ConQuest Day 2 (Sunday)

We all awoke ~6am pretty groggy from the day before. After heading down to see our free breakfast at the hotel we decided to head down the road and grab breakfast at Tim Horton's. After fueling up on breakfast sandwiches we drove down to the Legion hall. After unpacking and settling in we set up for a pre-tournament game of Quarriors! to get the competitive juices flowing. This time we got a four man game between Scudo, Ty, Zack and myself. Zack won the Quake Dragon arms race and won the game. It was at this time the SNAFUs kicked in. Zack was missing all his card for his Old Witch list. He left them at Hero's World. Luckily the store own was playing in the event and had not left the store yet. We were able to get Northblade to give him a shout and he brought them over....crisis avoided. I left my pre-printed army lists in the hotel room and had to re-write my lists. Game time!

Zack rockin' the unofficial Team Spite shirt and look there....it's Bloke.

After opening remarks by Jamie (Northbalde) pairing were announced and I headed to my table. Game one I was paired up against Frank the lone Legion player at the event. We were going to be playing the demolition scenario. I picked up his lists and looked down to see eVayl and Saeryn...great. I know Saeyrn fairly well (played against a similar list at Templecon) but I have never played against eVayl.....pMadrak it is. I know the list pretty well and felt I could adapt best using Madrak. I won the roll and elected to go second.

Frank's Legion was very nicely painted and looked great across the table from me I only wish I got more photos (this will be a recurring theme of the day). Round one was the standard moving into position turn. I have this turn down pretty well as I have a specific cycle I like to go through to get buffs where they need to be. I use my runebearer's power glyph *action to put surefoot up on Madrak and save the fury so that it can be dumped into the stone. When the turn is done Mulg and the EDBT have elemental communion are standing in front of Janissa's wall and befitting from surefoot putting them at def 13/arm 23 and 14/22 under the effects of the stone, Madrak and Janissa are behind the wall benefiting from cover, Janissa has flaming fist on her from the pyre to negate Legion shooting, the stone has popped +arm and immune to continuous effects, and the whelps are in position to be eaten and full fury next turn. I looked at the board to start turn two and saw my assassination run all set up. The legionnaires were all in the middle of the table with the pot behind them and Vayl next to them. I move Madrak forward to keep everyone in his control area, cast carnage, and popped feat. Mulg then went through the entire unit of legionnaires and the pot to be in melee with Vayl. Mulg was rolling dice +5 and on the first his I roll a 10 forcing him to use his only transfer. Mulg had 2 more attacks left needing 6s to hit..both missed UT OH. I barely was able to survive the counter on Madrak but finished Vayl off on the next turn. It got a little scary but I was able to escape round one with a W.

Round two I was paired up against Matt playing Retribution. I forget what is other list was but he selected Ossyan as his caster. The scenario for this round was gauntlet. I forgot to take picture before the game started so the following pictures show him part way through turn one. Of all the Ret 'caster Ossyan is the one I have played most but that isn't saying much as I think it is only three times. Once again I won the opening roll and decided to go second and pick sides. Turn one he put up his upkeeps and advanced his force and I did my standard Madrak turn one. I also took a flyer with my pyre troll at his mage hunter assassin and got the aoe to drift straight ahead at max distance right on top of her. It did no damage but did set her on fire.  Turn two he advanced, popped feat, and did a large CRA with the invictors into Mulg but only did a few points of damage on the 23 arm beast and just made him angry (speed +2). Looking at the board at the beginning of my turn I saw Ossyan fairly well protected from a front assault with both heavies and part of a wall blocking angles. however, upon further review he was exposed on the right side to a crusher by running through the unit of invictors. I popped carnage and charge Madrak into some troops in the middle of the board killing them but not moving too far with crusher as to move Mulg's crusher path out of my control area (also left some spare fury just in case). The EBDT activated put EC on Mulg then took the opportunity to wreck a banshee in case this assassination failed for some reason. Mulg (now speed 8 from EC and being damaged) charge the invictors and curled around right into Ossyan....game over.

Round three I was paired up against Brandon and our trollblood brethren. He was running pMadrak
I completely forgot to take any photos this round :( The mission was bunkers which was a reinforcement scenario. I one the roll once again and went second. Turn one had no real action other than the standard buff and move by both players. Despite appearing pretty safe I was once again able to set up a Mulg assassination run versus Grim. I was able to get to Grim after casting rush to get pathfinder, having +2 speed from relentless, and going through Janissa and a fell caller via crusher. When I got to Grim my first swing was a crit which slammed him into an EBDT standing right next to him but not taking him out of melee with Mulg. At that point I was auto hitting with PS 19 tree swings.....game over. OK so I am now 3-0 but have not touched list two. I pretty much have to play the Grim list round four.
Round four and there were, if my memory is correct, four undefeated players left Scudo, JDWhitee from the LH crew, Matt, and myself. I was hoping to avoid JDWhitee so hat if we both won I could face off against him in the finals to avenge my Hardcore lose to him at Templecon. As it turned out I drew Matt playing Khador for my forth round match up. He was playing a pIrusk and Old Witch list. This actually turned out to be a good time to play my Grim list as I tried to design it for high def armies which he was going to have with iron flesh Kayazy and/or winter guard. The game started out with both of us feeling out the other. I was able to draw first blood with a few bomber aoe drifts into the Kayazy. We both made a few mistakes in the game which I think was due to being tired. He forgot to feat after he engaged which I think turned out to help him as my counter attack actually killed some of the assassins clearing a charge lane for his next turn. Turn three saw his battle lusted Great Bears mulch my EBDT. The lose of my EBDT was a major turning point of the match as I had a hard time cracking both of his heavies at this point. At this time he moved iron flesh to Irusk making him very tough to hit. At this point we were stuck in an attrition game which I was losing. The game ended with Grim being dropped at the hands (spear) of a spriggan with both of us having under 10min left on our death clocks. Near the end of our game we found out that the tournament was going to end after this round as the Legion was kicking us out for the night.

After this game there was a frantic rush to get the tables picked up, armies packed away, raffles drawn, and results announced. I was packing my bag when Northblade made the announcement I had finished 3rd, with JDWhitee 2nd, and Matt finishing 1st.
Despite being cut a little short the day was pretty awesome. We had 30 players and the faction breakdown for the event was as follows:

                                             Cygnar: 3                                   Circle: 3
                                             Cryx: 4                                       Legion: 1
                                             Khador: 6                                  Skorne: 3
                                             Mercs: 1 (Searforge)                  Trollblood: 3
                                             Menoth: 1                                  Minions: 1
                                             Retribution: 4

Now for some random photos:

Scudo getting ready to rumble. That boy ain't right.

Zack giving it up for the Queen.

 Ty getting ready for round one vs (hey I know that guy) Valrus

 Brian setting up round one before the Mt Dew withdrawal kicked in and he had to drop from the tourney.

 Northblade and Zack enjoying a laugh (and beverage) after the event

Back in the states. No more gaming for a bit :(

ConQuest Day 1 (Saturday)

Last weekend was ConQuest Toronto hosted by Northblade of Lost Hemisphere fame. I was looking forward to the trip since we decided to head North and give it a go.
We had 5 guys from our group heading up but we split into two vehicles seeing as some people were returning Sunday night after the tournament and some were heading back Monday am. We decided to try and get on the road no later than noon on Saturday so we had time once we got to Toronto to meet up with Northblade and maybe get a game in and then head out for dinner and drinks. We meet at Scudo's place around 11:30 and hit the road pretty close to noon. Upon picking us up at Scudo's PG_Z1G1 had a surprise for us. Zack has been working on a new tray design for transferring your army while at an event and he made one for Dave and myself which was sweet. The only problem at this time was for the event we were attending my two list weren't going to fit safely so it didn't get used this trip. I have discussed a few ideas with Zack and I think a few modification are in order and this will be my go to travel tray.

The trip went pretty smoothly until the very end. Seeing as we had left the country Zack switched his phone (GPS) over to airplane mode so when we missed our exit it never recalculated our route. We pulled off to see if we could grabs some WiFi and get back on track but the Tim Horton's we stopped at didn't have it. Being the resourceful group we are we had to kick it old school and pull out a real map and low and behold we actually found our way to the HoJos were we were staying :)

The other car left way earlier in the day then us and they had been sitting at the hotel for some time prior to our arrival. We unpacked the car, headed upstairs to the room, and gave Northblade a call to let him know we were in town. Northblade had made arrangements for us to play a game or two at his local FLGS prior to dinner. While we waited for Northblade to swing we set up a quick game of Quarrior! Ty, Zack, and I set up and Ty quickly proceeded to kick our ass (beginners luck).

Jamie (Northbalde) and Ayden (Boots) picked us up and we followed them to Hero's World. Scudo set up his gators to face off against Boots playing Constance Blaze and pirates while Zack set up against Fadi for some Khador on Khador action pitting the Old Witch vs her disciple eVlad. After this Khador grudge match ended I set up to play Fadi with a Jarl list (didn't want to tip my hand for tomorrow and all ;) ) We had a fun game with Fadi just missing an assassination run on Jarl due to some key terrain help. My counter attack with Jarl, a Bomber, and an EBDT ended the Prince.

It was now time to pack up and grabs some cocktails and grub. We sat and BS'd over food and drink until about 2am (I think they were trying to put us off our game so we wouldn't be taking their sword back tot the states the next day :) ) We all crashed about 3am with alarms set for 6am so we had time to get ready for 8am registration and game on. Next post I will cover the event.

'Scrum Week 10

Just got him done. I need to head back down to the basement and put some matte on him but wanted to snap a quick photo and get it off to Goris at the scrum. I need to take some  better photos but seeing as I need to seal him and still have to pack for tomorrow this will have to do for now.

We will be hitting the road for Canada ~1100 tomorrow and I have a bunch I need to get done before I can leave. I will be bringing my camera and hopefully I will remember to take lots of photos and have a nice ConQuest summary when we get back. Hope to have a good showing and maybe if all goes extremely well I can come home with a giant sword (1st place).....hmmm wonder what the procedure would be to bring a sword across the border? In all seriousness I hope to have a solid outing on the tables, have a few drinks with some new folks, and maybe him something in the raffle....fingers crossed on a war wagon :)

Procrastination/'Scrum Week 10 WIP/ConQuest Prep

Like I stated the other day I was delusional to think I was going to get all of the my two lists to hardcore standards in time for ConQuest. I was never really able to get a solid painting session in this week. This was not due to lack of opportunity but rather lack of focus. I was sit down to paint and only put in 20min and then find something else to do instead.
One of those things was head out to the store Wednesday afternoon to drop of the shirts for Scudo and PG_Z1G1. I brought my Battlefoam bag and figured while I was there might as well grab a game too....right? I played PG_Z1G1 and an Old Witch list he has been practising for ConQuest. I brought my Grim list which I will be bringing to ConQuest. His list had all the nastiness you could think of: Kayazy assassins, the Deathstar, Joe, Alexia, the Great Bears, and a Behemoth for good measure. In an event I am not sure I would have played this list against him but I didn't really have a choice seeing as it was all I brought. I am pretty sure if his list only had a few of the elements the Grim list is the way to go but not when it has all of them. The game was back and forth but he ended up winning. I did learn a few things which should come in handy when playing the list this weekend.

I was able to get some painting in last night after everyone was asleep. I put on an episode of Lost Hemisphere and sat in the basement for about an hour. I find when I am listening to the podcast I want to interject or argue with one of the people speaking....that make me crazy? I guess only if I start talking to them right? I was able to get my second Champ Hero near finished which is good seeing as he is going to be this weeks 'Scrum entry....oh and I am using him as reinforcements in my pMaddy list this weekend. I am working a few hours today for my buddy and have a MD appointment but I should have time this evening to button him up with little issues. Here are the wips of Champion Hero number two.

Despite not getting everything fully painted I think met the original goal of baseline painting so all is not lost.  He needs to have the green tartan highlighted, the nail/claw sections painted, and the base finished. I also assembled some stuff in anticipation of April/May. I have decided that over the next month or two I am going to play one Troll 'lock exclusively. He is one I have never played but more on that next week. I will also be sprinkling in some painting/gaming with Khador.

Time to Paint

They guys are here ripping out the windows and the wife put the boys in the car and is heading to the mother-in-law's house so time for me to head into the basement and see what I can bang out. I need to finalize my reinforcements for one of the list and send them out to Northblade. Before I head into the basement I will post a pic of the t-shirt I had made up for this weekend (upon request from Les aka the oxyguy)

Delusion of Grandeur

I don't know what I was thinking saying I was going to try and get all of that stuff to finished status...I must have taken a blow to the head not too long ago. I spent Monday recovering from the week of work and did really nothing around the house. Luckily the buddy I work part time for didn't need me today so I was able to do my house work and errands today but this has left very little painting. I did some work on the unit of scouts and a little on my second champion hero but that is about it. As you you can see not too much to speak of. The champ is going to be this weeks 'scrum entry. Even those it is a touch past midnight and I have a bunch of stuff to do around the house still I am hoping to get the yellow metal put on the hero and then the metal wash before bed.

The guys are coming to replace the windows so I set up a paint station in the basement and will camp out down there while they work. I should be able to get a fair amount done but no way I can get it all buttoned up. Thursday I should be able to sneak a little painting in, Friday will be a wash as I have a MD appointment in the am and working the rest of the day, and Saturday we hit the road for the Great White North.
I did get a chance to pick up the unofficial Team Spite t-shirt for the event. I am please with how they came out.

Busy Week on the Horizon....

My week off starts in seven hours (but who is counting?) and I have a ton of stuff I need to get done both in the real work and in the hobby world. I have settled on my two lists for ConQuest Toronto and only need to decide my reinforcements for one of the lists. We will be heading up to Toronto Saturday late morning/early afternoon so I have five days to try and accomplish the following (some of which I have no choice)

*Tuesday I have to work at my other job
*I am having windows replaced on the entire backside of the house Wednesday/Thursday. I need to get everything currently around the windows safely moved to other location. This includes my current paint station in one room and a shelf with boxes of unassembled minis, gaming books, and supplies in the other room. I will also have to move furniture around from room to room and floor to floor.
*On top of this I want/need to get the two lists I am playing at ConQuest fully painted this includes

• finish a partially painted bomber
• finish the Boomhowlers
• paint scouts
• paint second champ hero (possible reinforcement option)
• finish/paint runeshapers (again possible reinforcement option)
• clean up a few previously "finished" minis (rushed to get the to be hardcore eligible)

*Paint a mini for this weeks 'scrum challenge (maybe one of the above or a boneswarm)
*Pick up Team Spite t-shirts
*Pack up and finalize plans for travel to Canada.
*All of this plus spend time with the family so not to draw the ire of the wifey :)

I am planing to try and set up shop in the basement Wednesday while the guys are working on the windows and just bang out minis. I think the wife plans on getting the boys out of the house for most of the day seeing as they will try and "help" put the windows in too if they are home.

ConQuest on the Brain

I really don't want to work tonight. I have been getting slammed tonight so I am taking 15min to clear my head and write a quick post.

Next week Northblade of Lost Hemisphere Radio fame is having a large tournament up in Toronto. Seeing as it is a week off myself and some of the Team Spite crew will be heading up to spread the spite. Participant in our Canadian invasion include myself, PG_Z1G1, Sidious, Ty and Scudo (damn you Scudo!...been a while since I said that in the blog). I have been pretty fired up to head up there and meet/hangout with some of that crew as well as get some solid gaming in.

In preparation for the event I had tee-shirts made up for a few of use (those that wanted them) and I will be picking them up Monday. I will put a pick up once I get it. I have also been bouncing back and forth between lists and 'casters. One of my favorite things to do when I am killing time or watching cartoons with the boys is build lists. This leads me to do a LOT of over analyzing and over thinking.

Through emails listen to a Lost Hemisphere podcast and email I learned that the painting requirement for the event was dropped but I still want to attempt to play two fully painted list. This is scaring me away from my Borka Family Reunion list. My 'lock du jour is the first 'lock I ever painted. The hunter himself Mr Grim Angus. Grim was featured in an early RMM. I think this will be a good second list to complement either a pMadrak/eDoomshaper/Borka 'beast brick. Two ideas I have been toying with are

Grim (-6pts)
*Bomber (10pts)
*EBDT (10pts)
*Impaler (5pts)
Dygs: full (6pts)
Scattergunners: min (5pts)
*UA (2pts)
Gatorman Posse: full (9pts)
Fell Caller (3pts)
Champ Hero (3pts)
Totem Hunter (3pts)

Grim (-6pts)
*Bomber (10pts)
*EBDT (10pts)
*Impaler (5pts)
Dygs: full (6pts)
Wrongeye (9[ts)
*Snapjaw
Gatorman Posse: full (9pts)
Fell Caller (3pts)
SSC (2pts)
Alten (2pts)

List two is nearly full painted. The bomber, Wrongeye, and Posse are all >75% painted so even though it is 26pts needing painting it really isn't that much. List one is a little more labor intensive as I would need to assemble five more scattergunners and then paint the lot of them from scratch in addition to finishing the posse and bomber. However, if I choose list one it will also meet my 'scrum painting for the week......IDK?? The way things are going by Sunday I won't even want to play Grim and will be trying to put a list together for Calandra again. OK gotta run my time is up.

Random Miniature Monday

This week I selected my slag troll for RMM. I don't rememeber when this gentleman was painted but somewhere in the nature of 2 years ago sounds right. I painted him in grey skin tones to match my pyre troll vs the blues of all the other trolls. My intention is to have all elemental trolls grey and have some accents to signify the element. That was really easy with the pyre not so much with the slag so I just did the metal and called it a day. I don't field this mini as much as I would like but he has been pretty solid for me on the table when I do field him.

I was able to play two games Saturday with the Calandra list I posted the other day. The first game I played against Luke playing Circle and an eKaya lists. As best I can remember his list was as follows:

Kaya the Moonhunter & Laris (*3pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Megalith (11pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)
* Pureblood Warpwolf (9pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Tharn Bloodweavers (Leader and 5 Grunts) (5pts)
Dahlia Hallyr & Skarath (9pts)
Druid Wilder (2pts)
The game was fun but took a long time. We played one of the center scenarios so it never really came into play. I was in pretty solid control but he kept muzzling Mulg keeping him from doing anything which really slowed things down. The spell on the lesser warlock was also a bear to deal with keeping my gators from charging. I ended up winning due to winning the battle of attrition.

Game two I played against Scudo playing gators. Scudo and I always have fun games that are really close and usually come down to one maybe two key moments. He was playing his new love....gators:

Maelok, the Dreadbound (*6pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Bull Snapper (3pts)
* Ironback Spitter (8pts)
Bog Trog Ambushers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Croak Hunter (2pts)
Croak Hunter (2pts)
Croak Hunter (2pts)
Thrullg (3pts)
Thrullg (3pts)
Totem Hunter (3pts)
After we both lost large portions of our armies I ended up winning by killing Maelok with, of all things, two charging gators. Maelok was pretty beaten by a bomber who he failed to kill the turn before by 4 points (one miss due to starcrossed). However I think the highlight of the game took place on the final turn. I had a fell caller hero with two boxes left engaged by a swamp gobber, I said hell I will take the free strike and walk over to kill Maelok.....the gobber killed my fell call!?! Serious!?! Despite winning both games I am not sure I am really feeling this list right now and that it needs to be tweaked. Seeing as I will not have time to do any tweaking I feel like I might be dropping this list from Conquest Toronto contention and looking at different options.

I have to head back to work tonight for the first time in three weeks so I am fearful this week will see minimal progress on anything. I need to do some assembly work that is for sure and I need to do a mini for the 'scrum challenge (most likely Lug) but other than that we will see what happens.

What Time is it?....Gametime!

Since returning from Templecon in early February I haven't had a chance to get to our FLGS to get a single game in. I have really missed playing and have been looking forward to today for a while. I am going to head down to the store and hopefully get a few games in. Today I am going to bring one of my favorite troll 'locks/units....sexy sexy Calandra and the Dygs of Doom. I have loved this par since first reading Sevwal's article on trollbloodscrum.com some time ago. I usually play her at 35pt but today I will be bringing it up to 50pt and trying out a few new things. I will be using today as a test day for the lists I intend to bring to an upcoming tourney in Canada. A small group of us are going to be driving up to Toronto at the end of the month to take part in Conquest Toronto being run by Northblade of Lost Hemisphere fame. I am really looking forward to the trip and want to lock down my lists soon to try and get them fully painted.....probably not. Today I will be trying out:

Calandra Truthsayer, Oracle of the Glimmerwood (*5pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Dire Troll Bomber (10pts)
* Mulg the Ancient (12pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (4pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 2 Grunts) (6pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)
I am not going to worry about reinforcements at this time as we will just play scenarios that don't use them for today. I have been tinkering with this list a lot. Some of the changes have been changing up the second wave unit (in this case gators) and juggling the beasts (adding/dropping Mulg for other combos of beast/troops). I will see how this plays today and how much I enjoy playing it and make changes as needed.

I also did a little work early this am on Brug's big hairy friend Lug. He was primed and then had his fur base color sprayed on. The based was also primed black. All in all not too much to see but it is a start.