2019 In Review & Plans for 2020

The last quarter of 2019 really has not been much of a gaming one for me. I've attended very few game nights, and only one or two tournaments. Painting has also been hit and miss, though I've gone on a bit of Games Workshop spending spree. In looking over my shelf of shame opportunity, I see a lot of unfinished projects...

Still, it hasn't been a bad year. I enjoyed Enfilade and Lock & Load, and had very few bad or boring gaming experiences on the whole. I played a lot more board games than I have, and I think that trend will continue; ease of play is very hard to argue with when I'm chronically short of time. I've very much enjoyed playing Root and Scythe on the regular, and I'm looking forward to exploring some new games.

What with the holidays, I actually played a couple games this week:

Sunday I got in my first game of Adeptus Titanicus with Dan, at the local GW store. I lost horribly (gotta pay attention to firing arcs and reactor overload!) but I enjoyed it quite a bit. The game plays at a good pace and I do love stompy robots.

Monday evening I played my first game of Warcry with some unpainted Ironjawz versus the Corvus Cabal, Nighthaunt, and Untamed Beasts in a four-way brawl. Turns out my green guys are slow and tanky, so I might bring some squishier, but faster, goblins next time. Played quick and easy.

What's next?

Gaming

I would very much like to see more gaming in 2020. To that end, I'm committing to playing a tabletop wargame at least once a week if at all possible. I'm also going to try to hit a convention or a local tournament once a month; Gamestorm, Burning Cat, Enfilade, and Lock & Load are all reasonably local, and I've no excuse for not going. The Cog Collective runs a couple tournaments a month as well, so I should be able to squeeze in a few games of Warmachine.

As for the games themselves, I look forward to playing Saga, Warmachine, Age of Sigmar, and Adeptus Titanicus. I think I'll be looking at more skirmish than big battle games; unless it's an event, two hours is about all I can spare for a game and that may include travel time.

And, of course, I'm looking forward to regular historical games with the Saturday night group. Scheduling conflicts prevented me from attending any nights over the last couple months, and I'm eager to push some ancients or Napoleonics around again.

Hobby

As usual, I have a bunch of started and unfinished projects - too many to list, really. I'm only going to plan for the next three months, instead of all of 2020. My big focus this year is going to be finishing projects and building terrain. I have a lot of figures, but no really usable terrain sets for playing on. So, my first five projects are:

• Finish my Grymkin for Hordes. I've been sitting on about forty or so unpainted figures for this collection for a few years, and once they're done I'll have it complete. 
• Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens (for Saga). These are mostly done; just need to paint shields and do some proper basing. This is the one I should probably do first, in time for January's Saga day.
• Gloomspite Gitz. I bought hard into this, and I'm finding them a little more annoying to paint than I expected. I'm trying to do most of the army with GW's Contrast paints as an experiment.
• Adeptus Titanicus. I'm going to try printing off some decals for my own Legio (The Grave Walkers) and do some proper basing and weathering on the first four Titans, plus paint up another couple Titans so I can play around with different maniples.
• Ironjawz. This was my Christmas present to myself: a full army of elite stompy orcs orruks orcs for Age of Sigmar and Saga: Age of Magic. It's going to be a speed-painting project; I'm going to try to knock out the entire army (minus maybe the big orc on a monster) in about a week, probably in early February. It's a challenge I'm looking forward to.

Notably missing from that list is small-scale historical stuff. I still have an enormous number of 6mm Napoleonics, and I'm planning on putting those together for Blucher or other big battle games, but they aren't even begun.

After all that, though... it's time to look at throwing together some proper terrain for 28mm fantasy/dark ages, and for 6mm SF.

Long dry summer

It's been a long hobby drought since Lock & Load, both in game time and painting time. Family activities have kept me away from the toy soldiers, but now that school is well back in session and we have less going on... well, at least I'm back at the painting table.

At present I'm working on some Gloomspite Gitz (i.e., goblins with trademarkable names from GW), some Bad Squiddo Shield Maidens, and some Adeptus Titanicus stuff. The family schedule prevents me from getting any weeknight gaming in, but I was able to drop in to the monthly Saga day in October and field the shield maidens in a quick match against some Normans.

Warlord titan, two Warhounds, and three Questoris Knights with basecoats done.

Shield Maidens face off against Normans in October

Lock & Load 2019

Lock & Load 2019

Lock & Load was the end of June this year, and I headed up looking to play some Warmachine and Monsterpocalypse. Mission accomplished! Also, I managed to walk away without buying a new faction. So that's good news for my wallet.

Pictures!

The Heretic takes on the Convergence of Cyriss on an extremely annoying board. The giant hut and tree in the middle messed us both up.

Versus some nicely painted and murderously effective Legion of Everblight birds - Absylonia 2 turning them on for a serious assassination list. Unfortunately, every bird was rather top-heavy, so that board was a bit of a hassle.

Watching an airbrush seminar. Pretty helpful.

The Child vs. the Retribution of Scyrah, aka the Dawnmower faction. This wasn't the best field to be facing off against a ranged-heavy list, but the scenario was quite fun - we had to trade feats, so he got to find out how Garryth 2 uses Arcana and I got, well, a kind of mediocre feat for my list.

Second game of MonPoc. I'm totally sold on this game now. Very fun.

Last game of the convention, and the only one I actually won. Also, we were both really tired, so it was one of those games that takes twice as long as it should with plenty of unforced errors...

Enfilade 2019 Report

Memorial Day weekend brings me to Olympia, Washington every year for Enfilade! This year was a bit different: my usual convention buddy is in Japan, brewing beer, so my wife came along for some much needed quiet, the child being dropped off at the grandparents'. Therefore, it was a bit more of a date/getaway than the usual gamer marathon, which was nice, because we haven't had many getaways recently.

But gaming is what this blog's about, so...

I actually only played in one game this year (!), a combination of a late start and not finding many of the open games appealing, and also being inexplicably terribly tired all weekend.

Mexican-American War with Reg. Fire & Fury

The one game I did play was Terry's Mexican-American War game with Regimental Fire & Fury, a system that's really growing on me. I took charge of the Mexican cavalry and the game went unexpectedly well for them - thanks in no small part to some terrible dice on the Yankee side. Not everything went so well for the Mexicans, as our center collapsed under an American assault. At the end of the period, with the Americans holding the center but the Mexicans closing in around the sides, we called it a draw.

Mexican cavalry prepared to ride down the Yankee invaders.

 I spent the rest of the convention puttering around, planning future games, chatting, and helping out at the Bring & Buy. I did snap a few more pictures, though:

Russian Civil War- the Tsarevich is on the armored train, and the Reds must capture him.

Mammoth hunting - I though this one looked very cool

All Quiet on the Martian Front - someone went all out with that tripod on the upper right.

Muskets and Tomahawks

This year left me with an odd conflict: while the convention itself was really well done, and there was a plethora of good games to be had, most of them left me uninterested in playing. The obvious solution: Next year, I'll have to put on a few games. Leaning toward some big battle ancients, Napoleonics, and possibly World War 2.

I was also a little peeved at not getting an entry into the painting competition. This was mostly because it was difficult to get info about the competition, and at the last minute I was put off by word that entries had to be part of a game as well. That was evidently untrue, as at least one entry was a bust of a Templar knight, but that's the rumor mill for you. I'm also annoyed that I forgot to take some pictures of the entries, as there were some really nice ones. I'll have to try for an entry next year, regardless of the quality of information floating around.

As an aside: since I was with the wife, we did the usual exploring of restaurants. I can recommend Hash on Harrison Ave NW for breakfast, and Hops on the Hill made a pretty good (if very moist) brisket.

Ambuscade Photo Dump

I've not had much chance to do gaming this month, so here's all the photos I took at this year's Ambuscade. Very pleasant day of gaming.

Warmachine Tournament Report, March 31

Final game, early days

After a bit of a dry spell, I got three games in Sunday at Rune & Board in a local steamroller tournament. I went 0-3, but it's just as well; I was testing out a bunch of new tech cold, so it was definitely an opportunity to learn instead of strive for victory.

I brought two lists, as per usual, but only played one:

Bump in the Night theme force
King of Nothing
2x Crabbits
2x Clockatrices
Gorehound
2x Hollowmen (max) + Lantern Man
2x Mad Caps
2x Neigh Slayers (max)
Eilish Garrity
Glimmer Imp
Lord Longfellow

Bump In the Night hasn't been a very popular theme force for good reason, because the Grymkin infantry are fairly lackluster and the theme doesn't do much to improve them. Still, the Clockatrice makes a difference, and some new models coming out this month ought to make them tick a little better. So I thought I'd try it.

For the first round, I faced off against Danny, one of the best players in the area, playing Retribution of Scyrah. He dropped a Garryth 2 list with a bunch of mage hunters. I forget the scenario, but it was one where he was able to push in and win on scenario while I scrambled to figure out what all my stuff did... Highlights of this match up were finding out that the King's cloud wall is, in fact, remarkably effective if used carefully, even against lists that pack LOS-ignoring tech. Also, Mad Caps are fun but seem tricky to use well.

Second round was against Kyle, to whom I had just sold a Slayer warjack. He promptly used against me in a classic Asphyxious 3 'jack spam list. Curses! I'd never faced this list archetype before and it was interesting. Cloud wall again really slowed down his alpha, and a plethora of low-value targets gave his high-value attacks less, um, value. However, I wasn't able to take down as many 'jacks as I needed on my first turn of attacking - missed a few attack rolls - and since I'd put King way out there, he was able to snag an easy assassination.

Third round was against Berks' accursed Kaelyssa Forges of War list, with that stupidly powerful Dawnguard Trident and the Dawnguard Destors. (It's the matchup in the picture.) I actually did somewhat better than I expected in this one, but clocked out nonetheless. The key mistake I made here were that I counter deployed my Neigh Slayers to take on his Trident, and they can't really handle it it. The key point is that it both outthreats them (17" without a charge compared to 9.5") and has enough firepower to fairly reliably kill 4-5 of them a turn. In the end, I ran out of time trying to clear a zone to just score points. It's possible that I might have been able to grind it out scenario, but I think the Trident would have swung it in Berks' favor on attrition or even assassination - especially after he eliminated one of my Clockatrices. I think I'm going to have to start bringing Old Witch 3 just to counter the Ret ranged game that I keep seeing at these things...

Over all, good games and a good event. Props to James for running it.

Comic Strip Monsters!

Not a lot of gaming or painting going on this past ten days, but I did get my Monsterpocalypse Planet Eaters done, comic style. To be honest, I'm not thrilled with the style, but it was a good experiment. I do like the models. They're menacing in a chubby, goofy fashion.

Group shot!

Gorghadra

Front row: Chompers; back row, a Destructomite on the left and an ExplodoHawk on the right

Four Belchers and a Crawler

Looking at these tells me I need a proper photo setup. On the other hand, better photos will make my paint jobs look worse...

The PDX Open: A Warmachine tournament report

Saturday, March 2 saw the first PDX Open: A large Warmachine tournament with the top 8 players getting wildcard points toward the Warfaire Weekend invitational. I... did not get in the top 8. But I did have fun.

I brought Grymkin, which I've been playing for a while. While I did bring King of Nothing as an off list, I really only played Pat Dunford's classic Dreamer list:

The Dreamer
* Gorehound x3
* Cage Rager x3
* Skin and Moans x2
* Crabbit x2
Death Knell
Gremlin Swarm x4

 Round 1: Vs. Jeremiah's Skorne

Set up versus Jeremiah's Skorne

 First game was against a local, Jeremiah, one of the hosts of the Spellstorm Miniatures podcast. He's been learning Skorne lately and decided to one-list it with Xekaar and a bunch of beasts. We had a pretty good game, but I was able to push back on scenario until he ran out of time.

End of game - Xekaar has rushed into the middle to kill a few Gremlin Swarms and get some points before time.

 Round 2: Vs. Adrianne's Circle Orboros

Vs. Adrianne's Tharn. (The six models on the far left are not actually in play yet). I do so hate the Tharn Wolf Riders.

Second round I played against Adrianne from... points north? Not sure. She dropped the dreaded Iona/Tharn list into me - my plan for it had been to dodge all event. However, she's newish to the game, and had never played against Grymkin, so I figured I had an even chance.

As it happened, though she pushed me pretty hard on scenario and attrition, she also clocked out, and thus I eked out my second win of the day. (I'm not terribly happy about winning that way, but I'll take it...)

End of game vs. Adrianne, just after the clock chimed.

 Round 3: Vs. Jaden's Circle Orboros

Jaden's Tharn advance on the poor, pitiful Grymkin.

But my next match was against Jaden, one of the hosts of the Line of Sight podcast and a much, much better player than me. He, too, was playing Iona Tharn, and boy was that rough - at the end of the fifth round, all I had left on the table was the Dreamer. It was a good game nonetheless, though - a rather poor dice roll on turn two meant that I got to pop the Lord of the Feast before he got to do anything, so that's a moral victory.

Round 4: Vs. Berks' Retribution of Scyrah

Setting up against Berks' terrifying Ret list.

This was my second game against Berks' list (Kaelyssa, Dawnmower, some knights), and... this was also rough. Given the scenario (The Pit II) and my list, I wasn't able to contest well or engage in attrition, and he just shut me out of scenario by the bottom of turn three. Not the best game for me, but Berks is always a pleasure to play against

I dropped after round four and headed home. I believe Jaden took home first place after another three rounds...

Gaming (no painting) late February: Warmachine

Haven't had much chance for gaming, and even less for proper painting, over the past couple weeks. About all I was able to squeeze in was a three-round Warmachine tournament at Portland Game Store.

Vs. Kraken's Trollkin list. So much beef to chew through, I'm lucky they clocked out before they could murder all my heavies.

It's a Grymkin Mirror Match! Briggs got to break out his brand new Clockatrice out. It's a nice piece.

Vs. Berks' Retribution of Scyrah. He's still in love with the shiny Dawnguard Trident, and for good reason.

He was able to shut me out on scenario. Good game, but... kinda getting tired of Grymkin.

Games and Painting, early February

We got some snow this week, which unfortunately saw the postponement of Ambuscade!, which I was quite looking forward to playing in. Nonetheless, I was able to get in a couple Warmachine games.

Grymkin Mirror Match

I played vs. Remy at Guardian on a gorgeous and cold day. He dropped Heretic into my Wanderer list (couldn't be bothered to haul the enormous Old Witch model around). We both played fairly well, but he ran out of time on the clock due to unfamiliarity with his list. Heretic being able to cast Star Crossed off of Wanderer's card was a bit of an unpleasant surprise for me...

Remy's first turn, moving up.

End of game.

I'm not really sure I like the Wanderer. He's got a couple really good tricks (Star Crossed, road markers, Veil of Mists) but aside from those he does very little either himself or for his army. He has no offensive output, and Grymkin doesn't really have enough of a Defense skew to make stacking it via Star Crossed a significant challenge for opponents. Combined, these mean he's not as engaging to play as I'd like. I'm afraid that after this master's league, he probably gets dropped in favor of Dreamer... just like everyone else plays. (Probably paired with King of Nothing or Child because I don't like lugging around Old Witch, even if I love the model.)

Or Skorne. That's hot right now, and I have a large collection I haven't played since Mark 3 came out...

Vs. Trollbloods

Had to drive across town for this one and it was uncomfortably tight; both Dan and I are parents of small children and had to squeeze the game in before school got out. Who knew kids would cramp your gaming lifestyle so much?

He put a Madrak1 Band of Heroes list down against my Wanderer list (see above re: Old Witch model). Scenario was the Pit II, aka "championship belt." Dan took it on scenario; I just didn't have enough offense to get the attrition edge AND contest the left-hand zone.

Early days.

End of game - he's totally dominated the left flank.

Painting

I broke out the airbrush after a long hiatus and tried my first experiment at proper zenithal priming:

And then I finished a couple models for my Dungeons & Dragons game:

Purple Worm!

Shambling Mound!

Pretty happy with how these turned out. Quick, easy, and definitely good enough.