Templecon '14 Recap

Templecon '14 has come and gone and it's time for the wrap up. This years Templecon was a little on the bumpy side for me but more on that as we go.

My initial plan was to leave my house around 1pm to head out to Les' place. I was going to play a game with Adam before Les got home and we packed up for the ride. Well mother nature had different plans as we were getting hammered by a snow storm here in Central New York. After bouncing around different options he elected to try and leave around 7:30-8pm after the storm had passed. My drive to Les' (about 70min away) was a bit of a nightmare but we made it got the car packed and headed for Warwick. We got into RI between 1-2am and met up with some friends in the lobby. We got a sec to catch up Northblade and Chadi from Canada (had the good sense to leave a day early) and out of town Team Spite members John (Moz), Zack (z1g1), and Jeremy. I ended up heading to bed sometime around 3:30am with the vague recollection I told Les to get me in the am I'd stand in line at the PP store with him.

Day 1

Well the morning came and there was a knock at our door at 6:30......Les all bright eyed ready to roll. Being a man of my word I grabbed a quick shower and headed down to the gaming hall to get in line. We were the 9th and 10th people in line and none of us had an idea what was going on sale. There was speculation that Vengeance would be available but that turned out to be false. They opened the store at 9am and started the assembly line in motion. You were only allowed one of any items so I grabbed an extra floaty CoC heavy kit for Northblade and he picked up an extra trollkin sorcerer for me and we just swapped after paying. I also picked up a gatorman bokur and swamp shamblers box. Directly after the PP table Broken Egg was set up selling trays. I initially fought the urge to buy one but ended up doubling back and picking one up (good call). The PP store sold out of nearly everything by the end of the morning except for Butcher3 and maybe one other item.

Plummer and Shick running register at the PP store.

I really didn't do much day one since I figured I had three full days left to game (bad call). I walked around a far bit that first day and did a lot of watchmachine. A couple guys were playing in the 50pt special forces event so I stopped by to watch them play a bit.

Yes, John, those Kayazy passed another tough check

Nick rocking the Team Spite colors

I did manage to get one Iron Arena game in again Mr Chris 'gdaybloke Miller. We have tried to get a game the last few years and it finally came together.

'Gday setting up his very nicely painted Ret

 

Friday night Les and I headed out to Longhorn for dinner with Trevor and Jay from Chain Attack (Jay was in one of our rooms), Chilly Winters from Texas, and out of town Team Spiters John, Zack, and Jeremy. After having a few drinks with dinner and belly full of steak and potato I ended up calling it a night around midnight. My initial plan was to get together with Jaime and a few people to play some drunken Zombicide but my body had other ideas so off to bed.  

 

Day 2

 

Friday am brought about the PP keynote address. All in all nothing too groundbreaking or amazing but still cool none the less. Looking forward to more info on the troll minis show in the presentation and the "something really awesome" Will Shick mentioned trolls would be getting instead of a beast pack.

 

Against my better judgment I decided to organize a team and try to play in the marathon that is the team tournament. Team Plan B was formed consisting of myself, Les, and Nick. John, Zack, and Jeremy also formed a team and tried to get into the tourney via the standby list. Well Team Spite got shut out of the event with our two teams being the last two out of the event. We ended up playing out our own team event with Les playing Jeremy (Jeremy Wins), Nog playing Moz (Nog wins), and Zack playing Nick (Zack wins) for an out of towner Team Spite W.

 

After this I grabbed an Iron Arena Game with Chadi from Canada. It was a fun and loud game ;) It was at this point however that things started to turn for me. I could feel the convention plague setting in and was only hoping it wouldn't bee too bad. I headed to the room early that night and just hung out in bed. I ended up having a really nice chat with Les and Chain attack Jay about the keynote, the con, and the state of the game in general. The chat was cut off when old man Les started snoring in the middle of the conversation signifying it was getting late.

Day 3

Saturday I woke up feeling like hell but decided to try and get into the special forces 50pt event. My two lists were:

Madrak Ironhide, World Ender (*5pts)
* Pyre Troll (5pts)
* Troll Impaler (5pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
* Krielstone Stone Scribe Elder (1pts)
Pyg Burrowers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
Trollkin Fennblades (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Trollkin Fennblade Officer & Drummer (2pts)
Trollkin Warders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Trollkin Warders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Fell Caller Hero (3pts)
Trollkin Champion Hero (3pts)

Reinforcements:
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Trollkin Runeshapers (Leader and 2 Crew) (4pts)
Gatorman Witch Doctor (3pts)
Professor Victor Pendrake (2pts)

and

Grissel Bloodsong (*5pts)
* Earthborn Dire Troll (10pts)
* Mountain King (20pts)
* Trollkin Runebearer (2pts)
Krielstone Bearer and 5 Stone Scribes (4pts)
Trollkin Warders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Trollkin Warders (Leader and 4 Grunts) (8pts)
Janissa Stonetide (3pts)

List one is a pretty standard style Madrak2 list. List 2 was one I played 3 time in Iron Arena games and really enjoyed. There is a ton of beef in the list and if I can play a single zone scenario against an opponent with minimal armor cracking it can be a bear to chew through. I intended to play the Grissel1 list most rounds but long and short of it I ended up playing Maddy all three games.

Round one was vs Charles aka Omnus from Removed from Play. He was playing a Vayl2 theme force with three angels. The board had a forest in the center of the board which was not great for me. Charles is a very good player and between my illness and lack of recent gameplay I wasn't on the top of my game and ended up deathclocking myself. Charles was all set to win even when I deathclocked myself so the L was inevitable. Hopefully I can get a rematch one day when I am not sick cause I think we could have had a really fun game otherwise.  

Round 2 I was paired up with Danny playing Cryx. He played a fairly standard pSkarre list. I was starting to feel worse and worse at this point and don't really remember the game too well. eMaddy survived a 12 focus Skarre assassination at the end of the round timer and we ended up with a tie. It wouldn't be a Templecon if I don't get a tie no?

Round 3 I got paired up vs Nick from my own meta. nick played his Zaal T4 theme force. The game felt like he was in control the entire way then all of a sudden I ended up tabling him and winning the game. It was at this point I decided I was going to have to drop. I never like to drop from an event but I felt terrible and was miserable. As I turned our results to Stubbs and was going to tell him I was dropping he said unless you were undefeated the event was done. So I avoided the dreaded drop but my day was over. I went to bed at 6pm and was there sweating, shaking, and coughing the remainder of the night. 

 

Day 4

 

Day four was pretty much a wash I was feeling like complete dog poo and was not up for gaming at all. We packed up out gear and got the car loaded for the right home. Nick was struggling after having a rough night of beermachine the night before. We hit a Denny's with John, Jeremy, and Zack so we could hang with our out of town brothers one more time. After getting back from breakfast we walk through the gaming hall one last time saying good buys and doing our last mini shopping. Even though I was ready to leave I am really glad I made that last pass as I was able to get one of the Zombicide season 1 minis Marvin! The CMoN booth had four of the season one exclusives and while they are not allowed to sell the minis they were giving them away with the purchase of a game. Since I have all the games already I though I was SoL but after talking with the guy he said I could grab one if I picked up one of the box of zombies. I wanted more toxic zombies so this was a no brainer. BOOM Marv is part of the crew now!

 

My new Broken Egg trollkin sized tray. I elected to go with the single 120mm tray vs the double 120mm

SDE minis

 

My ticket to Marv!

Marv!

 

Gator Alexia and two sorcerers

Templecon dice from Iron Arena and a bottle of VGC paint I picked up

The full score

 

So that was my Templecon. I am not sure I am a huge fan of the new four day con but that may just be cause I was sick for >50% of it. Hopefully next year I can avoid the plague and get some more games in and spend some more quality time with friends.

The Fat Man Begins

I haven't been able to get too much painting done over the last week and a half due to illness, work, and just being flat out exhausted. I was able to get Rasheth out of his Purple Power bath, cleaned, reassembled, primed, and started. Here are a couple shots of the big man as he currently sits:

 

 

I haven't put too much time into him at this point but he is rolling along nicely. The reds were done via the airbrush but just a few sections of shading added in with a brush. Some of the shading and highlighting is a little washed out in these photos but I am pretty happy with him. I need to do a few of the detail pieces on his dais then he will be ready to be glued back onto it. I need to finish the golds on the big guy himself but due to alcohol based nature of the Vallejo liquid gold line my palette dried out before I could finish and I got pulled away before I could get more out. The agonizers still have some mold lines I need to clean off before they are ready for paint. I think I am going to try the skin recipe PP printed for the mammoth in Gargantuans on the poor little guys. Like I said really early shots of the Rasheth but I am pleased. What do y'all think? 

And Then There Was One

Those of you that know me in real life or follow along with my ramblings have learned that I have a terrible case of Faction Attention Deficit Disorder and some impulse control issues (see my latest issues with kickstarter). I had a small flair up of my FADD recently.

I have had a hard time not picking up Skorne for the longest time. My first pull to the faction was way back in '08 when I saw Ron Kruzie's 300 Skorne in NQ 17-20 in the staff challenge series. These four issues of NQ have had a big impact on me over the years and the staff challenge from those issues may be my favorite series ever in NQ. I was once again hit with the Skorne bug when I learned to play the game a little after MkII). I picked up the Skorne forces book when it was released but was able to hold off from buy a any minis. I have always been partial to Mordikar, Rasheth, and Zaal. I really like the idea of theme forces for Skorne for some reason. I love the feel for the Zaal force too bad immortals are kinda meh in game terms, Mordikar's theme had some elements I liked but some I didn't, and I really like the big mans theme. I was hit with the bug mildly when Domination released and once again with the release of Gargantuans. Since I have always had an attraction to Mordikar his character beast Despoiler was very exciting to me. I was also excited by Makeda3 as she looks like a blast to play and minis look really nice imo.

One of our local Skorne plays (5th street) has played Mordikar a fair amount so I texted him about Despoiler and just BS'd via text for a while. I mentioned PP keeps trying to get me into Skorne at which time 5th responded "let me know if you get into Skorne I have some stuff I may want to get rid of"...ut oh danger danger:

Nog: "Oh really? Like what?"
5th: "Rasheth, a taskmaster, bog trogs (min), nihlators (full) and maybe an agonizer or two"
Nog: "Really? Why?"
5th: "don't plan on playing him much. I didn't like him"

I have been watching a lot of youtube painting videos lately and have come across a red and gold I have really want to try out. The red is via the airbrush using VMA paints and the golds using the Vallejo liquid metal range. We already established that Rasheth is one of the 'locks I really liked and the pieces fit really well to start the theme.

Ok so I have a paint scheme I want to try and models being offered up at a discount. Any guess what happened next? Well if you guessed I bought some of them you would be the big winner....give yourself a pat on the back. I ended up picking up Rasheth, the taskmaster, and the trogs (to go with my Blindwater). The big man is currently bathing in Purple Power being stripped.

Now that I have picked up a couple Skorne minis there is only one faction left that I do not own a model for.....Retribution. And then there was only one.

Gargantuans: More Thoughts

I have to say I am really impressed with the Gargantuans book as a whole. The more I look over it the more and more I like what I read. I think you we are going to see a lot of these minis on the tables pretty regularly even after the "new toy" phase passes. I am going to babble about some of the things I am most excited to try out or buy.

Trollblood:

The more I look at the Hunters Grim the more I can't wait to play them. Mortality is just a stupid good spell and I cannot wait to abuse the hell out of it. I have playing with list ideas in my head for the last few days and it really feels like you can play anything with him and he makes them pretty solid. Most of the lists I have been building have been at the 35pt level and while this is not my favorite point level it seems to be where are meta is comfortable at the current time. I'd like to put a melee heavy in the lists but at 35pts I just haven't been able to squeeze it in. I think the melee beasts for him with be Rok or EBDT and I am leaning towards Rok as the ability to put primal on a bomber or blitzer and then allowing them to charge for free with blood lure from Headhunter can turn them into melee monsters. Here is the latest builds I am playing around with:

Hunters Grim (-4pts)
*Blitzer (9pts)
*Impaler (5pts)
*Runebearer (2pts)
Scattergunners: full (8pts)
*UA (2pts)
Dygs: full (6pts)
Bone Grinders: min (2pts)
Fell Caller (3pts)
SSC (2pts)

I am pretty excited about this list and think it will be pretty damn fun to play. It uses a few models I have never played before (blitzer, scattergunners, and bone grinders) but I think trying new minis will be good...plus I have been meaning to play them anyways. I would like to put the fennblade kithkar in there instead of the SSC to have a commander near the dygs to try and mitigate failed command checks but since I have no idea when he is to be released I left him off. I didn't worry too much about trying to build around the feat but instead built around mortality (so good). The nice thing about the scattergunners is that on the feat turn they should be able to mark most of their own spray targets or let the dygs mark, spray over the dygs, clear a lane for the dygs to charge. The scattergunners will also be the mirage target in most cases. I went with the blitzer to have access to repulsion and the potential volume of attacks he can put out. The bone grinders are a unit I have been meaning to get on the table with Calandra but getting mortality (did I mention I like it) up to 12" is nice. I am really excited to try this out and may play my first game with a proxy mini just to do it.

One last thing on the Hunters Grim...I think this may be the home for the mountain king as once again mortality make everything just better and there is always the snare gun for KDs. The longer I look over the book the more the warders are growing on me. You really get a lot of model for not a lot of points. I am a big fan of the kithkar. He is a really good combat solo and can replace the champ hero in the dyg support package and reduce the cost of the dyg package by a point. I also see a home for him in my pMaddy beast brick. He would make a very nice crusher target and also save me a point over the champ hero. Still cannot get my head around the night troll. OK enough about trolls lets talk about some other cool stuff.

Circle: They got some pretty amazing things in this book and it is making me want to work on my circle army again.

-Morvahna: best 'lock in the book in my opinion. The model looks beautiful, the spell list is top notch (can you go wrong with purification?), and her feat is sweet. All in all she is an A caster in my views and I would be shocked if she doesn't see a ton of competitive play the remainder of this year.
-Rip Horn Satyr: Wow this guy is awesome too. His damage output is going to be scary with 3 base attacks of p+s 16 (4 with smash & grab), a free charge, and circle buffs. I know Scudo is crazy excited about this guy. Damn you Scudo (just 'cause)
-Warpborn Alpha: He got spoiled a while back and he is still really good.

Skorne: Also got a lot of really nice minis. I think the general feeling is they got the best gargantuan by a long stretch in the mammoth. Skorne is one of the two factions I do not own a single mini for but PP keeps pushing me closer and closer to picking some up.

-Makeda3: She looks like a blast to play. She is an in your face I will take care of it myself kinda girl. The feat looks like it could get out of control and be a blast if you are playing her. The models for the unit are really nice too.
-Reptile hounds: Look like a fun little lessers
-Despoiler: I like this guy. Mordikar has been one of the skorne warlocks I have been interested in painting/playing and this beast is his baby. Unlike some of the other characters beasts of late (looking at you Rok) this mini begs to be with Mordikar.
-Willbreaker: Like the warpborn he was spoiled a little while ago and is also still good

Legion: Haven't really looked at much. I am not overly interested in legion right now.

Minions: I have a soft spot for minions. I have a blindwater army and I have wanted to start a thornfall force ever since I painted up Carver for Les. I was able to hold off on thornfall but then the Sturm and Drang theme force pushed me closer to the edge. I am afraid that Midas and his theme force may just push me over the edge.

-Midas: A really solid 'lock across the board. I don't think he as a bad spell on his list between bad blood, battle lust, calamity, and hex blast. His feat brings back minis and his collection of bone tokens mean you don't care if his beasts die. His theme force is full of minis I have wanted to add to my collection or already have. Bone grinders we already mentioned, Slaughterhousers I have wanted to try Jarl, he can use boneswarms (have three), and the pig beasts are just so cool. Here is my very first shot at a list:

Midas (-5pts)
*War Hog (8pts)
*War Hog (n/a) <---T4 benefit starts dead
*Boneswarm (4pts)
*BoneSwarm (4pts)
*Razor Boar (2pts)
*Razor Boar (2pts)
Slaughterhouser (6pts)
Slaughterhouser (6pts)
Bone grinders: min (2pts)
Bone grinders: min (2pts)
Bone grinders: min (2pts)
Bone grinders: min (2pts)

This is T4 granting me a dead beast as listed above, three corpse tokens on both boneswarms, and 4 war beast get advance more. What’s not to love here? At 50pt just add more razor boars, grinders, and road hogs to taste :)

This has gotten long. Real quick....Rask = really good, Shamblers = good just not pAlexia good, mechanic = good 1pt filler if you are playing a battle engine.

Like I said I am a fan of what PP did with this book and looking forward to seeing these minis in play.