Girl on Girl! Sorry, meant Cryx on Cryx

Now I know it isn't exciting, but tonight will be my first battle against my own faction. I am playing Geoff, who is infinitely more experienced at table top war games, but I'm only slightly terrified.

I am still not sure who I'm bringing to the table tonight, but we are going to be playing with MKII rules. I have not spent the time going through the new rules and cards so it could be a slower game than Geoff likes. I am also planning on playing some models I haven't played, so it could be brutal.

If only Whelp Pale Ale was ready to drink I could have a bottle of that to provide some liquid courage.

I will post my list and how the battle turns out tomorrow. There is a possibility of a 25 pt MKII game against Menoth later in the evening, but I will have to see what how late it is.

New Lists

For those of you that have followed my blog for any length of time you probably noticed that my armies were usually pretty similar. I typically used one of three casters and then my core units and jacks remained the same.

I have recently come upon a lot of models and I now have access to all of the cryx casters with the exception of Mortenenbra and Goreshade the cursed.

I now have epic casters as well as Terminus and the Witch Coven. The question is who to bring to the table. I really want to play with Terminus even though I have been told I will lose. The model just looks bad ass and he looks like he could fly in and lay a beat down on a lot of stuff. The Coven allows for a huge control range and paired with more focus efficient jacks allows for a lot of focus to throw around on spells.

I have satyxis and the sea witch in case I can find someone to play MK II rules with, and if I take them I think I will have to bring out epic Skarre.

I also now have the revenant crew. I am not really familiar with what they are capable of in MKI or MKII, but I might have to put them in an army just for the hell of it.

Then there is the always fun Deneghra and bonejack army. I have been toying with running Deneghra at 500 points with 4 Deathrippers, 4 Nightwretches, and 2 Defilers. I would probably get my ass kicked, but it would be fun to have all that speed.

I have a few other jacks that I have never seen anyone play, especially in MKI rules, but if I get a MKII game in I might bring them to the table. I have a stalker, a couple of harrowers, a leviathan, and a reaper. Most of these aren't assembled so for jacks it will most likely be the cankerworm and Deathjack.

The choices are starting to make my head hurt. I now have to deal with list optimization where before all I had to deal with was learning to play the stuff I had. I now have the ability to switch out solos or units if they end up not working in conjunction with the rest of the list.

I guess I should first try to get a game for tomorrow before I get ahead of myself.

Whelp Pale Ale, An Update

It has been a little over a week since the beginning. Fermentation started rapidly and continues more than a week later at a slower pace.

The brew will stay in the primary fermenter for another 3 or 4 days before I start to take hydrometer readings. This will give me the percent alcohol based on a starting gravity of 1.050. I will put the actual equation in here when I begin to take the readings. I can never remember it off the top of my head.

When I have two consecutive days with the same specific gravity I will transfer to the secondary fermenter. I am going to be adding another ounce of pelletized hops to the secondary fermenter to give it that extra tangy hop flavor. The brew will then sit in secondary fermentation for an additional two weeks before priming and bottling.

With this type of beer I would want it to sit in the bottles and carbonate for at least two weeks, but I always become impatient and will probably try one about 5 days into carbonating.

I am still looking for some artwork, so if anyone has come across anything please let me know.

Models, Models, everywhere Models

I have recently been inundated with Cryx models.

Now comes the hard part. What do I keep multiples of and how many do I keep. Below is a list of some of the duplicates:

Casters

Warwitch Deneghra x2 - This is a no-brainer can't have two and I like my paint job.

Iron Lich Asphyxious x2 - Again same comment as above

Pirate Queen Skarre x2 - Well neither are painted but can only keep one.

Goreshade the Bastard x2 - I have one painted and one primed. I think I am going to try for a
different paint scheme, but again really only need one.

Jacks

Slayer x2 - Not sure if I want to keep two of these for the MKII rules. They are cheap so it is tempting.

Harrower x2 - Again same comment as above.

Deathjack x2 - Well I can only field one, so one has to go.

Deathrippers x5 or 6 - I really don't know that I need this many, especially with the cost of of them in MK II

Defiler x2 - Again not sure I need too, hell not sure I need one with the new rules for the cankerworm

Nightwretch x5 or 6 - This is a lot of these little guys, but that is a lot of AOE's being dropped.

Units

Bile Thralls x30 - I want to keep at least two full units of bile thralls, but I have to decide if three full units is overkill

Bane Knights x28 - I want to keep at least two units, so that leaves a mid-size unit that I might part with.

Bane Thralls x18 - Not sure if I should keep all of these. That is almost two full units, and they are fun to play with. This would allow me to field a unit and keep the min. unit in reserve for Goreshade's feat.

Mechanithralls x16 - These are fun little guys. I just don't know if I need more than a single unit.

Soulhunters x8 - I can only field one unit at a time, and with the new rules I'm not sure how much I will use them. I do want to keep one unit, so most likely looking at getting rid of a min. unit.

Solos

Pistol Wraith x4 - I love these guys, they have won me a lot of games. I don't see the need to have more than two. I might be wrong but it seems like overkill.

Bloat Thrall x5 or 6 - I like the models and they are fun to play with. I just think that 2 or 3 is sufficient. Most likely be getting rid of some easter egg color schemed bloats.

Bane Lord Tartarus x2 - Can only have one.

Skarlock x3 - Definately some overkill here.

So those are all the models that I have multiples of. I would love feedback on how many of some of the models and units you think would be a good number to keep.

A Plea for Help! Well sort of a plea.

I am asking for assistance from my readers. I have the beer started and in about 3-4 weeks I will be bottling it. It will sit in the bottle for another 2 weeks carbonating and aging.

I would love to have some Whelp related artwork to slap onto the bottle prior to the official unofficial tasting.

I am not good with photoshop and really haven't been able to find any usable images of the whelps that I can put on the bottles. If anyone has any suggestions or artwork that they are willing to share I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you and keep up for updates of the beer. Fermentation has slowed, but it was extremely active the first couple of days. When it is transferred into the secondary fermenter with the dry hops it should get some additional fermentation.

Whelp Pale Ale's First Days

We cooked up the wort for Whelp Pale Ale on Saturday.  We had 5 hop additions during the boil and now it smells like hops in my office as the beer begins fermenting in the carboy.  I have filmed the stages of the creating the beer, and when I edit it I will try to get it on youtube and post a link.

I also like that my first comment from PPS_Kevin is on the post about the homebrew.  I kinda like that.  It sounds like at least one guy at Privateer Press likes his ales so full of hops that it kinda hurts.

And it Begins

I am not beyond using vague titles to lure people in.  So you might ask what exactly is beginning. I'm glad you asked.

Whelp Ale ingredients are scheduled to arrive today and the brewing process will start tomorrow.  I am going for a very Western U.S. type of pale ale with hops, hops, and more hops.  There are 4 hop additions during the boil and once I transfer to secondary fermentation dry hopping will occur.

This will not be a beer for the timid.  If all you drink is coors or bud this is probably not your beer, in fact it could make you cry.  If, on the other hand, you like your beer to reach out and give you a little slap before you take that first taste this is the beer for you.

I am still looking for ideas for artwork.  I'm good at making the beer, but not so good at making the artwork for the bottles.  It will be at least 2-3 weeks before it is bottled and then an additional 2 weeks before it is carbonated enough to drink.  

A six pack is headed to Dallas for suggesting the winning name.  John will get to try a few because we always tend to have homebrew when we get together and play on Saturdays.  

Warmachine MK II Experience

I played my first game with the new MK II rules against John last night.   I forgot the camera so no pictures of this battle.  Here is the list I was running.

Goreshade and deathwalker

Deathjack

Cankerworm

Deathripper

Bile thralls x6

bane knights x6

mechanithralls x6

Pistol wraith x2

bloat thrall

Darragh Wrathe

Gorman di Wulfe

Bane Lord Tartarus

John won the roll and chose to go first.  He moved up but not enough to where I could charge him with the Deathjack.  I moved up and unfortunately I was a little too close and the Deathjack was charged by the avatar that had 4 focus that turn.  The Avatar turned the Deathjack in a wreck marker.

The zealots took out a fair number of bile thralls but left me with three remaining.  Tartarus cursed the avatar and charged followed by charges from the bane knights.  They were able to get the avatar down to two boxes but not finish the job.   I moved Goreshade up and cast mageblight which meant no magic or feats within his control area.  I then popped his feat and had a unit of bane thralls charge the bastions.  I was fairly impressed that the thralls were able to take out the unit of bastions.  I figured this was my last ditch effort combining mageblight and feat.

eFeora and her bonded redeemer then lit a bunch of my stuff on fire.  eFeora moved up but was inside of Goreshade's control area and couldn't feat.  The avatar hit and destroyed a couple of bane knights which exploded and lit a couple more on fire.  Tartarus died that round.

I started my round by using vengeance and moving a couple of bane knights away from the avatar to give them a free charge lane to efeora.  I attacked the avatar with a couple that were on fire and then they immediately died.

I began to move biles thralls up to purge on efeora and John decided to concede the game at that point.  

Emotions started running a little high towards the end of the game which unfortunately made the experience unpleasant for both of us.  We always have to remember that this is just a game and if we stop having fun when we play maybe we should reconsider playing.  

John has already expressed an interest to have a rematch with the same lists and I doubt that he will make the same tactical error.  I believe the list I put together was not the best list for what I was facing since I was getting my undead ass handed to me.  I may tweak the list a little and see what happens.  I know that Darragh losing shadowride is a big deal.  I attacked a Seneshal and missed and I was screwed.  I couldn't run away I just had to sit there and take the whacks.

MK II rules will take a big of getting used to and I know that there are models that I don't have that are now good.  I may have to proxy a necrosurgeon with the mechanithralls and see how that goes.  I will need to take the seether and stalker for a test run as well.  The new rules are going to take some getting used to, but I think everything will work out.

MK II test tonight

I am playing my first MK II test tonight against John and his flaming menites. I have put together a list that should be fun. I'm using Goreshade as my caster, and I'm still getting used to him, so it should be an interesting game. I will post the full list and battle report tomorrow. John got the better of me the last time we played and I brought Goreshade, so I'm hoping to avenge that.

Sucking up the 350 pt Tournament

Dallas kicked my ass, Mike kicked my ass and then Adam forfeited so I got the pity win.  I will post pictures and a tad more detail tomorrow.  Also be on the look out for the assembly of the deathjack.  It is being prepared and coming to a blog near you soon.

Assembling the Deathjack....poorly. Part 2

Ok, so after tearing the arms off and figuring out that I'm an idiot this is what it should look like.

This is a view of the front, you can almost make out the broken open rib cage with the souls being sucked into the soul furnace. I think this is going to look awesome once I get some paint on there.

So all that was left was to mount those giant hands, the necrovents and the shielding over his spine. That is all pretty straight forward.

And yet another angle where you can see the horns pretty well.

Assembling the Deathjack.....poorly. Part 1

So I needed to get the Deathjack assembled for the 350 pt tournament. It wasn't that it did a lot of good, but I wanted to field it and if I didn't play in the tournament Dallas was going to kick me in the junk.

Here are all of the parts and pieces.

Here is the beginning of assembly. Pinning the legs.

Here is a photo of how I first attached the arms. For those of you that have assembled a deathjack you will see the obvious error. After this photo I had some mild profanity, and then had to tear the arms off.

So he was starting to look all bad ass and then I had to tear off his arms and he kinda came undone from the base at that point.

Look for part two

Warmachine/Hordes Themed Homebrew, and the winner is.........

We have a tie! There was a tie between Harby's Jailbait Pale Ale and Whelp Ale. I think that I am going to make the tie breaking decision and go with Whelp Ale. I just think there are a lot of opportunities to have some fun with the whelps for the label design.

Now that I have mentioned Whelp Ale and label design if any of you happen to be artsy and creative I would love to see what you can come up with for a beer bottle label for Whelp Ale using the images of Whelps.

Dallas not sure if you drink or not but I do believe you just won yourself a six pack of homebrewed pale ale. It will be several weeks before it is ready for consumption, but it will be a lot easier to deliver it to you than to mail it.

A plea for support

I thought I would use my blog to see if I could drum up support for my Tour de Cure team. This will be my third year as captain of a Tour de Cure team. The Tour de Cure is a cycling event that takes place in over 40 states and raises money for Diabetes education and research. The event in Utah has distances of 25, 60, and 100 miles.

If any of you feel an irresistible urge to part with you money I am giving you the opportunity to part with it by making a donation to my team that supports the American Diabetes Association.


For those of you that might be interested here is my personal rider page.

http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?pg=personal&fr_id=5629&px=3374559

Mangled Metal Tournament

Well I have decided to not risk Dallas kicking me in the junk, since I am kind of fond of that part of my body. I stayed up last night putting the Deathjack together. I will post some pictures of this process a tad later. I think I deleted the picture where I was giving the Deathjack the finger when I realized I put its arms on wrong and had to tear them off.

More to come later.

Warmachine MKII

I will admit that I have not committed the time to reading through all of the new rules, but I have discovered a fair number of items that I'm not a fan of as well as I few I have appreciated.

I do have to thank Geoff over at McCryxian Domination for taking the time to read through the rules and already get some games under his belt. We play the same faction so when he feels some pain for the loss we have taken I automatically sympathize.

I understand the need to have balance to the game. The problem I have is that some of my favorite models are no longer the same character. I look specifically to the cankerworm for this. What happened to meat grinder? I loved having the ability to roll and extra attack die, kill some units and then scuttle away.

I am also so glad that I have not made an investment in bloodgorgers. I think that money will be spent better on other pursuits. They have lost the bloodmarks which is what made them so appealing. The more you rush them into battle and destroy living models the better they get.

I am very frustrated with what has happened to cryx. I know that there are other factions that seemed to have gotten a better deal, but screw them. There is a reason I picked Cryx.

Warmachine MK II

Well I have started to look over the rules and some of the new cards. I noticed that the Skarre Bomb has been altered quite a bit, casters no long cost points but have warjack points that get to be added to the total of the amount you can field, and the point structure has been completely changed. No more 750 point list, it is now a 75 point list.

I will share more thoughts on this later.

Deathjack coming to a table near you.

Alright I have had the Deathjack for a little while now and all I have done is file down the bits and proxy it using a slayer.  We have a 350 pt mangled metal tournament coming up and I need to have the Deathjack put together by Wednesday.

I want to make sure I get this one put together right and I'm worried I'm not going to have the time to get it properly pinned and glued in time.  If not it is going to be the slayer, cankerworm, and some chicken jacks.  That isn't the most formidable list but it would still be fun.

When the Deathjack assembly starts I will work on posting pictures of the process.

Two Victories for the Household--Updated!

I defeated Jason and his religiously deranged Menites in a 750 game on a couple of charges from Bane Thralls that popped up from Goreshade's feat.


Kimberly beat Chris with Legion in a 350 pt. match. Here are some pictures of the matches.

Below is the set-up for Kimberly and Chris' game.



This is the set-up for mine and Jason's Game



I'm not sure what round of the 75o game this was, but at this point it was starting to get hot and heavy. I was able to use my cankerworm to his full potential finally by using the defiler to get corrosion on his blessing of vengeance and then charging in with the Cankerworm.


I was trying to following Kimberly and Chris' game the best that I could but as you can tell from the pictures of my game I was a tad preoccupied. I believe that the picture below is of the final of the game when Kim hit Baltur with Hellsinger and then cast eruption of spines on him for the win.

Time for a Poll!

Well I have received a fair number of ideas regarding Warmachine and Hordes themed brews. For this poll I want to stick with strictly pale and amber ales, so for those of you that suggested names that are not on the poll you may see them on another poll for another time of beer.

So for the list of contenders.

Grim Angus Albino Pale Ale
Crippling Grasp Ale
Feora's Fire Amber
Harby's Jail Bait Pale Ale
Reclamation Amber
Fire of Salvation Amber Ale
Whelp Ale

The poll will be open for about a week and the winner will be the style of beer I brew in celebration of Utah legalizing homebrew. The beer will receive the name of the winner of the poll and I will work on getting some artwork to match. I am still considering sending a sixer of the brew to the person that came up with the winning name, of course that is still illegal, so I might send a sixer of "books".

So vote early and vote often. Enjoy!

Tonight's Match-ups

Well another Wednesday has arrived and now all I have to do is make it through a day of work before I give Goreshade another shot at his first victory. I will be facing Menoth, although what I'm facing I'm not exactly sure. The majority of my games have been against Menoth, but against a different Menoth player so this should be interesting.

I am fielding the list below:

Goreshade the Bastard's make your Children Orphans 750 army

Models: 29 Points: 739/750 VPs: 24

Goreshade the Bastard w/ Deathwalker
Deathjack
Cankerworm
Defiler
Bane Lord Tartarus
Bloat Thrall
Darragh Wrathe
Gorman Di Wulfe
Skarlock
Pistol Wraith x2
Bane Knights x6
Bile Thralls x10

Bane Thralls for the feat

Along with my game, my girlfriend Kimberly will be playing her first game using Legion of Everblight to go against a work buddy Chris who will be bringing Circle. The battle is set at 350 pts and should be a good learning game for the both of them.