TWO NEW WARLOCKS

It’s been a real challenge lately playing against Menoth. My friend Russell has a very solid tactic that involves using the Bastions, which can transfer damage around to each other (so it’s extremely difficult to kill them off one at a time, it’s all or nothing) and the Harbinger, who can use Martyrdom on them to keep them alive (basically when one of them dies, she can keep it just barely alive and she suffers d3 damage). Ever since he’s gotten his second full bastion unit, I have gotten plowed over time and time again. Absylonia was not cutting it against this particular army, so I went out and I got my hands on Thagrosh.

Thagrosh is a really cool model, he’s got a great sculpt and his character has a cool back story (basically he’s an ogre with the stone heart of an evil dragon, spreading the dragon’s blight throughout the land). He’s got some pretty cool spells; he can have his warriors do more damage, he can give his guys concealment, he can create a huge blast, and his feat allows him to bring back a beast from the dead with full health. Overall, a very cool guy. I’d say he’s a strong warlock to bring into small point battles, because if you’re playing a 35 point game and you lose your 12-point Typhon, then you can just bring him back, and it’s almost like you’re playing with 47 points instead. The only problem is that Thagrosh has no real way of dealing with this Menoth army that I’ve been going up against, especially because the Harbinger’s feat deals a bunch of damage to anyone who moves towards her for one round— it can EASILY take out a whole unit of infantry and turns the tables putting him in charge of the game.

I recently tried out Saeryn. Saeryn is a cool ninja sorceress (with a twin sister who’s even more of a ninja). Saeryn has turned out to be unbelievably powerful against this Menoth army. Her feat basically makes it so that none of my guys can be targeted by melee attacks for one round. This is incredible because 95% of Russell’s attacks are melee. At the very least, it gives me the chance to retake the advantage if he has just popped his feat.

With her feat in combination with some great spells, Saeryn has proved to be a great match against the Harbinger and her bastions, especially because she can prevent the Harbinger from healing the bastions and keeping them alive.

I’ll post pictures of both my Thagrosh and Saeryn models in the coming weeks. Currently Thagrosh is half-painted, and he’s looking suh-weet!

Mark 2 (MKII) Token Set

Last November, Privateer Press released updated token sets to go along with the rest of their MKII revisions. There’s a specialized set for each faction in the game. I got mine within a couple weeks of their release, and I have to say I’m pretty impressed both with the design and the variety of tokens that come in the pack. Previously I had been using coins and small rectangles of paper to keep track of my fury, spells and effects.

Included in the Legion of Everblight pack are:

• Fury Tokens x20
• Spell Tokens x7
• Animus Tokens x5
• Corpse Tokens x3
• Spontaneous Mutation Token x1
• Customizable Faction Tokens x4
• Knocked Down Tokens x3
• Upkeep Spell Tokens x3
• Stationary Tokens x3
• Corrosion Tokens x3
• Prey Token x1
• Dug In Tokens x3
• Host Tokens x5
• Token Stands x4

The tokens are totally compatible with dry-erase or wet-erase markers (I prefer wet-erase because they have finer tips), so writing spell names and effects on them is really easy.(I prefer because they have finer tips) 

I’m happy that they included a token just for Absylonia— the Spontaneous Mutation token (pictured in the lower right corner) has a list of the three different mutations she can undergo with little check boxes next to each one to show which ones she has at any given time.

The Host tokens are useful if you use incubi, which don’t start the game on the field, but rather pop up out of the corpses of your fallen infantry.

The stands are also pretty cool— they allow certain tokens, like the corrosion token or the prey token to stand upright on the battlefield.

I’m also pleased with the design of the fury tokens. I like that they have the faction symbol on them and that they’re easily to handle and easy to stack (previous fury tokens have had sharp edges and were not as stacker-friendly).

Overall, I’d say this is a very complete token set, and I like what Privateer Press did with it. If you’re serious about Hordes, there’s no reason not to go out and get a MKII token set, but of course if you’re just starting out, or a more casual player, coins and little pieces of paper will do you just fine ;)

Click here to view the Token Key— it shows all the tokens from all the different faction sets so you can get an idea of which tokens might be included in your faction set, and what they look like.

AMAZING PAINT JOB

Check out these awesome models. I did not paint them, but I wish I had. They were painted by a very skilled modeler who goes by the alias CCCP_Philippe. He posted these pictures along with many other stunning ones HERE ON THE FORUM. Go check them out.

PAINTED SCYTHEAN

The gallery above shows the photos of my recently-painted scythean. I basically followed the steps that I took in painting my previous warbeasts (see the end of the post for an abbreviated painting guide if you’re interested).

I think that in many ways my painting technique has improved. I’m very pleased with how the skin and muscle definition came out for this guy. I think his mouth and sharp teeth do a good job of popping, and most importantly, I think I did a great job with his armor. I’ve found that the key to good carapace armor is to push the limits of the contrast. I made sure to leave some parts like the tips and cracks totally black, while at the same time, I used a layering technique to smoothly highlight other parts of the armor. While painting him, I reached several points where I thought I had finished painting, but then decided to give him another lighter shade. High contrast really pays off with armor like this, and can make the difference between a boring brown blob and a sharp detailed product. Both my carnivean and scythean have pretty good contrast in their armor, and seeing them next to my Typhon is making me think I should go back over some of his armor to lighten parts of it up.

I have enormous respect for the people who professionally paint models for Privateer Press, but at the same time, I have to say that I actually prefer the way my high-contrast armor came out as opposed to the model featured on the PP website (seen here). They obviously have incredible technique and masterful detail in a lot of aspects of their paint job, but I think they could have gotten away with pushing the contrast limit a little further. After all, those two giant spikes on his back (which I think are just a little ridiculous) need all the sprucing up they can get to look believable.

As is the case with most of my models, I gave him some rocks to stand on composed of painted cork board, kitty litter, and fake dead grass. As I’ve mentioned before, the cork board does an amazing job of letting you successfully base a model that has uneven feet.

Well there you have it, my scythean in his full glory. Check back next week to see my post about my new warlock!

Appendix I: Painting Steps

1. Prime model with gesso
2. Paint a protective base coat of white paint over the model
3. Cover the skin with P3’s Frostbite color (light blue)
4. Mix water and P3’s Coal Black and give the ‘beast a wash
5. Go back over the skin with frostbite to bring out the highlights, use coal black or a mixture of frostbite and coal black for recesses
6. Mix red and white to gently add pink to his “tender bits” AKA his arm pits and undersides, etc.
7. Paint the mouth all black
8. Paint the teeth with GW’s Bleached Bone. Leave the space between the teeth black
9. Paint the gums pink, but use a redder pink than that used for the tender bits
10. Paint the armor GW’s Scorched Brown
11. Fill in major armor cracks with black
12. Use progressively lighter shades of scorched brown mixed with bleached bone to highlight the armor, don’t forget the edges of the underbelly plates
13. Smoothly add black to the tips of all pointy things and other low-light areas and cracks between the plates of the underbelly
14. Dry brush the tiny armor bumps with bleached bone

CONSTRUCTING THE SCYTHEAN

Intro

One of the models I got for X-mas was the Scythean. Scythean is a heavy warbeast like Carnivean and Typhon. What sets him apart is that he’s specifically designed to be a melee killing machine. With no ranged attacks, and two powerful melee attacks and 2” reach, once he gets up in the action, he rips everything apart.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Above are several photos I snapped while putting this guy together.

Construction

The first thing I noticed about this model is that it has the same legs, torso, and minor arm pieces as the carnivean. To set the two models apart, they gave the scythean a new head, different shoulder spikes (which I think are a little extreme), a tail that curves in a different way, and of course two giant scythes where the carnivean’s hulking arms were.

After noticing the similarities between this model and the carnivean, I noticed one interesting difference: the upper torso of the sythean comes as two hollow pieces whereas the carnivean’s upper torso was one solid piece. I guess this saves a little on the amount of metal that goes into the model and it also does a lot to attempt to balance out this already top-heavy model. 

I think it does a lot for the integrity of the model to have a hollowed-out upper torso, but this does also present a bit of an assembly challenge: how do you stick two halves of the hollow torso together? The walls of the pieces are quite thin (I didn’t measure, but they could have been 1/8th inch thick or less). After several minutes of inspecting and pondering, I found two spots, one on each side of the torso, where I could drill in just enough to place pins. I have no idea how Privateer Press expects people to put this model together without pinning, and I’m surprised they didn’t make it easier to pin.

Tip: Just like for other models, in order to make the holes on both halves line up, I first drilled one, then cut a pin that was just a little longer than the hole. I put a spot of paint on the end of the pin and then placed the two pieces together. The paint dot marked on the correct place to drill on the second half.

At this point I had figured out how to handle the torso parts, but I also realized that putting the torso together had to be one of the last steps in the whole assembly. Build order matters for some models more than others, and I’d say that scythean is a model for which it counts. Because the torso was hollow and the walls were relatively thin, I had to make sure that all other pins (connecting the arms, head, and lower torso) were well-secured. As you can see in a photo above, I bent two right angles into one long pin to make it staple-shaped. This pin was used to connect the upper torso to the lower torso.

Tip: As was the case with the carnivean, when pinning the scythean, you’re going to want to make sure to double-pin the upper torso to the lower torso. This model is very top-heavy, and the front end puts a lot of strain on that one joint. While a single pin is better than no pin at all, two pins are the best way to go to distribute that weight and maximize the endurance of your model.

Tip: In order to make sure the heavy arms would stay in place, I bent the arm pins into “L” shapes. The “L” pins act as a hook (placing the bottom part of the L inside the hollow torso, while leaving the top straight part of the L sticking out to attach the arms) and keep the arms well-anchored in place.

Tip: When assembling the arms, make sure to put the correct shoulder piece with the correct arm piece. One combination will fit much better than the other.

Summary

It didn’t take too terribly long for me to finish pinning, gluing, and then green-stuffing the joints. Overall, I’m pleased with how my scythean looks once assembled. I can tell already that he’ll be a terrific and terrifying addition to my force.

The biggest complaint I have now that he’s assembled is that his feet don’t all lie flat on the ground. I know I’ve talked about this in a previous post, and my solution for him will be to put him on cork-board rocky terrain that’s uneven in just the right way to let him have all three feet secure on the ground. I highly recommend this approach for anyone experiencing similar problems.

As for a sneak-peak at next week’s post, I’ll let you know right now that the scythean is completely painted. Check back next week when I post his painted gallery, and my comments on his paint job.

Last week Darth Nyquil contacted me about a question he had putting his new carnivean together. Here is his question and my response:

Just got the Carnivean, test fitting indicates getting the legs as flush as you seemed to is going to be painful, especially the front right leg. How did you get them lined up? 

Hey there Darth Nyquil (sweet name btw),

Thanks for your question. I do remember the carnivean being a little tricky to put together correctly. While I don’t remember what exactly I did to make his legs line up, here are two things that help mine look flush:
1) Slightly alter the angle of the legs. Yeah, I know that in an idea world, the legs would fit snuggly onto the side of carnivean’s body while at the same time all three would stand flat on the ground. Unfortunately, as you have already found, this is hard to do. While I don’t remember exactly, I have the feeling that I might have rotated one or more legs to make them all stand flat on the ground. To cover up the fact that the leg didn’t mesh up completely to the body, I made sure to pin it (for stability) and then fill the crack with modeling putty, like green stuff (to make it look better). I think the best way to do this would be to attach two of the legs (the two that seem to be most closely lined up) and then rotate the third one slightly.
2) The second thing I can think of that makes my carnivean legs look flush might be the fact that I have him standing on terrain made out of cork board. The cork board is great because while it can take on a real rough, rocky texture (especially after painting), it remains slightly flexible and springy. So when using cork board to base your model, you can get away with having legs that don’t all perfectly rest on the ground. One thing you’ll want to remember to do though, if you’re going to go the cork board route, is to pin his feet through the cork board and through the base so that he stays stable and doesn’t just rip off of the cork.
I suppose a third option for you would be to cut or sand off the little rocks that the carnivean is standing on that come attached to his feet. I wouldn’t recommend this though, unless you have the right tool for the job. If you were to do it, I would suggest doing it before assembling the model, because the vibrations of sanding one part of the model could cause a joint elsewhere to come undone, and that’s just frustrating.
Right now I’m painting the scythean, and I’ve found that his feet (although they’re the same feet and lower body portion as the carnivean) are way out of wack, in terms of lying flat on the ground. I don’t remember the carnivean’s being quite as crazy, so it’s possible that small differences in the way that they’re cast has effects later on. I definitely plan on basing my scythean on cork board rocks just like I did for my carnivean, I think it’ll be the best way to give the appearance that his feet are lying flat.
Thanks a lot for your question, and feel free to contact me again in the future if you have any other questions or comments.
Happy Modeling,~Jocco

SCENARIO PLAY

On Feb 27th, I played a scenario game with my Menoth-playing friend Russell. Most people we’ve run into prefer to line up two armies, rush them towards each other, and rip each other apart until one of them can pull off a successful assassination on the opposing warlock or warcaster.

In the main rule book, there are suggestions for other ways to play the game. They give six options, from which you can choose, or just roll a d6. Russell and I ended up playing a scenario called “Breaking the Line.”

In this scenario, each player gets their normal 10” deep deployment zone on their side of the table, and the remaining table space in the middle is divided into 6 equal rectangular territories. The object of the game is to either kill the opponent’s warcaster or to control at least two territories on your side of the table and one territory on your opponent’s side (check out the photos above for visual aid).

The game was very cool and we both enjoyed the different approach to game play. It took me several turns to fully wrap my head around the best strategy to use in the scenario, because it turns out that it can be beneficial to hold several of your models back just so you can be sure that they hold a particular territory and are out of harm’s way.

Russell ended up winning in the end, he was able to take out all but two of my models, and at that point there was no way I could achieve the goal of the scenario, and I certainly wasn’t going to be able to kill off his warcaster. However, there was one point in the game that I thought I was going to win for sure. He only had a small unit of bastions controlling one of his territories, and in order to fully control a territory, every model in the unit must be fully within the territory. What I did is I advanced my carnivean, and made him pick up and throw one of the bastions out of the territory. In doing so, he no longer had a full unit in the territory, and I figured I had won at the end of that turn. Well that would have worked, but then we went back to the rule book and the scenario clearly stated that the game ends when the winning condition is met at the end of your opponent’s turn. So of course on his next turn he moved some more of his guys into the territory and I didn’t win. Furthermore, when I went in to make my throw, I really left myself open to attack (because I was so sure that it would win me the game). So after that turn, things really went downhill fast.

Overall it was a very friendly game, and we were both very forgiving opponents, in the fact that we would give each other tips from time to time or if someone severely messed up, we would allow the other one to take back the move. After all, we’re still learning a lot of the subtleties of the game.

Scenario play was a lot of fun and really made us think in different directions from how we normally might play. I would highly suggest scenario play to all Warmachine/Hordes players. It gives you a fresh approach to an awesome game.

LEGION VS. MENOTH

Overview

On Jan 30th, I invited a friend over for a game. He plays the Protectorate of Menoth, which is pretty much a faction of religions zealots. It was my first game against Menoth, and they were interesting to play against. The Protectorate of Menoth relies a lot on support units and spells to buff up their infantry and war jacks in terms of offense, defense, and movement.

Both he and I are relatively new at the game, so it was a great learning opportunity for both of us. We played a 37-point game.

Armies

His army consisted of:

• Reznik (warcaster)
• Dervish (warjack)
• Repenter (warjack)
• Blessing of Vengeance (warjack)
• Avatar of Menoth (warjack)
• Exemplar Bastions (infantry)
• Wrack (support)
• Choir of Menoth (support)
• Vassal of Menoth (support)
• Visgoth Rhoven & Exemplar Bodyguards (support)

My army consisted of:

• Lylyth (warlock)
• Typhon (warbeast)
• Carnivean (warbeast)
• Scythean (warbeast)
• Shredder (warbeast)
• Raptors (calvary)
• Shepherd (support)
• Forsaken (support)

Picture Guide

1. Here’s the card table that was next to the dining room table— err, I mean the battle field. We used it as a place to put our cards and supplies so that they’d be out of the way of the battle.
2. Here’s the lineup of his army at the beginning of the game.
3. Here are some close-ups of several of his guys. The big ‘jack is the Avatar. It’s a pretty impressive ‘jack. It’s pretty unique in that it’s not actually controlled by his warcaster, but rather by the deity Menoth Himself. That being the case, it gets its own focus points and is a rather powerful ‘jack. Also featured in this picture is the repenter, which is the other warjack there, and really the only guy on that side with a ranged attack— his flamethrower. That being the case, I knew I could really use my ranged abilities to my advantage. The little guys hiding behind the warjacks are the choir. They’re an example of supporting models. These guys were a bit annoying because they made those warjacks immune to ranged attacks. Luckily, I was able to ride up super fast with my raptors and kill two of the three choir members by shooting them (a tactic I hope to employ in future battles against Menoth).
4. Here are some other models on his team. The bastion is the unit of guys in the front with halberds (the big sticks). These guys are tricky because they have 8 hit points a piece and they can choose to distribute the damage amongst themselves, so it’s not so easy to pick them off one by one. That guy hanging up by the chains is one of the wrack models. They basically provide backup focus for the warcaster if he needs it. The trio in the back is another support unit, one thing they can do is remove animi (spells) from enemy models— that can get pretty annoying, though it didn’t play a huge role in determining the outcome of this battle.
5. Here are my heavy hitters. As you can see, my partially-painted scythean has joined the ranks.
6. Here’s an over-the-shoulder shot of the battle field from the point of view of my raptors. As I mentioned earlier, my raptors did a great job of riding up really fast and shooting some supporting models behind the enemy war jacks. This gave me a bit of a leg-up, because Menoth rather relies on those supporting characters. Because raptors are light calvary, not only do they get to move very quickly (9 inches on just a normal advance), but after they attack, they can move an additional 5 inches, allowing them to retreat out of range after striking.
7. Here’s a shot of the end of the game. I know it might be a bit difficult to interpret, especially to an un-trained eye. Check out the description below to find out exactly what happened at the end of the game.

The Game

I won’t bore you with a play-by-play summary of the game. Instead, here are the highlights.

I got the first turn of the game and just charged my army up towards the enemy. He didn’t have as good move speeds as I did. He advanced, but not enough to reach me. On my next turn, several of his guys were within the range of my ranged attacks and I went to work on his Bastion with my Carnivean while removing the pesky choir with my raptors on the other side of the field. On his turn, he retalliated, did some damage, but didn’t kill anyone. He did however bring his prized Avatar up to a threatening position on the field.

On my next turn, I started out by shooting the Avatar with Lylyth’s bow. The arrow didn’t do any damage, but Lylyth’s bow is magic, and because I hit the Avatar, I could get free charges off against it. Lylyth’s turn ended by her taking several steps back to make sure she was well out of the battle (this was especially important because I hadn’t left any fury on her, so she wouldn’t be able to transfer damage away from her). Scythean was then in the perfect position to get a free charge at the Avatar. He did it and got in a few points of damage (the Avatar has ridiculously high armor) BUT, after the first attack, because the Avatar had a special spell on him, he got the chance to move 5 inches. He ended up walking right around the Scythean, out of the Scythean’s reach. My turn continued, and my Carnivean beat up the remaining members of the Bastion (he even picked one up and chucked it at a nearby enemy warjack, killing the Bastion and knocking over the ‘jack.

The big problem here was that the Avatar was no longer engaged with the Scythean, and he was closer to Lylyth. I did what I could with my remaining models to protect Lylyth, but it became painfully clear that the Avatar might just have it in for my lovely warlock on his next turn.

Picture 7 above illustrates the (important parts of the) battlefield close to the end of my turn. In the top of the picture, you can see my scythean facing away from the white Avatar, which is now facing Lylyth, whose bow and top of head can be seen on the very bottom of the picture. The only models in between are the forsaken, the shepherd, and the shredder. Because all of these are small-based models, the Avatar was able to do a “trample” and run right over them (I moved the shepherd and the shredder out of the way, because them being in the way wouldn’t do any good). 

On the enemy’s turn, the Avatar trampled over the forsaken, arrived at Lylyth, and in one blow, he knocked her lights out.

Conclusion

First off, I have to say that this was a great game. Both of us learned a lot in it, and the best part was that we both got to effectively try out models and tactics that veterans would have easily squashed.

I’m not upset at all that I lost. It would have taken a lot of foresight on my part to prevent the Avatar from skirting around the Scythean and lining himself up for a devastating trample. I did everything I could, and I even moved Lylyth back to get her out of the way, so it’s not like I wasn’t thinking about her safety at all. Even if I had left some fury on her, it wouldn’t have been enough to stop the Avatar. He had full focus on him and was ready to give it all he had.

Great playing! I can’t wait to do it again. I’m already thinking about what to throw at him next time we throw down.

The Shepherd

Here are some photos of the shepherd that I painted like two months ago. Overall, I’m happy with how she turned out. From several feet away, she looks great, but I’ve noticed, especially while taking pictures of her, that up close, some things look a bit sloppy. At some point in the future I’d like to go back and work on her face. In the Legion of Everblight Forces of Hordes book, Privateer Press includes some great painting guides, including how to best do Nyss faces, and although their color scheme is slightly different from mine, I think there’s a lot I can learn about different techniques for painting faces (among other things). Also in the future, I might end up playing around with shading a bit more on her body. As it is now, pretty much all of her skin is the same tone.

The shepherd is a great model to include in many Legion armies. Normally, warbeasts need to stay within a certain radius of the warlock in order for them to be used to their greatest potential, but the shepherd has a control radius of her own, allowing you to extend your area of warbeast control. You could even use the shepherd to split off a flanking group of ‘beasts from your main army to travel at a distance from your warlock.