Pinning Models - A How To Guide

Disclaimer: This guide was not done by me :) Rather, Doctor Fausts Painting Clinic.

http://www.paintingclinic.com/MainClinic.dwt.htm

This is an EXCELLENT site on techniques for modelling, painting and pinning miniatures. Ive been looking for reference material for my next project, the Khador Behemoth, and this site is awesome! I recommend anyone interested in the modelling aspect of the game to check it out!

The Behemoth is planned to be heavily converted (pose only) and pinned together, so this guide will help me get there!

Massive Battle at MDC

1500 points a side, 6 players total, Khador + Skorne + Protectorate of Menoth vs Circle Orboros + Trollbloods + Legion of Everblight.

It was a lot of fun!

Ill start with a quick rundown of the army i took, and the results, and put up more details tomorrow morning.

500 point Khador list:

Vlad the Dark Prince
-> Behemoth
-> Beast 09
-> Destroyer

Haha, yes, thats right, 4 models total. Was hilarious. Everyone else had 10 - 15... but hey, was good times for me, i didnt lose a single model during the entire game!

We played for 4 turns (I think) and the end result was a draw. Out of the 6 Warcasters who started the game, 2 of them had died, one on each side.

Khadors Vladimir - Survived, but hurt
Skornes Tyrant Hexeris - Died to Woldwardens and Woldwyrds
Protectorates Reznik - Survived

Circles Baldur - Survived, almost hit him with a bombard shot in the last turn :P
Legions Lylyth - Survived
Trollbloods Grim Angus - Died, to the Behemoths AP fists

We didnt bother working out VPs, so called it a draw as there was no obvious victor.

TO BE CONTINUED!!!

SPOTLIGHT:Yuri The Axe

Ok, so it was a little weird having this pic up with no words, but it was a rush to get it on before going to work. This particular article is the second in my "Spotlight" series, focusing on the models I have completed.

Yuri the Axe is a looow cost character solo, and is depicted as an elite Manhunter, sometimes employed by a Khador army. He is fast, strong and difficult to hit, like the Manhunters, however has relatively low armour, so one big hit will kill him pretty easily. With flying steel he can get up to 3 attacks, which i have found is more than enough to wreck most 'Jacks and Beasts, but could also take a decent chunk out of smaller units. With Reach as well, very rarely are those attacks wasted.

His most interesting abilities lie in his synergy with Manhunters. Normally, only 1 Manhunter per army is allowed. Fielding Yuri increases this by 1, so you could take 2 Manhunters + Yuri. He gives these Manhunters "Tree Walker" as well, so they can hide within a forest further than 3" and still draw LOS through them.

In the games ive played with him, he has been very hit and miss. Although you can Advance Deploy him, this is not always a good idea, as he could get killed too early. He generally lurks in a forest, until such time as a juicy target walks past that he can charge. This has led to some games, him not doing anything at all, just scarily waiting in a forest. Other times though, he has single handedly killed a Carnivean.

Ill have to use him a bit more and see if my tactics with him improve!

New Additions to the Army

So - I went a little crazy with buying stuff off TradeMe and Ebay, and I now have either on the way or in my possession, a Behemoth, a Unit of Greylords, Gudrun the Wanderer and Epic Vlad.

My wife, Emma, who has a Battle Box of Circle Orboros, now has on the way a Gorax, Woldwarden, and a Unit box + 1 Blister of Wolves of Orboros.

Hopefully going to arrive this week, or next.

Recap on models / units used in the last battle, and how to make them better!

So, as I have posted before, the last 2 battles i had last night were a little disappointing. The army i took was a ranged attack force, with a solid melee ability once it got to that stage of the game. The main block was pVladimir with 2 Destroyers backing him up.

Normally, I would assign a couple of focus to each Destroyer and cast Signs and Portents, giving them RAT 3 + 4d6 and dropping lowest to hit (which works out to average around RAT 15-ish) allowing me to plant a heavy AOE in the middle of a unit due to Arcing Fire. In the first game I dont think i chose my targets very well, with some wasted shots hitting a Sentry Stone and a couple of heavy Warjacks before the melee started and no more shots were able to be taken. (Although, i must note that the last Bombard i fired landed on the knocked down Lord of the Feast killing him)

The second game we had I was able to use them a lot better, with a massive hit landing in the middle of the Temple Flameguard killing 8 out of 12 of them, and my other Destroyer able to kill off 4 out of 6 Wolves of Orboros. This game was not concluded, but from there they would have been able to wreak much more havoc in the enemy lines, and possibly kill one of the enemy Warcasters.

So - overall performance, Destroyers got a 8 / 10.

Vladimir, with his copious use of Signs and Portents really supported my army, with a total of 7 focus he was also able to give my Destroyers the power they needed to slam and boost when they needed to, while still having enough to keep Signs and Portents going. He never made it into combat, but I really wish he had while BoKing as I havent done it before, and wanted to see what kind of mayhem he would unleash.

Due to his support of my army in both games, he gets a 7 / 10.

My 4 strong unit of Widowmakers get mixed reviews for this game, the first game they stealthily attempted to outflank the Menoth units coming close to them - but due to a bunch of reaaaaly crap rolls and my lack of foresight in the next turn ended up getting turned into crispy corpses at the hands of the Temple Cleansers. Also, i thought that Cleansers always exploded, but turns out they dont. :S

Second game, they provided an essential speedbump, although they only killed one of the Flamegaurd they were run into by them the next turn, engaging them in combat. They were able to run away luckily without any of them getting killed, but because of that the Destroyers had a field day and landed their AOE's in the middle of the enemy. They then got slaughtered by the Druids of Orboros the next turn, but hey, you cant always get what you want.

Died too quickly and did little damage -> but good for tactical manouevering so 5 / 10.

Yuri the Axe and the Manhunter hid around in forests the entirety of the 1st and 2nd game, they didnt end up getting into combat because of their lurky ways, but thats ok as they were able to corner the enemy forces in such a way that when they WOULD have charged out i would done enough damage to alter the game.

Because they hid the entire game and didnt kill anything -> 3 / 10.

Next up is Orin Midwinter, the Rogue Inquisitor. Looked like his second most important ability, the Null Magic move, did absolutely nothing. However, he was able to do some damage with his Lightning bolt, killing a couple of weak models here and there. So not completely terrible, just kind of terrible. Will have to practice more with him, but on the bright side, at least he didnt get killed at all.

Zapped a few people and didnt die -> 6 / 10.

Last but not least, Lady Aiyana and Master Holt. In the first game, Holt had killed a few guys with his guns, but didnt really make too much of an impact. Then, A+H were knocked down by Kreoss's cowardly feat (man thats a pain in the ass) and Aiyana took a spear to the head and died :(. After that lackluster attempt, in the second game they were able to do a little more damage and wiped out a few troopers. Nothing really spectacular, but i feel they were not able to reach their full potential here. Maybe next game...

Shot a few people, but died once -> 5 / 10.

So, in conclusion, Destroyers and Vlad worked great, most of my other units either lurked around looking silly or were killed unluckily. Well, better luck next time!

2v2 Battle!

So, our massive battle went down tonight, we ended up playing 2 games back to back - As the first game ended much too quickly due to Henk's over excited tactics of moving his warlock too close to the enemy. It did not go well for the Khador + Everblight team, although we were winning to begin with we ended up being on the wrong end of Kreoss's feat and the majority of our army was on its butt. Luckily Vlad was out of range, but Lylyth got smacked down and then pounded on by a Temple Flamegaurd, a Woldwarden, and a Woldwyrd - losing Henk's caster. This left just my army against two entire armies of theirs, so we called it at that.

Quickly respawning our units, we tried to have another hurried game. Wether or not it was due to mine and Henks great tactical planning or just lucky dice, we quickly turned the tide towards us in order to decimate the enemy forces. With all of their big units dead, and us quickly running out of time to finish the game, we called it then -- with some debate over who won, it looked like Khador and Everblight had gained more VP's.

Unfortunately, we hadnt been able to kill any of their warcasters, so i dont like to proclaim victory, just a draw in our favour --- with a burning rage deep in their proud hearts, my Khadorans went home, without feeding more blood and dead weaklings to their axes.

Over the two games, one of the best moments for me was a Bombard shot landing directly in the middle of the unit of Temple Flamegaurd, killing 8 out of 12 of them. Orin Midwinter had his first outing as well, and although not toooo impressive, was still able to kill a few models off. His antimagic ability is a bit lackluster however, so i would not be taking him again with that specific tactic in mind.

Vlad did well again, hes not SUPER good, but a nice average performance in every game. Signs and Portents is invaluable, allowing me to roll even the craziest numbers to hit / kill stuff. As well as that, 7 focus is a lot of fun to play with!

So basically - 1 loss, and 1 maybe win. Not happy with this result, we resolved to organise an EVEN bigger game next week!! This time the mighty Reds had better win! >.<

Epic 2v2 1000points a side battle

Tonight we will be having a 500 points per player 2v2 match, Khador And Everblight versus Circle And Protectorate of Menoth.

I know what my army is going to be, but not too sure about the others just yet. Ill put it up here, on the off chance that John reads this before tonight he will get an inkling as to what he will be facing. Not that i have that many models to mix it up anyway!

Vladimir
- Destroyer
- Destroyer
Yuri the Axe
Manhunter
Widowmakers
Orin Midwinter
Aiyana And Holt

Basically, i have a good unit of Advance Deployers, allowing me to strategically take a tasty piece of terrain and turn it into a killing ground -> the combination of Widowmakers and the Manhunter team being able to kill anything, be it troopers or 'jacks/'beasts.

Then i have Vlad with his two destroyers, giving him superior range and damage capability (AOE 3" + Arcing fire + Boosts + Signs and Portents) means i can shoot anything in range and land a big fat AOE with Signs and Portents and extra focus to boost damage, should be able to hit even difficult things with it. Or at the very least, catch something in the blasts!

Then i have a third squad, A+H and Midwinter, who will act as an annoying thorn in the side of the two we are facing, easily able to assasinate a Warcaster that gets sloppy and on top of that, they are almost impossible to kill!

So yeah. Will report on this battle after i have slaughtered the opposition. =D

1v1v1 Game - Everblight vs Khador vs Menoth

Played a 3 way game of Warmachine last night, 3 armies at 400 points each. I took a new Warcaster (ZOMG!), Vladimir, instead of Karchev. Blasphemy, i know.

However, given my shocking defeat against Everblight last week, i decided i needed to try a different tack against their redicoulous "ignore terrain" and "ignore LOS" rules.

My army was:

Vlad
Destroyer x 2
Aiyana and Holt
Widowmakers x 4

Played against Henk with his standard Beast fare - Carnivean, Seraph, 3 x Shredders a unit of Archers and Lylyth. Richard was borrowing a Protectorate of Menoth Army, and had a choir, a large ranged Jack, two little Jacks, one with a shield and one with a flamethrower. As well as that, he had some artillery that did nothing the entire game, and a Vassal to go with Amon Ad Raza.

Started off deploying as a triangle on an oblong shaped board, i had bottom left corner, richard had bottom right, and henk was top. Unfortunately for Henk, we gravitated towards him, and caught him as he split his forces. Most of them were sent against me, with the Archers fighting off the Menoth forces as they approached.

A dangerous move, the Seraph advanced on Aiyana and Holt and unleashed its strafe attack (the barstard ignores invisibility) and throughly slaughtered them - and then i remembered Holts special Quick Draw rule, and saved their butts. Aiyana and Holt then rushed the Seraph, who was destroyed and turned into Dragon burger by Holt going nutty and unleashing his fury on him. (4 attacks, 2 at PS12 + 5d6, dropping the lowest)

The Carnivean advanced, ending up just out of charge range of the Destroyers. Vlad popped his feat, and the Destroyers ran up and hacked it to tiny pieces. Lylyth, at this point, ran away to fight another day, as my army was still at full strength. Uneventfully, the Archer unit was fighting Richards Menoth army - where it did no damage, except to blow the flamethrower off a light jack, and Menoth's couple of jacks killed the majority of the archers.

Best part of the battle was my destroyer punting a shell at Lylyth - rolled a 1 for deviation direction, then a 5 for distance, blasting both the Seraph and Lylyth with a tasty chunk of damage. (Ended up firing 19" and catching the both of them in the blast)

So - in conclusion, Vlad is an awesome support caster, who works really well with both ranged and melee attacks. Two destroyers are great, 2 bombards a turn gives a high chance of landing at least one of them!!