WarmaHordes Final Thoughts III

And now, the final instalment in the WarmaHordes series, the closing thoughts of Scott, Commander of Subjugation, and of myself as the ArchDeacon of the Lost Crusade.

Wow, that was a bit intense. At first I thought painting up a thousand points of a faction would be a piece of cake. It doesn’t really hit you just how much work that entails. Being the latecomer I felt I was playing catch up on the painting aspect a bit. The challenge though, was a ton of fun and really got me motivated to paint. I’m really happy with the paint jobs I managed to pull off on most of my models even if a few were rushed. I may go back to touch them up when I’m feeling more inspired.

I had only just recently starting playing my Skorne before this challenge came up. My collection was a little haphazard, still is actually, but I found I really enjoy playing this faction. They have some things in common with my first one, Khador, but with some of the extra tricks and combo potential that Khador tends to lack. I know many people who have said Skorne are very weak, but I don’t feel they are at all. Everything they have is nice and solid. There really isn’t any bad choices when building a skorne force. This makes them fun to collect because you can just pick up what you like and do pretty well with them. They do get better when you bring certain things and set up the combos of course. Expendable troops with the Ancestral Guardian. epic Morghul with an Extoller. Paingivers to control and buff your beasts. Metamorphosis brought some nice things for them, even though I’ve only used three of them so far, the future of Skorne is bright indeed.

My first game against Kyle was a pretty much landslide victory for the Skorne. I was fairly certain I’d get smoked by his Circle force. I was taking anything and everything I happened to have painted at the time while Kyle had the chance to plan his force out. However the Cyclops Shaman proved to be a nuisance he couldn’t deal with and the Skorne managed to pull off a win.

My game with Chris was one of the closer games I’ve ever had. It didn’t help that the scenario happened to really favour his army, with his jacks protected by the choir I knew I was going to have to take them out to have a chance. I didn’t expect I’d get them by slamming Blessing of Vengeance over them with the Shaman! Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to get me the win. The Protectorate proved to be a tough nut to crack and the dice were against me at the end despite nearly killing Severius early in the game. I was kicking myself for a while afterward because I realized later how I could have easily won the game at the end too. Live and learn though, eh?

Pauls Legion was a scary list for me. I had never run into Ryhas before and really didn’t know what she could do. Paul played it risky with her and nearly got me in the end. I was able to control the battle for the most part though and negate some of his bigger threats like the Carnivean for most of the game.

Derricks Legion was the opposite beast and I was genuinly terrified of his force. He had so much hitting power on the field I didn’t think I’d be able to stand up to him at all. A shadow walking, amucked (and should have been enraged) Rhinodon is a sight to behold though. I managed to inflict quite a lot of damage to his army over the course of the game. Silly me however, didn’t understand and forgot about the scenario the whole game and he was able to win despite significant losses on his side.

The games were all fun, I think this marked my, oh fourth and fifth games versus the dreaded Legion of Everblight? I still haven’t fought too many games against Khador, nor have I faced a purely Pirates force. Put those on my to do list I suppose.

I want to thank all my opponents and the people participating in the challange. Double thanks to Chris for keeping things organized. Unfortunately I’ve missed my final deadline due to forces beyond my control, but It’s done. Now if you’ll excuse me, I still have a half dozen Skorne models to paint.

- Scott/Valrus

The WarmaHordes Challenge has been… a challenge, appropriately enough.

I embarked on this crazy ride after discussions with Paul and Joe (who unfortunately wasn’t able to ride it out with us). All three of us had a pile of metal we wanted to get paint on, and any excuse to play more games together is a good thing, so why not, we thought.

To my delight (and admittedly, trepidation) we found other like-minded souls in similar circumstances hiding around the Hobby Kingdom. I distinctly remember finding Derrick hiding in the rack of Flames of War mini’s, sandwiched between two blisters of half-tracks. Jason was napping under the counter with his Harley-Davidson brand soother and blankie, and Kyle was conducting experiments to see if he could make a Warpwolf with actual morphing capabilities.

In a short matter of time, we corralled these wayward souls and, after siphoning Scott in through a pan-dimensional vortex after Joe was viciously assaulted by “Real Life”, we were on our way. We only had to deal with people changing their factions three or four times before we were able to look at launching. I had originally hoped to have six different factions involved, to allow for maximum variety, but the lads were just so keen on their factions… but they agreed to make sure they didn’t double-up on warlocks, and they made puppy dog eyes and I’m pretty sure Paul even had his girlfriend pout at me at one point (Hi Michelle!), so what could I do?

Even the warmup period was fun, with people trying out initial 350pt lists before everything was painted, to see what they could make work. I did have the benefit of playing against Morvahna at this stage, so a hint of what may come later in the challenge, but this was only my second ever game against Circle, so I knew I’d be in for a fight one way or another when the time came.

My first official game was against Paul and his Rhyas-led Legion. This game was a ridiculous amount of fun, in large part thanks to the scenario. That hole was getting bigger and bigger every turn, and staying out of its way provided an entertaining aspect to the game, as our armies tried to surge forward aggressively while at the same time gingerly trying to avoid being sucked into the pit. I freely admit that I’d never come under fire from CRA before, so while I was aware of it in theory, I hadn’t really *felt* its effectiveness. Paul remedied that, filling my warjacks with a lovely assortment of holes… but an armless Reckoner is still apparently still pretty stompy, and the nearly-disabled warjack was able to trample his way through to winning the game for me.

My second game was against Scott and his Skorne, and really, I should have lost this one. I foolishly underestimated Midwinter as he blew up a Wrack with my Seneschal nearby, I left myself open to a devastating slam as Blessing of Vengeance stumbled backward onto my choir, and Severius was gravely wounded, out in the open and under fire when I could have just left him in the lee of the building. The true stars of this battle for me were Ashes to Ashes and the Reckoner, whose choking veil saved Severius by debuffing the Basilisk’s to-hit rolls. There must have been four or five rolls that Scott made in that last turn that could have ended the game, but they were all missing by one. My one regret about this game is that I’ve still yet to see a Rhinodon, one of the most characterful models around, do its thang in person.

Third, it was Jason and his Trolls, and this was an absolutely epic game. Both of us were denied our usual “Mass in one area” strategies by the scenario – my Daughters were nowhere near Feora, my Wracks were on the far side of the board, I even had to run to get Rhupert and the Vassal into position to be useful. The Trolls dominated the centre of the board with their beasts while Feora and her battlegroup got stuck in with the Kriel Warriors on the one flank, the Daughters trying to keep the Champions busy on the other. More than anything else, this game showed me that every freakin’ unit in the Troll army has tarpit potential. Despite my best efforts those tough rolls kept coming… but in the end, my concept worked – every model I set on fire was an extra chance for Jason to fail a tough roll. The bonded Redeemer’s blazing skyhammer rockets were basically my counter to Troll toughness. While this wasn’t the largest battle in the challenge, it certainly felt the most epic, and was a hoot to play.

Finally, I came full circle – I’d tested against Kyle’s Circle pre-challenge, and now I got to face him at 1000pts. Holy toledo, was I nervous. Tharn are fast and brutally dangerous enough without Krueger’s cadre bonus. Kyle had developed a feel for Morvahna by now, and was packing a whole bunch of high armour stone toys to thwart Feora’s fires, and had enough ranged toys to keep Severius hiding for the bulk of the game. That the scenario gave him an extra sniper didn’t help. Yes, I could chant no-shooty to protect my four warjacks (at the expense of not chanting no-spelly or Infuse), but he was packing enough warbeasts that even if I was able to tag one per turn, it’d still take me five turns to win by scenario. He had enough toys that he could have simply left one Woldwyrd back in his deployment zone, out of range of my tower, to deny any possibility of a scenario win… but he made it that much harder for me by keeping ALL of his warbeasts out of range of my sniper until about the fourth turn. Whatever plans I may have had went out the window as I tried to deal with his shifting stones, who proved to be somewhat of a tarpit themselves, and the incoming Regrowth’d Tharn Ravagers. Yeesh. I stated it in the battle report, but I’ll say it here again – Kyle is an amazing opponent with such a great attitude towards the game; win or lose, it’s always a good game.

And when the dust settled, the only Warmachine faction in the challenge won through. Robots > Ninjas, Dinosaurs, Highlanders and Barbarians.

More than any other reason, this challenge has been rewarding because there’s now a combined 6000 pts more of fully painted miniatures at the Hobby Kingdom. Painted models add so much more to the gaming experience; the participants in the challenge not only reached a painting milestone, but we were also able to prove to ourselves that we *can* reach that milestone. Fully painted armies aren’t unattainable – you just need some crazy Australian git setting deadlines and nagging you to get the bloody things done on time so he can maintain a posting schedule on his blog.

To everyone who participated in the WarmaHordes Challenge, I thank you for four months of dedicated effort, commitment and shenanigans.

To everyone who participated in making picks, I thank you for your diligence.

To everyone who visited Lost Hemisphere and followed this series, I thank you for your attention.

To everyone who’s thinking “Now what?”, I say wait and see… keep yourself busy by listening to Midnight Oil’s Blue Sky Mining album, and see if you can figure out the relevence

- Chris/Gdaybloke