Cryxians receive a baselift

I've had some issues going on in my personal life, so actual gaming has been "off" for some time now.

However, I undertook a painting effort that has been on my mind for some time already.

I've been marking the front/back arcs on my Cryx forces quite boringly, two ugly white lines only. Then I noticed that you shouldn't be too sloppy when you make snow effect with PVA glue mixed with baking soda. I'm not sure why plenty of my model's snow had started turning a bit yellow from certain places. How embarrassing... Though, I guess, being undead and all makes you lose control of your bladder or something.

I don't know if it's the natural course PVA glue goes, or have I thinned the formula with water from unclean painting pot, or have I not waited for the paint to dry on some models before snowing them.

Anyway, I decided to use white paint as front arc marker and some color coded thing for back arc. Warcasters are darkest grey, then come warjacks on a lighter tone, solos a bit more light and eventually units with lightest grey. I hope this will prevent some accidental weirdness, like moving Satyxis Captain with the unit.

I also drybrushed all snowy areas with white to cover up some of the rather unpleasant accidents with some models.

Solos and models with distinctively different bases received different colors as front/back ark markers.

I also toyed with the idea that I would write a large R to front arc of models that naturally have reach and large S to those who have natural stealth, or in case Granted: Stealth the mark would be +S on that model only. On warcasters I could also write their base FOC stat to the center of the front arc or something.

Why? Well, those are the questions that are asked most frequently during games. It might hasten the play somewhat. But maybe that's my baselift stage 2.

Anyway, it was a good time to take a picture out of all my painted Cryx models. I also put all the terrain to the picture I have finished during this year.

The Living Cryx vs The Dead Cryx

Once again the ashen cryxian necrotite fields were contested.

We had agreed to 35 point game, and this time we were going to play a scenario game, which had a weird result in the end.

However, in my list I wanted to use only living models, except for the warjacks of course. And it came out as:

Witch Coven of Garlghast
- 2x Nightwretch
- Ripjaw
- Reaper

Maximum unit of Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
Cephalyx Overlords
Satyxis Captain
Warwitch Siren
Ragman

And opponent had the same list he used in last warmachine post.

Scenario was randomised to Outfight, Outflank, Outlast (or whatever the actual name was?) and the green beads in zone mark the center spots for the areas.

In this scenario you gain one point for controlling one of the areas and whoever has three points first wins.

I won the starting roll, and because of scenario play, scoring turn and bile thralls I decided to give the start to my opponent.

First picture is taken from the end of round 1. Not much to tell about it, except that I had an idea of trying to secure rightmost objective by scaring everyone away with Satyxis' threat range.

I did, however, forget about Caustic Mists. So what? I play epic Asphyxious, too, and this is no first time for me against epic Asphyxious either and I forgot about Caustic Mist. What's the big deal here?

Well, picture is taken from end of round 2. Opponent had moved Tartarus close to where my right nightwretch is, which dispatched the big guy.

Picture is way too vague, but there up on the hill is a fight between Pistol Wraith and Nightwretch. I thought that Tartarus was a bigger consern and after getting him down the Coven had only 2 focus left, which wasn't enough to get a boosted attack roll on the Pistol Wraith.

Harrower, by the way, was just contesting the scoring area on the left.

Then, uh.

Something disgusting happened.

I hadn't learned my lesson when I played with my Skorne first time against epic Asphyxious.

A picture from the end of opponents turn...

The bile thrall came out of nowhere... or, to be exact, it came from an excarnated Satyxis Raider.

And resulting purge took away 12 points worth of models. Minus one satyxis, who was excarnated.

That must be the most horrible purge I have absolutely ever even seen. And it was inflicted upon me... Me, jealous? Not the least!

Luckily I had brought one Nightwretch to zone on right, as without it I wouldn't have been contesting it.

As we were playing scenario game I had to try to secure at least the zone on left on my turn.

At least here my synergies were working. Opponent was contesting the zone with Harrower and Pistol Wraith. First Nightwretch takes and aimed, boosted shot at defense 18 wraith and scored a hit. Damage roll was double 1's, so wraith was left alive with 1 wound. I had to sacrifice some precious focus to kill it with a boosted stygian abyss though nightwretch's arc node.

Ragman moves forward and puts up Death Shroud or whatever the dark shroud ability was. Then Reaper, who had Ghost Walk cast upon it, charged Harrower, and proved to be about exactly 3 inches away from Ragman.

Reaper didn't wreck the thing, but dark shroud gave bonuses to the overlords who came to shoot their sprays at it and it was destroyed.

I had cleared one area and scored one point.

Then it was opponents turn, and Asphyxious had whopping 12 focus because of souls gained from the Thing That Shall No Longer Be Mentioned.

Opponent started by purging away Ragman and what was left of my Ripjaw, which had been damaged earlier by a random Bane Thrall.

Zone on the right was still contested by my Nightwretch, as Bane Thralls couldn't hit it well enough.

And then Deathripper, that had been engaged by Reaper, took a run. Needed to roll 6 with two dice to hit the thing. Obviously failed.

Actually it was the turn where Witch Coven's feat was in effect, too.

But then, in horror I realised that an arc node was sitting next to my Witches and there was epic Asphyxious with 11 focus still available.

Picture shows it all. Asphyxious even feated and wrecked my Reaper.

However, the stupid thing here was that opponent, first time playing scenarios since Mk1, hadn't realised to bring models to zone on left, which meant that at the end of his round, I would win by scenario.

But really.

Somehow the situation doesn't feel all that much "victory" to me.

Only possible conclusion here was that I had won the "scenario", yet my opponent really won the "game". I had a focus 3 warcaster and a nightwretch and one cephalyx overlord with one wound left and on corrosion.


In the hindsight I really need to start paying attention to purge range on epic Asphyxious and upcoming Scaverous. If we hadn't been playing scenario that huge purge (that I wasn't to mention again...) would've been a true game winner.

On the other hand, I like Ragman + Reaper + Overlords combo. Effective pow 14 sprays to Reaper's reach, ignoring shooting into melee bonuses, is just lovely.

Salt pillars sprouting, caustic mist poisoning the earth

So I played a game of Warmachine, 35 point game, with Mohsar against epic Asphyxious.

My list was:

Mohsar
- Argus
- Wold Guardian
- Gnarlhorn Satyr

Maximum unit of Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Shifting Stones
Blackclad Wayfarer
Lord of the Feast
Reeve Hunter
War Wolf

And opponent had:

Epic Asphyxious
- Harrower
- 2x Deathrippers

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls
Maximum unit of Bile Thralls
Bane Lord Tartarus
Pistol Wraith

Opponent won the starting roll, but decided to let me go first.

First picture is taken from the end of my second turn.

Harrower had earlier shot one of Shifting Stones, so the Lord of the Feast launch button was turned off.

Also, it was rather hilarious to imagine the battleground. A corrosive necro-sludge field where hazardous gases in form of Caustic Mists form up and salt pillars raise from the ground.

I had deployed Wolves of Orboros to my left flank, but decided to move them from getting purged to getting Death Tolled by Tartarus.

I'm also trying to place them so that movement from Mirage + charge could do some damage, and I could try to protect my wolves with salt pillars if needed.

Then, next picture show the closing up of bile thralls and Harrower.

In case you spot a Deryliss on the field it's a proxy for Pistol Wraith.

Deathripper arced an Excarnate on Lord of the Feast, who was one-shotted by it and turned into a bane thrall. Well, it was a trade-off of 4 point models... or, should've been!

I charged the deathripper with wold guardian, who just couldn't hit the thing, even with two boosted attacks.

Blackclad Wayfarer tried to shoot it with a spray attack to deal at least some damage, and failed.

Argus, however, went to bite Harrower and did 8 points of so in with all attacks.

Mohsar advanced into base contact with wold guardian (you can just see his white hood in the upper picture) and shot a bile thrall with Crevasse. Bile thrall went all dead, but the real target, Pistol Wraith, remained unharmed.

Until Mohsar shot his spray attack on it, that is. However, Crevasse removes boxed models from play, unlike the ranged spray attack of his.

Reeve Hunter killed a couple of bile thralls and Wolves charged the bane thralls.

I couldn't place the pillars, though, as my intentions changed mid-round, but I tried to place them so that Tartarus could not kill whole lot of them.

Opponent then brought up the bile thralls but messed up the order of activations. He then excarnated one of my Wolves, and only realised at that point that bile thralls had already activated. So, it became a bane thrall then.

Slaughter party got started anyway, Tartarus brought more banes in and whatever Tartarus couldn't kill within reach, the bane thralls did.

One result of the bile thrall mistake, however, was that I had to spend plenty of resources now at them, because even one remaining bile thrall, combined with a possible excarnate, could devastate everything...

Oh, and the deathripper ran away from melee, risking a free strike. Missed.

Then it was my time to shine. Argus and Wold Guardian wrecked Harrower.

Reeve Hunter did a sweet killing spree by killing four models, most of them bile thralls at important locations.

Mohsar finished up the rest of bile thralls that were in Gnarlhorns way and put Bounding on the satyr itself. Then it was free to charge Asphyxious.

The sucker was left with 4 wounds. Damnit.

Well, then, what you can't see in this picture because of the angle is one remaining bile thrall behind the ruined arch.

Results, however, you can pretty much see in this picture:

The lone remaining gun... bloat... thing? managed to destroy one shifting stone, a couple of Wolves of Orboros, Reeve Hunter and Blackclad Wayfarer. At this point of the game it was a harsh blow.

Also, Gnarlhorn was killed by the bane thralls, but that was pretty much expected. Asphyxious, however, advanced as far as possible and healed as much damage as possible with his 7 focus.

Picture, by the way, is taken from the end of my turn, where I tried to do some teleporting trick with Mohsar and remove Tartarus from play with Crevasse, but it was botched.

Then, it seems, I've skipped one round completely without taking pictures. What happened was that Argus went and bit one deathripper who was hiding behind the ruined arch. It was the same deathripper who had escaped way too many times already.

Mohsar finally succeeds in bringing Tartarus down with Crevasse, but being a couple of turns already starved for fury, he had already impressive damage upon himself. So every damage roll, even from the 5 that came in from an arced Excarnate, were transfered to Wold Guardian. At some point Wold Guardian had to suffer from a Parasite, cast by Asphyxious.

By a lucky roll rightmost deathrippers arc node was blasted away.

Mohsar moved forward and somehow got to kill the other deathripper, but was left with 1 fury left for transfers and 8 points of damage left on him (he had been at 6, all cut by himself, but shifting stone had healed for 2).

Then I just had to try and weather the upcoming feat.

Shame that the picture is sharp at the wrong place.

That fine it went.

First two bane thralls missed completely, but then Pistol Wraith charged in and rolled damage with double 6's. Wold Guardian had exactly 12 damage points. Second pistol missed, but third charging bane thrall didn't.

The old man didn't even go "smoooosh!", he was so dry from cutting himself that he went "poooof!".

Dunno, a huge factory in the centre of town seems like a bad idea

For a change I got to play a new game.

We played this board game called Chinatown with four players. The story how it was acquired was pretty absurd... some market somewhere had a weird sale that if you buy two packs of, what it was, some kind of dish wash or laundry wash or something like that and you get a board game on top of that.

That's what they teach in marketing school?

Well, the owner didn't feel too bad about it. Come to think of it, I'm starting to wonder if I got enough of washing medium for a type of stuff I no longer remember...

Heh, but about the game.

I may need to double check my premises on games I enjoy.

Usually I say that I like games with strict rules with enough random elements not to make it a chess game.

Chinatown had random elements, but the main object of the game was free trading between players. So it was... dare I use that dreaded word... social!

And it was fun.

Game had fixed number of turns to play, which prevented the game dragging on in Monopoly style.

Monopoly was brought up because the players were reserving lots from Chinatown and building different kind of shops and other things to them. And in the end the richest player would win.

So yeah, it was a good experience.

I didn't stalk enough to get final scoreboard for all players, but top 2 were 1,250,000 dollars and 1,000,000 dollars. Smallest amount of cash was 10,000 dollars in case the numbers seem big.

Floor getting wiped again, this time with Cryx. And Skorne.

Well, we got the second game in. Earlier post has opponents list in it, he wanted to get some experience with same list.

I, however, being the imaginary set collector I am, wanted to get all of my Hordes warlocks having fought Cryx. That meant changing to Hexeris, with following list:

Hexeris
- Bronzeback Titan
- Cyclops Shaman

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Aptimus Marketh
Orin Midwinter
Totem Hunter

This time opponent won the starting roll and opted to go first. After the game it became apparent that in both games we played, it would have been better for both to pass the start to the other player, because our lists had elements that didn't really want to face some element in the opposing army.

So this time I was able to place my Cetrati on the flank that had Bile Thralls, and Swordmen where the Bane Thralls were.

Anyway, first picture is taken from the end of opponents turn 2, but before my second turn.

Mentionable happening during that was Deathripper running where you can see him and Asphyxious killing it with an arced Excarnate, which provided him with an additional bile thrall.

On my turn Cetrati formed a shield wall and one of them got the deathripper into melee range. Miss.

Orin Midwinter fried three Bile Thralls and Cyclops Shaman tried to shoot the other deathripper that was hiding behind barrels, managing to hit, thanks to ignoring concealment and cover. Damage was lousy, though, four points.

Picture is taken from the end of opponents next turn, where he charged and repositioned bane thralls and backed off with bile thralls. The bane that got into contact with Shaman did some serious damage, but didn't break any branches. Three cloud effects are Asphyxious' Caustic Mists.

Then it was my turn to launch a pretty devastating mass carnage.

Pardon for the weird picture, I tried to take a bit closer pictures from the models in two parts, but the angles don't make a coherent view of the whole board.

Anyway, Hexeris activated first, went into caustic mist and put on his feat. He killed the first bane thrall, who started the chain of zombie-march up to Tartarus, where it stopped as the thrall didn't even manage to hit him.

Then he cast Soulfire on the other thrall who was less than 5" away and killed it, who started another rather long chain that didn't stop until a tough roll was passed. I just wonder how all would have gone if tough rolls would've succeeded at critical places...

Then Praetorians charged and used their minifeat. Even more zombies.

Cyclops shaman was enraged by the beast handlers and charged to Tartarus, who was killed in the process and went to beat Asphyxious. He managed to hit and dealt some damage in.

Now when I count it, Hexeris' feat gave me only 3 extra kills and some damage on Asphyxious. But what made that round so painful for the Cryx player was the fact that all those six bane thralls and Tartarus were removed from play because of the feat, meaning Asphyxious had pretty much lost the edge of his own feat.

Orin Midwinter continued to fry Bile Thralls, again killing three.

Opponent found his situation so desperate that he attempted something that could be best described as "Page 5". I hadn't taken anything like that into consideration and just by an accidental positioning of Bronzeback Titan I made it less severe.

He advanced maximum distance closer to Hexeris and teleported next to him, camping all possible focus, sitting at arm 21.

If I hadn't moved Bronzeback there, the value after running would've been armor 23.

Aptimus and Hexeris together couldn't beat Asphyxious down, though little Aptimus did contribute by giving one point of damage in.

Hexeris did leave one fury left for transfers, however.

Then Bronzeback turns on its tails and marches into Asphyxious. In the picture it has been turned around and because of that it looks like it's not within melee range, but it was moved it was turned around 180 degrees. However, it wouldn't have looked epic at all if Bronzeback Titan killed Asphyxious by sitting down on him or something... worse.

Bronzeback managed to hit and got above average damage roll with its tusks and, by that, finished Asphyxious.

These two games against the same list and with the same faction and with only some changes in army composition on my part teached a few things.

For starters, when playing with somewhat slow army against Asphyxious and Bile Thralls, deployment can affect the game quite a lot. This time around I didn't feel that bad at all, when my cetrati were against bile thralls and swordmen against bane thralls.

Also, in both games both players made a huge mistake that pretty much cost the game. For me it was falling for the excarnated bile thrall, and for opponent in this game was overextending bane thralls when faced with possibility of "remove from play" effects.

Well. These are the hard lessons you're bound to face in Warmachine. But in the end, I'm sure in future games things like these are easier to take into account.

Floor getting wiped with Skorne. And Cryx.

Just finished playing a game of Warmachine. If I'm lucky I'm playing another one later at night.

However, I knew I was going against epic Asphyxious. Yet still I really wanted to try out Dominar Rasheth again!

I did so with the following 35 point list:

Rasheth
- Cyclops Shaman
- Basilisk Drake
- Bronzeback Titan

Maximum unit of Praetorian Swordmen + Unit Attachment
Minimum unit of Cataphract Cetrati
Minimum unit of Beast Handlers
Aptimus Marketh

And opponent had:

Epic Asphyxious
- Harrower
- 2x Deathripper

Maximum unit of Bane Thralls + Unit Attachment
Maximum unit of Bile Thralls
Bane Lord Tartarus

Anyway, I won the starting roll and now, having known how the game went, I really, really should have given the start to opponent.

We had originally scheduled this game at other place, which, uh, became unavailable because of "random" chance.

So, we opted to play on the floor of my apartment. I need to tell this for you not to get shocked about the pictures. Yeah, it's a floor mat.

First picture is taken from the end of my turn 2 but before opponent started turn 2.

You can see where the deployment went wrong... I got my Cetrati facing Banes and Praetorian facing Biles. No good.

Anyway, one praetorian charged bile thralls, my plan was to move to engage more bile thralls with side-step, but then realised I was going to be out of coherency if I did that. The other praetorian ran behind Asphyxious so that he wouldn't gain cover when I arced Blood Mark through it to Asphyxious, which succeeded.

Then in this picture.

That bile thrall... hasn't even activated yet.

So yeah, I fell as a victim to Excarnate + Bile Thrall trick. Kinda shame, when I play Cryx myself, and sometimes Epic Asphyxious too. Death toll on that single purge was: 8 praetorian swordmen + Aptimus Marketh.

I don't have overall picture of the opponents turn 2, but that was all that really mattered there. Asphyxious got 3 souls in the process and cast Hellbound on himself. That was more of a mistake, when he could have teleported away. So I had a slim chance of doing... something. Anything at all.

On the other flank bane thralls just closed in and Harrower didn't do much.

Next picture is from end of my turn 3, with a close-up on what I could do to Asphyxious.

You can also see the devastation that the purge caused on my lines.

Bronzeback ran to engage bile thralls somewhat. I think that was foolish thing of me to do, I should have tried something else as I knew Harrower was going to charge it.

Last round bane thralls had engaged my line of Cetrati & other stuff, so I started poking them in the undead eye. I picked only troopers not to fill Asphyxious' pool of useful feat models. Basilisk, however, tried to spray the standard bearer to death. Obviously he missed it, despite attack roll boost.

What I did with Rasheth was advance and putting on Castigate, then attack & damage roll boosted Sunder Spirit on Asphyxious 9 points in. One fury left for Blood Mark transfer.

I brought Cyclops Shaman to the fray too, but he foiled the attack roll on Evil Eye attack.

Next is what punishment fell on my side.

First of all, banes and Tartarus just rocked my Cetratii smiling shield-wall face to the ground. Somehow in the process beast handlers had to test command twice (once for terror and once for massive casualties), and failed the other one.

Fully loaded Harrower charged the Bronzeback and for once I could be happy for its resilience. It did lose spirit and most of mind, but it didn't look too bad.

However, Asphyxious decided to charge at it too, and from previous turns souls he could load a helluva lot attacks on it, finally destroying it with a damage roll of 6, 6, 6 and teleporting away with two remaining focus.

I cursed the beast handlers, because this was the turn that I could have actually used them to enrage Cyclops Shaman, healing Basilisk Drake who had lost itss body branch. But they were terrified. They passed their command check, however, but that was all about them.

Cetrati and pals tried to kill as many banes as possible, which went quite fine other than for the basilisk. It managed to destroy the flagbearer but it passed the tough roll. Then it tried to kill the other bane thrall, but missed.

Cyclops Shaman charged Harrower and didn't do any damage to it. With last attack it killed a bile thrall next to it.

Rasheth had to spend one fury to heal the basilisk (so I activated Rasheth before Drake but after shaman) and then he launched an attack roll boosted Sunder Spirit at one bile thrall he could see on elevated position and in cover. Hit and dead. Then he put up Castigate again and one fury was left for Blood Mark transfer.

Picture also shows the "view" how my last turn started... "Bring it ON! I'm not afraid!"...

So, well obviously I upkept Blood Mark.

However, I do have a picture from the end of my turn:

So, my two remaining models, other than Rasheth, ran as close to Asphyxious as possible.

Then Rasheth cast a fully boosted Sunder Spirit at Asphyxious, dealing 10 points in.

Well, sadly just a turn earlier Asphyxious had healed some of the earlier damage. And then my arc node died. Need to take one of those Deathrippers...

Then I had fury to launch one sunder spirit at a bile thrall and was left with 1 fury for transfers.

Yet, brave sir Asphyxious ran as fast as he could, and fully loaded Harrower charged Rasheth.

Visualising Rasheth on Harrowers spinning blades... eww...

"They're only scrap thralls!" ... a lesson to be learned about 0.33 point models

I played a game of Warmachine on Vassal a couple of days ago. I had some hurry about and I wrote the report as the game progressed so I wasn't in a rush to update this while I had things still in fresh memory.

It was a 35 point game and I was playing Circle. I wanted to do something differently and decided to play without Druids of Orboros and without Shifting Stones. Oh my, exciting, new approach to Circle! Well... my opponent really beat me into that!

My list was:

Morvahna
- Feral Warpwolf
- Wold Guardian

Maximum Wolves of Orboros + Unit Attachment
Minimum Tharn Ravagers + Chieftain
Lord of the Feast
Totem Hunter

And he had:

Epic Asphyxious
- Leviathan

Minimum unit of Bane Thralls
Minimum unit of Bile Thralls
2x Revenant Cannons
Skarlock
Gorman diWulfe
2x Pistol Wraiths
2x Bloat Thralls
2x group of 3 scrap thralls

I don't know... at least it is a brave try-out of something completely unexpected and wacky, though opponent wasn't aware of the fact that most of his army blow themselves up so they cannot be brought back through Asphyxious's feat. Still it didn't hinder opponents game all that much...

Anyway, opponent won the starting roll.

From first round there isn't much to tell, Cryxian advanced behind a cloud wall and I came at them rather cautiously. In the picture the fury on my beast has been messed up, as I was thinking that I cast Regrowth & Harvest, but after "taking" the picture I realised that I said that I had cast Regrowth and Restoration on Warpwolf. It was okay for opponent that I reworked my fury management.

Well, then opponents turn started and it was a horror to behold. For starters, Revenant cannons took shots at my ravagers. Well, first shot missed ravagers, but deviation brought 2 of them under the template. Blast damage did 3 damage to both of them. Yeah, damage roll was 10 on both.

Then, the other cannon managed to hit the other ravager and killed it.

And then... Bloat Thrall scores a direct hit to the other damaged ravager with its RAT 4!

Oh wait, that wasn't all the humiliation. Next a Scrap Thrall charges one of my Ravagers. Misses, but blast damage deals 2 points of damage. Then, another scrap thrall charges and scores a HIT and kills the ravager. At least the last scrap thrall wasn't in range, it was left out of melee by mere pixels. Then, Leviathan moves and tries to shoot the ravager but misses and kills the scrap thrall instead. And the resulting damage roll deals damage, too... All of this just couldn't be happening!

I had totally misjudged 8 inches and on top of that, opponent rolled dice... well.

Scarlock then attempts to cast Excarnate on the last remaining ravager but finally something missed, though a pistol wraith killed it ultimately.

Oh dear, what a horrible turn.

Then, it was my time to punch opponent in the face. Which I did, in the most horrible imaginable way. I killed two scrap thralls and backed off.

Yeah.

I'm about to cry just now.

Both Wold Guardian and Morvahna put up Flesh of Clay, and Restoration was transfered to Lord of the Feast, as I was hoping I could position it better to entangle nearly whole army. But it was not to be, it got only into melee with the last scrap thrall you can see in the picture.

I ran away with Wolves of Orboros, as I noticed that the revenant cannons had a nasty remove from play -effect, which pretty much nullified my Regrowth on them. And having lost all of my ravagers I thought that keeping wolves alive was a priority of sorts.

Well.

But then... first attack from Scrap Thrall one-shotted my Lord of the Feast that had Restoration on. Needed 5 & 6 to do that. Hit roll was 5, 5 and damage roll 5, 6.

Then Gorman walks up and scores a hit on my Warpwolf with black oil. Exactly, with RAT 5. Game was starting to look hilarious.

Well, scarlock popped Parasite on the blind warpwolf and revenant cannons started shooting. First was just out of range, but the other hit home.

Bloat thrall took an aimed shot.

Damage roll 5, 6.

Other really exceptionall rolls didn't come out, but I think that was a good basement for killing off my wolf and tharn ravager chieftain. Wold Guardian was obviously Death Chilled.

Then came my turn, which did soothe my agony thus far somewhat.

Opponents infantry was nicely packed tightly together, so I activated Morvahna first. I didn't upkeep Regrowth on Wolves of Orboros, but put on Harvest. Two Eruptions of Lives later right in the middle of opposing army resulted in dead Gorman, two dead pistol wraiths, three bile thralls and about two bane thralls.

Morvahna even had enough fury to cast Restoration on Wold Guardian and to put Guardian's animus on herself. Guardian advanced to protect Morvahna, and Wolves packed up too. Then Totem Hunter charged two remaining bile thralls, killed both of them, filling Morvahna up to 3 fury and then sprinted to safety.

Phew.

But then came a weird turn.

First, Skarlock advances and casts Parasite on Wold Guardian. Things shot at it (one Bloat and Leviathan I think, could be others too, and at least one boosted Deathknell)

Asphyxious activates, advances and puts his soul template on and casts the said Deathknell, feats and teleports away.

Feated Bane Thralls destroy Wold Guardian, who had both +2 arm and -3 arm on. Two pistol wraiths charge Morvahna, dealing 7 points of damage in.

Then opponent launches all blast weapons in there that he could, resulting in no damage, except for dead Wolves of Orboros.

My turn.

Morvahna was death chilled by one of the pistol wraiths but upkept Harvest. She forfeited action and moved enough to get one Bloat Thrall under 10", who was then destroyed by an Eruption of Life. She used her feat, and charging Wolves killed the two remaining bane thralls, the skarlock and the remaining Bloat Thrall.

Totem Hunter ran to engage Revenant Cannons, risking a free strike on the way. It had amazing 16" move because it's current prey target, the bane thralls (when I did this they were still alive) were close enough.

Opponents turn.

Asphyxious comes a bit forward, sends in a Deathknell that kills four wolves and teleports away.

Leviathan moves a bit and shoots a boosted shot at Morvahna. Miss. Buys another, boosts hit. Hits and damage roll 6, 6.

Weird game.

But in the hindsight, I should have probably been more aggressive with my Wolves, a couple of them dying to "removed from play" effects.

Obviously losing my whole ravager unit to astonishing dice rolls didn't actually help.

Woldwatcher goes to personal trainer

After good experiences with Megalith and Wold Guardian I have built up some interest in Circle's wolds, though earlier I have passionately loathed them.

Well, I still do, in a way. I can't stand the models of Woldwarden or Woldwatcher. But I decided trying to overcome that by using milliputty on the woldwatcher.

I have never "sculpted" anything on models for real. Only fixed up stuff and some minor tweaks, maybe, but nothing on this scale.

First, when I toyed around with the assembled Woldwatcher I noticed it fit perfectly on a small base. Sure, it would have been quite big small based model, but it wouldn't have looked too big on a 30mm base size. Then, comparing it to another medium base models, I was even more disappointed.

So, I started beefing it up.

There is what I came up with. Easiest parts were obviously making the shield arms a lot larger. I knew I didn't have the skills to do anything real fancy. In fact, the pelvis proved to be too much for me. It looks so much like a mess that I may actually have to do something to it post-finishing the model. And I'm lousy at getting back to models I consider finished.

Anyway.

I took a comparison picture with another medium base model. And I think I succeeded making the 'watcher look more like a warbeast and not like a wimpy, ugly... thing. I guess certain coarseness doesn't matter that much in a stone constructs as in, for example, sleek elven designs.

Then I basecoated the thing.

Though some of the milliputty doesn't blend to the actual sculpt all that well with basecoat on, I was still quite proud of my first, real attempt at serious conversion.

What really saved me was milliputty's structure. Once it was hardened overnight it was easy to trim areas that looked really uneven or just plain ugly with a hobby knife. Sadly I didn't have good tools to work with the pelvis area, and thus it came out looking like crap.

And today I finally finished painting the model.

It isn't based yet and when I'm making the base I think I have to do something with the huge feet. Maybe make them look a bit smaller by putting some grass next to them or something.

But here is the picture:

All in all, I'm sure this particular wold will make appearance in my future Circle of Orboros lists.