Darek Page - "These are not the jacks you're looking for."

Hi, it's Darek page again,

It's August now, and those those who remembered my last post, I said i was looking for a certain electrical powered Jack for this month that would fit nicely into my tier... well let's see as it approaches, marching over the foot hills it's shadow looming through the mists...
the thundering of it's feet booming... only to notice that the sounds are more echoed with the good acoustics of the valley and cold weather. The jack is somewhat on the opposite side of the spectrum to what I had in mind...

Entering the battlefield arrives the Squire

I can only imagine Nemo's disappointment as he looks up at me and asks "so where's the thunderhead?" i sorrowfully shake my head at my miniature looking over at the squire and try to explain "sorry the store didn't have one in stock...apparently the older the models are the harder it is for them to get"
"but it's the Thunderhead, it's flagship of the Cygnarian warjacks... a pioneer in technology!" Nemo exclaims
"the store owner said he's going to look into getting one next month" i comprimise in defence.
Nemo scowls "...we shall see..."
"here's hoping... wait why am i talking to a miniature?"

Ahem, anyways; so i have a Squire... a jack so small it doesn't even register as a warjack, it's a construct solo. And then my fellow gamer aki started telling me some interesting stories about the Squire... how that a lot of Cygnar players wouldn't use tier list purely because of the Squire and went on to say more combos with the Squire than i know exist with Khardor.

In truth I knew the Squire was valuable, i intended to take it right from the start. it's just a shame that it's arrival was out shadowed by the absence of another warjack. but at least the Squire wasn't alone... i also have a minimum squad of Storm guard. overall this puts my budget about dead even.

PAINTING:
I did the paint scheme the same way with the squire as with everything else, and pretty much left it at that... but the unit of storm guard proved somewhat tricky. since only their halberds were the only items on them that appeared to be producing any electricity, i thought it seemed a little excessive for something so small to be providing a big enough spark it could reach down the shaft of the weapon and cascade around the armor let alone even the base... so i decided for them I'd keep it simple and keep the electrical fizz around the top half of the shaft and the blades... simple morrow's left foot. it was actually quite tricky to paint a bolt of lightning streak around a pole, i had to be aware where the lightning was flowing at all times on all sides of the pole arm, and the blades weren't much easier. it actually was the most difficult thing i had to paint in this whole exercise... neither the less it's done now and i rather like how i got to paint my main (and only) infantry force in the colors properly represented... I decided since the captain has the big gun, I'd use my standard method of painting and give him the electrical overload color scheme as he should, and i believe it came up quite nicely.
overall the unit look great. as an afterthought i considered i could make the lightning all flow from each members base into the leaders base depicting their pole arms charging up the gun, but truth is i severely doubt it's very practical when it comes to moving the models around.

now for game play.
we as a group decided to run a round Robbin rather than a all in match. now i was waiting for bingas to post the first game we did on here, but I've yet to see anything of it and i guess if we really want any order of posts he can edit his "waiting in the shadows" post and slot it nicely into there... so buckle up readers and listen to my tales of battle with nemo.

game one: vs Skarre.
so picture the scene... your in a desert, I'm not joking, there is even a oasis. complete with triangular sand dunes. one person could say we were in the bloodstone marches... I think it was more likely we were in the lands of zu somewhere just off the coast on a large sandy island. after all there were palm trees. the sand dunes were slightly problematic for balancing models so we decided we'd make them rough terrain but with the feature if you stop on it, you slide down the slope to you reached the bottom, even if that mean you could just get over the top and onto the other side giving you extra distance movement. The Oasis water shifted from being deep and shallow water between games pending on players involved.
So here's the thing about aki's army... it's full of ghostly things. and the only thing magical is whatever my caster throws at them. so my storm callers had a hard time trying to achieve much... but they did their job and distracting the infantry by making them chase after them, one even took out a warwitch in a forest so at least they counted for something.
the harrower made it's way into the deep water where it resided and i couldn't get at it. two ripjaws moving around the otherside lurking in the forest too. i got the charge with my infantry and kept them occupied and i charged my firefly in too to do some damage, this lured the harrower
my turn, squire gave Nemo a focus point, Nemo charges Skarre and unleashes 8 focus of melee into her with his overcharged weapon... and by the skin of his teeth, succeeds. skarre falls, nemo wins... a shallow victory, but a victory nevertheless.

2nd game: vs fiona the black owned by... well he doesn't have a pp forum name so i'll use his starcraft name for now, "Theman"

so anyways, after fighting one pirate army... i now face yet another pirate army. same scenary too.
now i'm not sure if "theman" is going to actually post on this blog so i don't know how much info i'll give since it's not my story to share... let's leave it for now and say i lost. there were some issues i had which were on my behalf  but primarily i give credit where credit is due and say he had a really nice method for doing alot of damage.
i still got nemo into combat with the caster and did a significant amount of damage... but not enough to get me the win i was after before nemo was brought down.

3rd game: vs The High Executioner Servath Reznik owned by a player i believe is going by the pp name of "seracain" (maybe mistaken on that) again same issue i don't know how much i should be giving away since it's not my force but frankly it's the 3rd month now and they still haven't posted any thing so patience will only extend so far. anyways, this scenario played out alot better in my favor but only marginally... i managed to lock down his jacks and prevent them from doing anything... i also managed to defeat his caster which was interesting to watch because he used his feat to stop me allocating focus to my jack which messed up my feat, so i activated the firefly and moved him out of the enemy control range then i used my feat to give him the focus, soak it up onto nemo again+squire then go in with 11 focus and unleash the storm of power from nemo's weapon. another win by the skin of a single dice roll.


Overall summary:
the unit of storm guard are not so much handy in combat as they are handy for dying, and i mean that seriously... they are a wall of units which are designed to block the attacks which is exactly why I'm using them, beyond that they don't achieve alot of use. at least not yet anyway... I'm not sure if I'll look into getting another unit or even additional troopers in the months to come

As for the Squire, It lived up to it's reputation all right, it won me the game twice... not only that but i think it survived every game but i could be mistaken on that one with "theman". I suspect it won't be the last time that the squire presence will be the deciding factor in the games to come either. however much of a shadow the thunderhead casts over the squire... it's still earned it's place in my force.


In the month ahead, I would like some more jacks for my caster, another firefly for sure and something with a arc node would be appreciated too. As for the elusive thunder head... well we will just have to wait and see if its going to show up... I hope so, but if you think about it we're already reaching the halfway point of this tale of gamers.

Time is starting to run out.

See you next month,
Darek page

Bingas - Waiting in shadows (July, August)

More like waiting on shadows. Due to a number of unfortunate events over the past month and a half, I didnt use my July budget, so it's rolled over to august.

Now what I wanted was unavailable, so I have placed an order so I should have two months worth of minis in one hit.

Now what's on order? I decided that I need some jacks for my army, and the best way to do what is the battlegroup box. So that's July's $50, that will give me a pair of deathrippers, a defiler and a slayer. (also a replacement pDenegrah for the one I have that's missing a head)

And for August I ordered myself a nightmare. This model was the reason that I choose this theme force, so it was going to be apart of the shopping list eventually.

I will update when they come in.

I also reordered my warcaster as she still hasn't come in.

Aki - Do you fear Death? (June, July)

G'day my name is Aki. Normally I play with either my Cygnar, Trollbloods or Farrow against my friends, but for the TOG I'm, trying out a new faction: Cryx. Before settling with Cryx I was torn between several tiers from a few factions. In the end, the undead pirates drew me closer to the darkness with the prospect of bodies to raise and skeletal armies to build. (That and I wanted an excuse to build a ship as a display board!)

 I've taken inspiration from the Pirates of the Caribbean films for the conversion work and painting. To accomplish specific models have been appropriately converted and/or painted. For the basic revenants I want a bluish-green tinge to represent Captain Barbossa's skeleton crew, and for Rengrave's Ghost Raiders a more  brownish-green to represent Davy Jone and his crew.

However, because I've been slack I'll be covering both previous months before making purchases for August. All the pictures are WIP.

JUNE Purchases: Satyxis Raider Captain, Epic Skarre and Blackbane's Ghost Raiders.
JULY Purchases: Revenant Cannon Crew, Captain Rengrave and the Ripjaw plastic boxed set.

First up is Captain Blackbane. To represent a-less-sea-creature Davy Jones I removed his previous hat and sculpted a new one. Since Davy Jones and his crew can move inbetween ships like ghosts, I converted the unit to look as though they're coming out of barrels, crates and decks of the ship. Unfortunately, due to other commitments, progress has been rather slow. :(

Next up is Blackbane's crew. Although incomplete, I'm having a lot of fun with these guys.

These are the only two models that are fully completed.

With Rengrave I wanted to give him a monkey instead of parrot, so a friend gave me the WHFB Empire Power Monkey from the Handgunners boxed set. I disliked Rengrave's previous hat and made a new one. The wire sticking out is the armature for a feather I'll be sculpting. The reason why Pic 1 has the monkey and Pics 2 and 3 don't is because I needed to repose Rengrave's sword arm in order to attatch the primate to the base.

Satyxis Raider Captain. She was the first model I converted and started to paint for this project. Can you guess where the conversion work is?

And finally the Ripjaws. I was stressing over what colours to paint them and in the end I decided to go with a metallic look. The claws and jaws I'll paint in GW Rotting Flesh paint before washing both models with Thraka Green and Gryphonne Sepia. To get an idea of the effect, see the two completed Ghost Raiders with fiery heads for the skin and metal effects.

I am using the E Skarre model to represent P Skarre and I'll convert her appropriately. However, she may be the last model be finished since I plan to rebuild her base as the base for the ship bowsprit. (And I can't convert her until the ship is built!)

Also, the Revenant Cannon Crew has yet to be assembled. (Like I said, slack.)

That's my two month-in-one post. I've only played one game so far and the undead pirates got their ghostly arses busted. The dead shall have their revenge! Mwaaahahahaaarrr!