You've Been Mulg'ed

Had a couple of games against Sean Murchie on Saturday - my first real chance to take Mulg out for a spin and got humped both times. The first time I underestimated how far pMorghoul could send a Titan Gladiator up the field (though Mulg survived the Gladiator, the Cannoneer shot however did him in) and the second time I just totally flubbed Mulg's threat range - though I left Morghoul on 1 damage box.

New pMorghoul is intensely irritating, he's extremely difficult to pin down. With Sprint he certainly has a chance to get involved in the action and with all his extra bought attacks it's a nightmare making Tough checks. It's something that I'll have to take into account in future games.

I've also just come back from a trio of games against Mark Bonatti's Skorne (eMakeda) and a quickly knocked up Gorten Mercenary list Adam came up with. The first game against Mark lasted about 15 minutes when Mulg raced across the table during eDoomshaper's feat turn and ate eMakeda. The second game I had 3 chances to kill eMakeda and it all failed. [Unhappy face] The turning point was when I opted not to max out my Mauler to kill his Gladiator as I would have no beasts to transfer to, he then healed up the Gladiator and I lost my Mauler. Next time I'll just take the Frenzy as long as I can guarantee all the hard targets die horribly. Gorten suffered a similar fate to eMakeda in the first game when Mulg charged a Ghordson Gunner immediately in front of Gorten then beat the dwarf to death with his club.

Mulg with eDoomshaper is awesome. Whatever doubts I had are gone. Whatever the walking mountain touches dies horribly with Wild Aggression up (and often without it up). I'm not even sure I need the Dire Troll Mauler to give that extra damage to Mulg.

Having 10 Fennblades and a Krielstone Bearer unit does lead to a massive traffic jam with my forces however, I'm thinking I may have to drop the Fennblades down to a minimum unit and bring a Fellcaller instead to increase overall utility in the list and cut down on congestion. There is nothing like the parting of the Trollbloods to let Mulg charge through however, it was a thing of beauty. Moses would have been proud.

Heroic Stature

Work on the Hero is progressing fairly quickly. I've had some time doing other miniatures (my Mercenaries) but he's such a great miniature he really deserves to be completed by the end of the week. I did an easy headswap, replacing the usual Hero's helmeted head with pMadrak's (though I'm not entirely sure how I ended up with a spare Madrak head). It gives him a more aggressive look.

eMagnus' new base looks pretty cool as well, but I've had to remove Foecleaver X from the miniature and leave it in the paint stripper overnight. The varnish I'd used left the original paint job with a bumpy surface that totally screwed with my attempt to update the metallics. Fortunately this flaw in the varnish seems to be restricted to just the sword, so I'll fix it all up tomorrow night.

Back to Basics

Since I first started painting my Mercenaries my painting skills have improved dramatically - especially my blending and metallics. Looking at my old figures makes me really want to go back and redo a lot of them. I'm going back and redoing all the metallics, we'll see about the other parts of the miniatures on a case by case basis - luckily I hate painting units so there isn't actually all that much to cover (about 20 models).

While I'm at it, I've decided I'm going to rebase all of my Mercenaries so that they have desert bases instead of my very generic muddy+snow+grass. Fortunately I've found a number of very useful resources to help me with figuring out how to colour my new bases. Certain figures will need more work (eMagnus) but the new bases are very quick and easy to do. I'll be sure to update my gallery as work progresses.

I've decided I want to take Mercenaries to the UK Masters this year, but that's very dependant on what new Mercenary models Privateer Press are going to give us before then. If the non-dwarf Mercenaries don't get a way to increase their warjack damage then that idea is going to get binned. If my precious Steelhead Arcane Mechanik comes along however, I'm going to do the Happy Dance.

Conflagration 2010: Post Apocalyptic Wasteland

It's all over and done with. As an organiser I've learnt a few things about the SR2010 scenarios: firstly, I need to yell louder that people have a 5 minute extension once per game; secondly that you CONTINUE to score points after the second player's second turn - it seemed a strange point to have come up, but it came up at least twice.

Kill Box is an excellent scenario for fast games. It dumps both warlocks/warcasters within a very viable area to get killed horribly. However, eDeneghra and eMagnus both break the majority of scenarios if they go first, it's something to watch out for. So if you see either of them across the table from you, be sure to have a way to nuke them until they glow if they have the first turn.

Speaking of tournaments, I'm disappointed with Mercenaries not getting into the championships of Templecon. I may just have to bring my Mercenaries to the UK Masters and own face to prove a point...

Oh yes, the results of Conflagration 2010:
1st: Jim Lawrence
Khador - eButcher

2nd: Mark Bonatti
Mark also won the painting prize (some pirate flag bunting!)
Cryx - eDeneghra

3rd: Thomas Rolland
Retribution - Garryth

Conflagration 2010: The Morning Before

I've woken up stupidly early in the morning to double check I have everything I need for Conflagration 2010. My backpack weighs a ton - it's got rule books, the Steamroller scenario rules, prizes, kitchen timers (and lots of them), objective markers, a million spare bases (also double as objective/wreck markers), tokens, tape measures, extra dice, mercenary cards... The list goes on and on.

It's actually quite exciting, I'm looking forward to the actual event. All the effort it takes to run such a small (relatively) tournament makes me wonder about the big conventions like GenCon or Templecon. I only have to deal with 20 or so people at the most, the first tournament Tom and I ran was fraught with errors and miscommunication (and the bloody venue staff turned up almost one hour late). Multiply that by at least 3 for a big convention, given the game sizes and the sheer number of people. Something to see for myself if I get a laptop. Maybe one day Conflagration will be like that (HAH!).

I'm hoping for the same atmosphere the first Rising Conflicts tournament had, which was so chilled out I could have had a barbecue going and an eski full of drinks. I'm also praying that the new owner of Figures in Comfort will be at Conflagration so I can get some new trays for all my Trollbloods - which in turn means I can get started painting my units...

Sticks & Stones, and a Whole Load of Rocks

I arrived home today to find two things - well actually 3, but one of them isn't gaming related - to cheer me up (though I am morbidly cheerful these days): an e-mail from the EU Quartermaster (Mike W) telling me that my Mulg the Ancient is on the way; and my Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes had arrived in the mail. Soon people will feel my stony wrath! Without proxies... And perhaps with painted models...

I'm rather impressed with the performance of the new Fennblades - I love Vengeance. The Earthborn also continues to impress, particularly against Warmachine where there is an abundance of high POW weapons. I'm pretty sure my Mauler suffers from the same malady that affected my first Mangler for the entirety of MKi - he just seems to die horribly in every game.

P.S. MULG SMASH!