Can't Get Enough

OK so as I have mentioned I jumped on another kickstarter at the beginning of the month. Well I am totally hooked on the concept and previews they have been putting out. Today they had four updates with the final one being this guy:

This is a sidekick for currently locked Lawmen faction. This faction is going to have Wyatt Earp as a boss model and Doc Holliday as an underboss.....how freakin sweet is that? The also showed the two different bags that Battle foam is going to be producing for the game. They are doing a full size bag which is similar to my Hordes bag so I am not too interested but they are also doing a small skirmish size bag which I find really interesting. The kickstarter is about to unlock four exclusive women of the wild west which will be free for all backs so that will be cool. If you are interested or want to see more of the project swing by: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wildwestexodus/wild-west-exodus-sci-fi-western-miniatures-game

Well enough of my current crush and back to an old love. I will be heading out to Buffalo with a bunch of the guys for a 25pt random paired team tourney. While I am not usually a fan of these gimmicky type event I am looking forward to heading out and just having a good time and not being too serious. Since I am going to try and be let serious I decided to leave the trolls at home and go with my OG faction Khador. Here is the list I came up with for now:

The Butcher of Khardov (*6pts)
* Berserker (6pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Kayazy Assassins (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Kayazy Assassin Underboss (2pts)
Koldun Lord (2pts)
Rorsh & Brine (9pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)
I may drop the Kayazy as they are a pain to play against and swap in the winter guard rifle corp with Kovnik Joe. While the rifle corp can be nasty on the Butcher's feat turn they are not as hated as the Kayazy. I have some crazy shenanigans I want to try and pull of with this list...one of them being the get my berserker to blow up in their ranks and kill a bunch of stuff....channeling my z1g1 there :) OK it is 3am and I really need to grab a little more sleep before we hit the road for B'lo in the am.

Stalled Cave/Speeding Kickstarter

I got a decent start on the sluggers at the beginning of last week but as the work week dragged on I accomplished nothing more. I was thoroughly exhausted by the time Thursday rolled around and I still had three more nights to work. I will be visiting my folks for a couple days this week so more work on the sluggers looks doubtful for a little while.

Oxyguy (Les) asked me about a tourney in Buffalo this Saturday so I may be hitting that with them. The event is a random paired team event where each player brings 25pts and plays from there. All in all the event doesn't fully sound like my cup of tea but could be a good time. I am throwing around some list ideas in my head and considering bringing either Khador or Menoth. If I go Khador it will most likely be pButcher and if I go Menoth I am pretty sure it will be Reznik. I haven't ruled out trolls though and I am looking at either Calandra, eMadrak, Borka or maybe Jarl....who knows. I will post some more thoughts on this when lists start to form in my head.

My main past time over the last few days has been following the Wild West Exodus kickstater. I have to say I am really fired up about this project and have already started working on paint schemes in my head. I read the charlie (pre-beta) rules and they seem fun and should only get better once they are tightened up in beta and then the final draft. Over the weekend the kickstated picked up some steam and added on ~10-15K which was good to see and makes me optimistic it will reach some of the really nice stretch goals.

I didn't think that the Warrior Nation would be the faction that really grabbed me....well I was wrong this faction has me pretty much all in. Here are a selection of some of the range currently available and part of my pledge level.

This is the "starter box". As you can see the boss sitting bull is pretty badass looking. I already have a really good idea on how I am going to paint the hired hands "grunts" and working on ideas for sitting bull. I am not 100% on the sky spirit guy but that's OK. 

 

Here is the unlocked wave two of heavy weapons. The WN guy with the Gatling gun is awesome looking and even better than the wave one heavy weapon. I have to say since he is in the picture I also love the outlaw with the .50 cal rifle.

 

Boss number two for the WN. I thought it couldn't get much better than Sitting Bull as a boss....well I was wrong. Here is the concept art for Geronimo and boom they out did Sitting Bull. I can't wait to see the 3D sculpt on this monster.

 

Here is the merc crew. As you can tell this is obviously a shout out to the amazing series Firefly. So far we only have four member of the crew but rumor is at the 200K lvl the remaining five crew members will be unlocked....(fingers crossed it is added into my level for free).

So there you have it the Warrior Nation for Wild West Exodus. I am really excited about this project and have some friends looking at it too so maybe this will be a really sweet side game for WM/H. I am trying my hardest to not get to deep into this as I have the tendency to go all in and actually end up getting too much.

I hope to sneak some hobby time later in the week so hopefully more updates on the sluggers then.

 

Sluggers Started

Started working on the sluggers Sunday afternoon. Despite Monday being my first night back to work (been off for three weeks) I was able to get some quality work done. I took about an hour on Sunday to clean off the mold lines and get these guys (and gal) ready for primer. The only issue I ran into was attaching the ammo belts where needed. The contact point for these wasn't great and I didn't have much surface area/depth to try and pin. It doesn't help that the attachment point is in a fairly tight spot and I have big sausage fingers. I fell back on a method I haven't used for some time...the green stuff and glue method. It seems to have done the trick. The addition of the little ball of green stuff held the belt in place while I moved it to the exact spot I wanted. Once I had the location locked down I gave it a little push and scraped of the excess green stuff which pushed out of the gaps.

After letting the green stuff cure it was time to beak out the air brush. I primed with my standard black Vallejo surface primer. I used the airbrush to basecoat two different section on Northblade's Grogspar and I was happy with the results. As an aside I will be posting photos of the finished Grogspar coming once I hear the mini has been delivered and Northblade has seen it in person first. I was determined to basecoat as much of the minis with the airbrush as possible. I felt even if I had some over spray this would be easily corrected and worth the time saved not having to hand brush everything. Here they are after the basecoating stage and prior to cleaning up any of the edges that had over spray issues:

I painted the pants with P3 rucksack tan (by far my favorite color for light leathers), the boots/gloves got hit with P3 bootstrap leather, the skin with my standard troll blue, and I did the green of the tartans with Vallejo Game Color Russian green. I would normally try and spray the metallic sections as well but seeing as there wasn't too much metal and I wanted to avoid metallic over spray I decided to pass on that for the time being.

I started tinkering with a 50pt family reunion list. I want to try and keep the sluggers for the first few lists and not go right to the trollkin champions. I also want to try and get the war wagon in as many of the lists as possible. Here is what I came up with the other night:

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Sluggers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
War Wagon (9pts)

I previously mention my concern over running into heavy armor. I decided that Rok and pyre troll should be helpful to this end. I have the two damage buffs here in primal and flaming fist. I also have some fun knockdown shenanigans with the war wagon and mosh pit. This should aid the sluggers in hitting their targets. Once again I don't think this list is optimal by any stretch of the imagination but it sure looks like it could be fun. I am not sure when I will be able to grab a game again but I plan to bring this and the 35pt list from the other day to the the store and kick the tires on my unloved challenge.

Northblade's Unloved Model Challenge

Those of you that listen to Lost Hemisphere Radio may have heard Northblade mention his unloved model challenge he is running out of his home store Heroes World. This challenge has also been picked up on the Lost Hemisphere forums. Well for those of you that have not heard the podcast here is the gist: there are three basic levels to the challenge and they are as follows:

1. Select a model from your faction that sees little table time and is generally believed to be subpar. Then paint that mini up and play it on a regular basis and see if you can make it work.
2. Let Northblade or 'Gdaybloke select the mini
3. Let the guys select a theme force (since it is LH what would you expect?) and play that at tier 2 or higher. Try to play it to >.500 win percentage

Despite not being part of Mr Bell's meta I shot him a text message and said count me. I need to keep painting and this will be some motivation. I figured I'd get something like Gunnbjorn which would be good since he has been partially painted for nearly a year now. Mr Bell surprised me by selecting Borka's family reunion theme force from NQ #38. Those of you that follow along with the cave know I love the family so this isn't too out there for me. I still need to finish painting parts of it so sounds like a win/win for me. It also can be a reason to get the newly painted war wagon on the table more often. Trying to keep with the spirit of the challenge I have decided to throw in an unloved unit in my first list. The unit in question would be sluggers. I didn't own them at the time of the challenge and I have never seen them played (I did just see them on a tray at Templecon masters).

I picked up a box of sluggers Tuesday at my FLGS since I knew they would be in stock. I am pretty sure they have been on the shelf at the FLGS since the release date. Right off the bat the unit is already fighting me as the box was miss packed. Here is a photo of the unit.

You may be saying there are five minis there what is the issue? Well maybe it is not a big deal but I got two unit leaders and three grunts versus the one leader four grunts it is suppose to be. I am missing one of the lady sluggers. Like I said maybe not that big of a deal but it always bugs me when things aren't what they are suppose to be. On top of that the card was mangled in the box and will need to be replaced.

I have been brainstorming on some lists and while I feel it plays better (trolls in general) at the 50pt level I am toying with a few 35pt list:

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
* Winter Troll (5pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Sluggers (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

This list ends up having two unloved models/units. the winter troll and the sluggers. After taking care of my tier requirements I only had room for 10pts worth of 'beasts. The pyre was an easy choice the winter was included because I don't own a second pyre or storm troll. I suppose I could go slag/swamp....swarm on an iron fleshed/stumbling drunk Borka could be fun (for me). I will have to play around with it some. I will probably have some issues cracking serious armor but this is a start. If I can win the roll for initiative I think I maybe able to get some solid use out of the sluggers. Use the advance deploy from the tier to move them and Boomhowlers then run the sluggers into a good firing position and hopefully aim and take advantage of full auto for a few turns. Once again all good in theory but we will have to see how it plays out on the table.

Templecon Day 3 Wrap Up

Day three was going to be a little bit of a slow day for me and the crew. I had been up most of the night the past two nights and was just looking to take it easy on Sunday. Due to changes in our plans we were going to be heading back Sunday afternoon versus staying to watch the super bowl and heading back Monday. We had to be out of our room by 11:00am we packed up Les' car between 10-11 and then headed out to scary up some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. After we picked up food we returned to the convention to east and check out the  gaming hall to see what was going on.

Abe: "I snore? Really?" the rest of us "YES!"

Looking a little groggy big fellow. Too much Rowan's last night? 

We had to be out of our room by 11:00am we packed up Les' car between 10-11 and then headed out to scary up some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. After we picked up food we returned to the convention to east and check out the gaming hall to see what was going on.

 Some last day iron arena action going in the hall outside the main gaming hall.

 

After finishing my breakfast sandwich I headed into the hall to check out the first round pairing for masters. Those of you that go to a lot of national events (I don't) will recognize a lot of the familiar "big guys" in a few of these photos.

 



When I was looking at the pairings Jake was matched up with a troll player first round. when I looked at the troll players board I was a little surprised to see a Gunnbjorn theme force as one of his three lists. Looking at Jake's lists I really think this might have been the list to play against him but alas the player selected an eDoomie list with the mountain king. FYI Jake won.

 

There is Paul from midnight madness day one

 

I didn't think I would say this but I was a little burnt out on Warmachine so I didn't even bring my army back inside the convention hall. The previous night one of the guys demoing Zombicide told us they put a full version of the game in the boardgame room so a group of us headed down to the boardgame room to check it out. Abe had played the game a time of two so he was in charge.

 

 The boardgame room. Table filled with games just say what you want and play away.

 

Cash and Nick pulling out the zombies.

 

After we finished out demo game we headed back down to the gaming area. I really enjoyed the tutorial mission of Zombicide we played and was curious to hear more. I was on the fence back and forth weather I was going to pick up the game or not but based on previous posts you know that answer :) I will get more into the things that pushed me into my purchase in a later Zombicide post. Around 3pm we said goodbye to Zack, John, Cash, and a few other people we met along the lines and started the drive home.

Les and I were the only two people who didn't pass out on the drive home. Thankfully Les didn't as he was driving :) Templecon 2013 was once again amazing. Despite having to return home a day early I think 2013 was even better than 2012. Templecon is a really great time and look forward to doing it year after year with the Team Spite crew.

 

 

Wild West Exodus

It is official I am a sucker for Kickstarter. If I am not careful my wife is going to block it on our computer. As I mentioned a few days ago I bought into the Rivet Wars kickstarter as a birthday present to myself.

Well a few days ago this popped up on kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wildwestexodus/wild-west-exodus-sci-fi-western-miniatures-game?ref=search

I have been aware of this project as two pf my favorite people in the miniature industry have been involved in the project. The first of those two people is Rob Hawkins. Those of you that follow this blog know Rob has done some commission work for me including my Rok and Extremoth conversion. Rob has build a display table for WWX which is stunning.

You can find the rest of the gallery here:
http://robhawkinshobby.blogspot.com/p/wild-west-exodus-town.html

The other person involve in the project is Tom Schadle. I have exchanged emails with Tom years ago and he was a big help in my progression in painting. He has also been a big inspiration for me. Tom has painted many of the studio minis for WWX so far and you can see some of them on his facebook here:http://www.facebook.com/pages/MiniVault/187587854842

Well I was trying to hold strong and not get in on this but I saw that there were three of the early bird specials left at the level I was most interested in. So guess what happened?

Yup you got it. A picture says 1000 words but please shhhhhh don't tell my wife ;)

Templecon Day 2 Wrap Up

I had big plans for day two prior to heading to Templecon but those changed for me. I was expecting to play in hard core but after finishing the warcaster's dilemma tournament at 7am that morning and getting to sleep around 9am I just didn't have it in me and I actually didn't get up until 11:30 (30 min after registration).

Team Spite had two players hitting up hardcore. The first was Zack aka playing Galleon oh I mean mercs. His list was a T4 Shae pirates life. This list had a very heavy assassination focus (more on this later). The other representative was Adam aka Bloodyarcane the junior member of our crew. As I think about it Scudo may have played his Circle army in hardcore too but I cannot remember.

Round one was starting as I was getting out of the shower I received a text message from Adam say he was paired with Warmahorde super start Jake Van Meter (neutralize). I knew Adam was super pumped to play him but was afraid he was going to be a little start struck. Well turns out I was right as Jake turn two assassinated pDenny with Typhon and didn't kill a single additional model. This is important to not as the new hardcore rules have been changed for mage hunter and killing a warnoun w/o killing another models puts you at the top of the heap to win. As it turns out Zack was playing Volt Ron playing Protectorate. I was hoping to run into Volt as his blog is one of the ones I check into regularly and you can see it here http://miniarmyhugetimesink.wordpress.com/  Well it turned out that Zack got an assassination as well killing only one model in addition to the 'caster. This would have put him in great shape for mage hunter if it were not for Jake's 0 against young 'arcane.

After hearing round ones results Zack was on a mission and was "hunting that zero" the rest of the day. Round two found him a L, round three another assassination with only one model killed in addition to the 'caster. Then came round four and Zack got that zero putting him in a tie with Jake with a 0. Round five came about and saw Jake and Zack matched against each other. As long as Jake didn't throw a 0 up against Zack he was going to hold on and take home mage hunter.

Picture says 1000 words. Team Spite dun got a metal! z1g1 "sniffed out that zero!" and won mage hunter.

Those that know hardcore know the four metal categories and my personal favorite is master craftsman. Master Craftsman was won by a gentleman named Erik Lui (I believe). He painted up a stunning Gaspy3 force. I took a few photos for y'all. Behold the beauty!

The water on the back of the base was hand painted! 

 How can I not love this army he even did trolls! Cryxian trolls but trolls.

While hardcore was going on I wandered around a while once again looking at the demos and watching some of the hardcore matches. It was during this time I got a demo game in of Rivet Wars. Rivet Wars had a kickstarter going which ended Monday am around 3am. I had been watching the kickstarter pretty closely prior to heading to Templecon and when I saw they had a table set up I knew I wanted a demo. I had a fun demo with one of the cool min or not guys and when I got home late Sunday I jumped on the computer and bought into the kickstarter as a birthday present to myself. I now have another game to look forward to in September.

After my game of rivet wars I headed back to the room to grab my trolls to hit the iron arena. Last year I didn't really have a clear cut goal for iron arena points this year however I had a very specific targeted item at 45 skulls. I also wanted to try and get a game with one of the PPS guys this year. As I was just getting back down to the gaming hall Ed Bourelle was walking in with his tray and appeared to be looking for a game. I inquired as such and off to a table we went. Ed was playing a new Legion army for himself (only the second game played I believe he said) while I was playing my beloved trolls. I feel I kinda net decked him a little when I pulled Jarl out against his Saeryn list. I played:

Jarl Skuld, Devil Of Thornwood (*6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
War Wagon (9pts)
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters (Cylena and 9 Grunts) (10pts)
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)

I played one point down as the only one point mini I had was swamp gobbers and they aren't worth taking out of the bag against eyeless sight beasts.

Mr Bourelle's list:

Saeryn, Omen of Everblight (*5pts)
* Naga Nightlurker (5pts)
* Shredder (2pts)
* Carnivean (11pts)
* Ravagore (10pts)
* Scythean (9pts)
Blackfrost Shard (5pts)
Blighted Nyss Legionnaires (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Captain Farilor & Standard (3pts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd (1pts)
Blighted Nyss Shepherd (1pts)
Succubus (2pts)
 

In game action.

The game was a ton of fun and I am really grateful that he took the time to play me. The game was a bloody mess with both forces being decimated. When I finally killed Saeryn all I had left on the table was five Nyss, an impaler with 6 life, Jarl with 4 life remaining and on fire, and Saxon with 2 life left. It is interactions like these that I feel set PP apart and really fuel my love for the game and the people developing it. I doubt he will see this but once again thank you for the game Ed and hope to play again some day!

After the completion of hardcore a group of the guys found a table and set up a game of Twilight Imperium. They played a game the night before which I watched a little. I was going to join in on this one but it looked far to complex for my current mental state plus I had those 45 arena points to track down.

Adam and John setting up

 

Adam looking tough or trying at least

 

Dave and Zack really getting into TI. The adult beverages may have helped here :)

The standard issue tournament was going on after hardcore as well. Team Spite's Oxyguy and Theprofessional Mr Cash played in this event. Les one one of the round by round drawings for not having any characters. He won a Thor blister. Unfortunately for Les this was about the only thing he won that afternoon.

While the other guys were playing TI or standard issue Abe, Nick and myself hit up the iron arena. We played a few multiplayer games on scenario tables.

Abe borrowed Nick's stormwall for this game. He played Nemo2 double stormwall. If you look at the bottom of the picture mountain king is saying bring it old man.

Nick breaking out some Skorne. 

Last game of the night we played a four player 2v2 game on a cave scenario board. At this time I was pretty shot mentally. We picked up another play to fill out the team. I forgot to write his name down and it is eluding me at this time but he was playing pSevy. We ended up losing on scenario around 4am but I got my 45th skull and hit the redemption table!

 

Here is my prize. I saw on day one they had a stack of about 10 copies of No Quarter #1. I was a little set back by the number of pts required to get one but I think it helped keep them "in stock" while i was building my points. I was very excited to see these on the prize stand as I was only missing three issues of No Quarter prior to heading to Templecon. I only need issues three and four to complete my collection.

 

 

Templecon Day 1 Wrap Up

OK Templecon was officially to begin. After being up until about 2am catching up with out of town Team Spite members we woke up about 7am to get some breakfast and head down to the gaming hall to get seats for the keynote address.

Les rocking the new official Team Spite shirt. I picked these up two days before we hit the road. 

 Little Scudo wandered over to say what up and get some steamroller sheets.

z1g1 wide eyed and ready to roll to the team tourney.  

The crowd grew outside the gaming hall as we awaited our chance to grab seats for the keynote presentation. Guarding our door was the famous/infamous G'daybloke. It was nice to BS and catch up a little prior to getting into the hall.

PPS Ed Bourelle, Will Shick, and Lyle Lowery preparing to dazzle the crowd with the new hotness. If you haven't seen the keynote presentation yet....but I am sure you have head over to privateer press and check it out.

 

After the keynote address and Q&A it was time to get down to some gaming. The first event of the weekend was the team tourney. I played in this last year and lord is it a long event. it is far too long for my liking so I sat it out and decided to try and play in the 75pt time crisis event later in the day. I walked a round a little checking out the demos in the hallway, the vendor booths, registered for iron arena, and headed back to the room to relax and work on some lists for time crisis.

Time crisis was suppose to be a 75pt event with frenzy timing per the new steamroller 2013 rules. Frenzy timing for those of you that are unaware uses the turn times of two point lvls lower. This means a 75pt event would have seven min turns with one three min extension! The didn't have enough of the correct clocks so we ended up playing 42min deathclock instead. There was a drawing for anyone using two 120mm bases in a single list after watch round. The two lists I settled on were:

Chief Madrak Ironhide (*6pts)
* Mountain King (20pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

and

Borka Kegslayer (*5pts)
* Mountain King (20pts)
* Rok (11pts)
* Dire Troll Mauler (9pts)
War Wagon (9pts)
Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (Boomhowler and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Trollkin Champions (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)
* Skaldi Bonehammer (3pts)
Stone Scribe Chronicler (2pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

The Madrak list is a variation of the pMaddy list I have been paying for the last year and love to play. I have this list down pretty darn well and have my order of activation pretty well set. The second list is a Family Reunion list that I have played some but never with the two 120mm bases. I was really excited to try this guy out and planned to play this most if not all of the games. It was at this time that I ran into a serious snag in my plans. While I was unpacking my lists for the tourney I noticed I didn't have my keg carrier! I ran out to the war store booth to try and buy a new Borka but they had non in stock. Well looks like just pMaddy for me. The event had a pretty small entrance seeing as so many people were still playing in the team tourney.

My first round opponent was Andrew from New Jersey. The first round scenario was into the breach. He decided to run a Constance Blaze list. We both made some mistake throughout the fight but I think he forgot the effects of snaking when he selected his list as on his feat turn my beat up beasts destroyed large chunks of infantry and due to snaking he didn't get the souls and therefore the major benefits of the feat. The game ended with Constance being assassinate. We both played a little sloppy but it was a fun game and was a good opponent. 1-0

Round two I played Brian from New Hampshire. He was playing pDenny.....uggh. As a troll play I loathe pDenny since unless I am play pDoomshaper I know one of my units/beasts will be out of play the entire game. The game was back and forth. While he decided to crippling grasp the mountain king and take him out of action I was able to do some serious counter damage and was able to weather Denny brutal feat. This too was a fun game but there was a clock SNAFU on my part. Since we didn't have a chess clock that switched time over I forgot to start my clock. In response I decided to let my clock run off time as a penalty which we both felt was fair. I forgot I could just adjust the time and restart my turn. Well the round time ended and we learned of a new SR2013 rule. If the combined time on both clocks is greater than 5 min the game is considered a draw. my clock showed 5 min and his showed 1 min. Result = draw. We were pretty sure his clock was <30 sec so while waiting for the pairings for the next round I hit the start button and began to count. the clock had 12 sec left. Uggh I screwed this game up. 1-0-1

My opponent for the last round was Tim from Pennsylvania. I am not sure if you can make it out but this was a Sturm and Drang force made up of seven war hogs and two road hogs! Here I thought I was rolling beast heavy. The mission at hand was incursion. Incursion is not a favorite of mine playing beast bricks as spreading out is something I really would like to avoid. The game was going pretty well for me as the mountain king just wouldn't die and I was able to continuously block charge lanes with spawning whelps. I got a little careless however and ended up losing on scenario as I couldn't get enough back to contest the last flag. S&D killed the mauler that was contesting the last flag and dominated to get the last two CPs required to win. When the dust cleared I killed all seven war hogs and one of the road hogs but that darn scenario victory jumped up and bit me.

I finished 1-1-1 and never having played at 75pts in the past I have to say it was a fun event to play in. I enjoyed playing with all three of my opponents which helped to make it a fun event. Time to grab a little dinner and get ready for midnight madness. The midnight tournament was warcaster's dilemma which was a 35pt event with specialist. Specialists is a new feature in SR2013 which acts like a sideboard. The two lists I selected for the event were:

Hoarluk Doomshaper (*7pts)
* Troll Axer (6pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
specialist:
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (4pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Troll Whelps (2pts)

and

Jarl Skuld, Devil Of Thornwood (*6pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Ršk (11pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
specialists:
Sons of Bragg (6pts)
Alten Ashley, Monster Hunter (2pts)
Saxon Orrik (2pts)

My opponent for the first round was Tyler from Connecticut. He was playing Legion and while I cannot remember what his other list was I was pretty sure he was going to pick Saeryn and he did. I went with pDoomie. In hindsight I am not sure why I picked this list as I think Jarl would be a bit better here. I had an odd feeling the dygs were really going to get their moneys worth and maybe that is why I picked pDoomie. I won the roll and went first. Turn one nothing eventful on either side other than buffs and advancing. Two tur I popped the dygs, fell called them, fortuned them, and purified the respawn on an angle. The dygs then charge an angle and neph bolthrower killing the angle and taking out half of the neph. This was an early piece advantage for me and I was able to ride this out to a W. it did get a little hair there for a second near the end when I left the smallest of gaps between minis allowing Saeryn to throw some knifes at Doomshaper but he made it through relatively unscathed. 1-0

Round two I ran into Derrick from Canada. I actually met Derrick last March when I headed up to Toronto to play in the Conquest Tournament that Northblade and Boots were running. Based on his two lists I selected Jarl planing on popping feat early to prevent some shooting. He selected Ravyn as 'caster. The game ended top of three when he moved Ravyn a little too far forward and I was able to drop two sniped bomber shots on top of her. 2-0

Round three was Chris from NYC playing Protectorate. I watched some of his game from the previous round and hear him say he like to play Thyra versus trolls so I had a pretty good idea which list he was going to play. I selected my Jarl list. The game was back and forth with both of us making some mistakes. My biggest mistake came when I had an enlivened Avatar in charge range of Rok. When enliven was put on the Avatar I laid out my plan to trigger enliven and still be able to get Rok on him. Well when I got to that part of my turn I forgot my plans and just primaled Rok and charged....oooppps. We were both starting to see a lot of attrition when the judges came over and called time. I was a little thrown off by this as we didn't have any major clock issues that I could recall. His deathclock had less than a min left on it and my had just over 5 min. What did we learn earlier kiddies? Doh another drawn 2-0-1

 

The last round of the tourney started about 5:30am. I was pitted against Paul from NYC (a buddy of Chris in fact). He was playing Cirle and picked a Grayle army. I went with pDoomie for no specific reason. I was a little on auto pilot at this time and figured out game really didn't mean anything. Paul had me from the get go. He was putting his pieces in far better location and was just out playing me without question. He ended up winning the game on scenario. We had a fun game but he won really easily. While out game was still going on the sun began to shine through the windows and when all was said and done it was 7:00am when the event was over.

 

I really enjoyed this event and liked all my opponents. Despite being thoroughly beaten by Paul I was really happy to hear during the announcements that he finished fourth in the event and qualified for masters. I guess our game did mean something. 

 

After the tourney nick and I stumbled a round for a little bit looking to grab some breakfast but ended up just heading back to the room and crashing. That wrapped up day one of Templecon and I have to say it was a fun day and I was really glad to have seven games that were enjoyable and seven opponents I would gladly play again in the future. Thanks guys for fun games.