It is Done. A New Era Dawns.

A new home for so many minis.

Well, I went through with it. Many, many miniatures are now briskly on their way to the local landfill. I would be lying if I said it didn't break my heart a bit, but it is something that had to be done. I needed to refocus my time, attention, blog space, and most importantly money onto something actually useable. The many, many minis that were trashed last night were not amongst those games.

This brings some changes to Wargaming Chaos. This is now primarily a 40k, WHFB, and Infinity blog, with bits of boardgaming miniatures thrown in here and there. That's pretty much it. Maybe a miracle will happen and I'll get back into Warmachine; I've decided to hold on to my Cryx, but that's it. My Cygnar stuff is gone. Finished. Outta here. After hearing that you pretty much need a Stormwall to be effective, I decided to bail.

Seriously, no.

I know you can potentially run (almost) any list in Warmachine, but I don't want this mini. In my opinion it is ugly, overpriced, and it being an auto-include doesn't help my opinion of it. The fact that you have to have this hunk of resin to be competitive just grinds my gears. I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them "Sam I Am".

I am still not pleased that I have to buy a Bane Thrall command section for my Cryx, but it is much less a bitter pill to swallow than having to spend a hundred and some-odd dollars on that Gargantuan.

Now the problem:

Selling my Cygnar minis.

I hate eBaying things, I prefer to get rid of things in one fell swoop. I want somebody to swoop in and grab up my stuff at the low, low price I'm offering them for. The problem is that not everybody (in fact fairly few people) want to drop the kind of money involved in picking up an army all at once. I have one potential buyer, but that's assuming he doesn't balk at the $400 price tag. This, for this much pewter, is a STEAL. The fact that they are (in my opinion) quite well painted only adds to the value. I can try posting them on eBay if nobody bites, but will anybody start the bidding at $400 plus shipping? I am seriously not willing to let them go for anything less.

Operation: Impending Doom

But what to do with said money? Well, as alluded to in my last post, Tau.

...But wait! Not just any Tau. I've been wanting to do this army for a while, and now that I am refocusing my attention onto games I can actually play, I will build an Irken army worthy of the Almighty Tallest! The Tau, with their high-tech weaponry, inability in close combat, and overall shootyness just screams Irken. I will be using the Zombiesmith "Grey Alien" range, as the sculptor basically said he modeled them after Invader Zim. I've got some ideas as to how to represent other machines of war, but they're still in the planning stage and may or may not change as I consider my options. This is my dream, it will be realized.

Oh, and I'm building an army for my wife, too. It's pretty stupid to be honest, but it does have potential. I'll just say I flagrantly stole it from somebody else and leave it at that.

Crisis of Faith? Or Warmachine Atheism?

It is with a heavy heart I say this, and not lightly.

I do not enjoy WARMACHINE any more. I don't know what happened. Maybe it was my total inability to win. Perhaps it was the nerfing of so many rules my old armies depended on. Maybe it was the introduction of Battle Engines, Colossals, and Gargantuans. Perhaps it was that there are (in my opinion) too many units with too many rules to keep track of. Maybe I just no longer get the game. It's got to be one, a few, or all of these things.

I think it started a while ago when I sold my Skorne. I felt no pain at letting them go. None. I gave my Hordes rulebook to my sister who was at the time starting up the game (who knows what happened to that). I never even flinched at getting rid of any of these things.

Just not doin' it for me...

During this time my figure cases full of minis have been sitting in the closet. Not just unused, not just collecting dust, but getting in the way. I have a limited amount of closet space, and on several occasions I have found myself getting annoyed that I can't put things like my Skaven or Dust Warfare minis there. They're beyond unused, they're almost a hassle. it is at times like these I begin to contemplate things.

Let's throw out an example. I really, really like Song of Blades and Heroes. A lot. I have a bunch of miniatures for it. I have a ton of terrain for it. What I do not have is an opponent to play the game system. The same goes for Alien Squad Leader. The same goes for Hordes of the Things. The same goes for the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game. Finally, the same goes for Flames of War. These are, to me, dead game systems. They are great games, but with no opponents, they are dead games.

It could get worse. I built an entire In Her Majesty's Name warband (that was the secret project) and barely even finished painting it before coming to the realization that there was no way I was going to be able to play the game.

Tau to be?

I guess what I'm getting at is this; it's "spring" cleaning time. All the above miniatures have to go. I'm going to sell the ones I can, but most of them (LotR, HoTT, SBH, ASQL) will be seeing the dumpster. Hundreds and hundreds of dollars of stuff getting pitched because of impulse buying into systems that looked cool, but I had no opponent for. Watch this space for the upcoming picture of the "Big Mountain O' Trash Minis" coming soon.

Now my attention turns to games I actually enjoy. Games I want to play. Games I have an opportunity to play. There's just this big part of me that doesn't care to play Warmachine any more. Maybe it'll pass, but it's only got until I find a potential buyer for my stuff.

Time will tell.

More Forward Progress

Yeah, no snappy title for this one.

Well, yet another tiny little post. I finished my Mournfang Cavalry. Here's a picture.

I received a Nomads starter box for my birthday, along with the Black 13th Gun Mage Strike team. Seems as soon as I dig myself out of my painting backlog, I'm backed up again. Not that I'm complaining, I'm just not sure what color I want to paint the Nomads minis. I'm thinking black and purple. It's been a while since I painted something purple, and the bug is starting to bite at me again.

Also the black 13th makes me want to run an eCaine list, and for that I need to paint up those Cygnaran Rangers I've got in my figure case, as well as one of those Chargers that've been collecting dust...

Arcing, But Not Spells

Why yes, I do own a few Cygnar minis.

Boredom, er, I mean inspiration hit tonight. I finally decided to get up off my rear and sit down to paint the arcs of vision on some of my models. Cygnar was near at hand, so I decided to do them. About an hour later and here I am with all the arcs painted on all my minis.

Here Haley shows off her sexy new arc.

That's about it for hobby progress lately. I plan on having some new minis to show off at some point, but with mid-terms hitting one after the other my time has not been my own. That will not be the case for a week or two here, so hopefully I'll be able to finish off those last two Infinity minis.

New Adventures in WARMACHINE

35 points of pure pain. I hope.

I've got a WARMACHINE game coming up soon, so today I went about picking my force this morning. I ended up with what you see to the left.

This may seem strange to those who've played the game for a while, but in my 10+ year career playing WARMACHINE (it's supposed to be written in all caps) I've never, ever, used Commander Coleman Stryker. That's right, the Warcaster in the Cygnar starter box, and he's never seen the field under my control. I started using Cygnar fielding Haley, and I never really regretted it. Now, however, I must experience the power that is supposed to be Earthquake. Knocking down everything in a 5" area seems like an amazing ability, so why not give him a whirl? Stryker isn't a one-dimensional Warcaster, either. His spell selection includes a group of buffs that will be useful throughout the game.

My finalized 35 point list is as follows:

Commander Coleman Stryker - +6 Warjack Points
- Squire Warcaster Attachment (2 pts.)
- Lancer Light Warjack (6 pts.)
- Lancer Light Warjack (6 pts.)
- Ironclad Heavy Warjack (7 pts.)

10x Long Gunner Infantry (10pts.)

10x Sword Knight Infantry (6 pts.)

Eyriss, Mage Hunter of Ios Mercenary Solo (3 pts.)

Firepower is the name of the game here, with the Long Gunners getting Snipe cast on them on turn 1. Arcane Shield will be thrown up on the Sword Knights giving them an impressive ARM 19 as long as they're in base-to-bast contact with one another.

Earthquake will be used to knock down targets, getting around any Defense buffs, and those long range Long Gunner volleys should be able to deal with high Armor.

The Lancers will carry their Arc Nodes into range of Stryker's spells, and their Shock Shields will be used to annihilate enemy Cortexes.

The Ironclad is are unsubtle as you would guess. It's job is to smash the face in of any 'Jack it sees.

The Sword Knights are the close combat arm of my force, relying on their massive ARM stat to get in close to the enemy. a knocked down Warjack is a sitting duck to a unit of Sword Knights on the charge.

Finally, there's Eyriss. She just does what she does, sniping enemy models, disrupting enemy Warjacks and Warcasters, and generally being a hassle.

I'm hoping this army will do what I want it to, but we'll see soon enough.

Wargaming Fail

Well, it was a Friday of frustrating losses. My best efforts to defeat the Winterguard Deathstar failed. I'll leave the nitty-gritty of it for those of you who care to Khadoran Machine Never Breaks, but suffice it to say I was outplayed at every turn.

The Orc & Goblin showdown didn't go much better. We bashed the tar out of each other, but as I feared the Grey Seer charging headlong into combat atop his bell turned out... poorly. He was easily massacred by his goblin foes, but at least I was able to take out the opposing Night Goblin Great Shaman immediately after. My Hell Pit Abomination was again easily pasted by Black Orcs. My Doomwheel did little to nothing against the trolls it was sent against (constant "Misfires" from its Warp Lightning projectors). All in all, I was utterly dominated the whole game.

This brings up one of my thoughts from the game; how good is the Hell Pit Abomination, really? Now I understand they're a force that multiplies on itself (two A-Boms are vastly better than one), but my single Abomination has yet to achieve anything other than crushing Skinks and winning a slug-out against the notoriously underpowered Giant. Maybe I should drop him.

Now, conventional "Internet Wisdom" is to go grab another model and double up the pain, but the problem with the model is it rolling 1s for it's random action. This action is useless (in my opinion). The only redeeming quality is its multiple damage ability, which in an era of gigantic blocks of single-wound infantry is a pretty useless ability. Honestly, I'm thinking I might want to remove the model and replace it with more Rat Ogres. Why Rat Ogres? Sheer damage output. My usual regiment of six Rat Ogres and four Packmasters seems ideal. Twenty-one attacks is simply an avalanche of pain, and they have far more wounds than an Abomination. Now, of course the unit costs more points, but not terribly many. I should be able to get the points by dropping the Warp-Lightning Cannon (another internet no-no).

What about the Screaming Bell? well, the Grey Seer is now going to simply bunker-up in one of the Clanrat units and hide at the back of the formation. The combat leader will now be a Warlord carrying an Ogre Blade. High Strength attacks, and a fair few of them seem to be my forte', so lets see if a Clanrat block with some teeth can turn things around. I'll need to get my hands on some Rat Ogres to pull this off, so until then the HPA will have to stay.

Hmmm... What if I simply drop the Abomination and use its points to buy a Warlord?

Off to write up some army lists!

Back to Warmachine

It's been, well, since before I started this blog that I last played a game of Warmachine, and to keep things from getting repetitive Demitra and I are pulling out our respective armies and once again going at it. Today's army focuses on ranged combat, with every model able to shoot (and damage) high defense/high armor targets.
Today's 35 point army consists of:

Major Markus "Siege" Brisbane (+5 Warjack Points)
-Defender Heavy Warjack (9 points)
-Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator (1 point)

Journeyman Warcaster (3 points)
-Hunter Light Warjack (6 points)

10x Long Gunners (10 points)

Stormblades (5 points)
-Stormblade Officer & Standard Bearer (3 points)

3x Stormcaller Stormsmiths (3 points)

The Stormsmiths will focus on Warjack disruption, along with officer sniping. The Journeyman Warcaster & his Hunter will dismantle enemy heavy warjacks as they attempt to close. The Long Gunners are the perfect blend of accuracy and power, able to wreck heavy Warjacks as easily as they can pick off high defense infantry. The Stormblades will be held back, waiting to inflict the killing blow on whatever survives the army's firepower.

Finally, there's Siege. Between Reinholdt's "Reload" ability and the Defender, Siege and his Battle Group can crank out three blast markers a turn. Perfect for ferreting enemy units out of cover!

We'll see how this army stands up to Demitra's "Winter Guard Deathstar" army, as I'm going to refuse to advance on him and make him come to me for a change.