Wold WIP Week Challenge!

Its been a little quite round here over the past few weeks, coming off some serious painting time for the NZ Nationals. Unfortunately that just results in more pressure for the next two tournaments (my final two before taking a 5 month break). I have a Mid War Soviet Tankovy list that I am working on for the Mid War GT that I'll have pictures of in the coming weeks, but I am also working on my eBaldur list for the Teams Tournament in about 4 or 5 weeks. I've come up with a style that I am happy with for the wood and stone, that is quick and fairly effective, the next challenge is to try and complete 4 Wolds over the course of the next 5 nights... Technically I think I can do it, but to help make sure of it lets call this a Wold WIP Week Challenge!

Tonights job - finish the Woldwatcher that I used as a painting test (now that I look at it, some of the painting looks a bit dodgy at 200-300% of its real size...)

Sorsha and Karchev go to NATCON

Over the past weekend we had the New Zealand National Wargaming Convention in sunny Hamilton (and for once I am not being facetious about the sunny part). I had an absolute blast and played about 12 games, many of which were real nail biters. Whilst there was way too much fun to remember everything I actually felt like some of the games were close (i.e. a couple of different dice rolls would have resulted in a reversal), some were completely at the other end of the spectrum, but overall I look back and think that if I made a couple of better decisions I would have done a little better.

Couple of highlights:
eMorghoul running into Karchev and a Juggernaut and hitting Flashing Blade a bunch of times. With 19 and 20 armour respectively you would expect that both Karchev and his friend would get equally damaged... no... the Juggernaut took a total of 2 points whilst the big man himself took around 20 (bear in mind he was not boosting ANY of the damage rolls).

A lone Man O War Demo Corp surviving attacks from a Shredder, Harrier and a ranged attack from an Angelius to contest a scoring zone and give me a scenario win. I actually asked my opponent why he was tying to kill the DC figure as I could not understand his strategy - once he explained it to me I almost apoligised for winning as I never saw his plan coming and if it was not for a string of bad dice he would have probably won.

Couple of lowlights:
Wading through a pile of Fennblades and Warriors to get my hands on eMadrak, only to fall 4 points short of killing him - thats after knocking off a couple of free transfers to nearby warrior models and a pile of transfers to beasts. Given that I was about to lose on the scenario it was my only play but still... sooooo close!

Forgetting to pop Sorsha's feat in my last game.... this was a real lowlight for me. Up against Xerxis and his Cataphract friends I felt like it was going to be a hard matchup for me - then I forgot to pop the feat in turn two and it went from being a bad match up to one where I had no chance. This was one of the few games I have ever played where I was seriously annoyed at myself.

Bottom line:
Did not come last in either of the events, won more games than any previous tournament... thats a great result as far as I am concerned. Had some great games, caught up with some good people and painted some more figures. Speaking of which, here they are!

Iron Fang Uhlans

Kovnik Markov

Sunday Gaming

This coming weekend is the New Zealand National Convention and there will be around 150 people from all over the country coming together for a weekend of gaming, covering everything from Ancients to Napoleonics to Flames of War, Warhammer and Warmachine. Its definitely one of the highlights of the gaming year as you get to catch up with people you have not seen since the last Nationals.

As I mentioned in the last post I am taking Karchev out for a spin, but I realised that my list was not entirely legal for the Highlander event so I have had to make a few amendments. It now looks a little more like this:

Karchev the Terrible

Wardog

Destroyer

Juggernaut

Iron Fang Uhlans (x3)

Kovnik Markov

Not entirely sure that the Wardog is legit but I will worry about that on the day. On Sunday I took the force out for a run against Victor's Skorne list - an Immortals/Zaal force that I have real problems knocking over. This game looked like no exception as I pushed forward across a broad front, he did the same, my Cav charged in a killed a few of the Immortals and then were swamped and killed (along with my Juggernaut). Luckily the dice were on my side as Karchev popped his feat, 'towed' the Destroyer up field and in the process killed one his Cyclops, then the Destroyer charged into Zaal and despite having a couple of transfers managed to put him down.

What did I learn... Tow is awesome (but I knew that already), Cavalry hit hard but don't really like being hit back and that Karchev is still the man! Of course this may be my last win with the list based on previous tournament performance  :D

Ulans Work in Process on Sunday

As for painting the Cav, I've finished the horses and are now working on the riders with two nights to go. Should not be a problem as long as no-one looks too closely at them.

Either way it will be a fun weekend especially since I will have added another finished unit to my Khador army.

Tournaments Galore...

The first half of 2012 is a very busy one on the tournament front, three tournaments down and 3 or 4 more to go.. Why 3 OR 4 you ask? I have permission to go to Panzerschreck 2012 this year but I feel that my leave pass might get revoked since my first child is due two weeks afterwards!

In a little over two weeks time we have the NZ Nationals, with two separate tournaments - a one day 25 point Highlander event, and a two day 35 point SR2012 event (with 7 points of reinforcements). 

25pt Highlander - my plan was to go with a very simple plan, using painted figures (so I don't have to get anything new painted)...

Karchev the Terrible

Destroyer

Juggernaut (x2)

Man-O-War Demo Corps (x3)

Reinholdt

This gives me a force that I am well used to using, with the added benefit of having Reinholdt for a bit of pre-measuring fun, as well as letting him get off a pair of shots with the SP10 "gun". Just need to get confirmation that I am allowed duplicate 'jacks.

As for the 35 point SR2012 event

Karchev the Terrible

Wardog

Destroyer

Juggernaut (x2)

Iron Fang Uhlans (x3)

Man-O-War Demo Corps (x5)

Reinforcements:

Manhunters (x2)

Yuri the Axe

Once again I am working on the theory that I know how the core of the army works having taken the same force (without the IFU) at an event last year. I've never used cavalry before, nor have I gotten them painted yet so I need to get a shake on!

As for the rest of the year we the Flames of War Mid War GT, which I am meant to be painting up an entirely new army... And finally the North Island Convention (NiCon) where Sean, Victor and I are teaming up to defend out title of Swamp Gobblers (from last years teams event). For this event I have a 35 point eBaldur list on the painting table.

Finally, I realised that I had not put any photos of Kaya and her Wolves on the the blog yet. I borrowed the camera this morning and managed to take a few photos. With a bit of luck I'll have some WIP images of the Uhlans next week!

Kaya and the 'real' Wolfpack!

Equinox 2012 - Day 2

Day 2 of Equinox started with high hopes after a good nights sleep and a pretty average performance the day before. Of course this means nothing in the world of tournament gaming...

Round Five vs Chris "the master of all things Cryx" Otton. Chris is one of the "top blokes" I mentioned in the previous post, the last time we meant he went to great pains to explain how his army was going to beat me... before then proceeding to beat me in that exact way  :)  This yeas he is taking time away from Cryx to move to Circle and was running an eKaya list, packing plenty of big wolves, shifting stones and druids (pretty much the list I should have been running if I could have gotten the extra bits painted in time. This was one of the most memorable games I have ever had as I felt outclassed by a superior player, made plenty of dumb mistakes, and then watched as the dice tried valiantly to assassinate his chances of winning, combined with a few silly mistakes in his part. In the end the classier player won as he managed to get me away from the flags and pull off a 3-1 Control Point win!

Round Six was verses Dan's beautifully painted Skorne (which won best painted) - this was another memorable games with eHexeris. I used my speed to my advantage and managed to pick away at his force, whilst he expended alot of firepower trying to destroy one of the objectives. In our final turn I managed to get him down to a pair of Cetrati and a single Titan, but through some stupidity of my own left Kaya without any Fury (burnt it off stopping the Titan from being able to charge thanks to a Spirit Fang). Dan started his turn, moved the Titan in and basically did nothing, then said "oops, I forgot to cut myself for Fury", I let him grab the two Fury anyway but said... "If you win this turn....". Looking at the situation he decided that the only way to go was a Page 5 mentality, moved Hexeris into the open and threw a Hellfire at Kaya...boost to hit, boost to damage... Kaya falls over. As it happened he still had the two extra Fury left so it did not matter... not that it made me feel much better  :D

Round Seven... needed a win for some self respect. Found myself facing a big Blindwater list with Maelok in charge. This was one of those games where by the end of turn 2 I pretty much knew I could not pull it off and just tried to get a few points. Managed to duck and dive, picking off points for about 5 or 6 turns before Maelok popped his feat and a gang of angry Gators ate Kara - it did take the entire unit with re roll misses, but they managed it!

So, 7 games down, 2 wins (one of them rather dubious...), so not a good weekend on the pitch. However plenty of fun and lots of good spirits amongst the competitors and a pile of nicely painted armies. What more could a players want?

As it turns out, they might want a nice trophy... The rather interesting specimen on the right was (as the plaque said) the Equinox Warmachine Trophy. Looking like that I can see why the organisers of Equinox had to put such an obvious name on it, as otherwise someone might think that their grandmother left a Sherry glass laying round the hall? Either way there was some pretty impressive prize and trophy/medal support (just to be clear I am being facetious!) for a 30+ player event that should have brought in enough entry fees to almost cover the hall hire. Luckily Chris and the Thrallblacks guys who were organising the Warmachine part of the event really went to town (check out the trophies from the last post). 

In the final wind up Scott Avery took out the top spot, literally standing head and shoulders above the rest of the competition. I managed to not take out the rather coveted wooden spoon award (I was not far off though!). However my fellow competitors were kind enough to give me the Best Sport award (letting people have extra Fury to kill me had to pay off some time) proving that those that can, Win, and those that cannot should go for the Sports Award  :D

Now that is what I call a TROPHY (check out the sweet Thrallblacks shot glass)

Thanks to all the competitors, especially Chris and the Thrallblacks for putting it all together and I will see some of you in three weeks for the NZ Nationals. Looking at what I need to paint for that I am in deep trouble - but whats life if you are not painting the night before an event anyway!

Equinox 2012 - Day 1

The Hall

As expected, day one of Equinox was a blast - four games down, 2 wins and 2 losses. We ended up with 28 players after a couple of guys had to drop out at the last minute, and across all the competitions (FoW, WHFB and 40K) there were well over a hundred sweaty bodies in hall  :)  Best of all we had a great turn-out from the "Out-of-Towners" (all of whom are great blokes to play!) with the Hamilton and Wellington boys turning out in force.

The day did not start off too well as I slept in, luckily my first round opponent had a few issues with his arrival time and we were able to get started in the nick of time. I played a fellow Circle player who was running a Morvana + Tharn list and it was running circles round me - I really wish I owned some except for the fact I really do not like the models. We ended up timing out and I won on the first tie breaker (having a fully painted army.... yes, you read correctly... check out the rules for Equinox).

Round two was up against a Troll player that had just rolled Victor - he had a wall of Fennblades that when combined with Borka's spells made them particularly useful, getting a string of knockdowns on my beasts. I put in a valiant effort but made a couple of stupid mistakes which meant I had no chance in pulling off a lucky Pureblood spray attack + couple of magic attacks from Kaya one-in-a-million shot win

Round three saw me sitting near the bottom of the table, playing a list very similar to mine - drop the Argus and a Wolf for Druids, Blackclad and Wilder essentially. This started out badly when one of my Ferals was quickly dropped by his Stalker (which his Kaya teleported back to safety). However he seemed to forget about the scenario and I managed to win on Control Points - I'd also dropped much of his army thanks to a few cunning strikes by my surviving Pureblood and Stalker.... I also used the Argus' spray attack for possibly the first time (it even stopped his remaining beast from contesting the control point).

The last round was a bit ugly - Durgen and waves of infantry that managed to nibble at by beasts and then in a couple of turns drop all of them. I was able to make a good account of myself, but really missed having a unit of infantry to screen me beasts.

I did manage to take a few photos, but the camera was not great... as you can see below.

Random Draw Prize - super schweeeet engraved beer mug!

The Trophies

First Place Trophy (and thats about as close as I would be getting to holding it!)

I'll have a wrap up tomorrow (Assuming I survive another 3 rounds)

Kaya goes to Equinox

This weekend we have Equinox 2012, which is going to be one of the larger events on the NZ Tournament calendar. As part of this Chris Baker has organised a massive 32 player WarmaHordes event. Given my events schedule I decided to take the easy option and go with a pKaya list (which has not seen a lot of play recently), which only required that I paint up a single Stalker.

The list:
pKaya
Argus
Feral Warpwolf
Feral Warpwolf
Pureblood Warpwolf
Warpwolf Stalker

Its pretty one dimensional and I figure that I am going to have some serious fury management issues, but who cares, it is a box full of nasty Warpwolves and that sounds like fun to me!

As for the Stalker, I managed to get it finished late last night. I decided to airbrush the skin on which mean that I had a few complications as my brush work is not that tidy resulting in a little bit of over painting, so it is more of a 3ft effort than a closeup one. The skin is basically a dark grey base coat, medium grey highlight, then a light grey highlight focusing on the muscles, then an overall thin black wash to tie it all together. After the event I might give it one final highlight to bring the brightness back up a little, but we will see - there is already way too much on my painting schedule!

Warpwolf Stalker and pKaya

Soviet Camouflage?

Some time ago I was surfing through one of my favourite sites (Engines of the Red Army in WW2) looking for information when I came across this picture. Needless to say the idea of a Soviet tank force in three colour camo was very exciting - I already have a lend lease Matilda force, a SU-76 battalion, and a somewhat understrength T34 76 and 85 battalion (that needs alot of extra bits painted). This could be a very unique, rather small (for a Soviet army) and fairly fun project.

So, with a bit of help from Casey and Vod I came up with the bare bones of a fun list, that might actually perform well and I have targeted the Mid War GT (in May) as the debut weekend. The basics of the list are as follows:

Mixed Tankovy Battalion

6 KV-1e (one has the Company HQ)

19 T-26 (one of 10, one of 9)

3 BA-64

10 BA-10

4 76mm Zis-3 AT guns

Sporadic Air Support (the Tiger, Elephant, KV killer - or at least thats the plan!)

The theory is that the KV's can waddle through most enemy fire, the T-26s can assault most enemy infantry, the BA-10s (with their lack of Hen & Chicks) are the truly maneuverable element, the BA-64s are a cheap platoon, and the 76mm Zis guns give me an ambush, some cheap AT and another cheap platoon to get up to 6 deployments.

I'll go into the list in a bit more detail "soon", but in the meantime I am playing around with some colour theory. Thanks to this article on Soviet camo, I was able to get some suggested Federal Standard colours to use as a starting point - printing them off on a decent colour printer and then getting Blake and James's opinions on which Tamiya colours was the next move  :) This is my test swatch of the three colours (using the Tamiya range for the brown and buff, and the Russian Armour can for the green). I am pretty happy with how they worked out and now just need to find matching Vallejo colours to help me finish it off. The next test is going to be applying the paint to an actual tank! I am going to be using the same bluetac method from my French army to help me get the nice hard edges without having to brush paint the entire thing.

With a bit of luck I might have a finished sample or two over this weekend to see how it all works out.

Post Battlecry Hilarity!

With Battlecry 2012 done and dusted (and me almost caught up on sleep!), I thought I would steal a few photos from King Dan, as well as show off a few photos of my finished army. In terms of my experience I have to say I had a blast! This was my first EW Tournament in about two years (i.e. before the release of Blitzkrieg) where I played zee Germans at a NATCON in "the Hutt". Thanks to Gav for organising, thanks to my opponents for the games (wish I could have been a tougher opponent for a few of you!).

In terms of my overall performance.. it was not as good as I had hoped, but half of that blame lies with me being a little asleep at the wheel, and a little with some poor list choices! I really should have found a way to wedge in the Sapper Platoon, as well as some R-35s so that I had some maneuver elements.

Very excited about filling out the French, but I am also concious that I have many tournaments over the next couple of months and much painting to do!

Games in process photos

Sam's Panzers dismembering me

75mm SP AA about to deploy

 Battlecry 2012 French Legionaire Company

Company HQ

Infantry Platoon

25mm Hotchkiss AT Guns (only 1 platoon was in the Battlecry list)

Self Propelled 75mm AA (Dion de Bouton 75mm)

75mm mle 1897 Battery

75mm Staff Team

75mm mle 1897 gun

155mm C mle 1917 S Heavy Artillery Battery

155mm C mle 1917 S gun

The Defences!

The Rest of the French...

SA-37 47mm AT Gun Platoon

More new releases...

Have not had a chance (read felt awake enough) to put up my "post Battlecry" thoughts, so in the meantime here is something that made me chuckle...

I thought it was especially relevant since I am counting down the days till the Minuteman actually gets released... My Kara list must haves them....yeeeeeeesssss!

One more sleep to Battlecry!

If you saw my post on the Flames of War site this week, you would have seen that my EW French were looking dangerously close to being finished, but still needing a lot of work. Well thanks to Red Bull and 6am starts the army was finished at 6.30pm tonight with the last two HMG nests flocked and varnished!

To celebrate I took a quick shot at work of the last couple of weeks efforts!

I'll take some better photos next week of the entire army, in the meantime I need to win a few games in the weekend and determine what I will paint next for the army!

Early War French WIP

Thanks to a couple of long weekends I have managed to make some serious progress on my French - of course with Battlecry 2012 only a couple of weeks away the pressure is on. I have completed all my gun crews which cover two batteries of artillery, a platoon of 47mm guns, as well as finishing up my 25mm Hotchkiss crews. 

25mm Hotchkiss AT Gun Platoons

SA-37 47mm AT Gun Platoon

75mm mle 1897 Artillery Battery

155mm C mle 1917 S Heavy Artillery Battery

I still need to complete my De Dion et Bouton SP 75mm AA trucks, as well as my HMG nest (not to mention the guns to go with the crews - as you can see they are still very much unpainted other than a little primer). Hopefully my plan to resolve that issue will take shape over the next couple of days.... More photos later!