Warmachine Batrep 1: Khador v Cygnar

Today was my first Warmachine game! My son and I have finally have filled out our ranks of starting Khador and Cygnar armies with enough minis to play. My son played Cygnar and took the following:
-Coleman Stryker(Warcaster)
-Lancer(Light Warjack)
-Charger(Light Warjack)
-Ironclad(Heavy Warjack)
-Gorman de Wulfe(Merc solo)
I played Khador and took this army:
-Kommander Sorscha(Warcaster)
-Juggernaut(Heavy Warjack)
-Destroyer (Heavy Warjack)
-Eiryss(Merc solo)

Below you can see our battlefield(Khadorian Winter Village) and deployment edges...

I cautiously move into town, waiting to see what Gareth has in mind as far as movement...

Gareth keeps his forces tucked in tight behind cover as he enters the town(sorry, haven't painted Cygnar yet)....

...but then he splits his forces. He moves Stryker and his Lancer to his left, holds backs his Ironclad in the center and goes right-flanking with Gorman and his Charger. I think he has made a critical error, moving his Charger out of his warcaster's control area.

The Destroyer, with his long range bombard, covers the central area of town(this should keep Gorman and the Charger away from the beating I plan to give Stryker!) while Eiryss takes the left(off screen) to further pin down his right. My Juggernaut heads down the right behind the tavern towards his Lancer and Warcaster. . I keep Sorscha's command zone near my two 'jacks.

Gareth moves his Lancer out with Stryker in support. Stryker's ranged attack fails to penetrate my armor. Here is where I make a critical error. Over-zealous to beat up on his Lancer with my heavier Juggernaut, I run in to attack him. At first everything is great...my initial swing of my Ice Axe cleaves off his left arm and cuts into his cortex- no more shield or focus for him! But wait, the old adage "Out of sight, out of mind" betrays me. What's right behind that tavern? Yeah, his heavy- his Ironclad! Silly me!

In the meantime on my left flank Gareth tries to run Gorman in to throw an Acid Flask at Eiryss, but he misses pitifully. Apparently endeavoring to match his poor aim, I run with Eiryss for a double melee attack and miss with both my crossbow bayonet and my sabre. Pathetic!

Gareth's Ironclad has now engaged me behind the tavern but I survive the first blow. Sorscha uses her feat to freeze the Cygnarians in this area, and I use this respite to finish off the Lancer. Unfortunately, a turn later when the Ironclad gets his second swing in I lose my axe arm and my cortex due to a devastating blow.

In the turn while his left flank units are frozen by my Icy Gaze(feat), Gareth freely moves his Charger through the middle of town and lays a couple of shots into my Destroyer- both shots hit but fail to penetrate my heavy warjack armor-plating. In the meantime, Gorman successfully disengages, circles around Eiryss, and this time hits her with a second Acid Flask attack- she does not survive. There goes my flank!

After another round of my doing decent damage against his Ironclad, Gareth responds with a surprise move. His Ironclad disengages from my Juggernaut and scoots over to Sorscha. With a devastating melee assault boosted by his warcaster, I lose my leader in a single melee attack. Warcaster dead....game over.

Visual Recap....S=Stryker,L=Lancer,I=Ironclad,C=Charger,G=Gorman,J=Juggernaut,S=Sorscha,D=Destroyer,E=Eiryss:

Epilogue:
Well, once again Gareth has bested me in a wargame! I learned a valuable lesson- be sure to protect your warcaster! Looking back, I realize I could have tried the same thing against his very aggressive caster, but I focused on his 'jacks instead. He was the first to seize the moment though and deliver the critical strike! I also learned that though the brawn of my heavy warjacks was worth the cost, he presented too many targets which gave him more tactical options. I will have to look out for this when we are field much larger armies some day. Bottom line- I LOVE Warmachine. Great rules, great minis....great fun!

Khadorian Tavern Completed

Finally the good folks of my Khadorian winter village have a place to swap stories and enjoy warm spirits. The same basic construction technique from my hovels was used on this building.

And here is a shot of my village(so far)(...sorry no winter terrain boards yet as a more appropriate setting....)

Khadorian Tavern(In Progress)

As part of my Khadorian Village I am building a tavern so the good folks can have a place to socialize and stay warm by consuming quality Khadorian spirits. Here you see just the shell of the building in its initial stages...

I wanted the village structures to carry a similar architecture so I have again used foamcore, stryene brick sheets and cardboard reinforcement strips.

The pins you see are holding things in place while my glue dries.

Of course the whole thing still needs windows, details(rivets etc.) and basing. When the structure is finished I'll post a pic or two.

Warmachine in the Works

After years of interest in the Warmachine game system by Privateer Press I have finally taken the plunge. I must say that I love the ruleset- much better than 40K in my opinion. The main thing that attracted me was the miniatures- have to love ten ton warjacks and their magic-rich warcasters who command them!

In the near future I will show some of my first minis- I chose the very Imperialist Russian-inspired Khador army to start as my first faction. In the meantime, I have been working on some Khadorian terrain with a winter theme.

First up are my Khadorian hovels(shown below). The brickwork is sytrene model railroad brickwork, the windows are simply "granny grating", the rivet-work is all made from the very simple "glue drop" method. The Khadorian banners are hand-made(hardened paper towel) and can be removed(so that the buildings can double for 40K structures).

The next pic shows the detail of the "heat pipe" going into the building. My theme for the khadorian village I am working on is a remote, COLD community. Heat is pumped into each structure via pipes from a community coal bunker facility. Yes, that is a "bendy straw"...

I am especially happy with how the coal bunker turned out. The central, semi-cylindrical piece represents a coal-fed furnace. I simply dressed up half a toilet paper roll. The six heat pipes leaving the stryofoam base are more straws but with wheels from a 1/72 scale tank filling in as control valves. The item on a metal rod is supposed to be a 'gong' so when the furnace is fed, the good Khadorians of the village can know to open up their ducts again as warm air is on the way! The gong is simply a resistor with soldering wire looped over the top of it.

The next pic is a view from the other side. Note that the semi-circular 'granny grating' on the sides of the tube is see-through, so I can conceivably place a flickering tea light inside to simulate the burning of the furnace. The snow effect on all buildings is a little white glue with baking soda sprinkled on top.

Here is a shot of my very messy painting desk. As you can see, I have ample amounts of Reaper, P3, Foundry, GW, Ral Partha and other paints. I must say, I still have some Ral Partha paints that I bought when I was a teenager...they are now over 20 yrs. old and still great- amazing!

Like I said, my first Warmachine figures are in the works. Here's a teaser of Khadorian warjack(Destroyer) in the process of being painted.

Fallschirmjager HMG's

I picked up some Platoon20 German Airborne HMG's and crews. The nice little pack came with an officer as well. Here you can see the result...

This should just about finish my Fallschirmjager force. At some point in the future I'll pick up some light arty. crews and maybe a recoilless rifle crew, but for now I will move on to other armies(maybe, just maybe, the Brits will get some love from me one of these days!).

Warhammer 40K Terrain Part II: Crashed Pod

Straying from my GW terrain for a second, I wanted to post a couple of pics of a simple, little side project I did recently. When you get into making terrain, you quickly adapt to having an eye for turning household junk into scenery gold!; I consider it the "alchemy" of the miniatures hobby world! I was looking at an old Gatorade bottle and a thought formed...
That's right- an escape pod. It was a simple idea that involved cuttin off the top of the bottle at a 45 degree angle, attaching it to some cardboard, and using a "baby bottle pop" lid as an exhaust nozzle(that one of the kids had discarded after his tasty treat). A little spackle to build up the earth around impact, a little static grass and some painting later- boom, a crashed escape pod.

There are many variations one could perform on this concept. I thought of an exposed interior compartment having been vacated by the survivors...or even some non-survivors in the capsule. In the end, I opted for a simple interior electronic section being visible through an exposed hatch. The narrative here is that the crew never made it out, the capsule being too deeply embedded in the ground...but scavengers came along and sought to see what they could salvage from the craft.

Warhammer 40K Terrain Part I: Manufactorum

I have been busy the last few weeks working on urban terrain for the Warhammer 40K universe. I got started by purchasing the excellent Imperial Sector set that is the heaviest box of hobby material I've ever received in the mail!

First up is the Manufactorum- the hot forges of the Imperium that churn out the wares of war in a restless galaxy. It was a fun kit to assemble, but even more fun to paint! I decided on a gun metal basecoat for the structure, which I thought was fitting for its purpose. I added some detail by concocting a custom "rust" wash from deep reed, steel and brown colored paints(which I thinned with water before applying).

Here is a close-up of one of the wall panels. The pipes, wires, rivets and valves detailing that GW put into the kit is beautiful!

I decided on a pretty standard "corner building" construction for the piece, as can be seen in this side view.

Here is a look at the interior with a Space Marine Scout for size reference. I "rubbled up" some of the edges of the surviving walkways with kitty-litter and sand.

Here is a close-up of part of the base. I mounted the entire structure on 1/8" hardboard. Spackle was used to build up rubble piles. I added debris into these piles consisting of extra pieces from the kit, some plastic sprue and even a jewely chain(now a large industrial chain!). The base was textured with the aforementioned mix of kitty litter and sand; I painted all ground areas in a black basecoat and drybrushed three different shades of grade to highlight them.

What's on the Workbench? 9-27-09

Now my first installment of "What's on my Workbench?"....

Above you can see my latest painting projects.

To the left are two US 30cal MG crewmen, with 20mm partisans to their right(bases not painted yet), and a couple of Tau Crisis Battlesuit accessories being painted up(multi-tracker, missile pod).

No these aren't impaled victims of Chaos...they're WWII Germans glued to nails(my prefered way to paint minis). Included are 2 officers, a sniper and six Waffen S.S. infantrymen.

That's it for now...

Tau...For the Greater Good

O.K., so some say they are interstellar communists, but I just like their "Samurai meets Mechwarrior" appearance! For the last couple of months I've been working on a Tau Battleforce and I am pretty happy with the results. Now though I admit they aren't an easy army to play, especially once close combat occurs, I like the raw power of their weaponry and their versatile battlesuits! I decided on a unique paint scheme for this army with a "Fall Forest" pattern. The narrative is that these Tau have chosen a camo scheme to match the autumn woods that they are skirmishing in. I used birch catkin seed pods to make custom 'leaves" for the bases as well as tree roots made from GW green stuff(click on the first two pictures for a closer look at the bases).

Firewarrior squad...

Crisis Battlesuit and Firewarriors

Two Battlesuits....

Stealthsuits- infiltrators for the Tau!...

A Hammerhead heavy support vehicle...

I have also worked on some Kroot, but I will save them for a future post.

So far I have made and painted...
12 Firewarriors
3 Stealthsuits
2 Crisis Battlesuits
1 Hammerhead/Devilfish
6 Kroot Warriors

On my workbench I still am working on...
1 Devilfish troop carrier
6 Kroot Hounds
1 Krootox

Space Marines(Ultramarines) Tactical Squad

Here are some early efforts of mine to paint some of the Space Marines from the Black Reach set. The Ultramarines are my favorite chapter because of their devotion to the emperor and strict adherence to the Codex Astartes, They have great back-story and the Ultramarines Novels by Graham McNeill made me even more excited to model these guys.

Here is a shot of 10 Ultramarines- I have been working diligently to find a painting technique that I like. I am generally satisfied with their look, but I know I will improve in time.

The squad includes 10 Space Marines(tactical marines) armed with the following: 7 boltguns, 1 flamer, 1 missile launcher, 1 bolter pistol/chainsword.

The sergeant shown below gives a leadership boost to the squad. I like the pose, and imagining him firing off rounds keeping some xenos hoard at bay until they finally close on him and he grinds them up with his chainsword(plus, we all know guys with shaved heads are not to be trifled with)...

The flamer-armed marine- I love the so-armed character of Pasanius in McNeill's novels.

Here is the squad arrayed in defense of the archaic ruins walls from the set shown in my previous post...

"Ano"- Space Marine Marine Dreadnought

For my second WH40K post I will show my Space Marine Dreadnought. For those not in the know, a Dreadnought is basically a mechanized sarcophogaus for a Space Marine who's battle injuries are too severe for medical recovery. The dreadnought chassis provides him a second life as a "heavy support" option in the Space Marine codex. Their name is plastered to the armored shell in banners- I have chosen "Ano" as the name of this dread...

The model above came from the Assault on Black Reach starter set- a great way for noobs to jump into the 40K hobby. The dreadnought in this set is a great figure and I did not modify or convert it in any way. The only customized bit is the "urban" base that I dressed up.

Space Marine(Ultramarine) Scouts

Something new for the blog...
I am posting my first pics of some of my Warhammer 40,000 minis. I've been eyeing Games Workshop's 40K line for man years and I finally dived in! I am currently working on Space Marine and Tau armies, and my son is building a Necron force. Today I will highlight my first 40K figures(though I've done dozens by now), Space Marine Scout(Snipers). These guys are great for taking objectives, providing pinpoint fire support and disrupting enemy battle plans with their "infiltrate" deployment ability.

First- a group shot. I chose the Ultramarines chapter for my paint scheme. It wasn't simply a default choice as they are the most heralded in 40K lore, it was really inspired by my recent reading of the WH40K novel, The Ultramarine Omnibus- a great read by Graham McNeil.

Here is a shot of three scouts in "sniping" poses with their rifles.

And from behind you can see their "camo cloaks". I chose an urban scheme(which you will see is also the theme for all my Space Marine bases as well).

Here is a Scout Marine with a missile launcher. The snipers are fine, but they need a little punch in case they come up against enemy armor or superior numbers- this guy fits the bill.

An individual sniper- I posed his head to the side as if he is awaiting targeting info or orders.

Finally, the sergeant of the squad. I was a little initimidated by the painting of the eagle on his chest, but it came out o.k. The sgt. provides a leadership bonus that is important in morale-sensitive situations.