War of the Ring

I recently bought GW's War of the Ring rulebook, and after reading through it I think it makes a better game than the strategy game. Of course, I don't need to buy much to get a reasonable army ( or two) together. In fact, for the time being I don't need to buy any new figures for this.

After sorting my LOTR figures I've decided to focus on two armies, with possible allies for each (up to 25% of the an army's points may be spent on allies). Continuing my theme from TAGCon 2009, I'm going to make an Isengard army, with Haradrim allies (no Mumak). And after a thorough check over of my forces of good, I'm building a Rohirrim army with Gondor and Elf allies.

Since Saturday I've put in a few hours on the first two formations of Rohirrim I'm building. These are both common formations, from the same sprues. Oathsworn militia, which come in two types - archers, and infantry. After about six hours of work on the 30 something miniatures I have available, They now stand at weapons and armour completed, along with the clothing. In all, 10 coats of paint across the various parts of the minis. I'm happy with the progress so far, but they still have a long way to go to be completed.

The fleet grows

I've been expanding my fleet over the last couple of days in small working sessions.

Two hours on thursday afternoon saw my vanguard drones expand to six, with a small modification on the design. with two options for armament I decided to give them pyroacid batteries. A heavily trimmed spine fist was mounted underneath the nose of the drone. Later, I'll be making some drones with feeder tentacles, but I can't do that until I get my hands on some old pens that I can remove the springs from.

Vanguard drones with pyroacid battery

Today I've built two of my prototype Krakens. One with pyroacid battery, and the other with torpedoes

Kraken with pyroacid battery

Kraken with torpedoes

I also commenced building my first cruiser, using a spare back plate from a carnifex, with a pair of massive talons coming out from it. Two warrior barbed stranglers form the back end, with a spore mound as the underside. A spare armour plate forms a beak at the prow.

I still have to add the armament to the cruiser, but I'll come back to that next time i work on the fleet.

Unarmed cruiser

Sludged

Kill the caster, or kill the jacks. Sounds easy.

I fought Owen in a battlebox game last night, and came out the other side with a bit more knowledge, and another loss.

Using his Cryx against my Menoth, Owen took the first turn, advancing quickly across the table. I responded by marching my jacks forward, and Kreoss opening up with his Lamentation spell, with Deneghra inside his control range

Two turns later, my revenger had lost his halberd to the slayer. Seeing a possible quick end to the game, I ran the damaged revenger past the Cryx jacks to within three inches of Deneghra. Kreoss fired Menoth's wrath, knocking down all the cryx jacks, and pushed immolation through the revengers arc node. The spell missed as I didn't have the focus to boost it. Oh well, time to do as much damage as I could to the jacks.

Kreoss charged the slayer slamming it quickly but not finishing it. The Crusader tore the head off one of the Deathrippers.

Owen finished the game by having the slayer pick Kreoss up, and throw him toward the crusader. Kreoss fell short, and to the side. One obstacle in area, a wall, and of course Kreoss lands on it (half his life gone). The defiler moves across to get a line on the fallen Kreoss, and promptly fired its sludge cannon. Game over, Kreoss lies dissolved in a puddle of goo.

Another new project

I've just started another new project after browsing trademe's WH40K listings.

I found an auction for Battlefleet Gothic, consisting of The rules, a Chaos fleet, and a conversion fleet of tyranids. Being a bug player myself, the tyranid fleet was of great interest to me, and I asked the seller if he had details on how the fleet was built.

He replied that he found the details on site but it was no longer around. Being a curious person, I did some browsing, and found a site that may or may not have the one he used , but had some good advice on scratch building tyranid vessels. One page added to favourites later, and I was off to my bits box, digging out a few items.

A gaunt devourer was removed from the arm, and three scything talons from my genestealer sprues were worked on, removing the arm from the elbow up. The small spurs from the elbow were kept, and the rest of the arm tossed. The arms were cut to a better size after that, and test fitted to the devourer. Once I was happy with the cuts to the arms, I glued them on, and added one of the small spurs to the top of the devourer. I now have my first vanguard escort drone, and the means to make a large number of them.

The site I got the details from also suggest using Raveners as Hive ships, with a few alterations, and I just happen to have three older raveners lying around, along with a 3rd edition Hive Tyrant. So I could have the makings of a fairly large fleet just lying around in my bits box. Not too bad, one army's left over parts forming an entire new force for another game

Kreoss Marches on

I've put in a few sessions on Project Menoth in the last two weeks, and the Battlebox is beginning to take shape. Kreoss has now been assembled, basecoated, and now his robes have been painted along with his armour. The jacks have had their hydraulics painted, armour finished, and now the trim on the armour (red) has been completed.

Obviously there is still a lot more work to do on the battlebox, but they will taken on their second outing tomorrow. Their first was about a week ago, against Nigel's mangled metal list. naturally that was not a battlebox list, at least 50 points more than my list, but it taught me a few things about the game. I also learned that lamentation is very good spell against Haley. Once Kreoss was in range for the spell, he shut down her turtle very effectively. I did get hammered, as the long guns on his two light jacks put my jacks down quickly, but they did provide enough cover for Kreoss to close with the ironclad, and pound it into scrap metal.

Despite the defeat I enjoyed the game, and am looking forward to many more games of warmachine. Tomorrow is my training game with Owen before the battlebox tournament, which takes place on the following 2 wednesdays.

Finally back to this

It's been a while.
In the time between this post and the last I have ventured into TAGCon with my uruk-hai.

My best result in that was a draw (due to time) trying to break into Helm's Deep. Despite all the losses I still walked out with two prizes from the LoTR tournament - Sportsmanship, and (big surprise to me) Painting.

Both prizes were $20 gift certificates from Comics Compulsion in Christchurch, and I spent them recently, expanding my Menoth army by a Reckoner, a Devout, and Amon Ad-Raza.

Just over a week ago I started a new terrain project, which can be applied to most of my heroic 28mm armies. From the LoTR magazines I am building Osgiliath, with a mix of ruins and intact buildings. The way I see this, it serves as - Osgiliath for LoTR and the War of the Ring (if I decide to get into that), - 40K as a ruined Imperial City, - Fantasy as a ruined city (if I continue my VC army and fantasy becomes a game at TAG, and finally - Necromunda, as part of my own campaign setting (Cutters Canyon)

Project Menoth begins

I've finally made a start on Project Menoth. Two of the miniatures in my collection have been sprayed, and the first two coats of paint have been applied. I decided to start with the robes of each figure, and work my way out from there.
The first figure is one of the knights exemplar, as a test piece. I have been making notes of the colours used as i go, so I can reproduce the same scheme on the rest of the unit. This is a far cry from my usual painting approach, as I tend to paint an entire unit without a test piece first. Of course most of what I have painted has been for my two 40K armies, and have been fairly straight forward. The scheme for my tyranids was in the codex, and blood angels? Who are we kidding, red with black trim.
Anyway, the exemplar has had his robes painted with Sanguine base, followed by Sanguine highlight. Although its not very clear in the picture, I will build a couple more layers of highlighting on the robes before i am satisfied, as I want this army to be some of my best work.
The cleanser also started with the robes, using Menoth white base and highlight.
The highlight hasn't come out as crisp as I would like, and I will apply another coat of it before adding a final highlight with Tamiya gloss white.
I've also been assembling the minis slowly, so the rest of the two units, along with my jacks, solos, and casters will all be ready to paint after these two figures are finished.
Although I haven't done anything to the bases yet, I've decided to put a layer of sand on each, and then build them up a little with some (unused) kitty litter, and maybe some slab like pieces of plasticard, to simulate a desolate wasteland.
I've also got another couple of figures on the way. A light warjack, able to be configured as two variations. Another Crusader. A paladin of the Order of the Wall. And finally, Kreoss and Severius again.