Battle Report: "Deneghra Strikes Back"

They say the third time's a charm... liars! Not for me anyway. The first game Saturday night was a 500 point match-up of my Cygnar against Marc's Cryx. For some inexplicable reason I chose Stryker as my caster. I've never really felt that he was the anti-Cryx caster, and this game certainly did nothing to counter that conviction. But before I get ahead of myself, I give you the lists.

Cygnar - 492 pts (played by me)
Coleman Stryker w/ Lancers x 2, Journeyman w/Charger, Stormguard x 6, Long Gunners x 6, Gun Mage Captain Adept x 1, Stormsmith x 1

Cryx - 495 pts (played by Marc)
Deneghra, Nightwretches x 2, Deathrippers x 2, Defiler x 1, Deathjack x 1, Mechanithralls x 6, Skarlock x 1

Here we see the bulk of the Cygnar force deployed on the road.


The Gun Mage Captain Adept on the other side of the woods...


...and a lancer and a stormsmith holding the left flank.


On the Cryx side of the table we had the scarlock with rippers and defilers on one side of the hedge...


...and Deneghra with her mechanithrall entourage on the other. Notice the nightwretches on the other side of the river.


The first turn for Cygnar consisted og a lot of advancing and running. The journeyman cast Arcane Shield on the Stormguard.


The man of the hour crests the hill with a lancer.


Stryker's other lancer stands near the long gunners...


...allowing Strkyer to cast a 6-inch Snipe on the unit.


The long gunners promptly ran into the forest.


Deneghra started moving her army aggressively towards the Cygnar battle line.


The Deathjack moves up and necrovents...


...and successfully casts Crippling Grasp on the Stormguard. I hate that damn spell.


The rest of the Cryxian force moves up and brings the turn crashing to a halt.


I started the second turn by moving a lancer towards the enemy. Stryker activated next and moved closer as well. Stryker started by feating, so all Cygnar models (save the long gunners) benefited from Invincibility.


Stryker also cast Earthquake and succeeded in knocking down a boneturkey and some mechanithralls.


My shooting was rather unspectacular. The charger took down a deathripper, and other than that, there wasn't a lot of action to speak of.


I did manage to get the stormsmith into position and disrupted the Deathjack.


Here was how things stood at the top of the Cryxian second turn.


Marc started the party by advancing the skarlock and casting Ghost Walk on the Deathjack.


The mechanithralls moved up and engaged a lancer.


The Deathjack moved into the stormguard and necrovented. Thanks to Stryker's feat none were taken out with this attack, however, the Deathjack cast venom and caused corrosion on a couple.


The Deathjack, as if to add insult to injury, starting hula-hooping in the middle of the proceedings. Cocky Cryx bastards!


Bonejacks cross the river.


This deathripper moved in range of the long gunners, the GMCA, and the stormsmith. The stormsmith gets eaten by Venom.


Stryker began turn three by casting Earthquake at the Deathjack.

There is some knockdown action from the Earthquake.


However, even with the Deathjack on his arse, I had great difficulty in causing damage.


Here we see the long gunners hitting nothing. Yes, you heard me, nothing. (But I'm not bitter)


Other mishaps took place during my turn, but I won't list them at present. Suffice it to say, I was accomplishing very little, and was also playing right into Marc's hand. I was spread thin, and had no solid core left.

Marc capitalized on this. Here we see Stryker in combat from my turn with a nightwretch. I'll come back to this in just one minute.


A deathripper runs to engage the long gunners.

And the mechanithralls piled in. More importantly, Deneghra advanced and popped the Withering. She was going for the kill.


She cast Ghostwalk on the Deathripper that was engaged by the lancer. Damn, I wish I had that spell in my arsenal ;)


The nightwretch who was engaged by Stryker and the other lancer left combat and circled around behind him. Neither Stryker nor the lancer could get a free strike off on the turkey. He blasted and hit for six points of damage. Although there's no picture, the Deathjack advanced towards Stryker and cast Scourge. The spell caused 4 damage and knocked Stryker down.


The ghostwalk-ed deathripper advanced in and took Stryker out with no effort.


And there you have it. I lost, deservedly so. I spread thin and allowed Marc to take me out one piece at a time. I'm still not convinced that Stryker is as effective at going up against Cryx as some other casters might be (Haley, Caine, and Nemo come to mind). Frankly, I don't plan on taking Stryker against the Cryx army again anytime soon, so we won't find out definatively one way or another for some time.


Other Events and Announcements from Saturday Geek Night

After a couple of games of Warmachine (both won by Marc), it was time to change gears. We generally wind down on Saturday nights with a boardgame or two. We started with a game of Mission to Mars, a VSF colonization game of sorts. It's a real blast, and we laugh a lot ("LOST... IN ...SPPAAAAAACEE....")


Next up is our old stand-by for 2008, Race for the Galaxy. This was the surprise Xmas gift from my wife that just keeps on giving. We are starting to wear the cards out. When you make a game this good, you should be obligated to make the cards out of plastic, wood, or solid steel.


And, finally, it has been announced... DRUM ROLL.... waiting.... waiting....

Ken and I have set the date for our first 1000 point game of Warmachine! Here it is, written in blood (read: pencil).


We both have a few models left to finish to play at this level. I have posted the announcement for your scrutiny, in the hopes that fear of public shame may motivate us to meet the date. Oh, and before I forget, the date is Saturday, October 4th. Keep watching kids - you know there'll be a report. We'll have Marc on site for witty repartee and photography.

Thanks for reading,

JET

Humble Hovel

As discussed in my previous post, I was intending to create some simple (and cheap) buildings. After fairly minimal effort using cheap (and free) materials, this is what I've come up with.

The next step is to undercoat and strengthen the model at the same time. I'm going to mix white glue and water to the consistency of thick paint, and then add my black paint to that mixture. The plan is to lay it on thick, and hopefully make the building nice and durable in the process. When the painting is done, I should have a very reasonable facsimilie of a timber or planked building.

If this works as planned, I'll pump out a variety of buildings. Further to last night's post, this will probably lead us down the road to Legends of the Old West or some version of small scale skirmishing for the French & Indian Wars.

Whether the finalie is a a success or not, I'll post it here. If it looks good, I'll do a "how I did it" type article, even though I imagine the process fairly obvious.

...and through the magic of television...

Here it is painted. I painted the roof as if it were tarred. The rest is more or less overbrushed and drybrushed. I'm very pleased to learn that I can make a serviceable building quickly and cheaply! Now to plot out the rest of the town/work camp/train station/ ranch.






Thanks for reading,
JET

Workbench Update: Projects on the Horizon

It looks as if my collection of Warmachine Cygnar models will all be completed by the end of September. Although I love the game, I don't plan to add any substantial amount of new units to my Privateer Press collection in the near future. I have enough models to play 1000 points (with options) with either Cygnar or Trolls, and there are just too many other geekly pursuits I'm interested in.

With that in mind, I recently acquired (from a generous member of the Lead Adventure forum) a couple of PDF files containing building templates for making Spanish style adobe buildings, including a large church.



I took some thick card and, using the templates, started work on the pieces of a basic A-frame. As you can see, I started scoring the card to simulate planks.



I plan to assemble the building, and then paint it up as either:

1. a wooden cabin-type affair. If this works out, I would like to play either an Old West game using Legends of the Old West or some French & Indian War project with a low model count. I've heard that the LOTOW supplement The Alamo has some sort of French & Indian adaptation in there, but I have no idea how it fits with the base ruleset
   
2. an adobe structure, as the article's author intended. This would surely cause a craze of pirate action in our group, probably in the form of Legends of the High Seas. It would involve plastering over the card to get the right texture, but then again, it would save the effort of trying to simulate planks and wood grain.

In either case, I'd like to make enough buildings to create a convincing and inspiring setting for the period at hand. Using a ruleset with a small model count (i.e. 5-10) is important to everyone in the group. We have enough involved projects ongoing and coming up (Warmachine, Impetus, Heavy Gear Blitz) without having to immerse ourself in another game with a long turnaround time.

As to inspiration, here's some of the models I've been looking at lately that have started the wheels turning.

Old West Models (Artizan and Foundry)

The Artizan range of Wild West figures are amazing. All of the models feel like they just stepped out of a classic Western. The rest of the range is here. The Foundry Wild West Collection is also quite staggering.

Pirates (Foundry & Crusader Miniatures)


The Foundry Pirates Collection and the Crusader Miniatures for the same era are fantastic in my opinion. Furthermore, the ruleset Legends of the High Seas is essentially the same as Legends of the Old West. Both are Warhammer Historical publications - different settings, same rules.

French & Indian Wars (Conquest Miniatures)

I know that Ken in particular has mentioned this period. I would love to play it, however, most of the rules out there are directed at larger model counts (i.e. 30+ figures). As I mentioned, we are looking for VERY small model count, so the search continues. However, just tonight one of the geeks pointed out these beauties by Conquest Miniatures. Very tempting.


So, as you can see, my head is swimming with geekly possiblities. As the terrain starts to take shape, and fellow group members start conversing, I'm sure we'll hone in on one of these games and eras. In the meantime, let the construction begin and I'll keep you posted!

Thanks for reading,
JET