iPhone Upgrade Tweaks

With the recent OS update for iPhones to 3.0 I've had a strange problem with my iPhone. Luckily it's now fixed but I thought I'd put up the details here in case other gamers have the same problems.

Since the update my phone was running hot and constantly emitting GSM (the interference that you can hear when you hold your phone near a speaker). This caused the battery to drain *very* quickly. To fix this you need to change your Push settings. Go into the Settings menu and select Mail, Contacts, Calendars. From there you need to change your Fetch New Data settings and just turn Push off. After that the phone should work fine again.

The Mire

While the usual content of the Privateer Press forums can be described as excrement, occasionally something worthwhile pops up. Like this thread about Megalith. It's not often a thread makes me laugh.

eDoomshaper progresses steadily, I expect he'll be finished some time next week though I do have an assload of Tyranids for a friend to do. Luckily the paint scheme for them is easy (and in a book) it's just working up the motivation to paint something I'm totally disinterested in. I'd rather paint my Impaler some more. Maybe if I can get Chris to play Warmachine instead...

I'm also running a special scenario in a week on Tuesday, though I'm still typing up the special rules. I'm not sure how it's going to turn out, but hopefully it's all fun. If it's not then I know to stop now before I dig a big hole for myself.

Trolling for Pictures

Here's a picture of the work I've done with my Trollbloods so far. While similar to the colour scheme I've done for Iain's Pyre Troll I've opted for red as my secondary colour instead of blue/green. You can't see it with Doomshaper's shadow over it, but the shading around his loin cloth is pretty good. I've also done a heap of work on Doomshaper's back, but I'll wait until he's finished before I put up a picture of it - mostly because my camera just ran out of batteries (again).

My palette moves heavily into the brown related colours: yellow, brown, red. I thought about green (since the brown colours are green, yellow and red) but I used that extensively with my Mercenaries and red has more visual 'pop' to it. I really like how my Impaler is coming out, the colour scheme works quite nicely with how the miniature is posed. It reminds me of a tree frog.

Pods and Pictures

More episodes of the UK Warmachine/Hordes podcasts are now out. They've been out for a little while now but I've been busy learning the basics of plumbing - it's oddly rewarding by the way, my tool kit is embaressingly lacklustre though. Enough about plumbing however.

Guts'n'Gears shows signs of steady improvement, I didn't cringe once during episode 3; indeed it was quite interesting with a large segment on the Breast Cancer Brawl. Definitely an event we could run here in Glasgow come October. There's also some basic coverage of the UK Masters - Jim even gets a mention.

Boosted Damage covers the UK Masters and all the hosts and cohosts happens to be in the same place this time, making for a more complete podcast. Still interesting but I'm curious as to what they're going to move on to now that the Masters and the Nationals have both finished.


Revealed on the Privateer Press forums is the cover for No Quarter 25. There are some spoilers as to what the various power fields will do, and a rather large debate on how the warcaster on the cover actually uses those blades without hurting himself.

More Retributing

Privateer Press have released a snazzy picture of the Retribution battling the forces of Khador. If you're using a browser that isn't Firefox and trying to view the larger picture you'll have to right click and Save As on the small 'broken image' graphic in the top left corner. Once you've downloaded the picture you'll be able to view it with no problems. The picture makes the Retribution look a lot better, especially since you can compare the sizes of models on the diorama. They've moved once again into the 'tempt me not vile heathen' area of interest. Even if they have once again piqued my interest I'll still wait until the Forces book comes out.

My painting schedule has mystically filled up since I delivered Iain's Pyre Troll (I wish I'd taking a few photos of it actually). Apparently I'll be painting Terminus and more Skorne than you can throw a sockjack at. Epic Doomshaper and Prof. Pendrake have arrived in the mail too, so Doomshaper's already getting his base coat. I'm going for a yellow primary, red (or maybe blue, I'll see how easy it is to work with the red) secondary and copper and silver metallics. It should look quite good (in theory) but we'll see when eDoomy is done.

Redistriubtion of the Retribution

Episode 2 of Boosted Damage is now up on their website and should be up on iTunes in the next day or so. I'll download it and save it for work tomorrow.

AJ the Ronin has created a handy FAQ about what we know about the Retribution so far - or at least the people who don't lug around the Iron Kingdoms World Guide.

Pondering the Imponderables

Iain will be overjoyed to know his Pyre Troll is finished and that I'm Happy with the way it turned out. There was some trouble with the side of a stomach but even Arkentyre had problems in the same area (shocking, I know). Definitely learned a few new tricks to painting flesh and muscle. Having scrapped my aspirations to pick up a Cygnar army for MKii, yellow Trollbloods may be the way forward. I've ordered an eDoomshaper to see how things will turn out.

More spoilers about the Retribution on the Privateer Press website. The major one being power fields: Myrmidons have power fields. Think of power fields as you could imprints: spend a focus and something happens. Also, if you go to the gallery part of the Warmachine website you can get 360's of each model, I definitely recommend this, some of those Myrmidons look a lot better if you can spin them around. It also looks like Dawnlord Vyros' arms are separate pieces - I might get him and turn the sword around so it's more like his concept art. Or I could be painting trolls...

Retribution Pictars

Behold, a mass of Retribution pictures. A number of myrmidons, both known warcasters and the Dawnguard Invictors are shown in the post - or from Malefic... I suspect these were data mined from an unsecured graphics folder but it's been a while since I did any webtech stuff so I could be wrong. Guess the cat's out of the bag anyway.

Prima Invictus

I've just got back from a real slugfest against Jim at G3. He was testing out a variation of his eKrueger list against my standard eMagnus list - I was supposed to make a super list of DOOOM using his Khador stuff but quickly realised the eKrueger *hoses* ranged armies. No feated widowmakers of mighty uberness for me.

Now for the amazing news: I won. No really, I just added up the VPs.
Me: 8 VPs!
Woldwarden x2 - 6 VPs
Tharn Ravager Shaman - 1 VP
Tharn Ravagers 50% casualties - 1 VP
Also ended game with more VPs in TEH ZONE of No Man's Land, but really Jim had stopped playing the scenario after turn 2.

Jim: 5 VPs
eEiryss - 1 VP
Stannis Brocker - 1 VP
Kayazy Assassins Underboss - 1 VP
Kayazy Assassins 50% casualties - 1 VP
Steelhead Halberdiers 50% casualties - 1 VP
Steelhead Heavy Cavalry 50% casualties - 1 VP

This marks my first real, genuine victory over Jim. There wasn't even a stage where I was relying on luck to keep my warcaster alive against a concerted assault. I almost broke out the Happy Dance (I spared everyone the sight since I was wearing shorts). No mistakes by either person really except right at the end when Jim exposed the back arc of a woldwarden to eMagnus' bonded Nomad. Since the bond NEVER usually comes into play, the Nomad managed to trash the Woldwarden with that lovely extra Backstab damage die. I have now joined a very exclusive club of eMagnus players. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

The other woldwarden died to a combination Harm, an Obliterator and the other Renegade shredding it to death. Having to roll a 6+ on 3d6 was a bit close, there were an alarming number of 7s rolled but good old Renegade A pulled it out of the bag for me yet again. Two woldwardens in a single turn, I was genuinely surprised. One could say flabberghasted.

Now while this is all impressive sounding, all the casualties that gave me VPs were inflicted on my last turn - which I don't think I would have gotten to take if we were playing in a regular tournament. However I don't think Jim would have taken such a long 2nd turn in a regular tournament either, much pondering was done.

Jim and I were discussing the game afterwards and he came to the conclusion that 750 games against good opponents become something of a grind fest as neither of us put our warcaster/warlock in a risky position at any time. At 500 points you can't cover all your bases and so eventually something gives and then something can swoop in and end things. Something to think on until we give up MKi entirely and switch to MKii games.

Lurking in the Depths

Hark, 'tis the sound of an update. A Privateer Press website update to be exact. Their web tech has unveiled their snazzy new website and you can see why it took so long for them to get it finished, there's a donkey cart load of new graphics, icons and dynamic tables. Fun fun fun.

Last week I helped Jim test his eKrueger list but managed to fluff up my 2nd turn, which then meant Magnus died (just). If I'd also remembered that we were playing a scenario I'd just have stayed back and won doing that instead since I OWNED the scenario zone. Tomorrow I plan to give Jim a more challenging game where I don't forget that Circle bring Arcane Killer bloody everywhere.

Iain's Pyre Troll is now 90% done, I have to finish the quills on the head, the flame spew, the toe nails and then varnish it all. There's probably a couple of touch ups I could do as well, but we'll see. I'd like to finish it so that I can give it back to Iain already. It has given me the urge to play Trollbloods however, I was thinking I'd swap my Ye Olde pMadrak and Axer - the first PP miniatures I painted (it shows) - for someone's unpainted ones. I think I'll check with Iain tomorrow.

New WM/H related podcasts are starting to appear on the mystical interwebs. Scalpel has just announced Boosted Damage, and there's a new podcast called Guts'N'Gears too. For those of you who do not listen to any WM/H related podcasts here's my brief run down:
Fell Calls! - These guys play for fun and their podcast is very relaxed and usually quite smooth. Definitely my favorite.
The Iron Agenda - More serious than Fell Calls! and it's a dryer, more intellectual analysis of the game. Has unusual amount of Mercenary hate. If I want some hard play data on a model I listen to these guys.
Gut'N'Gears - Reeks of giant geek. I kid you not, there are moments in this that I cringe to the point of having a hernia. Episode 2 is a definite improvement but it's still too geeky for me.
Boosted Damage - Has a nice relaxed feel to it, so far it's been quite informative. Focuses on WM/H tournaments in the UK.