Step One - done

Well, I'm on track - all of the models are built, cleaned, and sanded. Rangers are base painted, so tomorrow I'm going to take step 2!

A small errand

Well, I had almost forgotten about another tournament I'd wanted to go to, an event being put on by the Powers of the North in Cotati, CA. A friend of mine is running it, and my parents live about a half hour from there, so I figured it would be a good trip. Well, it's next weekend, and I really, REALLY want to have a fully painted army for it.

Fortunately for me, this is only a 500 point tournament. So less to paint, right? Well, kind of. The tournament gives a bonus to people with fully painted armies, but there won't be the tough standards one would expect at a GT. So that will be easier. However, I had a much bigger problem.

For the army to be Legions legal, I have to have both a hero from every list and no more than 1/3 of the warriors armed with bows in the army. Well, six of my painted models are rangers, with bows. So I can't reduce the numbers in my army too much or I start losing them. Plus dropping lots of numbers is anathema to me. The easiest way to go would be to just drop the King of Men and lead it with Gandalf. Unfortunately, Gandalf isn't the any of the Minas Tirith lists. And there is NO way I'm dropping Mithrandir. Besides, then I'd have even MORE to paint.

So the solution I came up with was this: Drop the King of Men, then use the Rangers of Ithilien list, from which I can take Damrod, the 20 point hero of goodness. Yep, he only has 1 wound and 1 of M/W/F, but he counts as a hero, and he even has a bow! So here is the list I developed.

Gandalf

Damrod

6 Rangers
6 Rangers with spears
17 Warriors of Minas Tirith (I got three more in the mail last week)
4 Warriors of Minas Tirith with spears (hey, they're already painted, so why not?)
4 Citadel Guard

Total: 500 points
Models: 39
Might: 4



So that's my list. This does mean that I have some really, REALLY quick painting to do, as seen below.


22 models to paint, 4 of which need to be built, and 11 of which need to be checked for mold lines again. I was going to prime the warriors last week when I primed the rangers, but unfortunately I found fat mold lines on almost all of them. I thought I'd gotten all of them... Grrr. So it's time for a real quick plan.

Tonight: Remove mold lines, build, sand, and possibly put the base coat of brown on the primed bases.
Tomorrow: Prime the models that haven't been done already, then do basecoats for the rangers (including Damrod). After primed models have dried, basecoat of their bases.
Tuesday: Overbrush of warriors and guards then wash. While wash dries, do first layer of highlights for rangers.
Wednesday: Drybrush highlight of warriors and guards, followed by basecoat of cloth.
Thursday: Shadow warriors' and guards cloth, then detail rangers. Drybrush bases and flock the rangers.
Friday: Detail warriors and guards, then flock their bases.
Saturday: Go forth and kick butt!

Alas, I did something very foolish last weekend. I went to get a book that we'd ordered, and while walking through the mall to pick it up, I passed a video game store. I ended up picking up an RPG for the Xbox 360, Mass Effect. That's one of the reasons I haven't gotten more painting done, I've been playing silly video games. It definitely takes time away from my silly miniature games! I'll have to try not to play this next week, and hopefully actually get some tests corrected for my classes.

Rumors seem to prove untrue

Well, it appears the fear mongering, along with GW's silence, have created an impression that is not quite true. According to the GW Community blog:

Planning for the 2009 GW Touranment Circuit is wrapping up (yes there are still some events we’re looking to add), Games Day planning is wrapping up (new dates, new information a-plenty), and our own Grand Tournament planning begins (whew!). [emphasis added]

So a lesson for community relations - be as open as possible to prevent undue speculation. Sadly, GW's record on cooperation with its community hasn't been good, and its customers tend to see the worst in things as a result. They've made progress from their past, but it takes a long time to repair damage.

While on the subject, I just want to add a little personal note: my favorite part of this hobby is probably the community. I love running tournaments, I love meeting new players and experienced players, and there really isn't anything quite like being a part of a group of people who all enjoy the same geeky stuff that I do. It was without question my favorite part of working for GW, and I did relish the leadership position I held in that community. My level of visibility has dropped since I left GW, but I stilll love being a part of the hobby community.

Let's call it a draw

The Errand had another battle against the mighty forces of the Goblins of Wyn. This time we decided to try out one of the other scenarios, specifically Storm the Camp. I’ve developed some prototype rules for breaking ties to avoid the inevitable unhappiness with the victory point system. In this case, the tie breaker was if the game ended without a camp being captured then whoever had more models in the other’s camp won a minor victory.

Wyn’s force was exactly the same as last time, which was not a fun prospect – where I had the advantage in Contest of Champions, Wyn had a major advantage in Storm the Camp with 14 models on me, including a flyer. The table was also really full, as shown in the below picture. This reduced the effectiveness of my archery. I had swapped out one of my warriors with shield and spear for another Citadel Guard with spear.



I set up first, planning on using Ecthelion and a small contingent to block my right flank while sending Gandalf up to break through with my main contingent on the left. I knew I had to act quickly before I was overwhelmed. Wyn then set his force up with the drum in the middle, a shaman on each flank, with Durburz on my left and his captain on my right.


Rather than engaging in the typical archery duel, we both ended up rushing at each other. I think he realized that he needed his archers up front more than he needed to volley fire at me. We ended up funneling around the hill in the center – I delayed with Ecthelion’s force while rushing forward with Gandalf as planned. I didn’t want a gaping hole in my lines, so I tried to get a few guys up on the hill, but proceeded to roll 1s for almost all of them. Typically, Gandalf got Blinding Light and Terrifying Aura going, and Wyn started up Fury, though one of his shamans blew all of his Will to do it. As the forces closed, I threw a perfectly lined up Sorcerous Blast into a goblin warrior – with a good roll he would have slammed into Durburz, a shaman, and three other goblins! I rolled a 1 for distance. Sigh.


I smashed into Wyn’s right flank very early, turn four I think. Gandalf blasted a goblin into six other goblins, then jumped onto a lone goblin with a warrior. I then tied up the rest of his flank and started sending people around to try to turn it. I launched a Heroic Combat to get Gandalf past most of the goblins. Durburz and a bunch of Wyn’s goblins also came barreling into my line, but I managed to pile a Citadel Guard in with the Warrior on the Goblin King and supported them both with spears. The fight happened, we tied with 6s, and I won the roll off for tied Fight values (good thing I got in the Citadel Guard!). I then piled three wounds onto Durburz, which he saved on with Fury, but then rolled snake eyes for his Fate! All of his Might went into keeping the bugger alive. In the mean time, I was rolling 6s like a madman and the F2 goblins were getting the worst of it. I was also winning all of the priority rolls, and Wyn couldn’t compete with Durburz having blown all of his Might to survive.


On the other side of the table, things weren’t developing quickly. Wyn took cover behind some ruins and threw a couple of arrows my way to little effect. He then threw his captain and some troops into my line, but they just bounced off.


I then threw Gandalf into another Heroic Combat to get him and another warrior behind the goblin lines, and with priority I isolated Durburz and tied up Wyn’s goblins. Durburz fell to the spears of the Citadel Guard, and I blasted a gaping hole in the goblin lines with another insane round of 6s. Things were looking a little grim for Wyn.


He did manage to tie up my troops on the hill and send some goblins off on a dash for freedom.


Time was running out, and I won priority yet again. I bottled up the goblin breakout and sent a contingent running for their camp with Gandalf in the lead. Wyn started pulling troops back in an attempt to make it to the camp in the same turn as mine. Ecthelion and his troops held firm against the goblins pushing against their line as the rangers supporting them fell back to secure the camp and the Citadel Guard stepped forward in support. Another bloody round of combat found the Errand down four models to Wyn’s sixteen.


We checked the time and found we had only a couple of minutes left, not nearly enough for the two turns we’d need to finish the game properly. We both felt that I was on my way to a victory, but according to the agreed upon tiebreaker, we had a tie, since neither of us was in the other’s camp. This is one problem in that a well-constructed force can play for a draw simply through delay if they were so inclined, but I guess that’s a problem you’ll face with almost any scenario.

Again, I’m not sure what I could or should have done differently, but we both agreed that Wyn shouldn’t have thrown as much force against Gandalf’s contingent as he did. Rather than trying to kill them, he should have used shields to stop my movement while he rushed through the light defense in the center or spread my right flank so thin I couldn’t stop something from oozing through. By allowing such a large chunk of his force to be bottled up between the hill and the forest, he surrendered his numeric advantage, which left my superior Fight and Defense dictating the battle. Of course, I did roll like a madman for tons of fights, and winning Priority the last four turns made Wyn’s job nearly impossible. All in all, a very fun game which made us both think hard, and it wasn’t a blowout by any stretch of the imagination.

One kind of funny thing – while I know many people wouldn’t play with unpainted models, I’m more interested in getting some games in than having a fully painted army. But with that, I was working on the force during the game! I’d been working on shadowing the warriors’ cloth before the game. Once my first warrior died, I started shadowing, swapping out the painted warrior for one I still needed to do. I went through my entire force this way, so now all I need to do for the warriors is shade their cloth and detail them.

Metallics and photography

OK, I did a little bit of this yesterday, but I managed to finish the armor on my warriors today despite being groggy and having family obligations. I actually started this yesterday, but had to wait until the wash dried. I ended up finishing Gandalf while I waited.

By the way, all of these pictures in the blog can be clicked to call up a full size photo.

This first shot is of the warriors after washing them with the GW black wash. It gives the armor a nice used look while creating shadows in the detail. I've included the test models on either side as comparison.



This is a different group of the same batch with a tankdrush applied drybrush of Chainmail. This removed the dingy tone from the armor without overwhelming the wear and shadowing.



This is the first group of five (I realized I'd photographed the wrong group in time to fix the mistake here) with a highlight of Mithril Silver applied lightly to the detail and the high points.



It's tough to see a heck of a lot of difference in the photos, but in real life the difference is dramatic. A lot of people seem to think that metallics just highlight themselves, but this really isn't the case. I definitely have found that using washes to bring out the shadows and drybrushing brings the detail of the model out really well and adds a lot of depth. Having seen far, far too many of these models with nothing but a quick block paint of Mithril Silver, I can personally attest that the extra work done here was worth it.

I think one of the reasons the difference doesn't come out too well in the photos is that I'm just using my quick and dirty photo setup. It's essentially the two lights that I use for painting just pointed directly at the models from about a 45 degree angle in front of and above. This gives a sharp reflection off of the metallic paint which the more diffuse light we normally see doesn't have. I also just have the camera set to Auto in Macro mode with the flash turned off. If I really took the time to reflect the light and set the shutter speed they would come out a lot better. Ah, well, I just don't care that much right now. I'll probably try to do a better setup for my pictures of the finished army.

I also use daylight spectrum bulbs in order to see my colors in the most accurate light possible, though I wonder sometimes if this is really necessary considering that paint judging is rarely done in such light. I remember the light in Vegas was so bad we had to ask the staff to turn the lights up in order to see the detail on the models. I was wishing I'd brought my little camera and tripod to Vegas - there were some gorgeous armies there.

Speaking of Vegas - I was shocked to realize that apparently GW decided running GTs was too much of a hassle, including Vegas! I haven't heard any official word on this, but the circuit that has been published is all Indy tournaments. It's great in my mind that they're encouraging high quality events, but with no official event, even in Baltimore, it kind of leaves me feeling left out. Vegas in particular was a huge hit with a waiting list for almost all the systems.

Gandalf is done

Here he is, my early scale Gandalf in all of his glory. Oh, I do need to finish his base now that I think about it.





This is a try to get a shot of his face - a side effect of having such a cool hat is that you can hardly see the model's face and it's almost impossible to take a picture of it. This was the best shot I could get.



I had most of the model done already and just had to get the flesh done. I did the layered method on this one. I put on Dark Flesh, then Tanned Flesh, next Dwarf Flesh, and finally a light highlight of 50/50 Dwarf and Elf Flesh. One thing that I've found is that hands in particular look really flat without some flat painting to give it a little extra pop. On the back of your hand you can see the bones creating a little ridge. Well, that's pretty much invisible in real life, but on a mini a light highlight there really brings the hand to life.

I also tried a blue wash on Glamdring, and I'm not sure how it turned out. I may give another highlight of Mithril Silver over the edges to return the metallic edge to it.

Another win with the Errand

I took another victory with Mithrandir's Errand, this time against a goblin horde force commanded by Wyn Robertson. For those who don't know him, Wyn is an extremely canny player who regularly wins local tournaments and fought me for the best overall at GT Vegas 2008. We played an unfavorable scenario (for him) this time, which was Contest of Champions.

I used the same Errand as last time. I don't remember the exact composition of Wyn's force, but at 600 points it had 59 models including Durburz, a Goblin Drum, a Bat Swarm, a captain with shield, two shamans, and 6 prowlers. I was outnumbered by 14 models, or over 30%. Yow. Gandalf was my champion and Durburz was his.

The terrain was pretty normal with lots of hills, a ruin, and one river blocking a quarter of the table. However, the center of the table was clear as required by the layout of the scenario.

The game started off with the predictable volley fire from the goblins, but I eschewed volleying in order to get closer. Gandalf turned on his Blinding Light and Terrifying Aura, while both shamans got Fury going. Only one of my warriors fell to the goblin archery. As I got to within 24 inches of Wyn's goblins, he kept most of his gribblies behind terrain, but I started to plink off one every so often, though I was disgusted at how my vaunted Rangers of Gondor were statistically matching goblins for archery. However, as more and more of his goblins became visible and the forces closed, I jumped Gandalf out and started throwing Sorcerous Blasts at his goblins.

At one point, I saw a terrific opportunity to blast Durburz back into a shaman and four other goblins, and ran him up to hop up a 1" climb to blast. I roll a 1. Grrr. I burn a Might, after all, I've got 3. I then rolled three dice of Will (burning two from my store), and managed to only roll a 4. At this point, I'm pot-stuck as my poker playing friends would say, and I threw in a second point of might to make it happen. Wyn rolls one die to resist and throws a 6. Well crap. Just don't blast heroes is the lesson here.

An hour and a half of maneuvering around each other finally saw Gandalf blast a goblin out of existence which put Wyn behind the 8-ball. The goblins were getting the short end of the stick in the archery game with about seven of them dead to still only one of mine. Wyn started to move in closer, and I pulled together a shieldwall across the center with a corner near the hill that Gandalf had to use Might to climb. Gandalf headed away from Durburz towards my left flank while Ecthelion went to deal with the goblin king.

Wyn finally managed to hit my line with about 45 minutes left. Gandalf jumped in and blasted some goblins who were stuck behind the lines then charged a lone goblin. Glamdring cleaved it, bringing Gandalf's tally to three, while Durburz still hadn't hit the line. Along the line the goblins threw themselves onto the shieldwall only to be repulsed with serious losses.

Durburz finally hits my line, but it's looking tough. Wyn very cannily isolates Ecthelion from Durburz, but I manage to peel off all but one enemy while putting spear support on both of the warriors Durburz charged. Alas, I forget to call my Heroic Combat until later. Before that, Gandalf butchers another goblin (two wounds, though he managed to roll 6-5 for Fury: whew!) and Wyn's line is collapsing and I'm turning his right flank. We play through until we get close to Ecthelion and Durburz, and I ask for a mulligan Heroic Move. Wyn gives it to me and while I win the combat I fail to kill the gobbo. Oh, well. Durburz then butchers the two warriors opposing him, we check the time, and have one minute of play left. Wyn asks for a mulligan Heroic Move for Durburz and just for sport we do it. He manages to kill another warrior, but that still leaves the tally at 4-3 in favor of Gandalf.

This scenario played Wyn's instincts against him. Wyn is a very deliberate player who knows how to place his specific models. He also regularly plays Wood Elves, whose archery is vicious. He's used to hanging back and drawing his opponents to him through withering bowfire, and the goblin archery was more annoying than deadly. My rangers and Gandalf on the other hand were seriously scary and once I'd killed a goblin with a blast the pressure was really on Wyn to even the score. Here his deliberation helped me as I whittled down his forces at range.

In this case, he should have rushed his entire force (minus the drum, of course) straight at mine. He'd suffer some minor pricks from my archery, but he needed to get Durburz into the thick of it, and his greater numbers would have put me into a seriously tight place. On the other hand I pretty much played it how I should have, forcing him to come to me and scoring kills at range with Gandalf.

I'm looking forward to playing Wyn some more in the next few months, and I think we'll deliberately choose some different scenarios.