Minion Madness

Well, I told you all I was going to be a busy bunny and I damn well aim to please (mostly myself...whoooo!).

I managed to get two heavies painted for the Thornfall Alliance. Enough gassing, more pictures.

An early WIP of Brine, which has been entitled Bling Pig. I thought him to be a little bit garish so this got toned down...a lot.

Rorch and Brine, ready for the tabletop. As you can see Bling Pig didn't last too long.

The Warhog, I was having a lot of trouble with his wounds and got a bit over excited when they worked out...totally not claiming credit for this one though.

Lord Carvers battlegroup. Yes I know it's small, I know I'm missing out on those amazing battlegroup wide spells. But I'm poor, it is a sad fact I have to live with.

The reason I aint claiming credit for the sores on the Warhog. My girlfriend got involved and put them on for me, she is a gem.

Who apparently likes using her hand as a pallet...bloody artists.


Whoop, last night was a sit down and get things done night. We had a few beers (yes this is not just viral advertising for red stripe...the delicious refreshing jamaican beer) and got some beasts painted.

Today saw Carvers first table game (vassal doesn't count) and it was 15pts against legion, Absylonia, a Scythean and a Carnevian. I took Lord Carver, a Gun Boar, a Warhog and a full unit of Brigands. I basically drip fed his 'beasts quagmired Brigands and then charged Absylonia with Lord Carver. A quick application of the Hand of God along with Carver feating and Brigands giving her the -2def hug. It was lights out.

Admittedly I was a bit disappointed. I have 35pts of Farrow together now but that was all the other guy had and I was pressed for time.

Well, that was a bit hectic.

Hoping to get back to posting now, having just recently moved house I've been a bit lax (don't look at me like that...ok MORE lax) in my posting. But honestly nothing much has been happening, sort of switched over to my Cygnar for a bit to indulge my random love of all things Trencher.

A WIP of the toughest bastard alive, who as it turns out is the toughest bastard alive to get done. My usual methods of throw some colours on and let it all sort itself out are not going too well. I have, as it were, hit the wall. Probably because I've been out of it for a few months and came back straight into one of my favorite characters in this game. Aye well, I shall keep at it. bits here and there. I also managed to get a War Hog for half price from a clear out at the LGS. Which was blooming nice and is providing a good counterpoint to Finn, seeing as I know exactly what is going where on that beastie.



Anyway, I'm back. Hopefully I wont be months between posts and might even have a finished Finn for showing off at some point. Maybe I might actually start my Trencher unit? Maybe I might make it to a decent hobby store and pick up the bits I need for my tier list trench templates.

Celestial Fulcrum, Blog...erm, 6?

So in the 76 years I have been working upon my Celestial Fulcrum I have made very little progress. Call it my easily distracted nature or...well I am just plain lazy. Anyway, I decided to actually sit down and do something about that.

Ta Da! Yeah it a terrible photograph, all the colours are sort of washed together in it. But hey, I actually got this far! Baby steps people, baby steps.

The point of Kaya...not getting in the way?

So I've stayed strong with Kaya the Wildborne. Yes I know it's been hard but I'm finally getting there. The theme force for her has highlighted a few things about her that I had not really thought about before. Namely Kaya doesn't need a massive battlegroup, soothing song is a bit of a trap there because you start thinking...'ooo, I can get rid of more if I have more beasts!' but really her other spells don't much lend themselves to actually running beasts more efficiently or effectivly. They do allow you to use her beasts as a scalpel mind you, removing things that the rest of the force is having trouble with.

So, how have I found she's doing this? Simple. Pack hunters. This is the best thing she brings and it's passive, it's why even when Kaya is waiting to activate this turn she is contributing to the accuracy of her battlegroup. This can be massive as it lets you not need to worry about boosting hits as often (a MAT8 berzerking Stalker is a thing of beauty BTW) then using Spirit Door and Sprint to get the commited beasts out of the way of the rest of the force. This is why it needs to be a small(ish) battlegroup, maybe two combat heavies and a support beast or two.

The rest of the force is doing most of the work, it needs to be able to get in and hit and hold the ground. Which is the main reason I'm considering breaking theme with her. I kinda want some Skinwalkers for holding/contesting/not dying. For now though I want a few more games with her and the wolves. They seem to be doing alright.

The Second Warlock, Cassius is a bit of a failure but not for the reasons you might think. Basically I'm finding Legion to be a tough matchup for ol'Kaya. They run far more 'beasts than Kaya's 'spot removal' method can deal with and my poor troops get run over. Cassius suffers even more because of his tree. Basically they can and will get at it and then it's lights out for him. Shall see anyway.

The Weakest Link

So I have a few games under my belt with the Kaya the Wildborne Theme Force. The vast majority of the list works really well together. I have to say that even the Reeves were pulling their weight in it. Not only wiping out most of a unit of blighted legionaires but then also wiping out the entire Spawning Vessel crew the turn afterwards. Never mind the Sic 'em's they were triggering on my warwolves. It was glorious.

The weakest link was obviously Kaya herself. She just doesnt have a spell list that is worth using most of the time. Occulation was pointless against legion as they ignore stealth for the most part, spirit fang costs a lot but can be useful soothing song was the spell I mostly found myself using and spirit door seemed moot, all my beasts got shot to bits before they made combat. Admittedly I was against eVayl and she has a very appealing set of spells. I mostly felt like Kaya was shuffling her feet and looking sheepish. There were a few times I was looking at the board and thought to myself...if I had the Stormlord I could have won on scenario this turn.

Still, going to keep at it. She was my first Warlock and I'll be damned if I let her slip into oblivion.

Crutch Free...

So I was reading a few posts on the Privateer forums about crutch free 2012. This seemed like an interesting idea, I thought about it a bit and decided I was on board. I couldn't really decide what I would consider a crutch in Circle though so I went into the sub-forum to see what the community thought and none of them could really decide either. Aside from fanning my faction superiority complex it gave me another idea.

I'm coming at this from the wrong direction.

There are very few models I use in every list, but there are a few I tend to shy away from. Those are; Kaya the Wildborne (who suffers a real lack of purpose), Reeves of Orboros (far too overcosted in my eyes), Tharn Ravagers (die easily and loose thier greatest strength if the target is non living), Reeve Hunter (mostly because mine always misses, on paper he's really good, but on the table that doesn't matter. I can knock the target down and he'll still bloody miss) and the War Wolves (who because I don't tend to take anything that triggers sic' 'em they loose a lot of the oomph that makes them look really appealing).

Now I couldn't just throw all this into one list, but thankfully steamroller allows for two. I decided on Kaya the Wildborne running theme force, to somewhat migate the fact that Reeves are overcosted by dropping them by 1pt and granting me a forest for doing so and the list practically screams to be filled with everything on my list aside from the Ravagers. The second list was going to be Grayle, but character restrictions being what they are and Kaya needing Morriag I've had to decided on a different 'lock to run the Ravagers. Now me being me I have to do something rash and foolhardy. I've taken what I keep reading as our weakest 'lock as one of my lists, it's time I support her by taking my second list as Cassius the Oathkeeper. Thats right. My best hope now is to not fail too badly.

So, without much further ado, my first take on my two lists that are gonna need (a great bloody deal of) practise and tweaking if I'm gonna take them to my next tournament.

1; Kaya the Wildborne, Feral Warpwolf, Gnarlhorn Satyr, Gorax, Warpwolf Stalker, Druid Wilder, Wolves of Orboros (max w/Chieftian and Standard), Reeves of Orboros (min), Reeve Hunter, Wolf Lord Morriag and 3x War Wolfs.

2; Cassius the Oathkeeper, Argus, Gorax, Feral Warpwolf, Woldwarden, Shifting Stones, Tharn Ravagers (min w/Chieftian) Wolves of Orboros (max), Druids of Orboros (w/Overseer) 2x Gallows Groves and a Tharn Ravager White Mane.

Wow, while coming up with my second list I realised I needed another source of Fury so trimmed a bit and got 4pts, then realised that an Argus is just that. Then realised that the Argus really needed to be on my list, cause I never even think about it when writing lists...it's in. This is gonna be a lot of fun I think.


Anyway, wall of text. I'll finish up by saying my game with my Cygnar was against my mate who just got back from Wales, so ended up being a piss take. The game ended when Haley decided that her spear wasn't just for looks and tried to run Shae through with it, instead of hanging back and letting her army finish him off as I'd destroyed practically everything else he had. It surprisingly enough didn't happen and she got murdered. Was good fun though. They always are with Ed.

A Gross Betrayal

I kinda feel bad, I've just taken some of my Circle minis out of my case to make room for Captian Haley and co. The main reason being that people at the club have started whining about Major Haley and how annoying she is. Well, she's good no doubt but annoying, the Captian has that one.

Still, I feel bad. I need a second case so I don't have to kick my Circle out when I fancy a more civilised game. Anyway, A short blog. Hopefully have a battlereport later. With my new fancy phone (in preperation for War Room) I should be able to get a few turn by turn pics...if I remember.