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.

Painting Update: Samurai complete!

Finally got these guys finished. Pete Brown's "Brushido" article from Wargames Illustrated 355 was rather helpful. Still a pain to paint samurai, though... Also, gotta get a light booth or something for nicer photos.

Not a samurai! Hollow Holden for my Grymkin army.