Crisis 2012 Limited Edition miniature

Here it is then, the model you'll be receiving to attend Crisis 2012, comming to you on the 3rd of november this year.

He is Peter Minuit who was born from Belgian parents but worked for the Dutch governement as a governor of New Netherlands and as a governor of New Sweden. He has bought Manhatten Island from the Indians for 24$ worth of trinkets (Hence the chest)

The model is sculpted by Paul Hicks, and I can see a lot of uses for this particular fella, as his clothing and equipment give you an historical range of about 150 years, or he can make a nice addition to a fantasy army as say an allied mercenary officer thanks to the chest...

Scarsfell Griffon

So this will be the final model I`ll be painting for my Hordes force for a few weeks, as I really, really need to expand my Chaos Dwarf force, and won`t be having any painting time the comming week.

The Griffon was a buy without knowing it`s rules (I don`t have Dominion) nor knowing it was plastic, but I was pleasantly surpised by both of those.

The plastic is a good quality that allows for a light undercoat, not obscuring details, while ruleswise with his Long Leach rule, Flight ability and Parry animus, this light warbeast can be used as what I`ve dubbed a `focus assassin`, throttling him in with an enemy caster early on, to try and keep him occupied and saving his focus to fight back instead of distributing them to their warjacks.

Or to be just a sheer annoyance in general...

Sentry Stone and Mannikins

Fresh of the basing and varnishing line, the first `unit` for my Circle Orboros forces.

Sentry Stones are just that, stones you place as scenery on the table, and that is where they stay... before the magic starts to kick in, and the old rock starts to create troops to defend itself, and generally tries to be a nuissance to the opponents advancing forces.

 And gives Kaya a small anchor to `dance around` with evading the better combat casters of the opponent ;-)

Journeyman League is go!

So tonight the TSA Journeyman league for Warmachine / Hordes kicked off, and with only a single multiplayer under the belt, I threw my druidical forces into the fray.

My first battle was a win, againt another novice with only some mkI experience under the belt, and his Menoth forces.  I took a HUGE gamble by racing and spirit dooring to the otherside of the table in turn 2, and he failed to capitalize on it.

Beast of the match was the Warpwolf once again, taking apart 2 light, 1 heavy and Kreoss himself.

Second game was against an experienced player and his Skorne force.  I claim moral victory, as his Morghul needed all 10(!!!!) of her attacks before finally downing Kaya.  Had he failed on the last roll, the warpwolf would have had a skinny warlock for dinner.

Beast of the match: his to hit rolls, missing all 7(!!!) attacks against an Argus and 6 out of 10 in the final battle between both sides warlocks.

So far I have seen tonight already 8 different players: 4 Hordes and 4 Warmachine ones.  There was respectively 2 Skorne, 1 Legion of Everblight and 1 Circle Orboros, and 2 Menoth, 1 Khador and 1 Cryx.

I also know Nemesis has ordered his forces in the past week (Skorne as well I believe, which would make them the most present faction oddly enough), with at least one more Khador, one more Cryx, one Cygnar, a Mercenary and maybe a Minion force as well underway.

For myself as a rookie, starting with a clear victory and a close loss isn`t to shabby at all, and I keep being mightily impressed with the warpwolf, who cleaned up tonight the full Menoth force, and the Titan and a Savage in the second battle... that is 6 out of the 8 models that opposed me tonight, and he didn`t die once himself.

Knights of the Zodiac Mythological Forces completed

A joyous morning at Casa Tomsche today, as the nice man of UPS brought me a parcel I had tracked down through eBay, containing no less then 10 booster boxes (of 12 boosters a box) of this Knights of the Zodiac expansion.

I was still missing only 6 cards for the full set, so taking no chances I bought up the full arsenal the eBay seller, real-gooddeal, had on offer, as it is hard enough to track the cards down of this now almost 10 year old card game.

After box 1 I already had 5 out of the 6 missing cards (imagine what cursing would have been done had I only bought one box), and 2 boosters in with the second box the series was at last completed.

Only thing missing now are most of the Promo cards, but I realise this will be near mission impossible unless I can track down the specific merchandise (action figures, region 1 dvd`s etc) in new mint condition where they are included with.

Which also leaves me now with 10 booster packs and 8 unopened boxes of the expansion, time to check TCO if there are any collectors I could throw a deal with...

Floating Buddha

Well, two more Hordes units have been as good as painted, just need to do their basing and that will raise me to 23 points, meaning I`m as good as `out of the woods` (pun intended) with the Druids for the Journeyman League for the comming two months.

Need to get a solo, and I`ll be safe and sound in required points `till the New Year, so it`s time to shift attention back to my Chaos Dwarfs, who are in need of serious lovin` and the preparations of a 1000 points force of either Legion of Azgorh or Hobgoblins for the duo tournament comming up in november.

Therefore, I painted this floating Buddha, the unit filler for the Oni Tensei oriental style warriors I showed yesterday, a unit if I get it done will definitly be featured in the LoA list as an Infernal Guard regiment.

I went for a jade colour to fit with the jade detailing on their axes.  The model is plaster that I bought at a second hand a year or two ago for the not happened Cathay project, I suspect it are recasted fishtank ornaments but heck, it was 1 euro for 2 buddha statues and so I raised one on a cloudy pillar to be the centre of the unit. 

The idea comes actually from my Playstation Vita, where I had downloaded onto a mini game from the PS store, `Floating God Saves the Pilgrims` in which some chinese deity flies over a group of pilgrims on their way through a level.  It`s a kind of a Lemmings game with a twist, in that you don`t have the pilgrims do the work, but the cloudguy.

Next up, some more work on a solid block of Sneaky Gitz, and a 15mm earthshaker for HotT in between.

Home Improvement... and a lass with glasses

So, with the Warmahordes JL I wanted to make a seperate gallery so the league commissioner could keep track of the paintworks without hauling everything to the club each time.

I hate transporting miniatures if I ain`t going to need them, that can only result in tears in the end...

So I took the opportunity to do some reshuffling on the blog, the two most notrious things being that I moved the business cards and profile cards from top to bottom, and that I added three more tabs to the top.

These are all three `gallery pages`, so you`ll be finding pictures there and not much else of things that have appeared here on the main page.

The Temple of Hashut is all about fully completed and reworked regiments of my various Chaos Dwarf forces.

Circle Orboros is said Hordes gallery

Skirmish Forces is just that, miniatures from various skirmish games like Malifaux et such.

Which brings us to the glasses lass of the title, Sophia Ilmora from the Anima Tactics game.  I doubt I will ever be playing the game as anime ain`t hawt over at TSA, but it is a range of great looking models and I have some for the occassional paint job.  I did her quite a while back (painting, you pevs!), but now got a better picture of her.

Oni Tensei - Brush Slave Leave round 6

Well, thanks to the `Legacy of Aleeha`, I managed to pull of another victory in the Brush Slave League, making me go 3 / 1 / 2 at the moment and resulting in a nice 23.5 points.

I entered a set of the oriental helmetted Chaos Dwarf warriors, and took a fairly easy win against a repeat entry that has been around in the BSL since round 1.  This, against all my expectations, results in me actually gaining a place in the league table, parking my chubby butt on the 4th place with still 2 rounds to go.

I now have mathematically reached my goal to end in the first half of the League table, so thats a goal achieved, but now I`m doubting if I can manage to stay in the first 5.  For the next round I have a gamble in that perspective, as where in the LPL over at Lead Adventures Forum you get `punished` by the community if you enter GW models, here, being a warhammer afficionado forum, it is the opposite.  And I have my obligational Anime Mecha entry lined up for next month, so I wonder how I`m going to fare.

My money is on DAGabriel btw for the League win.

Now about the unit itself, I cannot tell to much yet, well, because I`m still working on it.  I have finished all 12 rank and file now, and am in the early stages of converting the full command group.  The `plan` is to have a 20 strong unit + command + an in my minds eye cool idea of a unit filler centerpiece + one of the old pre big hats as a character in the unit.

Oh, and the name came from an old Hentai anime I once saw about a girl whose demonic tattoo comes to live and performs all kinds of carnal depravities, google only at own risk...

Season 2 of the BSL, with a slightly modified points system apparently, is on the horizon as well, as public opinion seems to choose to start immediatly after this one, so that should be december.  I`ll be adding that to the paint goals of 2013, and really should start doing some preparations me thinks for both the BSL as for the LPL that year :-)

Kaya the Wildborne and the Journeyman League prognosis

And so my starter box force (well, technically, as it is the alternate Kaya model instead of the one that comes with the box) has been completed.

She was actually done past saturday, but as I needed a fresh bottle of PVA I couldn`t do her base, but it did mean I painted the whole box between... friday late night and saturday evening.  Who said you needed much free time to be able to get a force done?

What I saw in my only game so far in MkII, is that this wild lass is a force to be reckoned with, as she is able to send in her animals, do serious damage as her Packhunter rule makes boosts to hit as good as unnecessary, and then Spirit them out of any tight spots.

On the other hand, she does have to rely on her animals, because both her melee stats, defenses, and Splinter are all but impressive, and she would be no match for the average warcaster or even other warlocks.  Kaya is a booster warlock, her force gets better because of her but on her own she only has her looks going for her ;-)

The Journeyman League

Roight, so this friday the League starts, and from my very limited experience, and having no clue what the majority of the opponents will be fielding (I do have the impression I`m the only Circle present though), I can say what I won`t be liking:

* Mass firing comming my way.  Luckily, this seems to be either the unpredictable Menoth firing going round mostly, so this should be managable in the first rounds.

* Light warjacks.  To many on the field, I know of at least 2 Menoth, 1 Cygnar and 1 Mercenary Grundback player.  And I fear the Everblights player Shredders actually more then his Carnivean, the last one I can tackle with the Warpwolf, but all those little nibbles could overwhelm my force easily.

* Knock down.  Unfortunatly, there is already 2 Kreoss`s, 2 Sorcha`s and a Stryker present...

I am going to have to rely on the one factor the Circle seems to have above all other factions: SPEED.  If I can`t manage to get the charge in, I`m in big doo-doo, and doing something seriously wrong...

It should be do-able against those lumberjacks of Khador, but I will have to hope I strike them hard enough that they can`t hit back.  The other heavies shouldn`t pose to much of an issue either, but this brings me on the territory I am fearing during the initial phases of the League.  A warcaster, with his focus saved up, is equal to a light warjack in defense and hit points, but hits better and usually just as hard.  This means, considering Kaya`s lack of melee skill, that not only I`m going to have to be able to do an Alpha Strike on the enemy, but see that the beasties get out more or less in one piece to be thrown against the warcaster...

Only time will tell, as experience at the moment is quite nill...