Primed and Ready!

Finally finished my Prime Axiom for Convergence. This is the big boy of the faction, their colossal and he brings the hurt in a big way. First up he has two tow cables that do an automatic point of damage. You may be thinking that one damage isn't a lot, well, when you consider it's tied to a drag move, it sounds a bit better. It hits with the cable and then drags you to within melee range and then punched you with a P+S 20 fist. That fist just happens to have sustained attack, so now I hit you for free. On full focus he can shell out as many as 7 melee attacks. He also has an Accelaspiker that is POW 11 and autofire 3 with a ROF of 2. Add Hot Shot from Syntherion and watch the infantry go bye-bye. He also has the ability to launch any of the Convergence servitors. I've mainly been using the reflex servitors so far since they seem to give the most bang for the buck so to speak.

I have to say this was one of the most difficult models I've ever put together. I have around 19 pins in it to try and make up for PP's poor model construction. I also had to find another way to mount it to the base since the rock he comes with makes for a better poop prop than a pile of rocks. Anyway, enough of the talk, here are the pretties.

That's it for now. My painting table is kinda cleared off for now. I'm sure it won't take long till it's full again.

Warmahordes BatRep INCOMING!

Dusted off the mini's and headed to the Gopher to play some warmachine. I was not disappointed.

Ended up playing against Trollbloods and the Miserable Meat Mountain list. I had heard really bad things about how hard this list was to play against and was a touch worried. I can't remember everything he had, but there were the standard issue Warders with a krielstone unit, Mulg the ancient an axer and eGrissel. Looking at the list there was just a ton of high armor and a lot of wounds.

My list:
Syntherion
Corollary
Assimilator
Cipher
Prime Axiom
Galvanizer
Diffuser
T.E.P.
OD
ADO
Attunement servitors

He lost the roll to go first, but I let him have first turn since I had decided to play more defensively.

He set up his warders and the stone unit in the middle, caster, mulg, Axer and rune bearer (aka Troll Moses) on my right side.

I tried to keep everything very centered as I already had the axiom and the TEP in the center of the board.

First turn.
Top: eGrissel uses dash and all of a sudden there are trolls all up in my space. Everything ran and he was coming fast.

Bottom: I move everything forward but did not run. Took a pot shot with the axiom but was out of range.

Second turn.
Top: Again with the dash and again with the running and also eGrissel popped her feat. Now he's literally on top of me. I have no space to charge and no way to not get sucked into a long drawn out slugg fest that I'm not sure I can win. That's why I did......

Bottom: I ran away. Or if you want to get fancy, I executed a tactical retreat. I could have killed somethings on this turn, but it would have left me in an awkward position and poised to get the brunt of a counter charge. So, I ran everything backward and hoped that he wouldn't have enough charge range to catch me.

Third turn:
Top: He did exactly what I needed him to. He moved his trolls in between two pieces of terrain and that clumped them up nicely. He didn't get the charge off and now he just had to wait to receive what I was going to give him.

Bottom: Swinging into action. TEP moves forward, drops out +2 damage dice and +1 shot for his servitor config. He loses 3 warders and 2 out of the stone unit. Damn theses things are tough. Speaking of tough, he would have lost more if he hadn't had that. Assimilator goes next and with hot shot up he takes out a couple more, totally wiping out one unit. Really starting to chew through the fat now. Syntherion is next and he blows his feat and recasts hot shot on the cipher.  Cipher charges Mulg and takes a shot at the warders. Yeah, that was a wasted shot. POW 6 just isn't going to hurt these guys even on 3 dice. So he punches Mulg a couple of times to no real effect. Axiom activates and drops 3 more warders due to the fact he's awesome.

Fourth turn:
Top: Everything he has left moves up and begins swinging at my forces. Assimilator takes some heavy damage, the corollary almost dies, and Mulg leaves me only one box on the cipher. Most importantly eGrissel has moved up closer to the fray. He runs some guys to surround Syntherion and forces me to consider what I'm going to do next turn.

Bottom: Ok. So two of my heavies are hurt bad, I have a fresh Prime Axiom and a fairly fresh TEP. And a Warlock who is dangerously close to me with an open lane in front of her. My plan was simple. It was either going to be me or her. I dole out focus to the Axiom with the corollary since Synth is camping all of his in case he has to clear off the two guys on him. Declare my target, measure for range, and... she's in. Boost to hit with the tow cables and do my best Scorpion impression "Get over here!" and now have his warlock in my grasp. Take my free melee attack and put about half her damage on one hit. Take my accelespiker shots and finish the job. He rolls his tough check and passes. Take my extra melee attacks, kill her again, and passes tough. Spawn a reflex servitor, kill her again, passes tough. Move my diffusor over, shot hits, kill her again, passes tough. Move my TEP, flame the little bitch, passes tough. Second shot with the TEP, kill her again. This time it sticks. He made five tough rolls in a row on a model who shouldn't have lived through more than two of those attacks. Heres a couple of pics of the end.

It was one hell of a fight.

This post is a little TEPid

Finally getting around to posting up things I've been painting on. First up is the TEP for Convergence. This is the battle engine for those crazy, math loving freaks and it is awesome.

T.V. time out

Gonna take a moment out of painting and such to talk about my other favorite thing to do. No, not that. Get your head out of the gutter. I'm talking about TV.

I recently just started watching "Game of Thrones" (yes I'm a little behind, but I'm poor and can't afford HBO) and I have to agree with everything I've heard about the show. It is absolutely gold. My wife and I both love it. I kinda wish now though, that I hadn't always approached it with the attitude that I would never see it, and so I never really stayed away from the copious amounts of info that are on the interwebs. As such, I know just about every major plot point that's going to happen in the seasons coming up. The fact that I know all that and STILL want to see it says a lot for the show.

In other TV news, the new Doctor Who series 8 started last Saturday and was it ever a doozey. This is the first episode for Peter Capaldi taking over the reins from Matt Smith. It was altogether frantic and very confusing and that was exactly the point. We're suppose to be in the companions shoes in a way and in this episode we're made to feel the same way she is and to almost the same degree, the way the Doctor is feeling. This regeneration seems more breaking to him than the others. It takes him longer to pull himself together (I'm still not sure he's together by the end) than I've seen before. I'm not sure where this season is going to take us but I get the feeling it will involve war of some sort. There were several over the top references to how his new face seems angry, furious (especially his eyebrows) and more frowney. Since you can't really discount anything said in a Moffet run episode, my guess is this Doctor is going to have to go to several dark places and he's going to need those qualities over time. I'm really looking forward to this new season.

Lastly on the TV front it's football season again! Hoping against hope that my Cowboys can do something with this season, but I doubt it. Their defense is even more sub-par than it was last year and the still have Tony Romo at QB. Until we can fix those two major issues "Americas Team" is just gonna struggle. We've been there before and come back from it, I'm sure we can do it again. Even if it is a terrible year though, we can always rest on the fact that we've won more superbowls than the Chicago Bears.

Warhammer League Update

Nearing the end of the current (and my last) Warhammer 40k league. We're 6 weeks in and have played 750, 1000, and 1250 point levels so far with only the 1500 games left to go. So far I'm doing very well, although I think it has more to do with the fact that I'm bringing a Wraithknight and a wraithlord in low level games. It's a very dick thing to do considering there is little that can do anything to them at those point levels. The firepower the knight can bring is just stupid and I've had a couple of games now where it cleared half the board alone. Add into that the wave serpents and other tricks and things I'm doing and it really feels unfair. I've only had two games where I didn't score at least two of the three objectives and I've had 4 games that have been total sweeps. Again, I'm not trying to brag here or in anyway try to imply I'm some awesome player that can't be beat. This is just a testament to how well written the Eldar codex is. With 2 weeks left I'm at 64 points. That sounds like a lot to me, but I don't know how far ahead I am at this point. I'm hoping to end my warhammer run on a high note, but that gets me thinking. Is running an overpowered list that just seems to remove armies a high note or is it just low brow dirty fighting? Never had to struggle with that much since the Eldar have always been kind of a middle of the road army and I've always just played them for fun. Now, they seem to be over the top and it just isn't that much fun anymore. Even in my last game I should have lost terribly, but by the sheer amount of options I can pack into a list, I turned a sure loss into a tabling for my opponent.

So I guess what I'm saying, is that I'm bored. I put an army out, and if the dice tilt even slightly my way, I come out on top. That's no longer fun for me. So, I'm going to finish out the league and then be done with 40k. Hopefully I can get a few games of Warmachine in before the girls get here, otherwise, I'll play when I get the chance. Good bye 40k and thanks for the memories.

Warmahordes batrep and post number 100!

We now interrupt these painting posts to bring you a battle report.

Yup, been a while since I've done one of these. I kinda laid one out when I played my first two games, but that didn't really count.

I had, what I consider, my first fully fledged game of warmachine last Wednesday. I played against the nasty dragons of the Legion of Everblight at 35 points.

My list:
Syntherion - The Great Machine Tier 4
Monitor
Assimilator
Cipher
Corollary
Mitigator
Diffuser
Galvanizer
Attunement Servitors
ADO x2
Optifex Directive

This is pretty much going to be my standard set up for now, until I can get more games in and see if something works better.

Her list:

Absylonia
Carnivean
Nephilim Protector
Shredder x2
Spell Martyrs
Blighted Nyss Hex Hunters - max unit
Bayal
Blighted Nyss Swordsmen - max unit

I knew some about Legion going in, like that the carnivean was nasty, but didn't know a whole lot about the infantry or light warbeasts.

We decide to play an assassination scenario and she gave me the first deployment.
I deployed my assimilator on my left, the monitor in the middle and the cipher on my right, spreading the servitors out at far left, middle and far right. The ADO's had advance deployment and I placed them both toward the middle of the field. The galvanizer, diffuser and mitigator made up the front line and were positioned to where I could (hopefully) get them where I needed them quickly. Syntherion and his corollary were naturally dead center in the back of the deployment.

My opponent deployed the Hex hunters with Bayal on her right, the swordsmen on her left and everything else in a pile in the middle.

So, looking at deployment, I was going to take the assimilator into the hex hunters and the cipher was going to try and remove the swordsmen. The monitor was going to try and hold down the carnivean until help arrived for it.

Turn 1:
CoC: Not much happening here. I through out one focus and use that to run all my vectors forward and I try to get the ADO's and servitors into better positions.  I cast synergy on myself and threw hot shot on the cipher to hopefully help break the swordsmen.

LoE: Again, not much in the way of anything going on. Running and re-positioning. Pretty much everything moved straight forward from it's starting location.

Turn 2:
CoC: Focus allocation was one to the assimilator, one to the monitor and that was it from Syntherion. I planned on using the corollary to power the right side of the board while Syntherion powered the left. My plan was to use mag hold on the carnivean to prevent a charge and use the assimilator and the cipher to thin out the infantry. Activate the servitor on the left, and hit the hex hunters, catching 4 in the AOE. Right side servitor was too far away to hit and deviated badly away from the swordsmen. The OD's activate and give the monitor pathfinder and that's about it. Activated the corollary and gave one focus to the Cipher, and one to the Monitor and inducted one to the Cipher. The Cipher activated and moved up toward the swordsmen and..... came up out of range of the bombard shot. Deviation didn't go my way and the shot fell short. Decided to try my luck with the second shot, inducting the focus back to the corollary, and as before, deviation just sucked. Activated the monitor and ran up into the forest inducting it's focus back to the corollary. The assimilator activates, moves up and lays ground pounder on the hex hunters covering 5 in the AOE. Rolls to hit against each one and I only end up hitting and killing one of them despite four of them having been flared. Galvanizer, diffusor and mitigator activate and move up to get into position for next turn. The ADO's activate and move up to get into a better position. Finally Syntherion activates, moves up and tries to sling mag hold one the carnivean and.... comes up short. So in a round where I should have been able to remove a good amount of infantry and cripple her heavy, I killed one hex hunter and that was it.

LoE: Gonna be real honest here, I don't remember exactly the order she did things in and I still don't understand the fury mechanic all that well so this is going to seem a little brief.
Her hex hunters move up and engage the left side servitor, the assimilator and the galvanizer. After all the swings are taken, the assimilator is hit, but still very functional, the servitor is gone and the galvanizer is slightly scratched. Could have been much worse. The swordsmen try to charge the cipher and are just out of range (that would turn out to be costly). The carnivean moves up, charges the monitor and lays waste to it after breathing fire on it and punching it for what seemed like forever. The rest of the army just moved up and generally re-positioned.

Turn 3:
CoC: Ok. So I have a carnivean out in the open and a cipher within charge range. My plan was simple. Kill the carnivean. So, two focus to the assimilator, one to the diffuser. Auto repair rolls were less than stellar, one point to the assimilator and two to the galvanizer. Corollary activates first and hands out it's three focus to the cipher and inducts one to the mitigator. Middle servitor moves up and flares the carnivean. The diffuser goes next and lights the heavy beast up with beacon. Next the mitigator goes and knocks it down, killing 3 swordsmen in the AOE. The OD's move up and repair the assimilator for 4 and give the cipher pathfinder. Syntherion moves up, casts magnetic hold on the knocked down carnivean, just to give that little bit of extra charge distance if I needed it and he also feats. Now the heavy wades in. The Cipher charges the carnivean for free, thanks to the diffuser and thanks to the mitigator knocking it down, it auto hits. Sadly though, I rolled like total shit even though I was only dice-3 the whole time and it managed to live through the whole thing. The ciphers shots from Syntherions feat went into Absolonia and her protector and didn't really do much of anything. So, now I have a still alive carnivean and no other way to kill it. So I make the tough decision to take some free strikes against my assimilator and charge the carnivean. Free strike damage was negligible, the damage I did to the beast however, was not. Two strikes with a P+S weapon master claw and he was down. Took his shots at Absolonia and her little group and managed 7 damage on her and 4 or 5 on the protector.

LoE: Mop up time for the legion. She moves her hex hunters into combat with one of my ADO's and the diffuser, swings on them and the galvanizer do little more that light wounds. The protector moves up and swings at the assimilator and puts a hurt on it. Shredders move up and hit the assimilator and nearly take it down. The swordsmen charge up and swing at the cipher, doing some damage, but not a terrible amount. Finally, deciding the assimilator just has to die, Absolonia herself gets into the fray after giving herself flight, warp strength and reach. She then charges the assimilator and it goes down. She also feated this turn so now I'm fighting a renewed protector and she only has one point of damage instead of 7.

Turn 4:
CoC: Ok. So, I'm left with one heavy, 3 lights (2 of which are tied up) and a smattering of support units. First things first, auto-repair checks. Not stellar results again. The galvanizer gets a couple, the diffuser gets one and the cipher gets 3. Focus sees me give 3 to the galvanizer, 2 to the diffuser, and one to the corollary. I activate the OD's first and give the cipher pathfinder so it can charge through the collection of rubble where my other two heavies were and I also repair it for 6. It's now back to almost full health. I activated the mitigator and moved over so that I could shoot my cipher with the razor bola in order to clear out the swordsmen around it. A direct hit and the swordsmen disappear. Corollary activates next and gives two focus to the cipher and inducts one. Here's where I finally remembered the synergy spell I had on Syntherion since the beginning of the game. The galavanizer activates and takes out the hex hunter UA, giving me +1 on synergy, then the diffuser connects and kills a hex hunter, +2. Now the cipher charges the protector with P+S 20, yeah, it died.

LoE: Tough decisions to be made here. Stick Absolonia in and try and take out the cipher or, go for the assassination attempt. She chose the assassination. Meanwhile the hex hunters manage to kill the galvanizer, diffuser and ADO they were engaged with. Absolonia charges Syntherion........and leaves him alive with 5 boxes left. Thanks to her dice turning against her at the worst time.

Turn 5: Not much happening here. Syntherion gives out no focus, and auto repairs the cipher for 2 and himself for 3. The OD's repair the cipher for 5, bringing it back to full health. Really, all we were worried about was the caster fight. It took nearly all his focus, but in the end the P+S 14 hits were just too much.

Win for Convergence.

It was a close match and one that could have gone either way due to a couple of bad turns on both sides.

Also of note, this is my 100th post. It's only taken me 3 years to get there, but hey, I have wargames to play and shit to paint. Thanks for reading and I look forward to 100+ in the future.

Call in the Support

Figured I'd just do a combined post on the last couple of support units I have

Attunement servitors are like little floating paintball guns. They literally fire containers of a glowing chemical that sticks to whatever it hits and makes it easier to see. In game this results in giving everything in the 4"AOE -2 DEF. That's it. Nothing fancy, just light up the enemy and make it easier for the rest of your stuff to hit. Since it's an AOE attack, they don't really need to be concerned with a direct hit since the effect happens regardless. I really like the models and they were super easy to paint, since well, there isn't a lot to them.

The Optifex Directive unit is a true support unit. They have 3 different modifications that can be done and they're all pretty useful. They can give your vectors pathfinder, if they don't already have it, give them a magical weapon, or repair them. I had a terrible time painting these guys, as they are more of a necessary unit, rather than something I just want to take.

That pretty much finishes my army for now. I have one Diffusor model to paint and then I'll have my 25 and 35 point lists finished. Looking forward to getting in a few games now.