My first game was against an Imperial Guard ‘parking lot’ style army.

Notable events:

• I blew up a Chimera with a Ravager on my first turn in Dawn of War. Didn’t kill any dudes, but it was cool.
• My personal objective I selected was Assassination. His most expensive unit was a Leman Russ Plasma deal. I spent the whole game shooting at it with Dark Lances and only destroyed it on my last turn.

I did, in fact, lose. The score was 6-1.

Second game was against Tyranids. It had a Hive Tyrant, several units of Genestealers, a Tervigon, some Gaunts and a few Mycetic Spores. Fully painted, too, and it looked great!

Notable events:

• Genestealers outflank into my Warriors and destroy them. Of course, they were camping on the objective I selected for my Personal Objective.
• I tried taking back the objective with Wyches, but they eventually fell, too.
• Assaulting a Hive Tyrant with Incubi, an Archon and a Haemonculous is not that great an idea.

Lose! I think the score was 7-0 this time.

Final game was against Necrons. Two units of Warriors, Nightbringer, a Necron Lord, a Tomb Spider, small unit of Paraiahs, a Monolith and a unit of Destoryers. He had a setup where he could light up his Monolith and the Tomb Spider (which was a FW Tomb Stalker). Very cool.

Notable events:

• Assaulting Nightbringer is nigh impossible with Dark Eldar. Assaulting anything close by the Nightbringer is also impossible.
• I should have paid attention to the Phase-Out rule. I went after all the wrong things.
• My blob of Warriors ended up holding my Personal Objective in the end, preventing me from getting another total loss.

Yep…lost again. 6-1, I believe.

After all that, you’d think I’d give up on the Dark Eldar. Nope. Here are some Wyches I finished this week:

I’m working on some Incubi now. They should be finished really soon!

The formula for the armor is:

• Basecoat P3 Sanguine Base
• Edge highlight P3 Sanguine Highlight
• Edge highlight GW Warlock Purple
• Wash in recesses GW Leviathan Purple

I’ll probably do a set of 5 Wyches next to get a skin tone going.

We arrived Thursday night and picked up our pre-registered badges. those who were among the first 1,000 received a random Warmachine plastic battle box in their swag bag. I think the best thing I got in mine was the painting magazines, which it seemed everyone got.

Friday we walked around the convention area to check out all the craziness. The 40K hall was packed and I saw a number of pretty awesome army displays. I went to check out the Forgeworld booth and discovered a line nearly out of the door. Later, we went to the Warhammer Fantasy area. They also had a number of display boards that clearly took a lot of work and talent to create. eventually, Dominic and I checked in at the Privateer Press area for the Eternal War (Iron Arena?) event. We played one game against each other wherein the Circle emerged victorious. Dominic then played against a Cygnar player from Texas (I believe) where he eventually lost. The original plan was to return from dinner and play more games, but we ended up just hanging out watching MenothJohn (from Lost Hemisphere Radio) go up against a Farrow army. Sometime during that day we also went to the Games Workshop Battle Bunker. Honestly, I was not that impressed. There were tons of tables they use for their events, but the store area was just like any other LGS that carries their products.

Saturday morning was the Warmachine Team Tournament. Matt “Cheaty” Beaty was my teammate with his Retribution army lead by ravyn. We checked in around 8:15am and began round 1 near 9:30am. Game #1 was against a Circle (eKaya)/Cryx (Mortenebra) team. The only eventful thing (other than both our casters getting killed) was Matt’s Mage Hunter Assassin coming from waaaaay downtown to assassinate Mortenebra. Oh, and my mistake in having the Feral attack the now inert Deathjack. Game #2 was aganst a Cygnar (Seige)/Cryx (Deneghra) team. Matt and I came close to winning by control points, but I ended up putting Kaya out too far, which got her killed. Ravyn got done in a bit later right before the turn we probably would have gotten our 3rd control point. Game #3 was against a Skorne combo army (Xerxes and Mordikaar). This one was lost from the word “go”. I don’t think we had enough anti-infantry to deal with all of them, especially resurrecting Eviscerators and Cetrati with Defender’s Ward. I did manage to get my Shadowhorn behind his lines to throw Molik Karn back toward their deployment zone to land on the Shaman. Game #4 was against a Khador (eVlad)/Cryx (Terminus) team. There was nothing eventful here other than the Mage Hunter Assassin surviving a number of attacks from Bane Thralls. All the games were good games and our opponents were all really very cool. THough I do have to say the number of Cryx players seemed a bit high. I know a Cryx army won the Hardcore tournament the day previous. Our friends on another team won their first two, but lost the last ones. Our team’s army was at least considered for best painted, but was beaten out by a Skorne/Legion army that did look pretty good. We eventually made it over to the bits trading area where Dominic was looking for some Trollblood models for a new army and teamup with me for Gen Con. Almost immediately he found someone and he purchased some models from him. The rest of the night was pretty much discussions about the Trollblood team for Gen Con.

Sunday we all got packed up and made one last visit to the different areas of the convention. I was finally able to hit the Forgeworld booth and pick up a con-only Chaos Dwarf for a friend in Canada. We passed through the Warmachine area and watched a game being played in the Championships (I believe); eDoomshaper vs. eThagrosh. The game ended up going to time and both sides had taken heavy losses. Before leaving, we saw something I don’t think I’ve ever seen: a guy on the verge of tears apparently as a result of something that happened in one of his games. One of the Privateer Press employees was trying to calm him down and Jen, the woman who runs the Press Ganger group walked away saying she’d never seen it before either. It was all very surreal.

The ride back was uneventful other than Dominic and I talking about doing the Trollblood teamup for Gen Con. Nothing concrete was decided for my side, but he’s set on a beast-heavy list with eDoomshaper.

Anyway, here are a few pics I took. More can be found in the Gallery.

I’m still thinking on a paint scheme for them. I’m thinking that it’ll be a dark purple with some Warlock Purple-ish edge highlights. Similar to the Severed Kabal shown on GW’s site, only a lot darker.

I’ll probably pick up another unit of Warriors and an Archon model at least in the next few days.

• Played Ogres a few times in WHFB. Got beaten enough that I figured it must not be the army for me, so I sold/traded them for High Elves.
• Played a game or three of WHFB with the High Elves at one of the Circle City Circuit tournaments and felt pretty good about how they play, though I did get trounced most of the time.
• Won a painting contest at Circle City Circuit #2 with a Ultraforge Treewoman. There were only two other entries, though.
• Painted a High Elf Battle Standard Bearer to very high standard for the Scibor Painting Contest. I also entered Pandora, Candy and my Lord of the Feast. Pandora was chosen for the final voting.
• Assembled and painted more than 50 points of Hordes Circle Orboros for my eKaya army.
• Played in a Warmachine invitational tournament where I won game 1 and lost the other two rounds.  No worries, though. I got to hang out with some good friends and talk about painting with some folks.
• Started playing Warhammer 40,000 again since Games To Die For is running a 40K league starting at 600 points. I bought into Dark Eldar. Played my first three games and ended up winning just one against Imperial Guard.
• Bought a Wacom Intuos4 Medium tablet and Painter 11 with which I’ve done some practice drawings. They didn’t turn out as well as I hoped.
• I’m currently taking a Life Drawing class at Ivy Tech to try and improve my drawing skills.
• Sold/traded a lot of the smaller miniatures games and CCGs in lieu of those I can find opponents (and models) for. I’m still working on dropping Infinity and Malifaux. I also unloaded a bunch of roleplaying books to clean up stuff I know I’ll likely never use. I’m keeping Pulp City and MERCS for now.

I guess that’s not all that much for almost 8 months.

In the near future I hope to post some pictures of the models I’ve painted and maybe some digital/traditional art I have done.

I’ve been mostly working on getting a 50-point army for Khador in Mark II Warmachine painted, just so I can play a fully-painted army for once! I also picked up Wood Elves to more or less replace my Ogres as my Warhammer Fantasy army of choice. I even sculpted my own Treeman! This weekend I picked up the Blood Angels codex for Warhammer 40K to replace the Catachan army I started a few months ago. Something about painting a ton of those models really bothered me.

As for the Gallery, I have added the Warmachine models I’ve painted so far. Check them out here.

When I arrived, they were going through some D&D stuff, but Nick was still all about throwing down versus the Nids. We decided on 1,500 points and lists were started!

I had decided, based on previous games that Carnifexes are out and Tervigons were in. I also decided to try out the Ymgarl Genestealers and my brand new converted Tyranid Prime with boneswords.

Nick won deployment, so I started laying down my whole army. It seems that Nick and his friends go back and forth deploying units from the Force Organization Chart (FOC) in a certain order. Either way was fine by me. I went through and explained what everything was and showed him the units in Reserves. He had asked which units had Fleet as well and I told him.

Nick’s list included several Crisis Battle Suits (?) with all manner of weaponry, a special character named O’Shova (sp), a couple of tanks, a unit of Stealth Suits and a few units of Fire Warriors. Below is my list:

• Tyranid Prime (Boneswords, Adrenal Glands)
• Genestealers x8 (Broodlord, Adrenal Glands)
• Ymgarl Genestealers x8
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Tervigon (Catalyst, Adrenal Glands)
• Termagants x10
• Hormagaunts x20 (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs)
• Raveners x3
• Zoanthrope x2
• Spore Mines x4
• Spore Mines x5

As usual, I don’t remember every detail, so I’ll try to describe how the game went in a summary. I did remember to deep strike the Spore Mines prior to deployment, which worked as I hoped to put him on the defensive in his deployment strategy. My first turn, the Spore mines scattered all over the place, the Tervigon generated 11 Termagants, the Hormagaunts moved, ran and Assaulted his Stealth suits, who’d deployed near the middle of the table and subsequently wiped them out, a shot from a Venom Cannon took out a Crisis suit in the back of his deployment zone and caused panic. In his first turn, he was able to kill off some Termagants and a few other small things and he Assaulted the Hormagants with his character and a few Crisis suits. The Hormagaunts ended up getting wiped out in return. Later on, the Genestealers arrived via outflank right near his Devilfish, which had already disembarked, The Raveners showed up right in front of his character and Crisis Suits, and the Ymgarls hung out in dormancy for the moment and the Tervigon created 13 Termagants. The Genestealers junked the Devilfish since it was working toward killing off the Zoanthropes and no other Assaults happened. His character group shot at and assaulted the Raveners and the Ravener was able to do some damage back. Lots of Genestealers died to the guns of some Fire Warriors and some Crisis Suits nearby. The following turn the Ymgarls arrived and killed off a Crisis suit in Assault, O’Shova survived a barrage of weapons shot at him, the Genestealers went up against the Crisis Suits and killed maybe one of them.

I think it was about here we had to call the game. I think in the end, the Tyranids might have pulled out a win if we’d been able to continue. Nick had yet to play against the new Nids and now says he might have built a different army using more Fire Warriors. I agree that would have changed the game a lot! In either case, the game was a blast and I look forward to playing Nick again.

His list:

• Leman Russ (Battle Cannon, Heavy Bolter ?)
• Leman Russ (Battle Cannon, Heavy Bolter ?)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Melta, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Veteran squad (3x Plasmagun, sergeant w/Bolt Pistol, Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Stormtroopers (Chimera w/Multilaser and Heavy Bolter)
• Valkyrie (Lascannon)

My list:

• Hive Tyrant (Hive Commander, Paroxysm, Leech Essence, Armored Shell, Stranglethorn Cannon, Scything Talons, Tyrant Guard x1)
• Zoanthropes x2
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Termagants x20
• Hormagaunts x20 (Adrenal Glands, Toxin Sacs)
• Genestealers x8 (Broodlord)
• Raveners x3 (Scything Talons)
• Spore Mine Cluster x4
• Spore Mine Cluster x4

The mission was simply to kill everything!

I put the Hormagaunts in Reserve to utilize the Hive Tyrant’s Hive Commander ability to outflank. He put his Stormtrooper unit in Reserve as well. This time I remembered to Deep Strike my Spore Mines properly and each ended up pretty close to where I wanted them.

JR won the roll for first turn and deployed along his back line. I deployed everything except the Raveners and aforementioned Hormagaunts. He opened with having the Valkyrie perform its Scout move and open fire into my Genestealers, who Infiltrated into some area terrain. He then fired at them using his Chimera weapons available to him. In the end of the shooting phase, all of the Genestealers had died and the Broodlord had suffered a wound. I also lost a number of Termagants and maybe a Warrior. My first turn, several Spore Mines left the table (probably because I was scattering them 2D6″ instead of just D6″) and two ended up near some tanks. Turns out their explosion could do nothing against them. The Zoanthropes fired at the Valkyrie, which brought it down (turns out I used Psychic shooting attacks wrong by only doing the Psychic test).

Second turn, he wiped out more Termagants and both units of Tyranid Warriors due to Instant Death. The Broodlord survived the deluge. The Broodlord attempted to assault a Chimera, but failed to do much to it. Hormagaunts arrived and assaulted a different Chimera, doing very little as well. Zoanthropes took some shots at a Leman Russ, which passed its cover saves.

Third turn, the cimera in combat with the Broodlord attempted a tank shock on him. The contents of the tank unloaded from it and filled the Broodlord full of melta death. Shots were fired at the Hive Tyrant, killing the Guard and wounding the Tyrant. Hormagaunts still failed to do any real damage to the Chimera, except maybe a Weapon Destroyed. Carnifex moved closer and killed off the empty Chimera and the Zoanthropes wasted a Leman Russ. Hive Tyrant assaulted the Vets in the open, but not before killing a few with Leech Essence and reducing their WS and BS to 1 with Paroxysm (I’m not 100% sure that was legal). Three Vets survived and ran where the Tyrant couldn’t catch them. Hormagaunts finally destroyed the Chimera and since the guys inside had no way to get out with the Hormagaunts blocking the one access point, so they died as well. Raveners arrived to stand in the open.

I think we called it very soon after that and I might have my sequence all messed up, but that’s the gist of how it went down.

In the end, we totaled the kill points and each of us had 4. I got two Chimeras with troops, a Leman Russ and the Valkyrie. He got the Termagants, two units of Warriors and the Genestealers with Broodlord.

A very fun game and it was cool seeing JR again for the first time since probably Gen Con 2009.

It was also awesome getting a bunch of Khador stuff from him on the cheap!

Fred and I, after a week or two of delay, were finally able to play a decent-sized game of Warhammer 40,000. This would be my third game with the Tyranids for me and probably Fred’s third game with his Necrons.

His army:

• Necron Lord (Staff of Light, Resurrection Orb, Veil of Darkness)
• Necron Destroyer Lord (Staff of Light, Resurrection Orb, Destroyer body)
• Necron Warriors x16
• Necron Warriors x16
• Necron Warriors x15
• Necron Destroyers x3
• Scarab Swarms x5
• Scarab Swarms x5

My list:

• Hive Tyrant (Hive Commander, Paroxysm, Life Leech, Scything Talons, Stranglethorn Cannon)
• Tyrant Guard
• Termagants x20
• Hormagaunts x20
• Raveners x3
• Genestealers x8 (Broodlord)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Venom Cannon)
• Tyranid Warriors x3 (Deathspitters, Barbed Strangler)
• Spore Mines x4
• Ripper Swarms x4
• Zoanthropes x2

The mission, which I don’t remember the name of, gave us 4 objectives to control and the deployment was table quarters.

After deployment, I then realized I made a mistake with my Spore Mines. I completely forgot to Deep Strike them. I decided I’d just deploy them into an unoccupied table quarter to be fair. Fred took the first turn of the game, which mostly consisted of him moving his army forward. He moved one of his Warrior units close to the center most objective placed in some ruins. I think he might have got off a few shots into the Termagants. My first turn consisted of trying to take out some things with the template weapons I have. I was able to knock over a couple of Destroyers, which was better than I expected. The Termagants were able to shoot at and assault a unit of Scarab Swarms, killing all but one of them.

Second turn, when rolling for his Destroyers, two of them were removed. Fred then solidified his position closer to the center objective and one other objective farthest away from my army. Some shots were fired, but not much died. He moved his unit of Scarab swarms close to the Carnifex and a Spore mine to try and blow it up on my own guys. I think he might have inflicted a wound this way. The same Scarabs assaulted the Carnifex, who killed 3 swarm bases due to Instant Death. I felt kinda bad since Fred did not realize how that rule worked. One of my Zoanthropes took a wound from shooting. The termagants freed themselves from the final Scarab Swarm. In my second turn, I rolled for reserves and outflanked with the Hormagaunts (thanks to the Hive Tyrant) and genestealers; the Raveners were still stuck out in limbo. When rolling for which table edge, they both came in on the same edge as my table quarter, farthest from the action. Again I tried displacing the Warriors from the center objective by firing “pie plates” into them. This knocked over a few, but failed to outright kill any of them. The Ripper Swarms assaulted the Destroyer Lord and failed to do much. The Carnifex finished off the Scarab Swarms left to him.

In Fred’s third turn, he managed to wipe out the Termagants and a couple of Tyranid Warriors through shooting. He assaulted the Zoanthropes with his Necron Lord on foot and destroyed them. Actually, now I’m losing track what happened when. I know that same Lord also later assaulted the lone Tyranid Warrior instead of the Hive tyrant, who I was hoping he’d assault. In either case, the Carnifex assaulted a unit of Warriors, destroying a few and the Tyranid Warriors moved close enough to the objective to contest it. Hormagaunts and Genestealers moved close enough to another objective to claim it outright. The Raveners arrived to stand around looking mean and the Tyrant assaulted the Necron Lord on foot only to whiff on all his attacks.

We had to call the game there since the store was closing. Fred, of course, won the game due to his ability to claim and hold objectives with the nigh unkillable Warriors. Man, those are tough cookies!!

Per the usual, an awesome game and one I’d like to have a rematch on!

I’m not going to try to remember the lists we used or specific things that happened in the game since it was really a “demo” of sorts. I will, however, say that the Tyranids decimated the Imperial Guard via mostly shooting attacks.

It was a fun game, if a bit frustrating when trying to remember all the rules. I’m hoping he got a good feel for them and that we’ll play again soon!