution of Scyrah is calling me!  I pulled them out for 35 points of Tournament on Saturday.  Unfortunately either the day was bad and/or it was short notice and 4 people showed up.  We played round robin, killbox, I used Kaelyssa for the first 2 battles, then Rhan for my 3rd round.
   The first round was against, Kreoss, he had 2 squads of daughters, 2 squads of exemplars who ran at me. I shot one squad of daughters who were flanking with my Mage Hunters, and killed all but one.  The squad that was Defenders warded got a face full of combustion from a Phoenix, and the other half that didn't die, failed their command check and wanted none of the angry elves.  I'm feeling ok at this point, but things are getting closer, so I pop my feat (everything stealthed, models cannot be charged) and see what happens.  My opponent (Kristin who runs Warmahordes for the Vacaville LGS) charged Kreoss forward, popped his feat, knocking Kaelessa down, then one of his special units gave this ability to see through stealth for his Redeemer, 3 shots from him and Kaelessa was done.  But it did take all 3 shots, he completed his assassination run successfully, otherwise I would have had him.  It was a pretty quick game, ended on his turn 2.
   Next Jimmy, one of the local PGers was playing Lord Carver.  I was killing pigglets, and controling where we fought, and went for my assassination run, Kaelessa shooting him stealing fury and damaging him.  He had 2 fury on him, I stole the first one, he used the 2nd to transfer the 6 damage.  Then it was plink plink plink roll under average and do a few points with my next two shots.  It was up to my 4 remaining Mage Hunters to get in and close it out.  But they went plink plink plink, left him alive and he roflstomped me on his turn.
   Finally Nathan.  Now Nathan is one of the better players in the area, and I was facing Xerxes.  I decided to switch it up and play Rhan.  Highlight of the match, I charged a Bronzeback and a Gladiator with my full squad of Halberdiers.  Under their officer mini-feat, they were at pow 14 (+2 Brutal Charge, +2 from mini-feat) and +2 MAT as long as they were in melee range of another squad member.  I destroyed a slightly wounded Gladiator with 3 Halberdiers and the Soulless escort, and I brought the Bronzeback to 3 boxes left with 3 more Halberdiers (after a Force Hammer from Rhan doing some damage and knocking him down).  I admit there was some good charge dice rolling there, they were above average.  But it was a bit of a surprise to Nathan.  I then sent Narn the ninja to finish off the Bronzeback (charge, weapon master, 2 attacks, should kill it).  Plink, 2 damage on the charge, no damage on the 2nd attack.  After such a good turn to that point, I was demoralized and made mistakes and the Bronzeback was allowed to live.  The next turn the Bronzeback thrashed my Pheonix on the flank, and Xerxes moved forward, with Defenders Ward on him, no fury.  Since he was in base to base with another model, he was 15 def/22 arm.  My turn I do Rhan, pop my feat, Force Hammer Xerxes down, and let the Mages do their magic boosted magic thing.  I pull him out of B2B with the first mage so now he is a knocked down 5 def/20 arm and boost damage into him.  I don't kill him, and the next turn Xerxes gets in Rhans face and game over.
  What I learned, I need to play more.  I'm getting it, and I think against weaker players, I would have done better.  I had some moral victories, I was doing the right thing against very good players, they were able to use their experience to overcome my actions.

   To the Painting Challenge:

  Down at the "newer Elk Grove LGS" they are having a free 15pt tournament, and its closer than the Vacaville LGS who is also having a tournament, so I think just on gas spent, the Elk Grove store is winning.  But to challenge myself I'm going to have a fully painted army for the store.

  My plan is to bring the following 15 point lists, fully painted:

Adeptis Rahn
    Pheonix
House Shyeel Battle Mages
House Shyeel Magister
min unit Houseguard Halberdiers

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper
    Chimera
    Hydra
min unit Mage Hunter Strike Force
    Mage Hunter Commander.

  I believe this is totally doable by working a little at a time each day on these models.  Kaelyssa and the Warmachines are fully painted and based, Rahn is almost finished, the Halberdiers, Mages and Magisters are started.  The MH Strike Force and Commander are primed.

   First up, finishing Rahn, and working on the Halberdiers who have the base armor done, they need flesh and highlighting.

   So expect more pictures this week!

Earthborn DT

  I'm still working on getting good photos up here, and playing with them, so I can have a good representation of my work.  Its a learning process, but I wanted to make sure I got this bad boy up on the blog and share.  The biggest time consumption was dealing with my obsidian tie in for the army.  There are so many rock formations on this guy, it was a bit of a pain to make sure they were all black

 
  This was a model that I had gotten used, and the top flap of his "loincloth of decency" was missing so I had to make one myself.  I thought it came out pretty well, and I did dig the gray cloth.  I've been creating a leather brown on my other models, but since I was going to base this guy brown, I thought it might be a little redundant, and went gray.  I think it came out fantastically, just an enjoyable model to paint and play.  I was able to put this bad boy down on the tabletop last weekend, and I did get some favorable comments on the paint job.  I'm pretty excited it came out so well.   What I do need to concentrate more on, highlighting.

Previous Paintings

I was looking over my posts here and saw that I don't have any picture of my previous works, so I wanted to put a smattering of my trolls out there so people can see some of my painted

models.

Again, I need to get the light box set up for better pictures, but these are just some quickie pics.

Battle Report

Yesterday I went down to the LGS before heading to my sisters for dinner with the family and was able to get a couple of games in. I got there before Billy, one of the better local players, left. I brought with me a smattering of Trolls, I was going to play Gunnbjorn, but realized that I forgot his cards, so I decided to go with Grim instead. We decided to play 35 pts.

Grim Angus

Bomber

Slag Troll

Impaler

Fell Caller Hero

Janissa Stonetide

Trollkin Champ Hero

min Burrowers

min Fennblades + UA (Officer and Drummer)

Another one of our better players, Nathan, had been complaining about the new Ranking Officers and how broken the Menoth ones were. In particular, the Menoth Ranking Officers with Sea Dogs and Harbinger broke the game and was unbeatable. Billy took the challenge, and came up with using Cryx and Venethrax. Working from memory, the list went something like this:

Venethax

Bone Chicken arc node

Stalker

Skarlock

Satyxis Raider Captain

Siren

min Bile Thralls

Bloat Thrall

full Satyxis Raiders

Withershadow Combine

Nothing out of the ordinary, or over the top. But it did pack a wallop. Those Satyxis Raiders are just ugly, mostly because they don't take blast damage and have a 12" threat range with Advance Deploy and a toolbox of other special abilities. Plus it was my first time dealing with them, so that put a nice twist on it.

We played a scenario "The Gauntlet". I was really trying out the burrowers, because i just got them a couple of months ago, and knowing they can be pretty dirty, haven't used them yet. I didn't have any difficulties about pulling them out against Billy. In a nutshell, I lost to scenario, because the raiders wiped out my Fennblade tar pit and my solos who were holding my control area. Although he would have killed my caster because I had gone for the caster kill and didn't quite make it.

I made a ton of mistakes in this game, which I'm confident would have given me a better shot at winning if I didn't make them. There was also one big key roll which failed. I forgot my Fennblades vengeance move on turn 3, which would have put me in charging range of the Raider on my left flank (fennblades were on the right flank). They would have killed 3-4, and held them off another turn possibly. On the burrowers charge on the Bloat Thrall, the Stalker, and Venethrax, with the Champion Hero in range to use his 10 cmd, roll an 11 for their terror check, and get to stand there and get killed.

Finally, when i was trying to 'No Quarter Challenge' my way into a win, I freed up the Impaler and Grim so I could take shots at Venethrax, I forgot to pop Grim's feat, allowing him to miss on a boosted RAT roll. Otherwise it was possible I could have won on caster kill.

Result: Loss

Lesson Learned: Must play more and remember what I can do and DO IT

Another game, Billy pulled out Kara Sloan and some Cygnar, I played the same list, he had (again from memory)

Kara Sloan

Thunderhead

Hunter

Cyclone

Squire

Mechanik solo

Black 13th

Stormsmith

I had the same list, and we played Killbox. I was ready for Vengeance this time! 4 successful tough rolls later on his turn 1, none of the fennblades died, no Vengeance for me. The burrowers tied up and killed the Hunter, while throwing a couple of good hits on the Thunderhead who was holding the middle hill. After clearing them out, the Thunderhead was able to move forward and start zapping folks, the Champion hero was a champ and made 2 tough rolls! My turn, and also soon for me to leave to head to my sisters for dinner, I was 'sneaking' up my bomber on the left flank with phantom hunter upkept on him all game. I had to have a backup plan, just in case things went wrong, so I knew i had to kill the Thunderhead. I had to move Grim first, but to get him where i needed him to go, and out of the charge path to the Thunderhead for both of my Hero's who were alive. But I was starting out of the Range of the Bomber to put Far Strike on, so I put Far Strike on the Impaler, moved Grim so that I could pop my feat (yea I rememberd) so I could reduce the Def of the Cyclone who was in front and just to the left of Kara, behind the hill in the middle. Then Grim shots the snare gun at the Thunderhead, knocking it down. Fell Call Hero stands the Champ Hero up from knockdown (those 2 tough rolls) and charges the Thunderhead, does much damage. Hero charges the Thunderhead and scraps it. Backup plan successful, I'll live through the next turn with 2 transfers and the Bomber and Impaler without any damage. The last 2 burrowers kill the hunter with some fantastic rolls, scrap another one. The Impaler moves up, so he can put Far Strike on the Bomber and takes a pot shot at the Charger. From where the Impaler was, if I did crit slam the Charger, not only would have it been knocked down, but easier for the bomber to hit it, and get Kara in the blast damage. Well I threw another fury on the Impailer, and BLAMMO, crit slam back, and the angle was such that Kara got clipped and was also knocked down. I also rolled far enough, it didn't displace Kara back. Bomber rolls up 5 inches, and its able to drop bombs right on top of Kara's head, explosion, and a massive boosted roll, one dead cygnar caster.

Result: Win

Lesson Learned: When I remember to do things, I do much better. Crazy huh?

So, I shook Billy's hand, thanked him for the games, and headed off to my sisters for dinner. Good day for gaming, and food.