100 Point Match!

Had a 100 point match vs my friend Jeff Yu last Saturday, It was my first 100 point match in years. The last I played was vs Micheal Ang in Mark 1.

Anyway, here is a picture of my army:

Model list:

Scaverous
Deathjack
Nightwretch
Skarlock

Venethrax
Leviathan
Nightwretch
Seether

Bane Lord Tartarus
Bloat Thralls x2
Darragh Wraithe
Gen. Gaerlack Slaughterborn
Pistol Wraiths x2

Bane Knights max
Bile Thralls min
Blood Gorgers max
Blood Gorgers min
Mechanithralls min with 3 Bloat Thralls
Mechanithralls min
Necrosurgeons
Soulhunters min
Withershadow Combine

The game was Incursion and I got first turn. Basically ran up my army the first turn like so:

Jeff then advanced his army and Epic Stryker Advanced then Velocity-ed forward. At that point, I felt Scaverous had a chance to do an assassination run vs Stryker. Scaverous feated, cast Ghostly,went through the train wreck and Telekinesis-ed Stryker and placed him 2" from his last position. I then cast Icy Grip on him to lower his Defense further. Then Bane Lord Tartarus charged in and Cursed Stryker and Threshed and did some damage. The Bane Knights accompanying Tartarus then finished him off. The turn ended like so with me moving models up further and attacking some more models of Jeff's killing some Storm Blades(?) and Epic Eiryss on the other side of the table.

Jeff's turn he killed a lot of trolls as well as some Bane Knights, McThralls and a Soul Hunter and doing damage to a Bloat Thrall and some other models. Then came his assassination run. Caine killed a Brute Thrall blocking LoS to Scaverous then feated and Gate Crashed into Scavy. Shot after shot until Scavy was down to one hit point with one more shot to go needing a 5 but fate had other plans and the dice rolled 4!

After that it was formality already with Scavy casting Feast of Worms to lower Caine's Armor and boosted the damage roll dealing around 8 points of damage. The Bile Thrall unit came next and you get the picture.

All in all a new experience in Mk 2. Props to Jeff for an excellent game.

Death Couldn't Look This Bad Ass

I now present Scaverous, fully painted courtesy of Edward Fernando:

The detail on the model is amazing. There are skulls in his chest! The armor and weapon have lots of ridges and all. This is officially my favorite model in the Cryx faction, surpassing Venethrax.

He's also a big mother! Here's a pic of how big the guy is compared to Terminus, one of the largest models in the PP line:

Note Scaverous is on a medium base.

Games-wise, his spells are quite nice. This caster is a spell slinger definitely. Between Death Ward, Excarnate, Feast of Worms, Ghost Walk, Icy Grip and Telekinesis, he should give the opponent a hard time.

Hoping to use both Scaverous and Terminus on the tables soon.

Enjoy the pics!

Scaverous, Scaverous would you do the Fandango...

...
Thunderbolt and lightning
Very, very frightening me!

:D

Terminator

I unveil Terminus, Lich Lord of Cryx. One of the earliest Lich Lords of Toruk, he is now at Immoren leading the forces of Cryx in their assault on the mainland. Thanks to Edward "Emp" Fernando for his excellent job at painting him. Here he is in all his glory:

Improbable Dream - Update

Painting for a toutal of 15 and a half hours. Trolls just need to have their bases painted but the figs itself are done except for the armor washing. To wit:

The following models are done except for basing. I'll get to that later but the figs are done:

Resting at the moment. Confident I can field a fully painted army for the Call to Arms 2011 League. :)

Improbable Dream - Painting 24 Models in a Total of 24 Hours

Yes, 24 models in 24 hours total. I am joining the local Warmachine Hordes League and one of the bonuses is playing a game with a fully painted army. I had to paint 24 models the breakdown of which are as follows:

a. Slaughterborn
b. 16 Blood Gorgers
c. 3 Brute Thralls
d. Necrosurgeon and
e. 3 Stitch Thralls.

I focused on the Bloodgorgers first. I initially basecoated them with grey primer:

Then I went to Edward "Emp" Fernando's place for a couple of hours of painting because he had some paint I needed. I used Trollblood Base for the skin of my Bloodgorgers, seeing as they were Trollkin only under the wings of Cryx. They came out like so:

I finished painting the skin while at Emp's place. At the same time, I also painted the body of the Brutes and Stitch Thralls in Thrall Flesh. So total at Emp's place was 3 hours thereabouts. I had to pick up my kid from his school so I continued painting at home, putting Boltgun Metal on the armor of 7 models (Slaughterborn and 6 Bloodgorgers) as well as picking out some details for me to follow the next day. Came out like this:

So today I continued painting the models. The Trolls are almost all complete, to wit:

I also almost finished painting a Brute Thrall as well as did some work on the Necrosurgeon.

Here's a pic of Slaughterborn, almost done:

Basically a total of 7 hours for today. Not bad I guess for speed painting. Anyway, hope to finish everything by tomorrow by finishing the remaining Brutes and Necrosurgeon as well as Armor Wash-ing all the figs.

Anyway, until next blog.

PS Thanks to Emp for letting me use some of his paint.

New PAL additions

Added two new PAL planes to my fleet of diecast airliners. PPC brand from PAL Inflight Sales bought via my sister in law who came home from HK via PAL. Top is 1/500 scale A330 and the bottom is 1/400 scale PAL DC-3. Enjoy!

Lich Lord Convention

Had a Lich Lord Convention yesterday at Edward Fernando's (Emp) place. Me, Emp and Fred Escalona had a casual day of gaming yesterday. We started after lunch. I unfortunately arrived way past the 11 I promised because had to attend a Parent Teacher Conference at my sons' school and it had a nice seminar after the conference as well.

We had 3 games with Emp winning both his games against me and Fred while I won against Fred. Fred brought his buwaya army and it was an interesting take on a new Merc army. Very powerful army where the entire army can be taken down by the knockdown feat.

I played Venethrax and since Fred had a Hordes army, it was a bit in my favor because Venny excels at killing beasts. Venny took only 2 or 3 swings to kill a beast.

Against Emp's Terminus, it shows how hard it really is to take a camping Terminus down. Arm 24 is really difficult to break as I proved when Venny tried to charge him. I rolled badly also and that basically was the end of that as Terminus returned the favor in spades.

After the gaming day as well as discussing the current situation on the invasion, picture taking with the Lich Lords present. Until next convention (sabi daw Wed next week uli).

Terminus

My latest Cryx caster: Terminus.

Big dude on a big base. Should be interesting to use though want him to be painted first before I use him. Just finished basing him for now. Hope to be able to use him in the near future. Until next time.

ANG INIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!

Nuff said!

Going Back to my WMH Roots: Prime Vlad

Had 4 games with Prime Vlad this May 13 and 14. Conclusion is he still supports his army well.

First game last May 13 was against Ian Kim Navarro and mainly I was just spamming Signs and Portents. This surprised Kim a bit. He still would have had Vlad but he forgot to pop eSorscha's feat when she went on her assassination run. Still Vlad made for a good colonel the whole game and may army actually took down his right flank. Learned that I should provide better layered defense for Vlad. Vlad in the end gave her a love tap, unfroze her heart and she melted in his arms to end The Lover's Quarrel.

Second game was against a new player, Erik Kwo. It was a No Man's Land scenario and again, Vlad was mainly a general here and my army was slowly taking his apart. I didn't want to be too aggressive since he was new so was playing it like a chess match so we could both enjoy it. In the end, Drago managed to do assassinate Engine of Destruction'd pFeora by hitting her with some high dice rolls to end The Hot Date. Lucky that one.

On May 14, it was a Tough day for Vlad at the office. First game was against Taks' Cygnar and he managed to take out almost all of my Doom Reavers and nearly killed my Greylord Escort too. Then came the Tough rolls. Siege feated and tried to kill the Great Bears protecting Vlad. They must have made like 4 Tough checks in a row. Surviving meant the GBs cleaned up the models blocking LoS to Siege. Vlad then cast S&P and shot Siege with Razorwind with booseted damage which hurt a bit. Fenris then took Free Strike which did no damage, moseyed over to finish the job and Break the Siege.

Last game yesterday was against Jake de Jesus and his Cygnar. Everything was going his way until Tough came into the picture again. First it was the Underboss who survived 2 Tough checks. Then some of the Doom Reavers also took the mettle out of the Centurion attack by surviving Tough. This bothered Jake a bit that he forgot to use Stryker's feat. Vlad cast S&P again and Fenris made sure to end the game by Striking Out Stryker.

In conclusion, this was my 5th game using pVlad in Mk 2. My first ever game I lost vs Fred but that was because I was using him in Mk 1 style but couldn't cut it since using Blood of Kings uses up a lot of his focus and I couldn't use the remainder to power my jacks effectively. So I figured I might as well just use S&P until I killed off a lot of his army or if my opponent killed most of my army off, then and only then would I use BoK. Seems to be working so far. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The Hand That Rocks The Cradle...

...is the hand that wants to rule the world.

Bringing in the Laughter in Slaughter

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Among other new things, I got a model which I really required in my Cryx lists.Gen. Gerlak Slaughterborn has joined my undead army and will soon help sow terror among the souls in Immoren, humans and trolls alike.

Slaughterborn was one of the first models I wanted to get asap at Fortress when i got my Cryx army but unfortunately for me, someone got to him first. I ordered it in Mang's last call for orders and now he's finally with me. Might try my hand at painting him. Seems much easier to paint him compared to a regular Cryx model.

Here he is without paint for now. Thanks for looking!

Another member of my growing fleet

My third PAL plane. This time it's a 1/400 Gemini Jets PAL A340-300 courtesy of Kevin aka Debonaire at the Filipino Diecast Airline Collectors (www.fildac.hostoi.com). I wasn't really planning to get any jet after the 1/500 PPC PAL B777-300ER but the price was reasonable and no one bit after 24 hours.

The fleet grows. I think I should start thinking abuot making an airport. Heh!

Malice

Haven't posted in a while. Plain old laziness is my excuse. :D Anyway, here's something to maybe help get me going again. It's my model of Malice. I got the Reaper model from Edward "Emp" Fernando yesterday in exchange for my Stalker. Incomplete yet as I am missing the right arm of a Slayer and the harpoon arm's blade was broken. I will be ordering those from the parts store at Privateer Press soon. Also the shoulder spike on the left of the Reaper was lost as well so I added one of the soul's included in the Malice blister to replace it. Looks ok if I do say so myself.

Malice is one of the newer Cryx jacks. It can collect soul tokens which can actually add to the jack's armor. It has the usual Reaper harpoon and the ramspike of the Reaper was replaced with an open fist. It has other abilities as well but these are the ones that stand out for me. Surprisingly, it is not bonded to any Cryx caster unlike Torch and Triumph.

Like Torch, the Malice comes as a blister with the add-on and replacement parts only intended to be used with the plastic jacks. Personally I prefer my jacks in metal so as with Torch, I asked around for any Reapers available and it was great Emp had one he wasn't using. Originally he thought the arms and heads were pinned. Luckily it wasn't the case and the arms and heads were easily removed. With a little filing, I managed to position Malice's head and with some green stuff the souls. So now, it's only waiting for the arms.

Hope to order them soon so I can have a complete Malice on the table.

A New Addition

Aside from my Warmachine collection, I also collect diecast aircraft. Here's my latest addition, a Philippine Airlines 1/500 B777-300ER made by PPC. It's my second Philippine Airlines diecast aircraft but my first 1/500 scale model. Enjoy!

Shanghai Nights

This is the second time I've been to Shanghai and so much has changed. The first time I went there was in 2004. 7 years later, everything is so different and yet a lot still looks the same. Here are some pics that I took.

A pic of Pudong from the Bund.

Here I am at Nanjing Road.

More shots of Nanjing Road.

The weather was really cold with temperatures ranging from 12-14'C during the day and plunging to 7-8'C at night. My kinda weather. I hope to go back again someday.

Warmachine-Hordes Nights at Bunker March 25. 2011

Had another Warmachine-Hordes Night at the Bunker last March 25, 2011. That would be the last WMH game I have because the whole week starting the 27th, I would be in Shanghai.

I played vs EJ in my first game and went up against his Retribution. Lost this one in the end as I only had a few models left and I couldn't kill enough of his models. I sort of made a mess with my feat turn but it's ok. Learning experience for me on how not to use one's feat though EJ did say timing wasn't so bad. It's just that Venny's feat can both be a boon and a bane for him.

Next game I went up against Louie's Cygnar. I fared better here only because of Louie's inexperience as he has only played a handful of games. I won by scenario in this one as I managed to kill off most of his army with only Stryker and Rowdy on the field in the end.

That night also heralded the return of Pork and his Ashlynn merc solo army. Am glad to see him on the tables again.

Looking forward to WMH Night this week though that's still a question mark since I also have that tourney on Saturday.

Anyway, picture up there shows me, Kim, Kei, Karl, SJ, Pork and Fred.

March 18, 2011 Games

Another Warmachine Hordes night on March 18, 2011. I had 3 games using Cryx. Lost 2 games and won 1. Changed my list up a bit by using 2 Seethers and 1 Defiler instead of only 1 Seether, 2 Defilers and 1 Stalker.

First game I went up against Taks' Kara Sloan. I got my head handed to me and learned that I should be more careful by blocking LoS to a ranged attack heavy army. kara basically pasted Venethrax with her weapon master rifle shots. Good lesson learned.

Second game I took on Kei's eCaine. He was winning this one but he made a mistake in a sequence of moves and so decided to concede the game. Had the sequence been correct, a Seether blocking LoS to Venny would have been removed from play and probably result in Venny being assassinated.

Last game I went up against Louie in a 15 point match. I tried a melee heavy 4 model army against a balanced Cygnar force and Stryker basically just earthquaked my Seethers and Venny and that ended the game. I should have decided to go for broke and cast Blood Rain on the Black 13th as well.

The tutelage of Venethrax continues.

Rango

(photo taken from www.rangotrailer.net)

Watched Rango last Sunday with the wife and kids. It's definitely a most Western genre film. The story is about a chameleon who dubs himself Rango just so he can create a legend for himself to avoid getting smacked down.

Rango is basically a liar who makes up stories and yet he can be creative enough to pass for a cowboy/sheriff. Like in all western films, the bad guy usually is one of the highest ranking individuals in this case the town mayor. He's basically hoarding the currency, in this case water, so people will be forced to sell the land to him dirt cheap (note the "land" is basically in Nevada very near Las Vegas well, you have to really dig deep into the suspension of disbelief to see how he can control the land with all the hummies about)

In any case, Rango does unravel the plan and with only one bullet saves the day at the end.

The movie is entertaining enough but only from a western genre point of view. It's definitely not much of a comedy. Not as fun as Incredibles but it will entertain you for the hour and a half that it pans out. The graphics are ok but not something you haven't seen before. I'd give it 3.5 stars.

Gaming at Chico's 03/14/2011 Part 2

Here's a summary of my second game at Chico's yesterday. I went up against SJ who brought an Epic Madrak list with 2 units of Troll Champs, Skaldi and a solo backed up by an Axer and DTM. This is my 6th game with the same Cryx list.

I won first turn and ran my models up the table with Venethrax casting Lamentation. SJ runs his trolls forward as well.

Second turn, I put my first squad of Mechthralls in B2B with his Trolls basically tarpitting it and positioning my second and third wave at the ready. My Defilers also spray and hit some trolls with Corrosion and Venny also casts Blood Rain for more Corrosion. Skarlock casts Soul Harvester on the first wave of mcThralls.On SJ's turn, he cleared away a couple of McThralls and pops eMadraks feat, killing some more and eliminates the squad with Soul Harvester.

Next turn, Venethrax pops his own feat and manages to get 2 soul tokens. I manage to kill only a few trolls due to bad rolls and SJ making his Tough checks. SJ then on his turn kills majority of the McThralls on the table. SJ also manages to damage Venny with the Impaler slamming the Seether onto Venethrax.

Fourth turn I stand the Seether and Venny up and I still upkeep Lamentation and just move him to my right flank and kills Skaldi. McThralls kill some Trolls as well as Seethers giving me 3 soul tokens to use on my next turn. SJ then positions his Champs will killing a lot more McThralls and kills off the Seether and brings down Venny to 1 hit due to the Impaler hitting him.

Last turn, I just decide to go for broke and charged and killed the Impaler, Troll Champ solo but failed to kill 2 Troll Champs. I tried to block the way to Seether by running the Skarlock but there was still an opening enough for SJ to charge in with a +3 to Str buffed Madrak and finish off Venny.

On hindsight, I realized I should keep a couple of McThralls near my Necrosurgeon so I could keep bringing a few more back. I also think I forgot to get some more corpse tokens when the trolls died. Anyway, good lessons to be learned for future reference.

Gaming at Chico's 03/14/2011 Part 1

Today I had a game again at Chico's. Played 2 games, one versus Chico and the other vs SJ. Here's a short summary on my game with Chico.

We played the No Man's Land Scenario where one had to contest a 6"x24" area on the center of the table. Chico won the roll to see who goes first. He moved his models up and the Behemoth shot at my Defiler. The first shot missed but the second deviated beautifully onto my Defiler and Stalker. The Defiler wasn't damaged much but the Stalker had its movement box crippled with the boosted bombard damage. My turn I just ran all my models up while Venny casts Lamentation.

On Chico's second turn, he moves his army up a bit more and the Behemoth shoots again. This time hurts Venny with boosted damage from a deviated shot. This time however, my McThralls are in range so I charged Drago and a Kodiak and my McThralls took an arm offa each.

Chico's third turn Karchev moves up and pops feat and kills some McThralls and the Behemoth manages to kill some McThralls via bombards and hurts a Defiler. Beast tries to go for an assassination run by Trampling towards Venny. Problem was he only had one focus on him and while the attack hit, Venny weathered the damage. Drago and the Kodiak killed some more mcThralls.

In my turn, I shot and Death Chilled Karchev. a McThrall squad charged and did some damage to Karchev. My Seether then went up to Beast and hit is and threw it to Karchev and managing to hit knocking them both down. Seether damaged Beast enough to destroy it via boosted 2 hand throw damage. Venethrax also went for a Hellfire shot for a few more damage.

Chico's fourth turn and I was afraid he would go for the bombards kill on a very wounded Venethrax. I had done a very stupid thing the previous turn by moving my Defiler out from the Behemoth's melee range resulting in a free strike killing it. I should have just kept the jack in and sent the Stalker to attack the Behemoth as well. He did some other things tho killing more mcThralls so I was spared. Karchev could not do much as he was Death Chilled and Knocked Down so he allocated focus to all his jacks. The Behemoth tried to kill the Skarlock but missed and did some damage to the Seether with its bombards.

My turn and I went with the Seether again. Attacked Karchev, did some damage and threw it towards Drago. I then charged in with Venethrax for the assassination.

Glad to see Chico is playing again and while he was rusty, he was starting to get the hang of the game again. Really hard to take down the jack heavy list and I should have been a goner with the Behemoth's bombards.

More lessons learned.

Sunday Gaming at Fortress 03/13/2011

Last March 13, 2011, I had a game at Fortress. i went up against a new player, John B (I wasn't able to catch the surname). He plays Retribution and I played my usual Venethrax list. John sent out his army for the first turn and I went and ran my McThralls and the rest of my army up. Second turn, my Pistol Wraiths tried plinking and killing some Sentinels and I moved up my army again.

Third turn, he shoots up a godawful lot of McThralls. However, he advances Ravyn and exposes her. My turn, I went with my Pistol Wraiths first killing some more Sentinels and using the second shot to shoot at Ravyn with boosted rolls. I then ran one of my Defilers forward and then Venny activated and arced Hellfire for the kill.

I was at an advantage since I went up against a newbie playing hsi first 35 point game. I did try to take it easy with him but the opportunity just presented itself and so i took it. Am sure with EJ, my army woulda been cleared by the third turn. :)

Good to see new players getting into the game. :)

Gaming at Chico's 03/12/2011 Part 2 - Remember to Dismember!!!

Here's a summary of my game vs SJ last Saturday. I only had one game and went up against SJ's Grim Angus beast heavy Army. Our scenario was Sacrifice. Hard to explain here but it's a scenario created by Privateer Press. Suffice to say we needed to control points. I had won the dice roll and decided to go first.

I sent 2 squads of my Mechthralls to the right while Venethrax and his battlegroup and a squad of McThralls went left.

SJ sent his army against Venethrax' battlegroup.

Everything was mainly movement until turn 3 when both armies finally ground against each other.

I don't recall all the details but the more glaring one was Venethrax charging 3 beasts. I was able to kill 2 after which SJ assassinates Venny with his remaining 2 beasts. Good game. Then afterwards SJ reminded me that I should have been rolling an additional dice for Venny's Dismember ability. Had I remembered to do so, I should have been able to kill the 3 beasts and would most likely have survived the last beast. Well, after that snafu, for sure I won't be forgetting anymore. LoL!

I could only play one game that day as I had to go somewhere at 5 pm. All in all, a fun gaming day.