Chatter Of The Squirrel

Confrontation by Rackham

November 18, 2008 on 4:03 pm | In Games, WARMACHINE | No Comments

Wolf brought in Rackham products to Malaysia several years ago. They had an incredible line of fantasy miniatures, all beautifully detailed, and their studio painters did an incredible job with the minis, making them all instantly recogniseable whenever you see them. (Note: The use of the past tense was deliberate.)

People still call it the Rackham style, and buying a Rackham miniature puts you under tremendous pressure to at least aim higher than your skills otherwise permits. Ends up, many players leave their minis primed, but unpainted, cos they’re always waiting until their painting skill is worthy enough.

But at the time the game started in Malaysia, I was already commited to WARMACHINE, and didn’t feel like supporting another game, however fine the minis are. Then finally the english rules came out, (Rackham is a French company), and I flipped through the rule book and see if anything might pique my interest. A large hard-cover book, and it was BORING AS HECK!! From cover to cover, it was just rules, and nothing else. Did they have to make the gameplay so complex that it takes a whole book to explain it?

 

Where’s the fluff?? Where are the stories that flesh out the miniatures! So many different races, two human factions with incredibly beautiful armoured knights, two elven races, dwarves on steam-powered pigs, un-dead dwarves, goblins, an undead horde, barbarians with minotaurs and centaurs, Amazonian warriors with gravity defying mammaries, orcs, Wolfens (the race that identified Rackham), and S&M Wolfens (seriously, with black leather bondage gear and all). So many characters and heroes from each faction, there should be tons of background on many if not all of them.

 

The minis are brilliant. But the stories aren’t accessible, they’re only published in their rather expensive magazine, Cry Havoc. After being spoilt by Privateer Press, I expect good fantasy fiction with every metal soldier I purchase.

Despite my gripe, Rackham WAS an amazing company. They MADE consistently good looking sculpts. I’m not very familiar with their entire line, and have only scrutinized the Orcs of Bran-o-Kor. A single unit type, the Jackal Warriors, can be armed with your choice of swords, clubs or axes. And Rackham manufactured two sculpts for each weapon profile. It was a testament to the company’s commitment to quality.

But then they started going the Games Workshop way.

Changed the game from being skirmish encounters, to regiment battles. What this means, is that you’ll need to buy TONS more metal soldiers to play a game. Business logic : force the customers to buy more, then company makes more money. They even started going plastic to reduce cost of manufacture and shipping.

Consequence : Players quit.

Rackham players wanted to play with beautifully painted, heroic characters. Not hordes of shoddily painted nameless soldiers. Also, the expense of owning so many figures was prohibitive. And many of their molds were coming to the end of their life-cycles and the transition to plastic took too long, production & distribution problems. New players couldn’t get hold of stuff they wanted. Even the promotional paint-jobs went from Golden Demon standard, to Mage Knight level.

A friend recently went manic and started hunting for Rackham minis everywhere. Especially for the OOP (out of production) pieces and limited run clan boxes. He was placing huge orders from online stores all over, buying as if the game was going out of style. Which it is… The minis are heavily discounted all over.

Brandon kept bugging me to join in, but I resisted. Still, I guess I could see myself grabbing a nice cheap mini just to paint. Especially since I’ve bought the Painting Tutorial DVD from Miniature Mentor, I’ll just grab a Wolfen Prowler, and try to follow along with the DVD.

The Prowler is a masterful piece of work.

Even the sword will be challenging to paint. Using many shades of grey to simulate the shine and reflection on a metal blade. A technique called Non Metallic Metals.

So I had my heart set on painting this piece, the defining representative of Rackham in my collection. Then suddenly came news that the store didn’t stock the Prowler. Rackham products were getting scarce all over.

 

 

 

 

 

So I asked Brandon if there’s another nice mini to do. And he pointed me to this:

The Animistic Shaman on Brontops.

How can you say no to a big green orc, riding an armour-clad dinosaur, and waving an axe fashioned from a large femur? It’s sooo majestic!

And since I’m getting this orc already, what’s a few more to round out a small force so that I can also use to play with my friends?

I’m unimpressed by Confrontation’s gameplay. Their rules went through several revisions, and some of the earlier rules were just odd, like the random unit activation… And they’ve made so many different armies, so one force isn’t balanced against another. There are a few obviously powerful armies, some are mere annoyances, and the newer armies have too few unit types and lack tactical options. And Orcs fall on the latter category, it appears. But what the hey, that only means that they’re the most common stock that’s still left on the shelves of online merchants, and can be bought at steep discounts up to 75% off. Quite a bargain.

So I ended up buying a moderately sized force of the Orcs of Bran-O-Kor. Got all the different Orc Warrior Mages. Some random fighters. And whatever hero that was on discount. (One of the heros arrived without the head).

And since I’m already making a sizeable order, I also got a few beautiful pieces of Wolfen just to paint. Just when I though I can stop, my friend placed yet another order and tempted me with an OOP box of Goblin Pirates.

 

I have a lot of work cut out for me…

GenCon 2008

August 15, 2008 on 11:03 am | In WARMACHINE | 1 Comment

Someone asked me, that if I had all the money in the world, where would I want to go?

Everyone will probably start thinking of walls, tombs, or falls that they must see. Dead things. Or dead things made by dead people FOR dead people. Me, I started thinking of life, especially where people are teeming with PASSION.

My first answer: I will want to be in Indiana this weekend.

This is the GenCon Indy weekend. Probably the most important event for gaming all year. Where game companies show off and release new products. Where unwashed geeks flock to see the latest cool games. Games. Demos. Panels. Tournaments. Painting competitions. Painting classes. LOTS.

Where I will be able to see things like THIS first hand.

Now THIS is a thing of beauty. A Slayer Helljack, crouching over a girl holding a teddy-bear. Beautifully sculpted, fantastic pose. Here’s an art piece that tells a story! It inspires terror, menace, and a tiny sliver of hope! Will this mechanical warmachine powered by necromantic energies show mercy to this hapless human, or will it reason that it will reap more suffering from letting the traumatised orphan live.

It brings a tear to my eye, and makes me glad that Cryx is my chosen faction when I started this hobby.

雞狼毫

May 30, 2008 on 11:55 pm | In Me!, WARMACHINE | No Comments

While walking around Muar, killing time… I came across this big shop that specialises in Chinese calligraphy brushes. Hundreds upon hundreds of brushes, in many dozens of varieties. It was fun just looking and poking at everything. Except for the lady boss hovering behind me, making me feel like a tourist who’s aimlessly browsing and not really buying.

Which I was…

Rabbit hair brushes. Sheep hair. Goat hair. Pony hair. Etc.

Then I saw something called 雞狼毫. Literally, “chicken wolf hair”. That’s, interesting… Never heard of a .chicken wolf’. Asked the lady what animal hair is this? She says chicken wolf hair. I can read the words on the brush just fine, thank you very much. But there’s no such thing as a chicken wolf. Is there?

Could it be some kind of chinese fox? Or, dare I hope, a kind of sable ??

The most desired painting brushes are made from Siberian sable.

I have bought a pair of Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes for my miniature painting. They were around RM50 each. For very very few hairs of Kolinsky sable hairs. Price of different size brushes increases rapidly proportionate to the amount of hairs used. For best quality, only the the hair from the winter coat of the tip of the tail of the male kolinsky sable is used. These are fantastic brushes, and well worth the price I think. The tip is sharp, and STAYS sharp for years. Nylon brushes will begin to hook within half a week of moderate painting. I’ve put these hairs under the microscope, and every hair is Sharp! It’s very springy and will snap back into shape every time. They’re wonderful.

And these 雞狼毫 were only about RM2 each? Might these be the same sable? Even found a series of smaller art series brushes that was pure 狼毫. So I bought like 3 of these brushes.

Did some Googling. Well no, for ‘Chinese’ knowledge, it’s better to use Baidu.com.

So it seems that there is no such thing as a ‘chicken wolf’. Those brushes are a combination of the neck hairs of a cock, and the 小黄鼠狼, ’small yellow mouse wolf’.

They’re quite adorable. And that reddish brown fur, is VERY familiar. More Googling. Found it’s genus name, Mustela sibtricus Palias. That’s the Siberian Weasel. Commonly known as the Kolinsky Sable, but the animal is not a sable.

This. Is. AWESOME!!

Sable brushes for PENNIES!! Relatively…

Then further research showed that there are TONS of fake 狼毫 on the market, which uses dyed pony hair instead of weasel hair. And the way to tell the fake, is that it’s many tens of times cheaper than the real thing.

D’oh!!

I tried out the brushes anyway, at the last Legio club meet. And the brush does not perform as well as a W&N. Softer, not as much snap. But the brush can hold a lot of paint and it’s pretty good for RM2. Until bits of hair starts frizzing, or breaking off and sticking to the model.

GAK!!

That’s chicken hair for you!

I wonder if I’m the first person to review using chicken hair brushes for miniature painting.

Terminus

December 20, 2006 on 3:50 pm | In WARMACHINE | No Comments

Spent the past few weeks painting up the Lich Lord to display and play at the event at Cineleisure last weekend.

After gluing up the wings and most of the bits, I used my airbrush and sprayed Chaos Black all over it. Giving everything a good black coat to paint on.

Then, I used Skull White, and sprayed a thin layer from the top at an angle. This way, the upper surfaces, and parts that light will shine on, will be white. While the shadowed bits will remain black. This is a lazy cheat.

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Then I sprayed the wings with Naphtanol Red. And I quite like the resulting effects. As I had hoped, the surfaces exposed by light came out a brighter red, while those parts in the shadows remain darker. Thus, enhancing the looks of the miniature, without the tedious paint layering or blending.The rest of the model took me about a week of painting while at work.

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The finished product:

Still a little too shiny for an undead creature eons old. But I can continue to improve on it as skill or accessibility to new paints allow…

The Black Spot #6

December 19, 2006 on 2:27 pm | In WARMACHINE | No Comments

Who is a Press Ganger?
This is Norman, your local Press Ganger.

I’m the guy judging tournaments, and being roped in by gamestores to do demos for WARMACHINE and HORDES. [These games kick so much ass, they have to spelt in all CAPS].

“But what is the Black Spot, Captain?” - Jim from Treasure Island
I’m starting up this newsletter as a means to get word out to the small crew of Privateer Press fans out there. I’ll use the newsletter to keep everyone updated on the local WARMACHINE and HORDES scene. Especially notices for demos or tournaments happening locally. When new stuff comes in. What kind of new stuff to expect.

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Tournament Reports

We had two events last weekend at the Sci-Fi & Fantasy Festival at Cineleisure.

Photos found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/64603942@N00/sets/72157594425701057/

Great times had by all, and those of you who missed it should be sorry.

It was a 3 day fest with comics, cos-play, tournaments, toys, and games.
Things you will have missed:
Electra
The Invisible Woman (with the very visible pantie-line)
dancing teenage girls
christmas carols by a mass of sweet young church girls
a lascivious lupine (see above)
Stormtroopers with droopy pants
Eric as a Jedi
Zach as Predator

And you’ll also have missed out on two WARMACHINE tourneys…

We started with a 350pt Guts & Gears on Saturday.
Was hoping to make the tournament more accessible to the new players. But alas, only 6 players turned up. Ah well…

Kuok - Butcher
Rahman - Vlad
Khalead - Sorcha
Alvin “the Slammer” - Butcher
Geoffrey - Darius
Jefri - Vayl

With the poor turn-out, and tardy players, it seems like everyone was just going through the motions. Not much happens in a 350pt game after all… No wacky combos. No heroic dice-rolls. It was going to be a pretty bland tourney until everyone agreed to making the 3rd match a Six Way Free For All!

Mark had built a large factory for Flames of War games. But no FOW players were at the event and the huge terrain was just a big diorama. We moved all the little people out, and deployed 6 armies on the table.

Rules:
For every Warcaster/Warlock you kill, you earn another 5 Tournament Points. Player with most points win.

And to spice it up, player order will be determined randomly every round! This made for some sweet sweet chaos!

Standings before Match 3:
Carlead - 10
Kuok - 6
Geoffrey - 6
Rahman - 6
Alvin - 6
Jefri - 2

Four Khador, one Cygnar, one Everblight.

I think everyone was able to see that the 350pt Darius with 2 Centurions was the biggest threat. No single army can take out that much tempered steel on its own, and in a battle of attrition, the bothersome Half-jacks will make all the difference.

It’s only good strategy that persuaded everyone to converge on the cocky mechanik hiding inside his crusty Jack suit.

Alvin’s forces was the first to collide with the Full Throttled & JackHammered Centurions, and took massive casualties. Jefri’s Carnivean plowed into the fray from inside the factory and crushed one Centurion, which was almost immediately revived again by Darius’ feat.

At some point, Geoffrey started screaming, “I’m getting gang-raped by X players at the same time! This is so gay!!” Over. And over. And over again… But the value of X only kept increasing as a result.

In such a scenario, it would have been tactically wiser for Darius to use its greater mobility (relative to Khadorans), to hit and run one army at a time. Instead it chose to clash into the first army it sees and proceeded to get itself bogged down as a second, then a third, then a fourth army joined into the fray.

Kuok’s Butcher was the first to fall from a charging Centurion. Leaving him with one Kovnik & a Devastator for the remainder of the game. And Geoffrey takes the lead with 11 TP.

Carlead’s Sorcha lumbers in from the far far end of the table. Popped her feat to trap almost everyone, then wailed on Darius with her Ice Scythe. Doing far short of fatal damage.

At this point, Kuok’s lumbering Devastator finally got into threat range of some juicy targets. While Sorcha was dinging Darius’ armour, the Devastator moved into base to base with both WarCasters and gave them a group hug. 2x POW 18 Rain of Death.

Rolling 3 dice for Darius, Kuok got 6,6,5. The mechanik swallowed so many grenades that his remains are going back to Caspia in a cup. Kuok is now at 11 TP.

POW18 damage roll for Sorcha… came up 6,6. Leaving Sorcha with only 1 life left! The Kovnik charged in to finish the job, but missed.

Alvin quickly moved up to steal the kill, and earned his new nickname. He slammed the Destroyer into Kuok’s Kovnik, and the heavily armoured northerner flew so far it rolled over Sorcha, a Manhunter, and an innocent Shredder. But failed to do the critical point of collateral damage on Sorcha.

No matter. Butcher moves up and tossed Avalanche on Sorcha’s prostrate form. And failed to do damage.

Butcher loaded up his boom-stick, took aim and fired off a round into her back. And failed to do damage yet again.

New round. It boiled down to who will get to activate first. Either Sorcha escapes, or someone will take the kill.

The Hug-anator got its activation first and buried Sorcha in shrapnel. Winning the tournament.

Great fun.

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Sunday was a quieter day, so we had our 750pt WARMACHINE event. Just so we can end 2006 with an epic battle.

We had:
Khairul - Prime Kreoss
Saleem - Epic Haley
Geoffrey - Epic Caine
Kuok - Karchev
Norman (me) - Terminus

We already had an even number of players. But Wolf wants to break open the faction certificates for this event. I had to sign up too so that the Best of Cryx doesn’t go to waste.

Round 1

E.Caine vs Kreoss.
As I understood it, eCaine forgot that he was fighting Prime Kreoss, and not the epic. He got hit by the Kreoss Pop & Drop, the oldest trick in the book.

E.Haley vs Karchev
Karchev was badly outnumbered in this matchup. eHaley out-manuevers Karchev and was whittling his jacks down very effectively.

eHaley, thinking that she was in the clear, having successfully knocked out the Spriggan’s cortex and shield-arm, finally popped her head out of the rabbit-hole she was hiding in…. Not realising that Karchev had lulled her into a false sense of security and was subtly setting up a death-dealing blow.

Caine from the next table, possibly motivated by the Best of Cygnar certificate, wanted to ‘help’ Khador win and proceeded to ‘teach’ Karchev what he should do. This alerted eHaley, who had one last model to activate. The JWC immediately hopped in to block the fatal counter-attack.

Otherwise, Karchev could’ve Towed the Spriggan into position, cast Unearthly Rage, popped Total War, and the Spriggan will be able to bear down on eHaley with MAT8 to hit with 3d6, and POW18 damage with 3d6. That’s 63% chance of hitting, and pretty goods odds of winning too.

Saleem never saw that move coming until his fellow Cygnaran blabbed it out.

Round 2
Kreoss vs eHaley
These guys got so lost in the game they just couldn’t stop. The match must’ve lasted 2 hours.

Good moments: eHaley Dominated a Menoth jack and used it to blow a hole into the Monolith Bearer’s back. There was even a convenient Focus on the jack to spend for boosting.

Terminus vs eCaine
My list:
Terminus
Skarlock (I forgot I had enough pts left for this!!!)
2 Deathrippers
8 Bile Thralls
8 Bile Thralls
8 Satyxis + Seawitch
8 Bane Knights
Bane Lord Tartarus
2 Pistol Wraiths
Gorman di Wulfe
10 Croe’s Cutthroats
(750 pts)

Geoffry:
Epic Caine
Journeyman WarCaster
2 Hunters
Arcane Tempest Gun Mages
Gun Mage Captain Adept
Eyriss
Stormblades + Unit Attachment
5 Storm Lancers
1 Storm Smith

Yea… I’ve got a butt load of models in my army. After selling my Deathjack, I don’t have a good Helljack to fill out points. Thus the 16 Bile Thralls…

The Advance Deploy for Croe’s was great. First turn, they ran in and bogged down a Hunter. And there’s nothing the ATGMs can do about them, with their Stealth, and DEF 17 in melee. And it gave time for the Satyxis to run up behind to charge next turn.

Next turn, some of the Croe’s charged into the Storm Lancers, some others into the ATGMs bogging everyone down.

Thus allowing the Bile Thralls to pour through the gaps to wipe out the ATGMs, all but one Storm Blade, Eyriss, and injure the Storm Lancers. The Bane Knights got the charge on the other Hunter, then on the Storm Lancers. By tying up the range units early, my Bile Thralls over ran the center uninhibited and mopped up.

But in the end… Gorman’s 3″ Smoke template proved insufficient protection for Terminus. eCaine got line of sight to it, with True Sight on. True Sight will negate Terminus’ Sacrificial Pawn ability. eCaine popped his feat and shot Terminus 8 times.

Fatal damage. If not for Terminus having cast Shadow of Death the turn before…

So the game came down to a single Tough roll… And I rolled a 5! Termie lives!

After that, a Bile Thrall purged on Caine. An arcnode went in to throw Annihilation. And 6 Bane Knights charged in and surrounded Caine (DEF17).

5 BKs (MAT6) have 1/12 chance of hitting each;
1 BK Lt (MAT7) has 3/12 chance of hitting.

About 50% odds. Even if they all missed, if Caine tried to run on his turn, he’ll take 6 Free Strikes at +2 to MAT.

If Caine stays put, Tartarus will walk up and curse him (-2 DEF), giving the BKs the same odds again as the Free Strikes. Then the arcnode that’s still there will drop another Annihilation which can’t miss. Or another Bile Thrall will walk in to purge. So staying put is a death warrant.

So here’s your homework. What were Caine’s odds of dodging the 6 BK attacks, and THEN running away on his turn. You can of course assume that he’s on his last legs and a single strike with Weapons Master will bury him.

First correct answer submitted gets a cookie.

BTW, my 4th BK killed Caine and narrowly won the tournament.

It had already been a long day at this point, so we stopped the tournament with just two matches. With Saleem taking home the champion cards. The rest of us got Best of Faction certificates, and only Geoffrey went home empty handed. But he should take comfort with the 2nd place he won on Saturday.

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Upcoming Tournaments

There’s nothing else for the remainder of the year.

Almost thought we might squeeze in another friendly at Settler’s Cafe, but there’s been some management upheaval at the cafe, and our beloved hang-out is on hiatus.

But there’ll be new things to look forward to next year.

The Quartermaster had whispered, to PressGanger ears only, that in February (or before), they’ll start a Worldwide Campaign. With battle conditions changing week from week. Every Monday, there’ll be an official post on their website with some new thing happening.

That’s all I know about it so far…

And this doesn’t even include the Grind event happening next year. This was only hinted at the end of No Quarter #9. Even I don’t know what that’s about yet.

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The Crow’s Nest

Our devoted Cygnaran in Kiwi-land, Arzmi, got so itchy without his army with him, he just bought himself Stryker, Defender, 2x Ironclads & JWC at the Christmas sale. And whooping ass, surprisingly. He also bought the Cygnar P3 paintset, and seems to be all praises about it. Particularly liked the blue highlights, cos he’s too lazy to mix highlight colours himself…

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Phat Lootz

Also, Wolf is STILL having a 10% sale on ALL Cryx products until the end of the year.

Where are our Cryx players?

At present, there’s still some Harrowers, Leviathans, Satyxis Raiders, Epic Skarre, Reapers, random blisters on the shelves.

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Wolf is also trying to encourage some HORDES action at his shop.

Play HORDES there, and earn 1 pt. The points can be used to redeem free HORDES merchandise later.

Remember that there’s a table rental charge at Wolf’s now. This applies to all games, even card games and boardgames. These table rentals pay for the electricity. But for HORDES players, the money you pay for table rental just goes into a piggy bank for you to redeem that free mini later.

This now applies even for WARMACHINE games. But those points are still only used to redeem HORDES merchandise only.

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The next big Privateer Press shipment to Wolf’s will happen in January, when No Quarter #10 and Prime:Remix is ready.

I think we’re pretty sure we can expect Trencher Grenade Porter, Trencher Officer + Sharpshooter, Devouts, and maybe Alten Ashley. And two sets of each P3 paint set.

Yet again, no Cryx love… Unless some Cryx players, especially the new ones, come forward soon. Coming releases have the Helldiver, (which even our Khad-Orkan might get cos it’s “shou kewt”), and the Satyxis Seawitch, which roXXored my soXXors in two games on Sunday.

Prime: Remix will be in full colour, with very few tweaks of some units possibly. And new stories. It’ll have all the updated and errataed rules in the last few years. Including Trampling rules that popped up in Apotheosis and likely the Cavalry rules in Superiority.

Please note that Prime:Remix won’t have unit stats from the units in Escalation onwards. It’s a compilation of rules from all books. But not all the units. I think some of you might have been under this misconception.

From now till Wolf places the order, you may pre-order Prime:Remix, pay in full, and get a 10% discount.

BTW, I’ve got a 2nd hand copy of Prime for sale….cheap cheap, any takers? ^_^
heh heh…

The Bilge

No new web-comic to recommend this week. Although someone missed out the link to http://superdickery.com/dick/126.html… Trust me, that’s more brain damage than a Smallville marathon. This is like… an in-bred face-hugger that violated the wrong orifice and implanted a baby alien through your ear.

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Epilogue
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