Tuesday 21 December 2010

Click and Drag

Having now had a few games with a slightly changed up battlegroup, I'm rather pleased with the extra options afforded by the Swamp Troll.  The pDoomshaper themed force suffers from not being able to reach out and seize the enemy (at least against Warmachine) but with the Swamp Troll this is alleviated.  Critical Consume isn't a bad bet either.  Unfortunately that means ditching the Pyre Troll and Earthborn for a Dire Troll Mauler and the Swamp Troll (and a Runebearer) which makes me a sad panda.  I do like my Pathfinder, warbeasts without it promotes a heavier reliance on Rush, so I'll need to keep the Axer alive if rough terrain abounds.

With this shift in battlegroup I've picked up my Mauler and got back to painting him.  He's been about 30% done for ages, now I've got him about half done and if I can keep up the current progress he should be done just  before the new year.  I had a crazy idea to give him very pale blue Maori style tattoo's much like this from CMON.  My big worry is that I won't get a similar finish and it'll be very rough, so I'm going to finish the Mauler in my current scheme and then puzzle over whether I want to attempt the tattoo's/paint.

Wednesday 15 December 2010

The Ageing Process

I've had a brief hiatus from Warmachine and Hordes, indulging myself in the world of Dragon Age for almost 2 days worth of gameplay (so... about 2.5 days of real time if you throw in some sleep - yes, I'm one of those people).  However, it's all completed (including DLC) and now I can get back on track with Caen-related events.

On Saturday I tested out my army against Jim testing out his Menoth army.  Generally I detest the Covenant of Menoth like nothing else on Terra (except perhaps this one ex-girlfriend...) but sacrificing a heavy warbeast just to get rid of it is probably a mistake.  Better to just live with it and get around to killing everything else - or bring a list with ranged attacks.  The Runeshapers did surprisingly well, I'll have to come up with different tactics to keep them alive and get the most out of their spell-slinging.

The Bouncer appears to have been superseded by Janissa Stonetide.  The Wall of Stone she provides easily overlaps the uses I had for the Bouncer - which oddly, wasn't Shield Guard, the Bouncer was there for Bump to be used against lists such as eSkarre.  Now that I can just slap down a wall in front of my heavies pretty much gives them immunity from non-Reach charges.  So out goes the Bouncer and I once again have 5 points spare; I think I'm going to throw in an Impaler and see how the results work.  My main concern about the Impaler is how hot it usually runs, but it's been a solid performer before.  A side benefit is that I will have a fully painted battlegroup.

Sunday 5 December 2010

Merchandising

So I beat Jim's Mohsar to death with eDoomshaper's walking stick in a classic "Get Off My Lawn" throw down on Tuesday.  Good times were had by me.

I've been working on gift ideas for the Tartan Brawl lately, and I wanted to have oval-shaped metal discs on a keyring engraved with "Tartan Brawl", but quickly discovered that it's next to impossible to order anything less than 250 of the things and that quickly overspends any semblance of a budget I had.  Then inspiration arrived in the form of dog tags.  Stick an engraved dog tag on a split ring (the ring thing you attach all your keys to) and you have an almost identical product.  I've ordered a handful of test dog tags to see how they respond to engraving.  I knocked up that concept picture up on the left using Photoshop, but I'll be sure to stick up a picture of the test tags once they're done.

On the same note I've come to realise that my poor Press Ganger t-shirt just isn't cutting it.  It's too cold, and if I wear a jumper, that obscures the t-shirt, so if anyone needs a PG, they need to know me personally rather than just looking for anyone with the correct t-shirt.  If I were a bulkier person maybe, but I definitely need something with sleeves - my twig-like arms aren't going to impress anyone I'm afraid.  To this end I'm checking out various t-shirt companies in the local area who can whip me up a Press Ganger jumper/hoodie.  Preferably in white, black is a slimming colour and if I get any slimmer I'll be able to slip under doors.

I was drafting a long list of cool things to give away at the Tartan Brawl but I think I'm at the limit of my budget.  The list of costs has grown quite large, and while I'd love to give away more stuff, it's all my own money I'm spending.  On the plus side however, the list of goodies has grown fairly large and reached a stage where I'm content and can hope that everyone walks away with something they like.  Now all I need to do is convince the other Scottish players to travel...