Curseflingers

I've been playing a lot of Shadespire lately with my Curseflingers and joined the local league.  I had the odd game with Sepulchral Guard and Thorns of the Briar Queen but the drunken bards suit my play style best.  They can play aggressively or defensively depending on the situation and don't rely on 'score objective' cards.  They are also quite forgiving when I've had a few beers and have forgotten what turn it is.  Plus I'm playing in character.

Paddy (left) is often as drunk as me on league night

I've also been playing a lot of Mechanicus which is a stupendous game and the soundtrack is so good I downloaded it to my phone.  This is the best 40k game I've played since Space Marine and GW must be doing something right when you immediately want to start an Admech army after a play session.

Even the artbook that comes with Mechanicus is fucking awesome

Additionally,  I had my first expedition into the Blackstone Fortress yesterday with Rory and Alistair which was pretty sweet.  By the end of the second combat encounter my Space Pope was almost dead and just about managed to crawl into the Maglev using destiny dice.  UR-025 was in shut down mode and Pious had 2 grievous wounds.  Alistair was playing the chicken ninja who had a chipped fingernail and a few split ends but sensibly managed to collect most of the clues.   I'm looking forward to further expeditions.

Alistair is a bit of a Tau fanboy. Note the rather brilliant Kroot Sphere conversion in this 40k doubles game next to my Razorback

I even managed a game of Killteam which was actually a disappointment after all the hype.  Rory just ran across the board and off the other side with his Nids.  And won.  I killed a few but it was a bit underwhelming and Rory said he would rather just play a 500pt game of 40k next time.  So that was that.

ZERG RUSH! (type this into a Google search engine for a nice easter egg)

All of which means that I've not been doing much hobby-wise.  I did manage to finish the Curseflingers and I'm pretty pleased with them.  I thought Anal Stormsinger's red hair turned out well and I'm proud of the vomit dribbling over the side of Seamus the Disarmed's base.  In modeling terms, I think it breaks the 4th wall and is very Deadpool.

Up-Chucking Monkeys

Drunken Sigmarines are ready to do battle!  To be honest I've played more games with these guys in the last 2 weeks than I have 40k in the last 2 months.  I'm just as shit at Nightvault as I am at 40k mind, but its a hell of a fun game and the beatings don't last as long.  It doesn't help that our local group plays in the pub.  Actually that does help.  It allows me to combine two of my favourite things.

I couldn't find tankards big enough to equip them with so had to get creative.  Rob Singers offered to give me a load of useful bits to help me out but I didn't turn up to our coffee date to collect them.  Sorry, Rob but I'm true to my word (in some respects) and have named them after you: Stormsinger's Curseflingers. From left to right: Eilís Morrígan, Anal Stormsinger and Seamus the Disarmed.

 Stormsinger is carrying a lidded tankard made out of Dwarf Hammerers helmets and weapons.   Eilís has a goblet made out of a hammer head and Seamus' stein is a lantern off the back of a Mortis Engine.  I had to do some excruciating green/grey stuffing in order to repose them, especially Seamus.  I think I'll only get to see how well I did when they are fully painted.

The idea is that they are a troupe of drunken bards and destroy their foes with curses so vile that they can break your will, induce catatonia or make your ears melt. The bards become intoxicated instead of inspired and if all else fails, they throw up on you.

Anyway, this is a sure sign that I am still falling to Chaos. Any self respecting devotee of the Stormcast Eternals should find this intolerable.  Is there a plausible way you can depict drunken Sigmarines in the lore? I don't know why I feel the need to pervert decent models like this but it probably reveals a deep seated corruption in my soul.

Shadespire revisited

I decided to re-paint my 'pink' Sepulchral Guard.  I wanted to make them more purple.  So this time I added a blue wash to their cloaks.  That was 10 minutes well spent.  Holy shit, I think I'm beginning to get the hang of this 'basic colour theory' thing!  It only took me 8 years!

Before

I played a few tutorial games of Nightvault with Alistair down at Freebooters and dammit, I enjoyed them despite myself.  I usually sigh wearily when Games Workshop introduce more byzantine and esoteric rules to their games  (yeah, yeah you're a super numerate tactical genius and its all easy but I just want to throw dice and smash things).  However, the magic system is very intuitive and dovetails nicely with the current attack and action game mechanic.  We forgot to play with the red-hex death things so I can't comment on that.  I love the scatter template though, even though it was a bit underwhelming in a purely destructive capacity.

After

Alistair had bought the game, the Gitz and the snazzy Underworlds travel case because he's a complete fanboy.  I got to play the wizard Sigmarines and had heard bad things about them but they were ideal for a starter force.  A fully upgraded Averon Stormsire can sit back and blast shit off the table with lightning bolts.  He's a righteous dude!  You can get glory from casting spells and you become inspired by casting spells.  You can still cast spells even when you are unable to move or attack.  The only trouble was that stuff like Gambits are pretty low probability and only randomly turn up in your deck.  So I don't think I managed to cast any card spells at all during one game.  Which can make Ammis and Rastus a bit boring, but hey, they still hit things very hard with their swords and you can always tweak your deck.  I think they performed decently against the Gitz.  Alistair didn't have time to build himself a proper deck (I was just using the default), Sourtongue's ball and chain attack probably works better against hordes and they are very squishy.  On the other hand, they were much more thematic and their rules seemed more fun.

Then, of course, there are the Sigmarine models.  Good grief it must get terribly hot under all that apparel.  Would you like to wear robes over your robes over your full plate armour?  The wands are a bit fairy like. Rastus has definitely been eating too many pies and looks pregnant.

I'd want to do some hideous conversions with the Stormsire's Cursebreakers.  I was thinking that since my Sigmarines are all Celtic, I could swap out the wands for beer mugs and try to model them all drunk.  I wonder if Ammis would look good with a Witch Elf head?  I've got a few spares.  I could call her "Eilís" (my mother's name).  Maybe give them all red hair and insult Irish people everywhere.

A unique take on the Sigmarines.  It would be an interesting project.  Ahh crap, I think the game has its barbed little hooks in me now.  I'm going to have to buy it, aren't I?  God damn it.

Dark Light

Falling to Chaos is really exciting and has put me in touch with my feminine side. I can go crazy with ideas and the Ruinous Powers always approve! 'Dollhouse' accessories, for example.  Who knew that they could be so interesting?

 I bought a load of LED lights from True2Scale last week.  I was a bit worried that shipping from America would take an absolute age but they arrived in 10 days.  I paid $61 NZD (including shipping) for 7 lights and 2 power sources.  They even included a Lithium battery.  Thats pretty cheap in my book.  I bought a mixture of 5mm 'Mega' lights and 3.2mm 'Chip' lights as well as a AA battery power supply and a Lithium battery power supply.  You can run multiple lights from the same supply.  There's no soldering involved and a house plant could wire them up (red wire to red wire, black to black). I didn't even bother reading the instructions.

I spent a good few hours pulling my knight's head apart and scooping out his brains but I think the results were worth 61 bucks in entertainment value alone.

The 'Mega' lights are bigger and worked best but all the colours seemed to have different intensities with white being the brightest, followed by blue, green, red and then yellow.  I was really pleased with the effect and definitely want to use them in the finished product.  I'm just wondering if I should use more.  Maybe on the gun and/or the engine parts. 

I think the blue is my favourite

I like the red but its not bright enough

Green is pretty cool but I only bought the 'Chip' version of this and would get the larger size if I was going to use it

Cool White is the brightest but doesn't look spooky enough.

Yellow was pretty crap to be honest.

The AA battery holder was just a tiny bit too big to fit inside the Knight torso.  I could clip the edges down and maybe force it in but I'll just use the Lithium power supply instead.

This is the most fun I've had building models in years. The Imperium of the Corpse God was holding me back with its STC Luddite mentality. I only want to watch the galaxy burn.  Where is the harm in that?

Falling to Chaos

Time to take stock of my swelling tide of grey plastic.  There's quite a few other things I want to buy: Nightvault, Spiteclaw's Swarm, The Eyes of the Nine, Anacharis Scoria etc. etc. but I really need to do something with all the crap I've already bought. 

I split a box of Renegade with someone at work (I got the shitty Imp. knight but all of the scenery and he got the Warden upgrade arms. Fair trade.)  Together with my Kill Team and Forgebane sets I realised that I have most of an Ad Mech army.

So I'm not going to buy anything else until I've at least put it together.  Given that I want to convert a large part of it, this is going to take some time.  The one exception to this ban is Blackstone Fortress.  If GW release that game this year then I will drop everything and open my wallet wider than the Cicatrix Maledictum.

I wanted to start small so I built one Skitarii Ranger and became bored immediately.  I skipped the rest of the army and moved straight on to the knight.   Unfortunately I didn't like the pose at all so I started messing about with increasingly heretical ideas.  This particular cult of the Omnissiah are obviously the ones who built the Mad Cat for the Red Scorpions.  Little did the Astartes know when they commissioned this project from their local forgeworld was that it was deeply mired in heresy.  The Madcat was just a proof of concept for the hellforged abominations that they wished to create.  Its way past time I fell to Chaos.

Fields of Blood - Day 2

++Game 4++  Serendipity

The clocks went forward overnight in NZ on Sunday and I woke up late.  I was halfway down Brooklyn Hill before I remembered that I had forgotten my display board for the Beauty Pageant finals.  I had to go back and retrieve it and ended up 10 minutes late for my first game of the day.  I had no time to get a coffee which was a huge blow to both morale and mental faculties.  I also badly needed the toilet.  I couldn't possibly get any more flustered so I just relaxed and went with it (not enough to let go of my bowels, but you know what I mean).  Upon arrival at the hall, the TO informed me that I had drawn a bye and didn't have to play.  Blessed be the RNG Gods!  I quickly grabbed caffeine, relieved myself and spent the next 2 hours wandering around, chatting and taking pictures.  With no opponent to play, I scored a default win. Bliss.  Since I have no pictures of my own game I've included a selection of other people's:

Aidan Corlett vs. Hagen Kerr

Craig Latta vs. Paul Knieriem

Shane Rongonui vs. Simon Smith

Erm... ahh shit I've forgotten

Liam Miskelly vs. Dave Hodgetts

"Shhh! Be vewy qwiet. We're hunting wabbits.." (Craig Stewart vs. Sam Whitt)

Adam Thornton vs. ....?

Spot the grumpy T.O.

Rory Taylor vs. Jordan Green

Bob Pearce vs. Ryan Moran

Dave Lewy vs. Sean Sullivan

Marked for death.  John Murrie vs. Cody Parlato

++Game 5++ Cameron Robertson - Blood Angels

This was a kill point mission essentially with extra points for killing vehicles and characters.  Cameron had brought Mephiston, Astorath the Grim, Slamguinius and Slamguinius-lite.  I didn't rate my chances with a single Jump Pack captain of my own so I castled up in the corner of the board and milled about in confusion.

He had named his army the 'Bloody Nose' which was either displaying bravado or a wry sense of humour, I'm not sure which.  I got first turn and blew up a Redemptor.  Good start!  My opponent then launched the most inept assault I have ever seen.  The primarch of the Ninth would have been appalled.  Oh, there was nothing wrong with his tactics.  He had Stratagems and psyker powers which practically guaranteed a devastating charge.

Mephiston and the two Jump Pack captains were set up to come down on me from the heavens with vampiric fury and shut down my shooting.  Astorath and the Death Company would then sweep through my back lines.  The problem was that Cameron's dice had gone on a short holiday to hell and he failed practically every roll in his initial psychic, assault and charge phase.  Captain Precarius took full advantage of the situation to bash Mephiston's head in (God that felt good.  I love Dante but Mephiston gives me the fucking willies).

Then my (completely un-teabagged) heavy artillery opened up like rolling thunder.  The result was slightly underwhelming; they only just managed to take Slamguinius down. But I was ahead on points.  Cameron's second wave of assaulters was successful but I had done enough damage to stay ahead.  If the game had gone a full 6 rounds it might have been a different story but I was saved by the bell and the T.O. called time.

++Game 6++ James Milner - Black Templars and Sisters

I got Celestined!  I've never faced St. Celestine before and the trash talk is true.  She's utterly frustrating to deal with on a heavy terrain board where all first level ruins block line of sight.  This was another progressively scored objective mission, but with only 4 Objective Markers.  I took out the Land Raider and killed Celestine but she just came back to life, popping up in the soft underbelly, stealing my home objective right out from under my nose.

Cpt. Precarius decided to rectify this affront to the Chapter's honour and declared a charge after I opened fire with everything in range and only managed to kill the Geminis.  She butchered him out of hand. Thinking about it now, I must have forgotten that he had the Shield Eternal but those termies in the background would have finished the job next turn anyway.

James's Thunderhammer/Stormshield Terminators were a real thorn in my side, which probably shows how weak my list (and my generalship) is.  I tried a few shenanigans and shot all his scouts off one of the objectives with the Madcat but I was playing it counts-as Stormtalon Gunship. The 'Boots on the Ground' rule prevented me from capturing the objective myself.

I even killed his Landraider but it didn't matter because Celestine was playing merry hell with my back lines, dancing in and out of LOS blocking cover.  The flyer nabbed Linebreaker again (is that illegal now too?) so I salvaged one point from my final game.

In total, I had scored 1 win, 1 bye and 4 losses with a smattering of bonus points.  Not my worst result by any means but this tournament was not just about generalship.  In fact, battle points only counted for 40% of your total score.  I had maxed out both my Painting and Sportsmanship scores.  We were also marked on army composition which accounted for 10% of the total. I bagged 7/10 so effectively won an extra game over someone who scored 0.  All of which meant I came in 19th out of 59.  Not bad at all, considering.  And I got best painted too which, as you can probably guess, I was trying very, very hard to win.

Rogue's gallery.  Click to enlarge:

Alistair Morgan

Craig Latta (Interesting hand positioning!)

Dave Lewy

Hagen Kerr

John Murrie

Jordan Green

Josh Hill

Liam Miskelly

Ryan Pike

Sam Whitt

Glen Burfield/Cody Parlato/Jake Easton won best terrain

Scott Avery

Ryan Moran