You build it, I'll play it.

Last week I saw an entertaining post on the trollblood forums, where a player asked the community to construct a list that he would then play - the aim of the game as far as I could see, was to have a sort of "chinese-whispers" approach to list building, people taking turns to suggest model/units, but with the consideration that there must be at least be some reasoned argument for the inclusion of the unit. This should result in a list that most would not regularly consider, and hopefully expose some interesting interactions and unit combos.

The rules for the full process can be read here.

The final list that was decided upon was:
Rasheth +5
- Aradus Sentinel - 8
- Aradus Sentinel - 8
Zaadesh - 3
- Raider - 5
- Scarab pack - 5
Ancestral Guardian - 3
Extoller Soulward - 2
Max Unit of Immortals w/UA - 10
Max Unit of Croak Raiders - 8
Max Paingiver Beast Handlers - 3

So the first part of this process was a success - now to test this bad boy out.

I wanted to try and set up a game that wouldn't be too one-sided. Naturally, I line up a game last night with a Cryx player :| At least my opponent Peter was trying things on with Deneghra3, and things didn't feel too stacked against me, but I at least put the hammer down and demanded we not play a killbox scenario. It seemed obvious to me that all Denny had to do in that case was run up the guts of my army at full camp, and wait patiently till she could just jab ol tubbo with her pig-sticker.

Peter brought: Denny3 with two Helldivers, Skarlock, Darryl, two Soultrappers, Wrongeye and Snapjaw, Bloodwitches with UA, Nyss Hunters, Soulhunters and the Withershadow.

We draw Incursion, and winning the roll, I elect to go first and we setup thusly^^^. Swamp Shamblers are standing in for the Scarab pack, and the Keltarii leader is subbing in for the Extoller Advocate.
I have vague notions that the Croaks would be a decent counter to the Soulhunters on that flag, being able to ignore the water feature, and contest the flag while pelting them with darts. I had an idea of putting the Scarab pack into the Nyss, and have everything else in the middle working its way up. Tubby will spend most of the time next to the tower assessing the local property values.

First turn I run the scarabs thinking I needed to get the distance up the board. Things shuffle forward, and Rasheth puts Carnivore onto the Immortals. Much moaning about Croaks.

Cryx does things - Helldivers disappear and stay gone till the end of the game. Denny feats and wanders up - Blood witches run up and mini-feat. Peter face-palms at this point realising that he wanted to advance up his Soultrapper first for what is about to follow; the Nyss advance and pop three of the scarabs who were loitering around the flag. I can't really feel all that sorry for him though, having stuffed up myself, thinking it was ok to run the Scarabs up that far. Other stuff durdles around, one Soulhunter runs to engage the Croaks.

Turn 2 Immortals kick things off, one managing to get reach on the Soul Trapper in the forest, and three others dropping Blood witches. Raider and Zaadesh drop Snipe onto the bugs. Left Sentinel gets the nod from the Extoller, and drops his juices over 6 Nyss including Cylena. Much joy. The Croaks get cheeky and try to drop an oil onto Denny, and miss two shots to set her on fire seeing she had not been Gravewinded yet. Pete's butt muscles relax. Three other croaks try to gang up on the one Soulhunter, and scratch him for some damage, other Croaks move up and spray darts around to no effect. The right Sentinel ineffectually drops a shot into the Withershadow because ahh, reasons? Should have tried a direct shot into Darryl instead. Rasheth himself launches his juices at the Blood Hag, arcing a Breath of Corruption through a Croak. Last Scarab squats behind the flag, and Digs in with its animus, because I'm a lousy cheater and forgot he could only be forced for 1 being the last remaining bug of the pack.

Cryx turn 2 and stuff dies. Last Scarab bites the dust to Denny's melee prowess, so that's 5 points that did sweet fuck all. A Withershdow also lined up the Extoller UA and Dark-fired his proxy'ed butt, so no chance of seeing that guy in action either. Various Immortals get shanked after Denny puts Mortality on them, but one remains in contesting range of the flag.

On the right side, the Soulhunters see a nice line of croaks in the water, and after getting Ghost Walk, they charge in wiping out most of the unit. This is a placement lesson I seem reluctant to learn. The unit breaks, reminding me of the discussion as to whether to take an Extoller vs the Taskmaster. Le sigh. Wrongeye and Snapjaw advance forward, looking cool.

Skorne turn 3, and Vengeance moves allow the four remaining Immortals to cricket-bat  Nyss and Blood Witches. Carnivore is paying off. They subsequently finish off the Nyss, with some help from the charging Ancestral Guardian who also goes B2B with the flag. The Sentinels try to get the drop on Darryl, able to arcing fire over Denny, and de-horse him (DARRRRYYYYLLLLLL). Everything else pisses about, solitary Croak fails to rally, so Rasheth burns him as an arc-node to spite him. Tubbo also feats, and Beast Handlers run interference because reasons.

CPs: Skorne -1, Cryx - 0

Soulhunters merk the beast handlers converting them into tasty-tasty souls. Wrongeye takes a point of damage to B2B the flag. Denny 3 flaps over to the Ancestral Guardian, taking ineffectual free-strikes, and stabs fools. She Mortalities the right Sentinel and Snapjaw has a go at om-noming him. Under the feat and the Swarm animus, the Sentinel is barely tickled. Withershadow, Darryl and others put the kaibosh on the rest of the Immortals.

CPs: Skorne - 1, Cryx - 1

We chat for a bit about my options and it seems assassination is my best option. I start with Rasheth as my turn rides on him getting Bloodmark off, so him hugs the building more to block LOS from Denny and arcs through Zaadesh to stick the spell. From here, its about positioning and stopping push-back from poltergheist: The raider runs so he can stay in melee with Denny, and provide a pocket for Zaadesh to get jammed into. He flies in and scratches Denny for about 6 odd damage. An enraged Sentinel goes in next and drops her down to 5 remaining boxes. I get tunnel-vision at this point and send in the second Sentinel to try and get that last bit of damage onto her. She instead misses her attack and gets bumped back. Better play here would have been to focus his attack(s) onto Admonia, to get Unbinding off the table.

CPs: Skorne - 1, Cryx - 2

I missed out on taking a photo of Cryx turn 4, but the pic above changed little from his turn to mine. Pete tries to setup a Helldiver to fling into Rasheth, and Denny continues jabbing fools, taking a soul from the empty Zaadesh. He checks with me to see what Bloodmark does and takes note that I can kill Denny with the transferred damage, before activating the Withershadow and using them to cast Darkfires to blast apart my last remaining Beast Handler and Extoller. I sit very quietly. He removes the one Sentinel I can transfer to, before moving round and noticing the red Bloodmark token. Bugger. He switches gear, briefly considering if he can nickel-and-dime Rasheth to death without hitting the magical 5 damage I needed to kill him with, but instead decides to jam me up and run the Helldiver to instead block the Sentinel. He ends his turn going to 3 CPs, and come my turn I try to jam my Sentinel with my wild Raider, but I fail to gauge the distances properly. When the ensuing free-strikes take out its mind. my missed attack pushes me out of CC range, and Cryx go to 5 CPs .

Overall, a fun game with a new list produced by the forum community. The list had some decent legs and tools, and even with the inclusion of Zaadesh, it felt like it had options. Got to say the Immortal + Carnivore combo was great. I haven't played that unit all that often, so it was nice to have them accomplish things on the board and get involved. Sentinels did what they do, and even my problems with target-prioritisation, I still felt I got decent work out of them with Rasheth.

Pity about the Extoller UA. And the Scarabs. And my misplaying of the Croaks. And losing. At least I can also point at Pete's lovely bunching of the Nyss, and him forgetting to Unbind Bloodmark. I wasn't totally alone in with my brain-farts.

All good journeymans come to an end.

50th POST

Also the end of the Shed Journeyman League wound up. I had put off having the sixth and final session due to several other complicating factors, but it was time to stick a fork in this baby, and bring this process to a close. In the end only 6 people turned up, and we all snuck a game in each.

Nikola returned with his Menoth after playing a grueling tournament in Christchurch over the weekend. He also donated a box of Karax he received at the event (excellent trolling Adam O, well played), and after passing the box around like a hot potato, Ray ended up with a new unit to use... with something I don't know what to do with those guys.

Nikola's Menoth are looking pretty pimpin overall.

And Nik's opponent was Peter D and his Cryx. I'm sure there's a caption to be made here but instead we can just marvel at Denny's gait and lack of mount. Ahur-durr something something sexual innuendo.

I was confused over what happened in the end, but I think a highlight at one point was Kroess3 killing two jacks with a single forceblow, smashing them into one another.

I piloted Cyphon into Isaac's pLylyth. New caster, and new tools to learn. I really focused on getting use out of Breathstealer to try keep the Warspears out of the fight for the first couple of turns. I also need to get a grasp on getting more efficient with my attacks - that feat was utter over kill for the most part, meaning I allocated far more focus than I needed to kill a Scythean. I have this problem with Thexus too, where I underestimate what the Monstrosities or even an Adrenal-Flooded Drudge can do.

I also need to not run my Agitators and the leaders of my Drudge units into charge ranges of stuff. Ahurrr

But yeah, lesson in under-estimating Drudges: Lylyth one-shotted by a flooded Drudge. Kii-yah.

Peter Hunter also brought out Denny3 and pushed it into Ray's Skorne. There seemed to be some immense flubbing of dice and assassination attempts going back and forth; here we have Morghul sitting on 1 box desperately flailing at Denny after she tried to clean his clock, herself sitting on 3 boxes after an attempt on her own life. That's also the edge of the board there in Killbox scenario, so I think they decided to let scenario drop. Ray's dice were nuts, and two fully boosted attacks actually saw him take Denny out on 2 camp. Hilarious stuff.

So final points!

Huh. I don't know how accurate all these hobby points are; David Wilson remains at the top due to painting up a whole bundle of Wolds to use with Bradigus. However I am unsure if he ended up using them in his games during the league, meaning they shouldn't count towards HPs. Similarly, Peter H turned up with a whole bundle of painted jacks, but I am unsure if he used them all as well. Nikola also sold him down the river, admitting that he had helped Peter paint a bunch of those jacks. Merde!!!

But who gives a shit really; it was all in good fun and a chance to motivate people to paint and explore new armies from the ground up. Dave and Peter occupy the top based off a good effort in accumulating hobby points, and Dan L remains top dog for smashing face with Butcher multiple times. Good job fellas. I hope everyone enjoyed their time on our little Monday excursions. I certainly relished the opportunity to get into Cephalyx, and I'm excited to continue exploring them. I have a few more boxes of stuff to fill things out to a 50pt level, and I'll be amped to try them out in events.

Rallypoint

This is going to be quitea long post to collect the entire event here in one summary, so I hope people don't find it too much of a chore to read. If it is, feedback would actually be appreciated, and I can cater post length or content for readers.

Apologies to those I played, I'm racking my brains to remember the names of everyone, and the names of teams, so I'm likely to get some wrong. I should really have taken a photos of the score sheets at the end.

The final list I decided on was:

Pirate Queen Skarre - WJ: +6
- Skarlock Thrall
- Helldiver - PC: 3
- Cankerworm - PC: 5

Satyxis Raider Captain - PC: 2
Bane Lord Tartarus - PC: 4
Saxon Orrik - PC: 2

Satyxis Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 8
- Satyxis Raider Sea Witch - Satyxis Raider Sea Witch 2
Satyxis Blood Witches - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
- Satyxis Blood Hag - Satyxis Blood Hag 2
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls - Necrosurgeon & 3 Grunts: 2
Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls - Necrosurgeon & 3 Grunts: 2
Bane Knights - Leader & 9 Grunts: 10
Mechanithralls - Leader & 9 Grunts: 5
- Skarlock Commander - PC: 1

The main reasoning behind this list, as discussed in the last post, was to have something that I could push into armour skews, beast and jack heavy lists, multi-wound infantry, colossals, that kind of bag.

ROUND 1: we faced a team that featured Rahn, Haley3 and Severius1; so no armour skews to roflstomp. We let them choose the first match because we figured that we'd be able to arrange the last two choices to guarantee at least two favourable games. In the end, they put their Menoth player into Greg's pHaley, and I elected to push Luke into Rahn, wanting to avoid any janky assassnations.

My opponent Mike didn't seem to have too much experience playing against Skarre, so I was able to bump and grind to an assassination on Haley. Luke also won his game, and Greg closed things out on the Severius player when he apparently accidentally started to kill him with blasts and electro leaps.

ROUND DOS: was against Dan, the organiser's Bye-team that consisted of himself and one other player, meaning one of us had to sit out. With Dan running a Lucant list, and his buddy sporting the new Legion twins, I elected Greg cheerlead us from the bench as I pushed into Lucant, and Luke into Legion. I ended my game on a scenario win in Incursion even despite my best efforts to fail, trying to out attrition Lucant on his feat turn.  Luke seemed to also comfortably push Runes into the Legion force, allowing us to advance.

Ol' Dan Shaky Hands. The vibrating maestro

ROUND TROIS: saw us play into another team of Hamilton locals - I recall Luke got to face Jason running an eXerxis list with gun bugs and drakes, whereas I got put into Brendon running eLylyth. Greg rounded things off going into Casey's Rask list, so I believe we all got the match ups we wanted In my mind, I didn't particularly want to go into Lylyth, but I spent the first couple of turns squatting in my own deployment zone so it wasn't like it mattered. My Satyxis Raiders tied up his Ravagores, knocking them down and wiping out their spirits. Brendon had a good go at untying himself in the bind I put him in, but accidentally kill boxed himself to keep Lylyth out of engagement, and vaped one of his knocked-down Ravagores by accident, trying to shake off the raiders. From there, Skarre decided to make her presence known by tenderly moving up to score and close the game for me. Luke was having some trouble playing into Jason, with a stray shot nabbing Janissa early into the game. In particular, a cheeky feralgheist was doing the rounds, jumping in and out of Troll beasts, and while Luke was up on attrition, he was starting to get low on the clock. In the end Xerxis himself was sent in to do some work, and was subsequently squashed. Over on Greg's table, things weren't shaping out that well; Casey had done a great job of grinding Greg's list down, and won in scenario with seconds to spare after Greg ran out of things to contest with.

I neglected to take many more photos at this point because I am scum.

But we got the wins we needed to win the round, and advanced to face on o the other 3-and-oh teams, Finding Nemo; a team consisting of Mitch Cowan, Nikola Jaksic and Joshua Warne, all sporting one of the Nemos. Their approach to the event and the way things played out for them was both inspiring and hilarious; and also the reason why I've rambled so much about practice and preparation. Here you have three guys playing the same faction with a caster that is hardly considered worthy in competitive circles, and with little-to-no practice; just a quick and rough idea of how to make Nemos 1, 2, and 3 work with particular lists, and with very little practice beforehand. And then you have us, Team Ninja, trying to pick a combination of the most broke-ass casters out there, drawing up little charts detailing match ups, guessing and second guessing what people will bring.

ROUND QUAD: Anyways, we elected to choose the first matchup, and I pushed Nikola's Nemo2 into Luke's Trolls.  I had played against his list prior to the event, and he was able to tear my force to shreds with ease. I figured I wanted to make sure we had something to take out his Stormwall, as that was the only colossal in the three lists. I ended up facing Mitch with Nemo1, and got a sharp lesson in getting my shit handed to me again; the opening rounds he was able to drop heaps of my supporting pieces. I was feeling pretty crap about my chances at that point, but switched gears to push hard towards his objective and feat defensively. This created this high-armour lump parked right up on Nemo's doorstep, and it may have won me the game too... if I had the foresight to clear one cheeky Risen that was stopping me from scoring on his flag. From there, Mitch switched things up himself, protecting Nemo and bleeding my army till I had nothing left. In the end he had to race to remove a contesting Cankerworm, but was able to do this and score enough CPs to win. This game was a real nail-biter, and easily my favourite game of the weekend with how huge the swings were in terms of trying to get one up on one another. Love your work Mitch.

Luke finished up Nikola with little trouble, but Josh being the more experienced Cygnar player ground out Greg. We finished the first day with a score of 3-1, feeling rather battered after that last round. Nemo = OP.

ROUND CINQ: Rolling onto Sunday, we paired against a fair group of Wellingtonians hell bent on achieving the fastest assassinations possible; Mike Snook with Mortenebra, Chris Ford with Lylyth2, and someone else with Rahn. Luke was the first to drop, getting assassinated by an Overrun Nightmare on the 2nd round. Blimey. I ground Chris down, with the same tactic I employed above, of Skarre runs away while the rest of her army runs forward. Worked a treat a second time. That meant the round rested on Greg's lofty shoulders; we figured he'd be ok time with a greater number of shots going into the Ret army, and Arcane Vortex serving to protect her from any nasty Rahn surprises. The actual match ended up being a real grind, with the Ret army edging up on attrition. In the closing minutes however, with everyone watching, the Ret player pushed Rahn out into the open to sling spells and clear the zones. Greg sauntered Haley up for an assassination run, banking on two boosted Arcane Bolts to finish Rahn. Casually, he decided to roll the hard 11 needed to smack Rahn with her hand cannon. The following Arcane Bolt also landed and that was game, with a scant few minutes to spare. My anus was puckered to hell I tells you.

It was interesting to see teams members pounce onto both the players of that game to figure out what the heck was going on through their minds in those closing moments.

ROOND 6: We were matched against familiar faces from my lil gaming Shed, Robert Power, Chas Roberts, and Dan Lister, making up Team: Why So Serious? It was meant to be Why So Issyria, but nah lol. Winning the roll off, we elected to pitch Greg into Chas who was running Scaverous, thinking that no matter where the next two match ups went, we'd be able to squeak out another win. Rob was running Issyria and Dan Lylyth2 and upon reflection this was a hard choice for them to make; Rob could potentially go into Runes and Dan go into me, to give themselves a couple of yellow match-ups. It wasn't a choice guaranteed to produce a win, but I feel it would have been the best one to wrangle two wins if Chas was going to go down to pHaley. Instead, Rob elected to face me giving him a safe game. He proceeded to tear my army to shreds, with Halberdiers and two squads of Invictors reaching out and touching me in all the wrong places, and a Hyperion that wouldn't quit producing crit-consumes. There were a couple of tense moments, particularly as I overheard Dan exclaiming about some quad-sixes he rolled on damage, but ultimately Luke closed his game. Greg did as well, sniping Scaverous with Eiryss and assassinating the Cryxian head-librarian. At this point, I threw caution to the wind, feated with Skarre, and sent her into he Hyperion to finish it off for lols. After cutting herself down to 2 boxes to finish off the Colossal, Rob finished her off with an 8 man CRA to her face. RIP Skarre.

Which brings us to our seventh and FINAL ROUND. Revenge match v Finding Nemo. We got stung once, twice shy. How will we possibly manage to beat all 3 Nemos? This is bullshit. Well, we used our team feat at this point to choose the match ups: we again plopped Luke into Nikola (much groaning) to deal to that pesky Stormwall, and I chose to face Josh this time after the butt-whuppin' Mitch gave me. Josh's list was far more friendly to me; Thunderhead and Dynamo with that battle engine swanning around. Very little massed, long ranged infantry clearing. Josh went first in our game, and with the scenario being Destruction I pushed hard at the bottom of two to go up 3 CPs. Josh's response was to try to kill Skarre sitting around ARM24. And he got damned close to it too - after the dust had settled Skarre was left on 1 box, after which Josh conceded. Unraveling my tightened butt for the second time that day I checked on the other two and finally remembered to snag a photo

Greg's looking a little too casual. Mitch pretty much had things well in hand, grinding down Greg's force, and chasing Haley around the board with his Blazers. Things were pretty hairy over on Nikola and Luke's table, where Nikola was going for an assassination on Doomy with various shots and angles and whatnot, but it was pretty much a foregone conclusion; Mulg hit Nemo, and Team Ninja won Rallypoint. Nikola seemed miffed at having to play into Runes twice over the weekend, and to be honest I was being way too wary of his list. Not knowing what the other lists could do, his Stormwall was the focus of my match-up decisions. In discussion with him afterwards, he stated we should have tried to arrange the match-ups by aiming to put me into Josh. This was a green match for me that I didn't recognise, and Luke could comfortably go into any of the other two lists. Just goes to show how much I can get railroaded into a particular way of thinking and completely miss other opportunities and options. We got there in the end though, and I'd like to think it wasn't purely through luck or the strength of our lists/casters.

Its still hilarious to consider the amount of close calls we encountered, and times where we got thoroughly out-played, whilst running arguably some of the strongest warcasters/locks in the game. But my thoughts on this will have to wait. I've been siting on this post for almost two weeks as it is :)

Prep, practice and rallypoint

Token statement about time, commitments, psychological anguish (my own).

But I've been itching to write about a local teams event I attended recently; teams were 3 people, one list per person, with a simple match up process of roll-off get's to decide whether to choose the first, or last two match-ups. Me and the two guys I played with won the event, but before I discuss that I'm keen to first write about the preparation process leading up to Rallypoint (if you can call an extended facebook chat and 2 games prep?).

With me, Luke, and Greg, Team Ninja formed once again, a name forged through a process I wasn't a part of so I don't know how to explain it, but what ever; ninjas are well known for their team work or something.

Preparing for Rallypoint became an exercise between the three of us, deciding what was the strongest combination of casters we could bring from our available collections, and balance out our weaknesses in preparation for what we expected to face. I went with my Cryx and pSkarre because fair and balanced. Luke has had much practice running Runes of War, so we determined that as our 'armour brick'. Greg had recently acquired a bunch of Cygnar, so he was lumped with the burden of pHaley as our Cryx drop. With casters in mind, we built rough lists (so much variety to consider for RoW) to begin practice with and see if we actually were able to counter each others' weaknesses. I had a rough go at making a grid for ourselves in terms of covering opposing factions;

Yerp, crude as flip. This was all largely theory as well; my own experience with Skarre was playing her in a couple of tournaments when I was green as all heck a couple of years ago, and Greg had only just started with Cygnar. I can safely say we were banking  hard on the obvious strengths of those warcasters to carry us through our games if we got the match-up process right. Looking at the chart above, we assumed that we would have a hard time into Ret, particularly in relation to Rayvn's tier, but again; this was all theory and conjecture.  It made a bit of sense to try and practice our lists. Right? Right.

First, me and Greg played into one another essentially to test the theory that pHaley > Cryx, photographing the game on a turn by turn basis and let Luke know how we did and expose ourselves to sideline ridicule. After my second turn I had the pace to push up through Temporal Barrier. I had most of my force occupying the mid-zone, and was feeling good that I'd have sufficient resources to attrition Greg out of the game.

Then Cygnar things happened:

Fuck.

Ok, hypothesis holds strong. pHaley can remove single wound infantry pretty trivially. This was also a lesson for myself of when to time Skarre's feat; I've been stung before feating defensively, but against a list like this, it definitely would have been the right call.

Unfortunately for Greg, there was also a lesson to be learnt about standing to close to the Helldiver's burrow token:

In the end I had the feat and Dark Guidance up, and BARELY enough resources to clear the jamming Forgeguard to allow the Helldiver to walk into Haley. Greg tried to block the real estate around Haley, but those burrow rules are hard to plan around. Apart from those complications, it otherwise felt like Greg's list fit into a nice slot in our team, and I got to experience the joy of pushing a single wound infantry melee hoard into what felt like a 2 hour dick punch.

In a couple of days, I had a follow up match against Luke's Trolls, to test the theory behind my list: Skarre plus dudes > Armour. And that's essentially how the game went, being able to trade small models for larger pieces, and Luke not having sufficient infantry removal to clear everyone out. Things did get hairy though, when the Earthborn trampled and goaded over to where I thought Skarre was safe behind her wall

He whiffed his attacks, but it was certainly a lesson on needing to keep her safe. Otherwise I felt my list was humming; it was skewed the way I wanted it to sit, and was able to be trotted out against the armour heavy lists I anticipated to see at Rallypoint the following weekend.

Journeymayngs 4: too much journeymayngs

The forth part of the shed journeyman had a smaller turnout, but BIG leaps in terms of points changes.

Here's where we at:

Only a few games were played, so most of the movement in rankings was the result of hobby points as people pushed to get their casters and battleboxes done. Luke Harvey also has been bullying people with Kaelyssa, showing what she's capable of at low points levels. Peter Hunter traded Denny for Goresahde3, using him with some Bane Cav to try out a few things. He also spent a good deal of time complaining about being forced to use his battlebox 'jacks. No sympathy for Cryx players Pete.

You can tell he's super upset about it

Nikola was bandying Anson Durst, trying out Menoth's newest warcaster; after his games Nikola has officially declared Menoth = shit. Except for Kreoss3. So if anyone's in the market for buying some Menoth?

Dave Wilson made the biggest gains, smashing out an army of Wold Watchers to accompany Bradigus. He'll have a chance to use them in the next phase of the Journeyman to as we move to 35 points.

See how smug he is about it here:

Journeydudes: the Dudening (part 3)

Week three of the Shed Journeyman League; With the rise to the 25pt level everyone's armies are starting to fill out,  Only 4 of our 5 tables were being used, making for a relatively quieter night than previous nights, but games started to take a noticeably longer amount of time with moremodels to activate. This was handled well by our newer players, and it was awesome and enlightening watching people encounter the different rules interactions that come into play, particularly seeing Jordan's discovery of how awesome Gatormen Posse are in Skorne.

Also, as more and more order of activation interactions are becoming available, I'm noticing just how the shift to 25 changes the game for my Cephalyx. Now having two full units of drudges available to play alongside two Agitators and my Monstrosities. I am over the moon. Ecstatic. I can't shut up about those guys. They are the absolute business, so many options and tricks. I'm positively gushing. PP, you've outdone yourselves. Some of the interactions came as surprises, like the interaction between the Subduer and Wrecker. Previously it seemed two Wreckers were an obviously better battlegroup, but over several games now  the Subduer has proven itself a fantastic piece to set up for assassinations or knocking down high-def pieces. I feel this is just the beginning of exploring the depth of these models.

Just a few snaps, this time of people smiling as I was annoyed at the blandness of my previous photos. The players were potentially straining under the pressure to appear joyful, and some even put in the effort to lift their thumbs in an upward direction.

And here are our standings after week 3:

Dan creeps ahead, nabbing a couple of hobby points for painting Aiyana and Holt, and racking up a total of 4 games over the night, more than anyone else. His rampage with Butcher was finally stalled however, when faced against my Cephalyx. Things are still pretty tight however, and heaps of people had painting done but elected to hold out before counting them for hobby points till they had done more work. The Shed lads are a disciplined bunch.

We meet again on the 7th of September, 25 points again, but this time you are all welcome to change your 'casters/'locks to try someone different. Remember, you got to hold on to your original battlegroup. One further change I am making will be to introduce the steam roller scenarios for our games. The recommended scenarios from the journeyman pack have been interesting to play, but I feel they have now outlived their novelty. The steamroller pack provides far more relevant and dynamic scenarios for us to learn with. 

AUGUST 2015 WM/H ERRATA: IN DEPTH ANALYSIS, CRITIQUE AND FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

It's frikkin sweet eh

Painting update x2

Where I've got up to with my Cephalyx- Almost all 15pts done, just some touching up and arcs to do for the Drudges. The push to 25pts will probably see the unit grow to max size, with another Agitator and a max unit of Mind Benders. All the troops.

Journeymandibles: Rnd 2

Week 2 of our journeyman league, 15 points now, more beasts, more jacks, more solos, more units oh my! - Action shots!

Nothing more awe inspiring than a pic of people bent over tables rolling dice. Such grace. Much majesty. Wow.

It was a pretty packed Monday night, 5 games running simultaneously, with Matt Bissel and his trolls on the sidelines ready to drop in and out. There were a few new drop-ins including someone no one was actually expecting to show up. Word of the Shitty Shed League gets around.

Anyway, more pics of people's games:

And the results!

I pushed to the top of the pack having painted the full battle box and a solo. Dan powered through all his games, steamrolling everyone with Butcher again. Dave W decided to make the switch to circle, so unfortunately his points have reset. Plenty of time to climb the ladder though.

Next time we meet on the 24th, and shift our lists up to the 25pt mark. Joy!

Painting update

A quick post to track my painting progress with my Cephalyx for the Journeyman League - Ralph is done, and as of today the Subduer is close to being finished and Exulon is slowly coming together, where I'm toying with a few ideas of how to approach his colour scheme. To bring the list to 15pts I have one min unit of Mind Slaver and Drudges based and washed, alongside an Agitator.

Really enjoying painting these guys, I love the aesthetic of the Cephalyx models and getting more of these done over the course of the Journeyman.

eZaal; malaise du jour

oooooOOOOOOooooooo

I feel hesitant to write something about eZaal, as so much has already been written, with the various online Skorne communities collectively shitting the bed over the reveal of his rules. People got their first glimpse at what Skorne's next warlock can do, and it seemed there was a lot of expectation and anticipation invested in what he could do. I largely stayed out of the conversation as I felt I had nothing alternative to say to what was already being said, and would only add to a process I will illustrate with gifs, as is the way and laws of blogging

First people be like

Then other people be like

and the first people are all

But since the weekend, we are already getting more stories and instances of people actually trying on eZaal and giving him a go, a more accurate picture is beginning to emerge of how he and his abilities can synergise with the stable of Skorne units and beasts. One decent thread was started by one of the Enter the Crucible guys after he used Zaal as one of his lists for the Iron Gauntlet and Masters at Gencon, and to me he brings a nice, concise and easily understood breakdown of his experiences. This brought clarity to a warlock that otherwise looks quite muddled on paper, where people would find problems with using him faster than actually considering what solutions he may have.

For myself, I write this post because I feel I have a way to approach my opinion on Zaal in a variety of domains, as discussing the merit of the warlock himself is dependent on so many factors, its easy to get bogged down in various overlapping arguments. So first, the personal domain, or what my opinion of him is; he intrigues me and  he's disappointed me, he excites me and he makes me want to persist with him. The latter is likely due to being a masochist, I perform modestly with Skorne at best, yet still like the pointy eared pricks. There are also some dialectics at work here: opposing emotional states that meant I did not have a clear idea of what I thought of him, beyond that I want to try him out and see just what would happen with his suite of abilities. I have a genuine curiosity and anticipation of how Transference, Annihilation and Reclaim work alongside the rest of the Skorne faction.

This leads into what I consider the next domain, stepping back and observing where Zaal sits in context of his faction, and in comparison of the other factions in the game. A lot of talk has focused on him not bringing anything different to the Skorne faction, not having the ability to change Skorne's "bad" match ups. Some are making direct comparisons with pZaal, and I think this is a mistake as different versions of a warlock ultimately play a very distinct game from one another. Sure there are themes and similarities, but they only add character and don't seem to define the caster's use on the table.  On the flipside of that, several were looking for something quite different in eZaal, a "control" caster as seen in other factions. But I wonder now if having a caster that has a decisive impact on the game is even part of what Skorne does? It seems to me now that Skorne may have similarities with Trollbloods in that the main strength is in the army itself, with the warlock playing a more subtle support role then just direct buffing and debuffing. So developing a stronger appreciation of the units, beasts and solos may be required of myself, to see just what pocket Zaal sits in comparison with them. There are some great combat solos in Skorne that would benefit from Transference, so that was one of my starting points.

Stepping back again and looking at wargaming as a domain, and where WM/H fits within that context, there were some who were questioning Privateer Press' ability and integrity, in writing rules and communicating with the player base. This was something I snorted at; it really seemed myopic to think that of a company when you can make a direct comparison to the crap that was going on with Age of Sigmar and Games Workshop. Then again, that system and the fans of that company may be able to find some enjoyment and snort in turn at the detractors of AoS. I find it easy to be outside of that process looking in and have contempt for an "inferior" system, but am I also blind to any inherent problems within the WM/H way of doing things? Am I just defending PP out of having invested so much of myself into this game? It's pretty much stating the obvious to say it's all relative then, but I want to be cautious that to boil this down to a discussion of relativity, can shut down further argument. At this stage, I feel PP are an incredibly responsive company, that have a particular design approach in mind that they seem to follow despite the requests of their customers, and I think they are well within their rights to do so. There are creating a fantastic product, with interesting and evocative pieces that generate a lot of discussion - sometimes too much as is probably the case with this post.

What this all boils down to is me having an opinion of Zaal based upon three main factors or domains. There are most certainly more "domains", and further deconstruction may shape my opinion more, but I'd rather put that aside for now because all this writing is making my brain ache.

Also, AoS is terrible. Asshole of Suck more like.

Journeymayngs: Rnd 1

Report of Day 1 of the Official SHED Journeyman League, a mild Monday evening disrupted by backs cracking as they bend over tables, wrists creaking as dice are rolled, and the characteristic shuffle of plastic against skin as models are moved. Ah yesss, the smell of 8 men packed into a barely insulated space. The stuff dreams and shattered hopes are made of. And much learnings.

After a last minute recruitment drive, Luke Harvey managed to net two more fresh and naive players in the form of Ray and Jordan. Welcome to the Shed boys.

welcum

My first game was played against Ray who had turned up an hour early. +1 for enthusiasm Ray. He was running the basic Skorne BBox, and we managed to hustle two games as other people arrived and started their own games. Overall, we had 4 games running simultaneously, with most sneaking in 3 games each.

Morghul gets Wrecked

da fuk?

Ret vs CoC 

Morghul's revenge

Deathripper being mates with Kreoss

My own experience was one of feeling rather refreshed by the games. Approaching the game again with a stripped down number of options and exploring a new faction,meant the freedom to try out different moves and tricks, and order of activations. I hope the others felt the same, and that when we meet again in a couple of week's time we get the same chances, except this time with 15pts worth of stuff. An Agitator is definitely the first thing to go into the list.

As for results, here's where everyone is currently ranked based off my recording of the collected game and hobby points.

So Ray leads the pack, to no small part due to having his BBox painted. Jordan was the other person to have done some painting and follows up in third, and Dan sits at 2nd having somehow snuck in 4 games, and winning them all with an Iron-Fleshed pButcher.

You can tell he's stoked about the whole thing.

Or at least, Nikola seemed to be

Oh dear lord...

See you in 2 weeks guys!