Brief Respite coming

I’m about to skip out of town for a two week vacation, so Hordes excitement will not be happening for a bit. I hit up the local last night to look for a game - as it turns out they were so limited on players I had barely entered the room before one of the regulars said “here, you’re playing this guy”. “But I only have a 350 pt army” “no problem, he’ll either cut down or we’ll loan you stuff”.

So last night was my first ever 500 pt game. My opponent was playing Warmachine, and he’s quite the old salt at things, but he’s also very patient and willing to teach, so I figured I was guaranteed to get something out of it.

My army consisted of the Circle Warbox, plus my shiny new Woldwyrd and shifting stones - and a loaner of two models that are next on my purchase list, a Blackclad Wayfarer and a Woldwarden. He deployed a Warmachine mercenary force, I forget the caster’s name but she had a nasty pistol and a feat that gave him the ability to roll 2 extra dice on every attack that turn and ignore the worst two rolls - and make me do the same on my turn except he got to pick which dice to ignore. Along with her there was a piper solo that buffed his unit of . . something or others, nasty little melee unit, full 10 models with UA/standard bearer, and kneel, and fearless. On top of that were 2 warjacks that had a spear/axe thing, a shield - and a gun in the shield. Finally were 3 solos, 2 of which could have a “client” so while within 6“ of the client they were substantially buffed, plus another gentleman who had to be killed twice, effectively. On his first death he comes back but with berzerk.

So I was staring down a massive pile of melee units, plus 3 of whom had range, and here I was with some stones and 7 models. I had never played with the blackclad or the woldwarden before, so that ate up some brain cycles figuring out how to integrate them in. It was pretty clear to me that I was either going to have to set up an assassination run or die. However my execution was a bit lacking. I did do some fun things tho, largely to try out the rules and see how they interacted - he did an early charge of two of his solos at my warpwolf and my woldwarden - whereupon I used those two models to two-handed throw them into the infantry, and managed over the course of two turns to knock them all over at least once. Infantry bowling, as it were. Unfortunately, the ARM on those little bastards was VERY high, and I killed precisely zero from collateral damage on either toss.

On top of that I completely forgot about the Wayfarers spray attack - which would have been devastating to knocked down models had I had him properly placed to take advantage. Or at least - in theory, devastating. The dice were rolling absolute shit all night. I will not blame them however, as my strategy was lacking. I’m not too fussed, since I’m still learning, after all.

So suffice to say he cleaned the board with me. My last turn (I had even tried to resign, but he said ”Wait! You might be able to do blah blah“ ... ) featured a Kaya with 2 health left, and a woldwyrd. Meanwhile he had lost two of his unit and one solo. However, I was able to get the woldwyrd just close enough to try to do some whomping on his caster - but not QUITE far enough to get behind her. On top of that, I forgot to get in a spirit fang to reduce the target’s DEF, so another fuckup there. 6 attacks (and 6 misses) later (having only one beast on the table hampered Kaya’s feat considerably) game over.

All in all a great game, and I gained some valuable experience. In the latter 3rd of it when the tide was pretty clear (more like tsunami) I did lose a little mental focus - then again due to my inexperience we were at table for close to 3 hours and it was pushing 11pm, which is my usual bedtime. However, I had a blast, and got some good advice from 3 of resident regulars, including one fellow who has 2K+ circle models himself.

Out of the followup discussion I got a list of models to acquire next, to build up a supply of folks for a 500pt army that has some flexibility for swapping in and out a few different things.

In purchase order, they shall be:

1) Woldwarden
2) Blackclad Wayfarer
3) Swamp Gobbers Bellows Crew
4) Totem Hunter
5) Start fiddling with other casters

3 and 4 will neatly replace an Argus. Once I hit 5 I can try out utterly different play modes with the other casters, and after that comes time to start in on some units (price is a factor, which drives the lack of units before this point). First up will likely be the bloodtrackers, known for obliterating one important model somewhere on the board almost immediately before they themselves are wiped out.

This strikes me as a nice set up of relatively cheap models (minus the woldwarden) that I can run a variety of 500pt games with for several months before I begin the climb to 750 and those tasty yet pricey Wolfriders I so desperately want.

My interest in this game has only grown, particularly since it’s now a full on challenge to improve my gameplay, as well as a good painting opportunity :)

Model updates

Somewhat small one, as I’m at work and terribly, terribly behind :)

First off Thank You to Tengu - I’d done some musing around Brusthralls before but hadn’t actually located the Orboros box link as yet. I have to say, I will be well outside of that level of quality for some time :)

Assembly finished well - I think I did a reasonably acceptable job at it, even without pinning anything. We’ll see how they hold up under use :)

I’m doing a bit of experimenting between black and white primers - both Argus, the Warpwolf, and Kaya are in black, while my recent acquisitions (Shifting Stones and a Woldwyrd) are in white. I ran into a spot of difficulty with the black - either I just “did it wrong” or it was too hot that day (highly likely, being Texas and July and all) - the primer was really, really flaky. After 24 hours it was possible to gently rub on the mini and come away with a fingerfull of black. While perhaps more drunk than I should have, I took a toothbrush to them, yielding a set of four models that are very heavily black in some areas and somewhat lightly black (but not quite bare metal) in others. I hesitate to reprime them for fear of overdoing it, and at this point the entire process has become one large experiment :) given that these are the first mini’s I’ve painted in several years, I’m not too fussed, and if they turn out horrible I can always strip them down later when I’m better and redo them.

Meanwhile the white ones came out just fine some days later (and primed in the very early part of the day when it was cooler). Along the way I re-located two other miniatures that I am painting as a “warm up” - primed one white, the other black. So far I’ve put a basecoat on the white one, and attempted a wash of heavily watered down black paint - sadly, so watered down that while it looked great wet, as it dried there was insignificant pigment and/or only enough to just get wicked right back out of the holes and crevices that I now have a model with, ironically, highlighted pits instead of darkened holes, as it were.

So I hit up the local yesterday and snagged a true black wash to try out - never done much in the way of inking before so it will be a worthy new thing, at least. We’ll see how it goes. While out I snagged several new brushes and a real palette (to replace the textured cutting board I’d been using) for mixing, so I’m hopeful I’ll get in some quality time this weekend with the paints. My first bit of painting the other night was quite fun - altho I’m looking forward to getting our planned work desks in. Hunching over the kitchen table in low light conditions having to take off my glasses to see fine detail is not something I can do for more than a couple hours at a time :)