Sword<Pen<Brush - Continuing the Legion

Following my last article about having started to paint my Legion of Everblight forces I've managed to get a bunch more models painted up starting with a max unit of Legionnaires including the UA:-

To be honest my technique for metal is pretty easy on this army and these guys are pretty much 80% metal so it wasn't especially hard to plow through them. 

I followed up by completing a full unit of the Spawning Vessel:-

I enjoyed painting this unit but it didn't come together as a unit until the last lick of paint but then I ended up quite happy with how they looked, especially the pot itself. 

I then knocked out the Incubi solos:-

I decided the paint the flesh of the unfortunate hosts in Elf Flesh with a blue wash, highlighting this with more Elf Flesh. I had wanted it to come out a little differently but I also wanted a good contrast with the draconic Incubi skin which it did so I can't complain at the result. 

I then painted my pair of Strider Deathstalkers. With a number of Legion players in my current meta there are a number of very nice Deathstalker conversions. I've never been much good at anything beyond the simplest swaps so I stuck with the usual sculpt:-

I think the bows and cloaks both came out just like I wanted them to and they have the right balance of dark and light for the army. 

I then painted up the Twins, Saeryn and Rhyas:-

I was debating for a while what colours to do the long scarves in but I wanted them to stand out while not clashing and I felt that the red was the best option for them, and again I feel it worked well. 

Finally I managed to squeeze in one more model and it just had to be Epic Absylonia:-

Much like when I first painted the beasts I was a bit taken aback by quite how blue she was by the end, but the model is gorgeous and detailed without being too complicated. 

I'm really enjoying diving into a new army and I'm excited for next year when I can start buying more models. 

-M

Mini Thoughts - Reznik

Continuing my long overlooked Mini Thoughts articles I would like to talk a little bit about the High Executioner of Menoth himself - Servath Reznik. Reznik is probably one of my favourite casters in the fluff, with a lovely model to boot. It's especially nice when all that loveliness is also tied to a brilliant rule set to go with. 

The first and most important thing to know about Reznik is he is a bad-ass, smash mouth take-no-prisoner type caster. From his spell list and abilities to his feat Reznik is designed to kill people, hopefully enemy war-nouns. His stat line is impressive on its own and he can clearly bring the hurt to virtually any opponent, but that can easily be coupled with his spell Engine of Destruction (EoD) to bring him up to ridiculous levels of smashery (MAT 11 P&S 18 anyone?) and at a cost of two there's plenty of focus left after using it to really lay into someone. You can then couple that with his Purgation ability on his sword (giving addition dice on melee attack and damage rolls vs a target with an enemy upkeep on them) and his feat (stripping focus and fury from everyone in his control range) to handily murder anyone in his 12" threat range (under EoD). 

As well as the blunt force aspect of his rules Reznik also has some nice movement shenanigans for his battlegroup to further facilitate his assassination focused play-style. First up he had the ability Witch Hound allowing one model in his battlegroup to advance and make an attack each time a battlegroup model is hit by a spell. As well as that he has Perdition, a damage spell that allows a warjack in the battlegroup to advance if the spell does damage, once per turn. These abilities are circumstantial at best but against the right armies are devastating. 

He also boosts a pair of upkeep buffs, the typical Menite staple of Ignite, giving +2 to melee damage rolls and critical fire and the devastating Iron Agression, hands down one of the best warjack buffs in the game. This spell lets one jack run and charge for free as well as giving an additional die on melee attack rolls, and can crank a great jack into one that makes your opponent cry, especially if it's stuck on a jack like the Avatar. 

Generally Reznik's gameplay is brutally unsubtle, plodding up the field until you can get close enough to deliver Reznik to your opponents face. Even the toughest war-nouns in the game get squished pretty quickly when charged by Reznik under his feat and EoD. Moment of anecdote, just this week I managed to kill Terminus on the turn after his feat using Reznik. Ouch. 

Now I'm a big Reznik fan boy but I'm not blind to his weaknesses. First of which is his low Focus. 6 is fairly average as these things go but with so many battlegroup effects on his card he wants to take a jack heavy list and also wants to be quite greedy with his focus meaning he feels pretty starved most games. Really he wants to be taking a focus efficient battlegroup and a Heirophant. And Wracks. And maybe a Reclaimer. Seriously that 6 does not go as far as you'd really like it to. 

The other issue with Reznik is that his aggressive play style means he's often pretty far up the board, increasing the risk that someone else will get to him for the assassination first. With Def 14 and armour 17 with very little to camp he has a solid defence but not enough to be dependably survivable, especially against an opponent who can boost rolls. 

On top of this in a meta game sense Reznik does have a whole lot of tricks and sneaks but they come with caveats that, to a knowledgable oppenent, are pretty easy to avoid triggering, and he doesn't play to scenario very well. When I'm making a list for the Executioner I generally just make an assassination delivery system for Reznik to reach the other carter with enough jam units in there to keep me from losing on scenario before he can get the killing blow in. 

Overall I think that Reznik is a characterful and (perhaps more importantly) fun caster to play. He's also simple, and doesn't require much finesse to play well, but can really shine in the hands of a canny oppenent who can set up some strong charge lanes to score the win. 

He's definitely a big favourite of mine and hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll put up a battle report using him at 50 points after the tournament I'm playing next week. 

-M

Sword<Pen<Brush - Joining the Legion

Having finished (ish) my Menoth I've started a new project. I put aside my army of crazed, fanatical, God-bothering zealots and have started up a new army of crazed, fanatical Dragon-bothering zealots. Big difference is these zealots also come with their own giant, gribbly, land-shark dragon-monsters. Ooooh pretty. 

That's right I've been seduced by Everblight over to the Legion. Switching out to Hordes to try the other side and getting to play with some models I love and with characters I enjoy. Yay! I started myself off with the Battlebox and a Forsaken, but have since had a big ol' box of models delivered to my door including some legionaries, some Nephalim, and a bunch of solos, along with the Spawning Vessel (recycling is good) and some casters (eVayl, eAbsylonia, Saeryn and Rhyas). 

I have a long standing tradition of painting my armies using alternative paint schemes. I like to take the normal or studio approach to an army and put my own spin on it, usually just shifting the colour scheme slightly (see my cream Menoth) to add a little individuality to my painting. On top of this I like to pick out a palette of colours for the army and stick to those paints on every model in the army to tie them together. If you look through the army books for most miniature games the paints for different models will shift slightly as different times and different painters or techniques show through, but I like to paint my generals with the same colours as my fodder to keep them unified. This was a bit of a problem with Legion for two reasons: 1. There is a big difference between different studio approaches meaning there is no real set way to paint the army (which seems to be a trend in Hordes where the factions are inherently less cohesive). 2. I don't really like the studio paint scheme anyway. Too pale. 3. Also I have a bunch of Citidel paints that I have no intention of swapping out and most of the paint guides are for P3. (I know I said two reasons. Sue me.) 

The other thing I wanted to do was nice bases. For anyone who's seen my Menoth army the models are decent but the bases suck. I'd decided to try out the latest Citidel 'cracked earth' magical paint and to be honest it was a huge flop. It hardly did what I wanted (cool dry cracked desert?) and just ended up looking like I'd slapped some light brown on and said 'good enough'. I was both thoroughly disappointed and also commited to using the stuff on the rest of my models. Not this time. Not for my Legion. Did I mention my friend recently started making gorgeous resin bases? Well he has! Check them out: http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk. I decided to do his Rocky Bases as thematic snowy bases and bought a whole bunch. 

I started on the four Shredders from the Battlebox first, as they were the easiest and most 'expendable' if I didn't like my paint job. Truth be told by the time I finished they were a lot bluer than I had intended but the more I looked at it the happier I was with them. The way I did it was by starting with a base of Fenris Grey, painting up to Ice Blue by way of Shadow Grey, before adding a highlight of Space Wolves Grey (yeah some of these paints are ooold). I was also especially happy with how the models came out on the jaws which were a simple Elf Flesh layer with a red wash which I think contrasted well with the teeth, which again, were very simple with Ushabti Bone leading up to pure white:-

With them completed I turned my attentions to the lovely Forsaken. I initially didn't like this sculpt when I saw it but this is definitely a model that I didn't like on paper but really liked once I had the bare metal in my hands (see prime Feora as another example).  I decided to leave the darker undercoat showing on the membrane of the wings but otherwise it was the same technique;

Next I threw out the big guy - the Carnivean. Sticking to my main approach I kept the paints the same. The chitin armour is much more prominent on this model, and took some more effort to achieve a good effect. I wanted a dark brown for the scales to contrast with the vivid blue of the flesh and so I started with a cover of Rhinox Hide for the base and then gave each scale and plate a highlight on pretty much every edge I could find with Mournfang Brown before touching up the most raised areas with a touch of Khemri Brown:- 

Finally for the battlebox I painted Lylyth, one of my favourite narrative Warlocks. Unlike the bulk of the army Lylyth has equipment and such to paint. For the metal I based the whole area using Chainmail, then washed it heavily with Asurman Blue to almost completely stain the recesses before painting the raised areas with Chainmail again to get a dark/light contrast I was pleased with. The cloak was a base of black painted up to Necron Abyss with a highlight of Regal Blue to finish. The leather straps were painted in the same brown as the beasts' scales while her hair was the same paints as their teeth, and the same blue tinted skin across the army:

I left it at that for a while due to a (temporary) lack of models combined with moving home. I've resolved both issues now, and have started to make some more headway with my Legion by churning out another couple of Nephalim using the above techniques, first a Bolt Thrower and most recently a Soldier:

I'm really enjoying the change of pace and I'm looking forward to getting them on the table once I've built my forces up a bit more next year, but for now they're a fun hobby side project to keep me occupied while I keep playing my Menoth (to whom I fully intend to keep adding). 

Thanks for reading I hope you can take something from my humble paints (though if you only take one thing away it should definitely be that http://solidgroundstudios.co.uk has awesome bases you can buy!). If anyone has any questions or comments feel free to let me know!

-M

Apologies

Hey readers, sorry for the long break, I've just moved house and unfortunately my hobby stuff got knocked back a little bit. But don't worry I'm back in full swing so expect a couple of Sword<Pen<Brush articles about the Legion I've just broken in as well as more battle reps and hopefully a Tourney Tales in a couple of weeks!

Journeyman League - Conclusion

The final week of the Journeyman League might have been last week but this week we had an announcement for the winners and a prize ceremony of sorts. Despite having held either first or second place consistently throughout the league several people came in at the last minute with loads of hobby points to claim the top spots, bumping me down to 5th place. Despite this there was a clear division of almost double the points between my position at 5th and the person in 6th, and there wasn't a huge divide between the top 5. This meant that the EO decided to award the top 5 players with prizes. The player in first got their choice of Journeyman Warcaster/Lesser Warlock and the next four players (including me) got one of the special edition Cephalix Gobber Mind-Drudges. I got mine painted up last night:

The League has been great fun and it's been a great way to meet new people who share a love of your hobby. It's also an interesting way to learn the game and develop your skills. If you aren't part of a regular gaming group and you get a chance to join a Journeyman League, regardless of whether you just picked up a battlebox for the first time or if you're a veteran Tournanent player, I highly recommend it!

The League might be over but the group is now moving on to other things, including a Journeyman League Tournament at the end of next month, and there's talks of a heap of other things to come, and I'll be sure to keep you all posted!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 9

This week was the final game of the Journeyman League, and I tried a variation on the previous week's list attempt. The final week was with no restriction on lists at 35 points. I went for 

eFeora +6

Vanquisher -8

Templar -8

Min Choir -2

Vassal -2

Max TFG with UA -8

Reclaimer -2

Wrack - 1

Min Cleansers -5

Nicia Tear of Vengence -3

Allegiant -2

This list contained a few things (Templar, Reclaimer, Nicia) that I hadn't tried before but wanted to give a shot to. My opponent was one of the many Legion players in the League and one of the better overall players. He fielded eLylyth with a Ravagore, two Nephalim Bolt Throwers, a Naga Nightstalker along with a Deathstalker, Shepherd, two Foresaken, a Succubus and Fyanna the Lash. My opponent was the other member of the league who was painting huge numbers of models in a short time and so he was putting out a few things, like Fyanna, who he was really just trying out, as he'd painted them up. 

I won the roll for first turn and decided I'd go first. We were playing the Incoming scenario from the 2014 Steamroller packet, and I deployed my battlegroup opposite the opposing zone, and my infantry on the other side of the table. My opponent set up his battlegroup opposite my own near his friendly zone, with the Ravagore and Naga more towards my infantry, where they could do the most damage. The Deathstalker set up shop opposite the infantry to ping away at them from the start of the game.

I started with Feora, casting Escort on herself and Ignite on the TFG, using a focus from a wrack. Each of my jacks ran up the field and then received Passage from the choir. The monk and Nicia both ran up into position up the board and then the infantry followed suit, the cleansers being out of range and the TFG vulnerable to the Deathstalker's sniper regardless of shield wall. The Legion turn started with a bolt thrower perforating Nicia, who'd moved up too far, and the Deathstalker missing his shot at the TFG, nullifying his deadly shooting for this turn. The rest of the turn involved the majority of the army running up to get further up the field and the Foresaken starting to fill up on Fury. 

I started my second turn by having both Jacks advance up, with the Templar shifting forwards alongside the Vanquisher, who took two (thanks to the Vassal) shots that set a bolt thrower and the Ravagore on fire thanks to scatters that did little damage. Continuing the scatter joy the cleansers used their combined ranged AOE to hit the Deathstalker, with the blast damage being enough to kill him, ending the sniper threat to the TFG who took advantage and shield walled and Iron Zeal'd and moved solidly into my zone. The Choir sang Passage again and Feora moved up into Escort range with the Vanquisher. 

Lylyth started the turn by feating to give all models an extra shot and Snipe (+4 range to shooting) and proceeded to kill the choir and vassal blocking Feora, hitting Feora a couple of times herself, but with her camped focus and the benefit of Escort she was a high enough ARM that she only took a few boxes of damage. A Bolt Thrower activated and shot at Feora, pushing her back a couple of inches and dealing another couple of boxes of damage. The second Bolt Thrower managed to push her out of range to benefit from the armour buff from escort but rolled poorly for damage, meaning that Feora sat on around 6 boxes. My opponent then activated the Ravagore and moved up, before remembering that Feora was immune to fire and he wouldn't be able to get the job done, which he beat himself up about a bit before shooting at the TFG instead. Between the Ravagore and the Naga (both of whom had been out of range for the feat) they only managed to kill a couple of TFG but did clear a LOS to the Reclaimer who got sniped and killed before he could achieve anything. He then moved up Fyanna the Lash, who advanced into melee with the Templar, doing a pair of Beat Back attacks to move the jack away from his caster, but only doing minor damage to the heavy. 

On my turn I allocated one focus to the Vanquisher and four to the Templar (bonded thanks to eFeora), activating them first. The Vanquisher moved into melee with Fyanna, avoiding blocking up the Templar, and squished her with a boosted attack roll. The Templar, now freed up, activated and charged Lylyth, who'd exposed herself running the assassination last turn. I was able to connect thanks to the speed bump from Escort and the distance from reach, and boosted to hit on the charge attack. I missed. I bought and boosted a second attack with the flail, connecting and doing dice +5 damage to her, taking most of her boxes and setting her on fire (thanks to the bond again), but failing to kill. I knew I was dead next turn so I moved up with Feora but, measuring my control range, I found I was just out to hit with her flamethrower and consigned myself to die, camping her remaining one focus. In a blaze of glory moment I killed a Foresaken and a shepherd with the Allegiant and TFG respectively. 

As soon as the Legion turn started my opponent asked to measure my control range to see if his three burning models were within Feora's caustic presence. All of them were and I realised, to my horror, that I could have feated last turn to gain 3 additional focus, enough to fire step the extra distance to reach Lylyth with the flamethrower and have enough left to boost to hit and for damage! He rolled no significant fire damage on his beasts but rolled 4 damage for Lylyth, forcing her to use her last Fury to transfer, meaning my feat probably would have won me the game, had I been smart enough to think of it at the time! Lylyth moved up and took a couple of shots at Feora, but couldn't quite finish her, requiring a bolt thrower to finish the job, a small consolation! 

In addition to forgetting to feat I realised the next day that I hadn't included my +2 to hit on my charge attack with the Templar from Battle, making me kick myself again for not being focused enough in the game. However to be honest it was only poor dice rolls that had allowed me to survive Lylyth's feat turn at all to get anything done!

Overall this was an educational game that brought home how important it is in this game to (when not playing timed) take your time and consider your options to make the most of your own abilities. While I lost I was close and I can see how I could (perhaps even should) have won the game so I feel like it's helped me improve. Couple that with the fact this game was much more competitive than my last game against this opponent (the first Legion game in Week 3), which he even commented on himself, made me feel I'd come along as a player, which is nice in itself!

Next week we'll be finding out the overall winner and I'll post a summary of my league experience. Stay tuned, wargamers!

-M

Journeyman League - Week 8

So, after the game I wrote about in my last post I managed to squeeze an extra game in against 'Hall of Legends' Jayke Hall and his Talion Charter. The game was very long and gruelling and both of us rolled so poorly that it took a long time to do much of anything after the obligatory turn 2 death of all the sea dogs. The game ended with his Alt caster, Captain Shae, going for the assassination as I was holding the flag and had more models than him. He failed to shoot Feora to death despite knocking her down and she retaliated, taking him down to a few boxes, he then weathered a combined melee charge from 5 TFG and finally died to fire in his own turn. It was a long game and I won't bore you with all the details. 

This week, however I got my regular game in as well, using a new list as the final two weeks would be 35 points. Following the effectiveness of the Bastion/Senechal combo from the tournament, I decided to include them in my list; which ended up looking like this:

eFeora +6

Vanquisher 'Pyre of Idolatry' -8

Dervish -4

Repenter -4

Min Choir -2

Vassal -2

Max Bastions -8

Bastion Senechal -3

Daughters of the Flame -5

Min Clensers -5

It was a different approach that I wanted to try out and I was looking forward to seeing how it would play. I should note that the EO decided that one of the jacks from our starting battlegroup should be named and bonded to that caster, and would have the benefit rolled, and this could be used throughout the event! My Vanquisher earned the title 'Pyre of Idolatory' and rolled the awesome 'dominator' ability netting it +2 to hit and damage rolls while in Feora's control range!

My opponent was the Legion player I'd faced in the first week, who was using a very cool alternate caster - epic Abysylonia! The list was very beast focused, and included a Ravagore, Shredder and Raek from his starter battlegroup augmented by a Carnivean and an Angelius, making for a very intimidating line up. Added to this were a Forsaken and a Shepherd to help with Fury management, and a maximum unit of the Spawning Vessel to throw out even more gribbly monsters. 

The game started, as usual with everything on both sides of the board running up, with the main casualties being three Daughters of the flame to shooting who promptly failed their command check, setting a troubling precedent for their usefulness, and the Clensers threw down a cloud in front of the Carnivean who had been out of range for the AOE which scattered backwards. 

On turn two Abby flew up and feated, turning her Beasts into powerhouses that could charge for free, which they promptly did, killing the Vanquisher and Dervish in short order before tying up my Cleansers with a Rabid Shredder. The Ravagore took a shot at the Bastions but only managed to hit one, but rolled so high I opted to kill him rather than spread out the damage. This left an annoying cloud in front of the Senechal. 

The Cleansers failed to harm the Shredder on the flank and the Daughters ran past the pot (not wanting to kill any and give away Corpse tokens). The main action was a charge from my Bastions, having to spread themselves thin in order to get all of the beasts into melee and stop them from rushing forward to kill my caster. This left me on the back foot and back peddling. The charge attacks were impressive and there was plenty of damage to go around, but with only one attack on each beast it was nowhere near enough to kill any of them, and I feated to put fire on Abby which did no damage at any point in the game. 

On his turn the fully loaded Shredder failed to Frenzy and so had to take a single unboosted attack that achieved little against the Cleansers. The beasts attacked the Bastions but only the Angelius did enough damage with it's Armour Piercing attack to outright kill one of them. The vessel attendants turned around and started to pummel the Duaghters causing them to fail their Casualties check again(!) and gained enough corpse tokens (after one of the attendants chucked her sister in the pot) to throw out a Stinger which charged the nearest Bastion, just clipping the melee of the Senechal, who hit with a Defensive Strike to take out all but a couple of Circles, massively reducing it's ability to harm anything. 

On my turn the Bastions continued to spread out, trying to corral the beasts that were all up in my face, but with little effect. The Clensers were similarly useless attacking the Shredder and I ended my turn. 

The Angelius finished off another Bastion, which freed the Carbivean up to make a charge on Feora, who I'd thought was safe behind the Repenter. The big beast had trouble hitting her high DEF and by the end of the round he was maxed out on Fury and Feora had 5 boxes left. The Forsaken activated and bombed the Cleansers, neatly polishing them off, and the Sheppard moved up to where the Beasts were locked in with my remaining Bastions. 

I started my turn by moving the Repenter out of Feora's way, accepting the free strike from the Carni, which failed to cripple anything, and took a shot at Abby, hoping to soften her up, but failed to wound. The bastions squished the Shepherd who was blocking me and took a couple of swings at the many beasts, but achieved little. Feora activated and Cast Fire Step to dodge out of combat and move up, taking the opportunity to charge Abby, who was now exposed and on 1 Fury, hoping for a desperate assassination as my only real chance to win. I took multiple attacks and boosts but ended with her on fire with only a few boxes left, but still camping that one Fury, guaranteeing her survival for next turn and sealing my fate.

He activated, hoping to use a spell to slam Feora into melee with a heavy but it was unnecessary as the damage from the spell itself was enough to polish her off, winning him the game. 

It was a fun game and showcased, if nothing else, how devastating eAbysylonia can be, especially under her feat! I could have done a few things much better, but I was happy to have at least taken the assassination run and done some nice damage as a last hurrah!

Thanks for reading!

-M