Malifaux: Quick trick with the Necrotic Machine

Just a quick one to report something I've been trying out with the Necrotic Machine and Nicodem.

The Necrotic Machine has a (0) Action called Create Undeath:

"Target non-Master living model receive the Undead Characteristic"


This has been errata'ed to include a 2" range on it now, but it's still not resistible.

In my Nicodem crew, apart from the man himself, you don't usually have many living models.  What I've been playing with is using it with the Convict Gunslinger and then make it Undead.  Not only do you then make it immune to Morale Duels, since it's Undead, but it's now a friendly Undead model and so benefits from Nicodem's Bolster Undead, +2Cb and +2Df aura.  He's now shooting at Cb8, paired, with rapid fire.  Makes things die.  I've tried it and it proved to be pretty nasty, pinging off most of a Silent One (who ran and hid) and finishing off an exposed Rasputina.

The same trick will work with Ronin, Mortimer (almost makes him decent), Rafkin etc.  The ability is also "non-Masters" so it will work with Von Schill as well...

The downside is that it competing against the Grave Spirit who gives Nicodem Armor +2 and it 1 SS cheaper.  I guess it depends on what crew you're facing as to whether that's worth it.

40K: Saint Celestine

I've only had one chance to get a game in with Saint Celestine, and she wasn't painted then.  She did so well in that game, mauling some wounds off a Trygon and then cooking a huge pile of Hormagaunts, I thought she deserved a paint job.

I enjoyed painting this model alot, she's got a lot of detail, and a lot of character in the face.  I neglected to pin the cloak, a desicion I am probably going to regret in the future i.e. the first time I have to play on the bloody Realm of Battle boards they have a WHW with the hills that metal models slide down.

Blood Bowl: Making my balls sticky

Couldn't resist that post title...

Anyway, when you're playing Blood Bowl, it well annoying when one of your models has the ball:

So you pick him up and the ball rolls of his base.  Especially true when you're using the old plastic ball from the 2nd Ed box like me.

With a bit of light hobby you can get it to do this:

As I mentioned the ball is plastic, so I drilled a hole into it and inserted a short piece of paper clip.  Next add this:

A small magnet to the bottom of the base.  The ball is light enough and the magnet strong enough to hold it through the base.  I've done my whole team like this, but you could quite quickly and easily do this for your main ball carriers.

This won't work with heavier, metal balls (I've tried), you'll need stronger magnets for that.

Malifaux: Ice Breaker Tournament Report

At the end of April, I played in a one day tournament at Harrogate Wargames Club. This was a 35SS, fixed faction event, played over four round.

I'll admit, I was pretty nervous about the day. I'd only signed up about 10 days before after my buddy hunter_b had told me about it, which didn't give me much time to prep. I got some stuff painted up (Belles and the Rogue Necromancy) and managed one practice game at the club against Steve's Leviticus crew (Steve smashed me 8-4). So with 7 games ever under my belt, I was a nervous as I didn't want to spoil anyone else's tournaments with my noob playstyle. The round were 90 minutes as well which I thought might cause me issues since I'm not the fastest Malifaux player in the world.


Anyway, on the day my fears proved unfounded, and I had a great time. The time limit never really proved to be an issue with most games getting to the end of turn 5 anyway.

This is how the games broke down, as far as I can re-call anyway:


Game 1- vs Lady Justice

This was against guildmonkee who is my local club henchman so it was a friendly face for the first game. It was shared destroy the evidence. He had a elite Lady J crew, with the Judge, Executioner, Samael Hopkins, Santiago Ortega and a Convict Gunslinger. I had Nico, grave spirit, Bête Noir, some belles, couple of Crooked Men, 2 dogs and a punk zombie.

Nico was giving out paralysed like candy, which protected my crew alot, and I got 2 Flesh Constructs and a Rogue Necromancy summoned which kept Lady J busy. I didn't manage to destroy the evidence, but got both my schemes (hold out and bodyguard) and managed to kill Lady J will a belle on the last flip of the game.
Result - 4 - 2 win to me. Achieved the win I wanted to get, so happy days.


Game 2 - Vs Avatar Seamus
I was on table 4 now so I was punching above my weight. This was shared slaughter against Mike3838 from Musings of a Malifaux Noob, I took a similar crew to game, except I took a Hanged figuring I might get the negative twist on WP triggers on to Seamus. Didn't work, I lost pretty much everything except Nico at the end and Mike took the well deserved win.

Result - Loss, something like 5 - 3.


Game 3 - Vs The Vicktorias.
This was against my friend hunter_b on table 6 (of 7). This was shared treasure hunt.  Hunter_b got Von Schill to pick up the treasure turn 2 but he didn't move after that as he was paralysed or in melee. I had grudged Taelor which I got for 2, didn't get the Kill Protege which was my other one. Hunter_b got his eye for an eye scheme and 2 for carrying the treasure (irrc).

Result - Loss to me, 4 - 2 I think.


Game 4 - Vs Predita
This was shared reconnoiter, so I took a massive crew to spread out over the board. My opponent, Jamie,  took the Perdita family minus Abuela, plus an enslaved nephilim and the Executioner. I didn't play too well,  forgetting to Bolster Undead in the turn 5. That would have given me better chance to kill Perdita who was on 2 wound with no stones and in melee with a punk zombie. Didn't do it, punk zombie died. Final nail was on the last turn, I needed to flip a 3 or better to summon a model and deny my opponent one of her schemes. I flipped a 2.

Anyway, I got one scheme and 2 of 4 table quarters. Final result was a draw, 4 each.

Great event, I really enjoyed it and it was a good chance to get 4 games in a single day.  I ended up finishing 10th of 14 which was 4 places higher than I was expecting to finish.

Malifauxing like a fiend

It's been a while since my last update, but I've not been idle.  In fact, I've been pretty busy hobby wise, focussing alot on Malifaux (did a bit of 40K as well).  I've painted some stuff for my Nicodem crew, played 8 games in three, including a four game tournament and the first league game at the club.

First up then is the models.  I wanted to get some done ready for the tournament, mainly the Rotten Belles and the Rogue Necromancy, and I did the Hanged and Bete Noir ages ago and not got round to blogging them.

 A trio of Rotten Belles:

I bought these to go with my Molly crew, but they've found their way into every Nicodem list since then, they're just so useful as utility models.  One even managed to kill Lady Justice in melee which was a bonus.

The base inserts are from Fenris Games, and for Molly and her crew I've used these to represent the Quarantine Zone.

I release most people think Molly sucks, but her background is really cool, especially the stuff in book 3, which is why I wanted to get her.

Also originally for Molly, but he's made a few appearances, the Rogue Necromancy:

I didn't have a base insert big enough for him, so I had to sculpt the cobbles from Miliput for him, and they turned out pretty well:

The Rogue Necromancy is my summon of choice now if I have four counters for Nicodem.  He's made of glass, but he can destroy things if he gets close.  Even if he does die, chances are the other crew has had to spend a reasonable amount of AP of chopping through his 10 wounds so it's all good.

This lot I did ages ago, 2 Hanged and Bete Noir:

I've run the Hanged in 3 games now, and I'm not convinced.  I can see a place for them against living crews maybe, but I'm not sold.  I probably need a few more games with them I think.

More to come in future post on gaming.

Finding an alternative to Warptime

The latest round of FAQs which GW released last month put a bit of nerfing on Chaos Space Marines. I've run Nurgle Daemon Princes with wings and warptime since the Codex was released, but with the FAQ of Warptime I'm not feeling the love for that power.

To re-cap the FAQ states:

Q: Does Warptime allow the psyker to pick and choose

which To Hit and To Wound dice he will re-roll? (p88)

A: No. He can decide after each To Hit or To Wound roll

but he must re-roll all dice or no dice

I'll be honest, I've never used it like this, nor have I seen it played like this, but the FAQ is pretty clear. All you're now mitigating against is a particularly bad set of rolls like 5 misses or similar. Given Warptime is reasonably pricey in points, IMO this is not worth it.

At a small tournament last month, I dropped Warptime in favour of Wind of Chaos which is more points than Warptime (30 points IIRC so 5 points more). I did find it useful in most games and I think it probably made it's points back in most cases.

Alternatives for a Nurgle Daemon Prince are not great. Doombolt is weak, Gift of Chaos is amusing if not all that useful and Nurgle's Rot is meh against most thing in power armour (OK against hordes I suppose).

So I think Wind of Chaos is where I'll be for now. Of course, if I drop WoC on both Princes that would be a 60 point saving which is almost the cost of an Obliterator...

Blood Bowl Necromantic Team: Painted

I've been feeling the Blood Bowl vibe recently, and so finally got my team painted up.

They're more or less named the same as they are in the online BB league I play in.

Here they are: the Rotting Remains.

Two werewolves, 1 - Skokurg the Furry and 2 - Caleb Whitemane:

Two Wights, 3 - Robin the Cold-Hearted and 4 - Sikvor the Revived:

Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!

6 - Jack Splinter

7 - Toby Hearted

8 - Brainy the Hungry

9 - Dearly Departed

12 - Halo Shoemaker

Ghouls:

10 - Mudgrinder

11 - Spinemuncher

I've just got to do a Flesh Golum or two now. I might use the new Crypt Stalker models for that.

Uriah Jacobus, Protector of the Faith and Tournament Update

I had a mad rush on to get the last model painted up for my Sister of Battle army for a small Freebootaz tournament which took place at Warhammer World in early February.

The final model to paint was Uriah Jacobus:

The tournament I used my Sisters in was a 1000 points per player doubles tournie (Saturday was singles when I played Chaos). My list was:

HQ:

Uriah Jacobus, 9 Death Cult Assassins (225)

Troops:
Battle Sister Squad, 1 Melta Gun, 1 Heavy Flamer, Rhino (190)
Battle Sister Squad, 1 Melta Gun, 1 Storm Bolter, Rhino (173)

Fast Attack:
7 Seraphim, twin inferno pistols (140)

Heavy Support:
Exorcist with searchlight (136)
Exorcist with searchlight (136)

I had been due to team up with an IG army, but my partner was ill and couldn't make it down. Fortunately, someone else stepped up and I teamed with his Grey Knights which proved to be a pretty good combination (since we won!).

Uriah Jacobus was awesome as a force multiplier, for several reasons.

Firstly, he gives you a re-roll of your dice to generate Faith Points each turn. At 1000 points, I didn't find this particularly essential as I rarely used more than one or two points per turn, but since the Faith mechanic doesn't really scale that well, in larger games I can see the re-roll being important.

Secondly, he carries the Banner of Sanctity. This gives his unit +1A and Feel No Pain. Combined with Death Cult Assassins this is brutal. FnP is handy since they only have a 5+ save (and assuming you can make FnP rolls which I never can), but +1A is also pretty nasty.

Thirdly, he has the Righteous Rage special rule. This is identical to a Space Marine Chaplain's Liturgies of Battle rule, so it gives re-rolls to hit on the charge.

Fourthly, he's Stubborn and Ld10. Being an IC he confers this on any unit he joins.

The unit I ran above (Jacobus and DCA) had 45 I6, WS5, S4 power weapon attacks on the charge, with re-rolls to hit. Against a 5 man GK terminator squad, this ended up causing 27 wounds with no armour saves. Next game, they carved through a SM tactical squad like they weren't even there. The weakness of this unit is that if you can be out Initiatived (like assaulting into cover) you are going to get hurt as DCA are not that survivable. You're also vulnerable to getting left in the open after an assault and then being shot to pieces.

Ogre Rhinox Rider

I've been lax on blogging recently, but I've been doing a reasonable amount of hobbying since Christmas.

This guy has been sat on my painting table since Christmas 2010, so I finally got round to painting him up. A Forge World Ogre Rhinox Rider:


This was a great model to paint, and Forge World have even updated the rules for the beast:

http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/r/Rhinox.pdf

I've also picked up the new Ogre Kingdoms book and drawn up a list using the stuff I currently own. I just need to convert a Butcher/Slaughermaster and a BSB and I can run it at 2000 points, assuming I can use the Rhinox rider (who seems a bit undercosted to me, but I'm no expert on Fantasy).

Ordo Malleus Inquisitor Conversion

This is something I've been working on on and off for past couple of months. It's an Ordo Malleus Inquisitor for the all Inquisition Grey Knights army I'm planning on doing:

This is easily the most ambitious sculpting I've ever attempted and I've learnt alot about doing it in the process. I'm pleased with the result, and I hope to do a decent paint job on it.

The conversion is based on a WFB Chaos Warrior, with a leg swap to give him a more power armoured look. The head is taken from the Space Marine commander box. The remainder was endless green stuff work.

Two major lessons I learnt from this project:

1- Only ever work on a small part of the model at a time, don't be tempted to do big swathes of it at once or you'll spoil what you've just done.

2- You always need less green stuff that you think you need. Some of the amounts I ended up working with on this model were minuscule.

Hobby Resolutions

It's that time of year again, where I can review what I did (or didn't) get done in the hobby year 2011.

This is what my resolutions were last year:

1- Buy less models, and paint the ones I've got -FAILED

2- Finish my Witch Hunters to the 1500 point list I've written (I technically have more than 1500 points worth) - FAILED

3- Finish my Ogre army - FAILED

4- Play some Malifaux - DONE

5- Play 25 games of either 40K or Fantasy - FAILED

6- Get some work done on my 40K Chaos Daemons army - FAILED

So in all in all not that great a result. Must try harder.

So for 2012, I am resolving to:

1- Get Witch Hunters to 1500 points

2- Get Inquisition army to 1500 points

3- Play more games this year than last year

4- Play Blood Bowl on the table top, paint my BB team

5- Play another game of Apocalypse

Blood Bowl Necromantic Team

The Blood Bowl Legendary Edition PC game was dirt cheap a few weeks back on Steam, so I took a punt and downloaded it. I'm glad I did, as I'd forgotten what a good game Blood Bowl is!

Anyway, it got me fired up again to do some Blood Bowl mins. I've been playing a Necromantic team on the PC, so I went for the same on the tabletop.

Werewolves, mostly Ork/Orc bitz:

Ghouls and Wights, made from the Vampire Counts range:

And zombies:

Malifaux: Legion Of Sorrows so far

It's impossible to only own one crew in Malifaux with some many great models. The models in Pandora's crew were some of the those that got me interested in Malifaux in the first place so I definitely wanted those next:

Baby Kade and Candy are tiny figures (Kade especially) so they're not easy to paint at all. I just need to paint Pandora now and they're done to 35SS. In addition to these, I've got Coppelius and Insidious Madness to add (and some Alps for Coppelius to summon).

Sister of Battle at 1000 points list

I was quite excited when I heard Sisters were getting a new Codex in White Dwarf as I'm a huge fan of the army. They're what I've been playing most in 40K this year of the few days I've been able to play. However, once the thing arrived I was fairly disappointed. Some of my favourite units (Inquisitors for example) were gone, and as I write this GW doesn't seem to making any efforts to bring the cost of the Battle Sisters down at all.

But, since I like the army, I wanted to persevere with it so I sat down and wrote up a list to replace my old 1000 point list:

HQ:
Uriah Jacobus, 5 Death Cult Assassins, 4 Crusaders in a Rhino (260)

Troops:
Battle Sister Squad, Melta gun, heavy flamer, rhino (180)
Battle Sister Squad, MG, Storm Bolter, Rhino (163)

Fast:
6 Seraphim, twin hand flamers, power sword for Superior (130)

Heavy:
Exorcist (135)
Exorcist (135)

From my old list, my old jump pack Canoness is gone (no jump pack available now, plus I don't need her 2 Faith points any more), Inquisitor and retinue are gone, and my small unit Inquisitorial Storm Troopers are also gone. In are the Seraphim, and Jacobus who is pretty much mandatory I think.

I don't want to spend a ton of cash on new units so I'm having to make do with what I've got. Jacobus and his unit I don't own, but I think I can build them from plastics fairly cheaply.

I haven't tried this list yet, so I'll post some feedback once I get to trying it out.

Malifaux: Nicodem Crew completed (for now)

Two months without a post.... I've just been really pushed for time these last few months, and blogging is one things that has gone by the wayside a little bit.

Anyway, I've not been totally idle on the gaming front. I've played a couple of games of Malifaux with my Nicodem crew (1 draw Vs The Viktorias, 1 loss Vs Lady J), and done some Malifaux painting.

My mindless zombie horde is done now....

...giving me 8 Mindless Zombies in my crew. I can really recommend these models from Studio Miniatures, they're really nicely scuplted.

Malifaux being a game that features alot of counters, I decided to knock up proper ones.

Corpse Counters (probably need more of these really):

Evidence Markers:

Treasure and Claim Markers:

And finally some Shafted markers for my Crooked Men:

I'm just short of some dynamite counters and a supply wagon and I'll have a full set.