2014 Tournament Season

With growing family responsibilities at home as my son gets bigger and starts to throw around the word "daddy" a lot more, 2014 is already panning out to be a big year so I sat down and had a look through the tournament calender to try and plan out the year so there would be no (okay, fewer) surprises on the home front. It also gave me an opportunity to work out what was on the painting schedule.

February: Battlecry and Flames Of War. This will be the first road test for my Desperate Measures Reluctant Trained Tigers.

March: Ides of March and Warmachine. Dusting off my Circle forces and using this to incentivise me to paint up the Woldwrath!

April: Hamilton EW Tournament and FOW. This one is a little up in the air for me right now, but my French are looking for a reason to hit the table and this might be it!

May: NiCon and TBC. Love heading to sunny Tauranga, just need to work out what is on the menu I guess.

July: Panzerschreck and the FOW Doubles Event. It is just easier to give into Evan's nagging and head down. Plus Mike and I have something to make up for after our terrible performance last year.

August: Call to Arms and WarmaHordes. Not sure what I would take, but the WarmaHordes guys in Wellington are great to play so hopefully the timing of this works out.

October: BFGT and FOW. This could be coinciding with my 40th so might be a little challenging, tempted to play in the split 1 day Mid War, 1 day Early War events... wonder how I could convert my '56 Israelis to Mid War?

November: Rallypoint and the WarmaHordes Teams Event. Three man teams and this year it is Ghordson Earthbreakers all round.

So, painting needing to be done for five events this year at minimum, plus some more post war Israeli's for work no doubt.... maybe it is time to start reducing my expectations!

Pictures from Call To Arms 2011

Scott (over at Thrallblacks) put up some great photos from Call to Arms 2011... and I shamelessly stole the "best" ones.

Kara lines up a shot, trying to kill Thyra with a little help from Reinholt.

Triumph introduces Haley to his little friend (sadly my only caster kill of the weekend).

Possibly the words coolest Warmachine trophies!



Call to Arms: Day 2

Day 2 of Call to Arms followed on nicely from day 1. Now you are probably thinking thats a pretty redundant statement given that one day normally follows another, however in the tournament world you cannot guarantee that one days great games (and opponents) will follow through to the next day. In this case.... I am very happy to say that day 2 was just as much fun, and was definitely the icing on the cake!

I faced off (once again in no particular order):

eKaya - she had a massive pile of angry Wolves and basically kept Stealth up through the entire game. Kara and the Triumph put the hurt on, but the Hunters found themselves completely outmatched. We timed out last as a Warpwolf made its way into Kara's face.

pHaley - the Hunters did their thing and scattered which opened up a some firing arcs, Trumph's cannon to Haley's face (although it took a Hunter to finish her off).

Thyra - keen to face off against her as I have a 25pt T4 list that I want to build. Could not target the jacks thanks to the Choir so I worked over the support units. Managed to get the Hunters round the flanks and put 4 shots into Thyra (1 missed), and still she lived. Cornered her hiding behind a heavy jack that was 1 Defender shot from death, and with Kara ready to deliver the double tap when an unfortunate continuous fire effect killed Kara.

So.... 7 games, 1 win.... not a great record, but I finished with the rather comforting thought that I would have killed Rasheth if I had thought about it a little harder (even with -1 dice on ranged attacks, 3 non-boosted shots from Hunters, and a further 3 boosted should have put him on the ground) and the dice just not being with me against Thyra, and I think I would have had a pretty respectable result.

However there is definitely something to be said for having a great weekend, playing a bunch of great people and generally having fun, because not only is that a reward in itself, but sometimes you get recognised by your peers...

Sean (our awesome organiser) presenting Alex McEwan and I with the Exemplar (i.e. Sportsmanship) Award after we tied on player votes.

The trophies up for grabs (made by Sean) - they are as heavy as they look!

So, now its on to the Guardcon Battlebox tournament in October, then the debate about either adding to Kara or Karchev (or maybe Kaya since I have three Warpwolves and three Argus painted already...) to get a 50 point force ready for Rallypoint?!?!?!

Or maybe I should knock off my Dystopian Wars stuff before I start on yet another project...

Call to Arms: Day 1

It been a big day of gaming down here in Wellington! We played two games at 20 points and two at 30. Sadly the games have gone the way that I expected, with 4/4 loses.... Faced off against (in no particular order):

Rasheth - managed to clean out much of his force over to turns of shooting but found Kara's face being blown off through a couple of channelled spells,

Caine - just played like a complete moron, wasted my feat and lost through control points.

Madrak - Mulg to the face..... 'Nuff said.

Xerxis - large mob of Cetrati in shield wall combined with Defenders Ward and I just could not put them down.

Tomorrow morning I am fighting to retain m plc at the bottom o the table as I match off against the only other player with no wins.... Hopefully I'll have a bit more success to report.

Kara and her Rangers

With Call to Arms a couple of days away, I have managed to finish the last of my painting: Kara Sloan, Capt. Strangeways, Reinholt (everyones favourite Goblin and reloader of all things shooty!) and a unit of Rangers. I am not entirely happy with how they turned out, but they are ready for the weekend and a little bit of tidy up work (and some decals for the 'jacks) and I'll be satisfied.

Strangeways, Kara and Reinholt

CRS Rangers

Needless to say though, I am pretty excited about the weekend and either way I think it is going to be a blast as the Wellington Warmachine cowd seems (from all accounts) to be a pretty good bunch!

Kara Sloan and her Hunters III

Over the last week I had a minor epifhany realising that Call to Arms is only a couple of weeks away, so it was a big weekend of finishing up my 'jacks for Kara's Battlegroup.


Kara's friends

 

The 'Wolfpack'

My gun is bigger than your gun!

So with eleven "sleeps" till I need to be in Wellington, I have 10 figures still to paint.... confidence is not high I have to admit. The backup plan involves getting Harkevich and Black Ivan painted and using many of the same figures that I took to NiCon earlier this year. Either way I am sure it will be a fun tournament.

Call To Arms Practice Game - Kara vs McBain

Victor and I had a quick 40 point game tonight, largely so he could play around with some different combinations and so that I could have my first run with my Kara / Hunter list.

Victor had:
McBain
     Nomad
     Nomad

Rutger Shaw
     Marshalling a Vanguard
Taryn di la Rovissi
Devil Dogs
     Marshalling a Talon

Thor Steinhammer
     Marshalling two Gun Bunnies
Alexia Ciannor & The Risen

Dannon Blythe and Bull
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

It was a great game, our dice were particularly bad resulting in a fair amount of laughs. Its amazing how many dice throws you can fail on 6's!

I sent the Hunters up the left flank to take on the Thor (and the Bunnies), Dannon and Bull. My heavies propped up the centre, whilst the Rangers hid in a forrest to lay down supporting fire. Popped my feat early and put a dent in the left flank, but failed a "use brain" test resulting in the feat turn not being as sucessful as hoped. The Nomands came straight up the middle with Alexia, Rutger, Taryn and the Vanguard moving against the Hunters. My Triumph held up the Nomands for a turn, bit of support fire from the Hunters and Kara knocked down one Nomand, but the survivor took out my Defender. At this point Victor pushed forward to get a result one way or another and found a couple of bullets from Kara (as well as a hit from a Hunter) resulting in a quick finish as McBain strayed a little too close.

Learnings:
Hunters are awesome, but need to keep moving because as soon as anyone gets their hands on them, they are dead...
Rangers only have a 10 "range... not 12  :)
Triumph really is a bit toss.... luckily I love the model!
Kara is awesome, but once the enemy hits your lines the game can go badly... quickly.

Definitely need to look at getting Captain Jeremiah Kraye painted in time for the event so that I can run two casters at the tourney just to give myself some flexibility.... or course that still sounds like taking the whole thing a little too seriously!

Kara Sloan and her Hunters II

I actually managed to sit down over the weekend and get some painting done, luckily I had a backlog of podcasts to work through so the two things went hand in hand nicely.

Have not managed to get any of the first five jacks finished, although one Hunter (see below) is dangerously close. Not happy with where the Defender and Triumph are, they are just too blue. On the three Hunters I quite like the ratio, but I need to go back to the drawing board with the heavies. Victor made the suggestion at work that I just needed more metalics and annoyingly he may be right - I say annoyingly as it will require a heck of alot more painting  :(

Wednesday night I have arranged a 40 point playtest though, so I am excited to get some practice games in before CTA in a month and a bit, hopefully it will pay off.

Hunter # 1 (almost complete)

 

 

The base is a resin cast from Back 2 Base-ix. I really like how it has come out so I am tempted to go nuts and replace the majority of my bases with theirs.... just not sure I can handle rebasing that many things.

Call To Arms 2011

Okay, so the CTA players pack is now up on the ThrallBlacks blog, short version... I'm gonna get pwned  :)

Two games at 20 points:

Kara Sloan (+6)

Hunter - 6 points

Hunter - 6 points 

Hunter - 6 points  

Rangers - 5 points

Captain Arlan Strangewayes - 2 points

Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator - 1 point

Two games at 30 points:

Above, plus Defender - 9 points

Three games at 40 points:

Above, plus the much maligned Triumph - 11 points

Now I could take two lists, but that would; A, suggest that I was taking it waaaay too seriously, and B, result in me having to paint two casters.... not to mention work out how two lists work instead of not knowing how one works  :D

On the postive side, 7 rounds against what sounds like a good bunch of gamers, and the chance to spectate the final play-off between 1st and 2nd. Add in the chance to catch up with some of the Wellingtonians, a visit to Uncle Changs for dinner on the Saturday night... could the weekend get any better!

Although I think I had better get painting so I can organise a couple of practice games against the locals (more on the painting front tomorrow once I have a few pictures of a WIP Hunter).