The Odyssey of the Penal Company. Chapter 2.

Morning. His men had been retrieved and were being tended to by Vyet who was...maybe not as much a doctor as he was a tailor. Darza heard the diagnosis with an apathetic expression dominating his face. "The ugly one is physically fine. Maybe a bit touched in the head. He hasn't spoken a word to anyone yet. He'd make a decent zombie. The other one is damaged. I recommend sleeping, or he'll be feeding the zombies by nightfall. Uh, also, I replaced our dead zombie. And one of the Middenheimers was good enough to die too, so I raised him also."

Ugh. Darza needed soldiers, not these...things. On the plus side, he'd seen Ned hanging about the outskirts of camp, practicing with his weapon. He was good now. It was evident that the rats had scared him into training himself. He would spar with the Buford until the man would wear out, then he would find something blunt and light and attack one of the zombies at random.  Darza also noticed Vyet pacing in circles, talking to himself. Occasionally referencing some book he'd brought. HA! Darza needed no books. Books didn't teach him to wield a blade. Books never saved a man from death. Books didn't make him what he is today. Stupid little man. He was unnecessary. Claiming to have power but being completely unable to show it. Pitiful. He had followed the humans, hoping to poach a bit off of them, as they did from him. Give and take is a dangerous game though. He kept his camp far away, and lit no fires. He heard whines coming from the living at first, but they quickly subsided. Raw food? Be a man. When the humans gathered their things and were off, he followed them, into a vast glade. He figured it would be wiser to emerge further down, that they wouldn't suspect him of treachery...though that is exactly what happened.

He emerged from the buildings into what must have been a park. Trees, hills, some towers and ruined buildings. Residential zone? Bah. The whole place reeks of the living. He noticed that this area must have been popular. Beastmen emerged from the city straight across from him. Orcs to his left, and...more undead to his direct right. He motioned with his sword that he sought a truce and the female vampire acknowledged it. The humans emerged across from his allies. This was going to be bad.

Darza's men were in position, and the orcs took position on a cliff, and drew their bows. Clovis screamed like a madman and charged the nearest foe he could see. A minotaur. He had a single zombie following his lead, with the rest of the zombies providing a shield from the greenskin's arrows. With an inhuman roar and a casual sweep of his weapon, both Clovis and the zombie went flying.

The greenskins seemed averse to attacking the beastmen, so some kind of sub-truce must have been made. Under normal circumstances he would have openly allied with the beastmen, but Darza was continually reminded of his switched banner. The orcs fletched his zombies, and they slowly began to go down. One of them, a goblin, of all things, decided to sprint into the zombie horde, and was followed by his beastman allies. Darza charged one of them; some kind of lesser beastmen, and with a small motion, flipped the thing on its back before plunging a sword in his back. He suddenly realized that he'd been so preoccupied with his situation that he'd forgotten any sort of tactics. His allies still far off, and his men being double-teamed. He looked at Ned, who'd been at his side the entire time. The gravity of the situation suddenly hit him. This would be another loss. He looked to the sky and shouted "FLEEEEE!!!"

Painting: An Easy How-To From a Lazy Painter.

Ok, lots of minis games involve painting. Its not mandatory at all. I have an entire dwarf army (the secret slipped) that's still pewter, and no one cares, even a little bit. I've played games that involved all pewter unpainted models and boxes on a kitchen table for terrain. It was as legitimate as any other game, but I personally don't feel as into the game when my stuff isn't painted. SO, that's why I'm going over this. This assumes that you've already got them glued together and they're dry. Also, this is just how I do it, and there's as many ways as there are people.

Supplies:
+A small lamp
+LOTS of brushes
+Paints
+A cup for water
+Toothpicks
+Various colors of ink
+Toilet paper or something similar
+Elmer's glue
+Superglue (in case you break a model)
+Sand
+Somewhere to paint that won't be disturbed for a while

Ok, here's the why of it all now. The lamp is nice because you can see what you're doing, and you can catch details that you may otherwise miss. You'll need lots of paintbrushes because eventually you'll start specializing them (if you're like me). Also some of them will die and need to be replaced if you're not very gentle, which I am not. Paints depend entirely on the painter and what's being painted. I prefer Citadel, but that's only because its what I know. Others are probably just as good, if not better. I HATE painting with oil-based paint though. Its messy, cleaning is even messier, and you don't get much forgiveness out of oil-based paint. And I LOVE having multiple shades of the same earthy-tone colors. I think I have three greens and 5 kinds of brown-esque earth colors. I like having so many shades because lots of people have leather straps and such. Horses are earth colors, BUT they have leather on them, and it looks better when the leather is a different color. Additionally, if you're using any sort of cavalry, making horses of different colors is nice for realism's sake. And I've found that you can make convincing rust with only two different browns. Beyond that, having a single shade of each basic color isn't a terrible idea, until you decide what colors you specifically need for your army. Having one of each is also nice because you can mix them, but I've found that I only mix for colors I don't plan on using much of.

*Our subject for this part is the Ogrun Bokur. He looks pretty sweet, he's useful, and I wouldn't mind having a pretty one anyway.  Time to get painting then, eh?*

I prime mine with the cheap fast-dry spray paint from Walmart. Its a buck a can and it doesn't go super far, but it also doesn't eat the models. You want a decent coat when you spray. Enough to get most of the models, but not so much that you start filling in details. I find that a good 5 second wave per side per model is adequate. You CAN use white or gray or anything for priming, but it'll change the shade of the paint you put on top, and my models tend to be darker, just because I assume the soldiers would all be filthy from being outside for days. Do NOT dip them in paint. It ensures that the model will need an overnight bath in acetone, and that will probably cost you a new base for the model.

After priming them, look each model over carefully. I think think a lot of people skip this step, and its important. Plan out a little bit of what you want. I find that if I have an idea of color scheme, i put a dab of each color where it goes, just to see if it all looks good. And if so, I paint the whole thing like that. The key concept here is to BE CAREFUL. If you take a second or two to plan what you're going to do, you're less likely to smudge. Smudges happen to the best of us, and you can go back and fix them. I ALWAYS go back and fix any smudges, just because i'm a perfectionist. Also I assume that if I paint them right the first time, I won't have to paint them again. It IS a mind-numbing job, but with the tv on, its so much easier. Also, when painting, take breaks when you feel you need them. It takes a lot out of your back, neck, and mind. Give you a break, you're working hard.

I always paint the bits deepest down first. If the model is wearing a vest over a shirt, paint the shirt first, THEN paint the vest, because the vest is a raised surface, so smudges will be light. Also, I've noticed that most people use way more paint than they need to, which makes the models look blobby and the details look muted or even disappear. In my opinion, its best to do a couple coats of a thinner paint than one coat of thick paint. BUT, keep at it! You'll make a lot of progress if you keep at it. I always keep toothpicks on-hand for small stuff, like teeth, eyes, rivets, writing, and any other extremely detailed work. It takes a lot of work to do those bits, and they're not at ALL required. And afterward you'll likely have to do some touching up, but its easy, and it makes the model look so much more impressive.

This took only about two hours, with the tv, and several breaks. However, I missed several patches. *sigh*

Then you need your inks. I prefer brown ink, though black ink has its place, as does red ink, and any other color. I don't use the other colors (anything but black, brown, and red) enough to justify the purchase. Brown is nice because it can fake weathering, dirt, grime, grease, tarnish, and adds depth. On skeletons, brown ink is absolutely ESSENTIAL because it fills in the cracks between the bones, making it look like both shadow and clinging dirt. On creatures with fur, it can add the look of layering and make the animal look natural. There's a reason brown ink is colloquially called "skill in a can." It makes the most mediocre models look gorgeous. I use black ink on things that are supposed to be burnt or especially mechanical, and red ink makes for the best blood I've ever seen. If you want to make one of your guys look hardcore, a dab of red ink around an "injury" will do it. Cut him across the chest with an exacto knife (if the model is plastic) and administer a tiny bit of red ink for a warrior who's mortally wounded but fighting on. And using it is as easy as this process gets. Its pretty thin and flows really nice, so you paint over the entire model everywhere. The ink settles into the cracks and dries, putting dark colors in the nooks and crannies, so the model looks like it has some shadows where shadows naturally are. And more experience makes one better. I recently used brown ink to provide depth to blond hair by making the stuff on the bottom a tad darker.

A lot of people highlight after ward, which uses a process called drybrushing to add more contrast to the figure. Your model should be sufficiently dark now, yeah? Highlighting takes the same colors you previously used on the guy, and on the parts that would be exposed to light, like the head, shoulders, cape, back, and whatever else you can think of. You take one color at a time, apply it to the brush, and brush a piece of paper until there's almost no color when you brush. Then you brush the model with the color on the appropriate color, so it looks like some of it is exposed to light and other parts look like they're in the dark. I personally don't do this with anything, but I love the darker look. Highlighting implies direct overhead light, so its your call.

This is after some inking and some light highlighting over his belly plate, weapon head, and the white portion of his shield. 

The last step in our model is basing. Basing isn't necessary, but then again, any step listed is entirely optional. I have a small container of sand. I use it to stabilize models' position while the glue holding them together while drying. However, its also essential in basing, in my opinion. I got the sand from a sandbox at a playground. Then I ran it through a strainer to take out the gravel and larger sand grains. For basing, you take the model, apply Elmer's glue to the top of the base. Spread it around. Don't worry if you get some on the model's feet. It looks totally normal. Then (again with the optional steps) it looks pretty good to paint the sand a natural earth color, then drybrush over it, just like you're highlighting, except that if you screw up, even LESS people will notice. Sometimes people will flock the base, to make it look nicer, which involves putting a bit more Elmer's on it, then adding something that looks like tiny foliage, which Citadel sells to look like all kinds of grasses, grains, flowers, shrubs, undergrowth, etc, however, the train set stuff by hobby lobby works too. I've been using plain old crushed leaves lately. Crush them into teeny tiny pieces, and apply them to the bases just like you would with the other stuff, except that you paint lightly over the leave litter with brown ink because it gives them more cohesion, so they stick together, and it also adds shadows, which all piles of leaf litter have.

The white lines are to denote front arc and back arc, for playing purposes. However, that sand is as good as its going to get until I determine what specifically I want to do. 

Now you should have a lovely model that's ready for the last step: GET YOUR GAME ON.

The Odyssey of the Penal Company. Chapter 1.

This is not my terrain at all. This is terrain that makes me think less of my own.

One of his dregs got wind of a horde of stone on his trip into town. The rumor was the only thing sparing his life, as he also came in smelling of beer. Darza was no fool, but they took advantage of his…disability, and indulged themselves when they went to town, buying food and drink for themselves with their pay. They needed food, Darza remembered that, but he did not give them permission. It was his own tactic, starving the men for a few days, then giving them as much meat as they could eat, carved from the flesh of their enemies. It built a sense of hierarchy and respect for authority. Your lord giveth and your lord can taketh away. This would need to be dealt with, though he had no memory of which one had disobeyed. With the same weapons and armor, they all looked the same to him. Fancied themselves fighters, but they hadn't the faintest idea how to kill a tree, much less a man, much less a troll, dragon, or giant. An ax did not a god make. And the necromancer, with his fancy robes, could keep these pitiful man-bits together, which was his only actual use. He was fragile, and this caused the black bile within Darza to unsettle. This pathetic man could be put in the grave with a single firm hand, he mused. And if he proved truly pathetic, he very well may.

The group mobilized toward the horde, at a slow pace because of the zombies. The pace, while aggravating, had its moments of relaxation. Darza had given Vyet the job of cartographer as punishment. Also, the city was abandoned, which meant that no one else would be after these petty black rocks. They reached the pool and saw the still water. It was red. Darza felt his thirst welling up within him. But he wasn't certain if he needed to feed or kill. Either way, something was going to die. He hadn’t felt the life drain from a man by blade or fang since his first act of insubordination while still a fledgeling vampire in the service of his creator. His thoughts were broken as Darza saw shadows emerging from the mist. Humans. Massive burly men, with all kind of stupid contraption. He would feast. He knew this would be easy. However, more shadows emerged from his left. Little rats-things. Lots of them. Too many for even a bloodthirsty chaos knight vampire to take. And they appeared to have some kind of spellcaster. How did that even work? Darza's only thought was that without these stupid zombies, he could have raided the pool and been back at camp already. He looked his team down. He could taste their fear. From all save the zombies, but they had as much fear as ability. They wouldn't swing this battle at all. Pep talk time. "Blitz the pool! Don't come back until you have rocks! Flee without one, and I swear you will flee yourself onto my blade!"

The three dregs feared battle, but they feared their captain more. Buford, Clovis, and Ned raced toward the pool, each sure that their leader would punish the last man into the crimson water. Vyet attempted to advance, but was held back by Darza's arm. "Not you."

The zombies shambled forward. They wouldn't even be involved in this fight, Darza thought with disgust. He advanced in his heavy armor, with his chaos sword and shield, both heavily worn down by age and the slow spread of rust across unholy steel. They had all been re-gifted to him by his "judge" after spending the last twenty years sitting on some skeleton. All so his captor could get some laughs. Twenty years of rust and cracked leather straps. Nothing felt right anymore. His plates sagged in all the wrong places, and his helmet strap had been torn out, making it jiggle on his head when he moved. He felt his rage well up and charged into combat. Whoever these beings were, they would be gifted the punishment he could not give to his creator. The dregs were in the pool, sifting wildly. The humans were advancing, as were the rats-things, though the rat-things were faster. One of the dregs, Ned, whooped in triumph and sprinted back toward Darza, who was to cover their retreat. Buford and Clovis were wasting precious seconds, and the armor was slowing the vampire down. He wouldn't get there in time to hold ground while they searched.. As the two turned to follow Ned, the ratmen descended upon them. Darza could hear their terrified screams. Cowards. He looked to the leader of the humans and gave a slight nod of the head. The human returned the nod, scowl still on his face. This day, living and dead would fight an enemy that ate you regardless of your state of decomposition. He charged into the throng of rats, swinging wildly. His men had stopped their screams, but mostly because the ratmen had pried the stones off the boys. This is the best the men donated to him could do. Darza could only pull so much weight. The men weren't soldiers.

He heard a frightened yell behind him and saw Vyet, who was shooting his bow at some of the pathetic mice that had somehow flanked them. The zombies plowed into them, but they weren't doing much. A flesh wall, protecting a real asset. An incompetent one, but one all the same. Sword and shield were the arms of the monster in the combat. One of the rats struck him, sinking a dagger deep into an area where a plate had shifted due to the aged strapping. He was suddenly overwhelmed by frustration at his own gifted impotence when he heard a terrible explosion. Off to his right, one of the humans stood, holding some kind of smoking stick. Several ratmen lay on the ground, clawing at smoking wounds. So, they brought a sorcerer, eh? He too would meet his end. The pincer closed, and the humans crashed violently with the beasts, as Darza’s own forces closed in from the opposite side. 

Darza eyed the captain, knowing his own weakness, and the humans' penchant for greed, and stuck his sword deep into one of the last skaven to consider jumping so powerful a creature. He backed away, knowing a loss when he saw it. His two men were down, but he could pick the field for them later. At least humans didn’t eat their own. He made his hasty exit from the field, guiding Ned away. Suddenly, with a shriek, the ratman caster charged the pair and Darza threw himself in front of the Dreg. His shield absorbed the rampaging animal and for its trouble, it received a vicious swing of Darza’s own massive rust-covered shield, and the beast sprawled on its back. He needed to remind himself to sharpen his sword. This was unacceptable. The thing glared at Ned powerfully, and the terrified man gave a yell and hacked at the thing until it stopped moving. Behind him, his zombies were collecting throwing knives with their flesh. Darza looked around at the carnage and saw no hope of victory.

"RETREAT!!"

He looked back at the human captain, who gave a sinister smile and a nod of the head. Darza felt his lips curl into a sneer...

The Cryx scare the piss out of me. I wish I could play their style, so badly, but they're fragile and seem perpetually outnumbered in all the games I've seen them in. Maybe the Cryx can play a game of numbers, I know I just don't like their infantry. Either way, that's a sexy looking giant evil assassin steampunk robot, and that's a rare thing...

The Odyssey of the Penal Company. Prologue.

*One of the things I loved about Mordheim was the ability to make a backstory, and since your heroes started out without names, you got to name them. And since it was campaign-based and they leveled up occasionally, you really got a sense that you were playing a very narrow-minded adventuring party and the mooks that hang out with them. And with injuries gained from going down in combat, its easy to get attached to your guys. Even more so if you painted them yourself. Personally, I got really into the fluff of the world, as its so vibrant. The following is the first bit of my fan fiction, set in Albion, in the City of the Damned: Mordheim. I'll probably update it sporadically. Hope you enjoy!*

Darza looked through the bars of the jail-wagon. The skeletal horses pulling the wagon were galloping in sync. It was unsettling. He considered escape, using his considerable force to try prying a corner open. The hunched figure on top of the coach was undoubtedly dead. Its ankles had flaps of desiccated skin showing beneath the thin pants. Darza the Bloodletter, they called him, over twenty years ago, when he was alive. For twenty years, he'd been without purpose. A unique thrall to some low-life vampire. In life, Darza had been a chaos knight, leading a small group of marauders to map and plunder. He was hoping they'd find some obscure mountain pass that would lead them straight to a vulnerable target. He'd taken his thirty or so men and wandered the land, moving from farm to homestead and back, putting the torch to everything it would reach. When they crossed the border into Sylvania, they were ambushed and Darza was not killed instantly. He became the plaything of his master. When his master was politically outmaneuvered by a rival, Darza was put on trial. He had no idea what a trial was. The men of the North only engage in trials of flesh. This was a trial of words. He was sat down in a chair and was told that he was guilty of politics and was being punished by banishment. To some human city. It was already destroyed, he only had to collect some rocks. Sounded stupid. Sounded easy. He was assigned a team.

*sigh* The team. He looked at the others in the wagon. Vyet the Necretard, he was called by his new captor before being sent off. Vyet had tried to raise a host of corpses, and he succeeded. But they turned on each other, and Vyet. His master was, unfortunately, present, and was assaulted. He'd been given quite a scar, so this was to be his redemption. Then there was Buford. Some kind of bum, found living in a crypt, but not eating anything. He simply had nowhere else to go. He should have been skinned alive, crucified, and left outside the crypt. If his kind were unwanted, why was he not made to be an example to others? Ugh. And Clovis. Some kind of political malcontent, but of such low breeding that his blood was unworthy of consumption, and it pleased his captor slightly more to send him on a petty quest a thousand miles from home than to stab and re-animate him. Lastly, Ned. Apparently he kidnapped some protected merchant's daughter for some reason. If the merchant's master couldn't protect his spawn from one ugly living man, he should find a new master...

The city loomed in the mist before him. He saw a massive stone wall which, while old, did not seem necessarily abandoned. In fact, it looked like there may have been movement on the parapets. The cart stopped and the back door dropped, releasing the prisoners. The five men piled out, and stood there. Darza walked to the front of the cart. The skeletal horses must have been some kind of temporary undead. As he watched the pair, the jawbone dropped off the nearest one, hitting the cobblestone streets with a spray of tooth-shards. Khorne-forbid he could get a mount like a true knight of chaos. He turned to his "team" and took off his helmet, revealing an empty eye socket and a massive gaping wound on the lower jaw, like a second smile. "You. Follow me. Obey or die. I care not for any of you."

He spit on the ground, a wad of black liquid, to emphasize his point. Good pep talk. As they entered the city, they passed by the dried corpses of several people amidst the abandoned houses. Each looked to have died a horrible death by unknown hands, wielding unknowable weapons. He looked back at the dead eyes of the driver. "Bring him too." The pathetic necromancer gestured and did some kind of foul incantation and four corpses trudged behind the group. He looked at the necromancer and put his helmet back on. "I find them guilty. Of weak will. The conquest of the Penal Company begins now..."

Darza chuckled and entered the city gate.

Skorne Re-Visited.

Ok, so last night I was at the shop, and I realized something: I have no idea who the Skorne or Menoth REALLY are, because I'd already told myself that they're not my style. The reasons being that I'm not into the "continuous fire" game mechanic of the Menoth, and the Skorne seem like Khador for Hordes, and I don't want to run mirrored factions. So I delved into a bit of their lore. This is what I've got.

The Skorne are the Persian Empire of Immoren. They are DEEPLY interested in the study of souls and death, and they study the Trollbloods to death, fascinated by their souls, which go DOWN, as opposed to UP after the individual dies, because Trollbloods are tied to earth and stone. They also recently learned about the Retribution of Scyrah, which reincarnates, unless the newborn is born soulless (which is an increasing phenomenon in the game world). The Skorne have the best light beasts in the game, allowing you to force an opponent to re-roll or to roll an extra dice to add to your previous two dice, turning many near-misses into hits. They also have a handful of dinosaurs, recently getting a pterodactyl. Persians with dinosaurs? YES.

However, their premier beast is the Titan, which is this big, four-armed beast. The Skorne generally mistreat their warbeasts, which is their way with everything. Torture is their day-to-day. Titans are epic slam machines. A slam is a "power attack," costing either one focus (for Warmachine), or putting one fury on said warbeast (for Hordes). Basically they bum-rush the other guy and knock him down, which means that anyone who wants to give him a sharp poke in the ribs can do so without any effort, meaning they have to roll for damage, rather than roll for attack. Anyone with a gun can bust off a shot and hit automatically too (unless they roll snake-eyes), since the target is incapable of dodging. While knocked down, the target cannot attack either, and it must be given one fury, or spend on focus to get up, unless it choses to forfeit either its move or action. That's devastating, and personally, it sucks to be knocked down. Additionally, if the target is a warjack knocked down in shallow water, its boiler goes out and the jack is inert for the rest of the game. You can't start up a furnace that's full of soaked coal. Warbeast don't have this problem BUT warbeasts are subject to being poisoned where jacks are not, which makes up for it.

The Skorne have really cool stuff, like saber-toothed tiger cavalry, a unit of harpooners (which can drag the target toward them, and away from whatever protection it had), and a bunch of really cool casters. The battle-box caster reminds me of Voldo from Soul Caliber, and that's awesome, because Voldo is DELIGHTFULLY creepy. 

Morghoul. Wait, Voldo. Uhhh...Volghoul? Mordo. 

 Morghoul is, I guess, some kind of assassin-caster, which is pretty sweet. Guess which picture is which guy. However, having an assassin-caster is a gamble though, because if you have offended the dice gods, you pretty assuredly lose, having delivered the one kill they need to win right to the guys most capable of killing him. Open mouth, insert foot-cannon. 

Its only creepy because of his horrible poses and tight clothing.
You know what, that's really all he is, weapons aside.

Battle Report: Cryx vs. Cygnar

This was the initial table set-up. Warma-Hordes uses a 4 foot by 4 foot table, and the shop here has one custom made for them, with two 4 by 6 tables there too. Ignore the phone on the table. It has no effect, and is not actual terrain. The three patches of trees are forests, which slow people who enter that do not have the ability, pathfinder. People on the hills get a slight bonus to defense. The two players were Orlando and Jason. Both of whom are pretty awesome. Jason was playing Cygnar, and Orlando was playing Cryx.

Jason's List:

Major "Siege" Brisbane

Reinholdt, Goblin Speculator

10x Trenchers

6x Rangers

1x Defender Warjack

Orlando's List:

The Witch Coven of Garlghast

Deathjack

1x Ripjaw

1x Defiler

1x Skarlock

2x Pistol Wraiths

Orlando spread his guys thin and made a...particularly reckless advance. Clearly he was going for the caster-kill, and this was a good strategy for it. If Jason made even a single opening, Orlando would be there to exploit it. Jason's advantage was numbers. Orlando's advantage was his two small bonejacks and his pair of pistol wraiths. They're incorporeal, so they can only be harmed by magic weapons, and magic weapons aren't common. That means that they're virtually immune to most infantry damage. Also, bonejacks all have an ability called arc node, which lets you cast a spell through them if they're in range of the initial spell. This is great, because his caster was actually three witches and...I still swear its a sea mine. Either way, with three casters, they can belt out a mess of spells, and if they're outside of range, Jason would be hard-pressed to get the caster-kill.

Jason's rangers, threatened by a pistol wraith. As a sniper unit, they were boned. OR ARE THEY?!

Both heavies are on the same size bases, and for all intents and purposes, are pretty close, stat-wise. Why is it that Deathjack's hand is as big as the Defender's ENTIRE BODY!? 

Deathjack charged the Defender, fell short by a half an inch (you're not allowed to measure before you declare charges), and Jason was left to retaliate.

The snipers were threatened by a pistol wraith, which is the restless ghost of a duelist, animated by Cryx dark magic. What are they going to do?!

On Jason's retaliation turn, his Defender roughed the Helljack up, taking out his Cortex, which means that he can no longer be allocated focus from his caster, making him extremely pathetic. Jason then charged with his caster, assuming that a brainless helljack (the Cryx-only version of the heavy warjack) isn't capable of killing his beefy caster. Jason's trenchers then continued to shoot at Orlando's other pistol wraith and bonejack (I think it was the Ripsaw).

In an ironic twist, the motto for the game is "Play like you've got a pair." 

The Rangers ran...like cowards. Seriously, I don't see why neither of them did anything, but I guess I don't have to.

Orlando and his Deathjack targeted Siege Brisbane, and he hit with his first fist attack, missed with his dead right arm, and hit with his horns. When rolling for damage, Deathjack's claws have a P+S (this is his damage, plus the results of two dice) equal to Siege Brisbane's armor, so the results of the dice are straight damage. The horns have a lower P+S, so higher numbers are needed to damage Brisbane. Orlando rolled, on four dice, three 6's and a 5. The odds of that are slim to none, and were just enough to BARELY kill Brisbane, through sheer dumb luck. I think the best part of this was that Orlando would be told "You need a 9 to hit" and his response would always be "I got this." Even when he was told he needed boxcars for the kill, again, he says "I got this" and when he actually DID, he did a victory lap. What an upset.

Game over: CRYX WINS.

Warma-Hordes!

Ok, so the other game I play is Warmachine, but everyone I know who plays it calls it Warma-Hordes, because we can't forget about the Hordes players...or they'll show up when we least want to see them.

Ok, so the setting is the world of Immoren, on the continent of Caen. It was a generic lame D&D world, where elves, dwarves, and humans sometimes went out to go kill things because they look different than themselves. And that was all well and good, until one day when the Orgoth came. I know almost nothing about them, except that they were highly magical in a magic-light world. So the races all banded together and, using dwarf technology, made these things called the colossals, which pushed the Orgoth out of Caen and back to their place...for now. However, necessity is the mother of invention, and technology progressed at a ridiculous rate.

So, the people of Caen have all of this technology sitting around, and they spread themselves into little countries. They form the countries of Ord, Cygnar, Khador, Llael (France-esque), Rhul, and Ios (home of the elves). At one point, part of Cygnar split off from the rest, calling themselves the Protectorate of Menoth, establishing a theocracy devoted to the will of the god of civilization, Menoth. Also at some point, the Trollbloods (a Hordes faction) helped Cygnar with something or another, and earned land to call their own. Also also, at some point Khador swept down and crushed Llael into nothing. Gold cannot buy mercy.

The different factions are amazing and diverse and each player can find at LEAST one that they want to play, typically. I myself have a Khador army, and an army that I won't reveal until the 7th, after our big tournament. If no one knows what I'm bringing to bear, then its that much more likely to do well. But I also have mercenaries to shove into my Khador army. Mercenaries can be bought to bulk up your own guys and patch up weak parts.

So, we start with Warmachine. The "good guy" in Warmachine is Cygnar. They're the "Good old boys," maybe British, maybe American-esque (I think they're British, personally.). They were the ones defending Llael from Khador, but since Llael fell, Khador is now knocking on their door...with axes, while yelling "HERE'S JOHNNY!" Cygnar uses lightning magic, which is great, because it disrupts enemy warjacks. Not as effective against Hordes. They're extremely shooty, and have a tendency to rely on lines of guys with highly accurate rifles, picking off the enemy before they close in, when the enemy jacks get disrupted, making them pathetic, and the Cygnarian infantry does their charge.

The main "bad guy" is Khador. They're unabashedly Russian. Everything about them is big and slow and heavily-armored. Their guys can take an ass-kicking and shrug, then return with their spell "ax-to-face." They're not very shooty, but they can take quite a hit, and have a diverse army. Also, they're douchebags, but that's ok. Almost everyone in this game is some brand of douche or another. To me, it seems they have the most diversity of models, and I see that as a win right there. I mean, the guy with the most options is at an advantage.

Then there is the Protectorate of Menoth. I hate these guys. They seem, to me, to be a sub-par version of Khador. They focus on starting things on fire and denying the enemy things. Lot of synergy with some of their guys, but their flavor bugs me. They're a cross between crusaders and jihadists, and this bugs me enough for me to bring my A-game against them every time. There is no "just for funsies" fight between myself and Menoth. And its NOT that they're religious. I LOVE the flavor of Morrow, the god of good stuff. I think it may be that their casters have a tendency to look like the Pope, and I personally think the Pope is a bit of a douche.

The Cryx are wonderful. I love their flavor. The island of undead, haven for the worst of pirates. They specialize in assassination and corrosion. I hate fighting against them, because they have a slew of negative buffs (-2 to all stats and the like), many have stealth (so you can only shoot at them if you're within 6 inches, regardless of your weapon's range), and janky (that means awesome and probably cheatyface) spells that give them the ability to walk THROUGH terrain and people and the like. But, they're a glass cannon. The hurt bad, they're hard to hit, but they break like its their job. ALso, their leader is a GOD DAMN DRAGON. He's the dragon father, Toruk, and he's specifically looking for his spawn, so he can kill them and consume their power back.

The Retribution of Scyrah is a faction of elves who live in the woods, accept no trespassers, and are currently in crisis-mode. Long ago, the elves summoned their gods into the world.Gods react poorly to being summoned, and the capital of Ios couldn't handle it. When the gods walked out of their realm, the elf capital (full of elves) exploded, killing virtually everyone there. Their gods are not immortal, and they started to diminish. At this point, there are two gods left. One of which is currently in an induced coma (and had to be stolen BACK from Khador...they stole a GOD), and the other is frozen in a block of ice (by the nyss, a race of elves living in the frigid northern areas. The Retribution is convinced that their gods are dying because human warcasters and warlocks are draining their power. Elves in this world reincarnate their souls into newborn bodies when they die, and since the gods are waning, more and more elves are being born without souls...thus they're out to kill everyone who's not them who does magic.

The mercenaries are diverse. Some are pirates, some are dwarves, some are simply rough-and-tumble men with a taste for violence. They use retired Cygnar warjacks (which are still nothing to sneeze at) as their muscle.

Then there's Hordes. The "good guy" from Hordes is the Trollbloods. They're Scottish themed, and they've got the diversity to be a great army, but they're just not for me. They kind of bore me, to be honest. They do all kinds of magic, and have some cool things, and their big guys are super awesome, but they're just...my army. You know? They have some of the jankiest, coolest abilities in the game, and all of their guys are mandatorily "tough" which means that, when they die, you roll a single dice, and on a 5 or 6, they're not dead, and keep doing their thing. One-in-three chance to negate death? AWESOME!

The Legion of Everblight is run by Toruk the Dragon-Father's most clever of children, Everblight. Everblight started off, immediately, by finding the capital of the elves and moving in. Then he used his own blood to create dragonspawn. He's AMAZING at it, able to manipulate his own blood into dozens of violent, savage shapes. One day, several centuries later,  the elves realized that there was a dragon of deific power living beneath their city, and sent everyone into the caverns to kill him. This would be the equivalent of finding out the Cthulhu lived in the sewers of Manhattan. At great cost, they killed Everblight and his spawn, and hid his athanc (which I guess is like a soul, if it crystallized) in the mountains. Then Everblight hung out for a few centuries. Like a lot of them. And eventually he got the attention of a young ogrun (see: ogre) slave named Thagrosh. He convinced Thagrosh that he would gain the dragon's power if he became one with Everblight. So he stabbed himself in the heart with the crystallized dragon soul, and the two fused. Then he quickly took over the ogrun and the nearby nyss, corrupting them. As the Legion of Everblight gathers more generals, Everblight fuses with them too, forming a telepathic network. His only hope is that Toruk doesn't realize that Everblight doesn't have a physical body...

The Circle Orboros is a pretty sweet group too, being a druid circle living in the woods. They accept no trespassers either, as they fight the expanse of civilization, trying to maintain balance between civilization and nature. They're followers of the Devourer Wurm, Orboros. They make their own stone elementals to bring to fights, but also bring in various woodland creatures and their own human supporters. The group plays in a very hit-and-run type style. They barrage people under a hail of arrows, hiding and moving in the woods, where most people are extremely slow. They have some of the most terrifying assassins in the game, and I am EXTREMELY jealous. I would likely be playing them if my lady-friend were not doing so first. However, since its her first minis game, I get to play with the books, to tell her the most horrifying combinations out there. Hopefully she figures it out. I have confidence.

The last "official" faction is the Skorne. They're some kind of corrupted evil elf-looking things, and they have an empire that resembles the Persian empire. They have these big elephant-looking things, and their lights are cyclops. The cyclops savage is the most terrifying thing in the game, in my opinion. You have the option of rolling the dice BEFORE you figure out if you want to boost the attack, which means that if you miss by two, you know to boost that one...If you miss by nine, don't bother. I like this faction, but there are some things I hate. Their style, first of all, is way too angular. Not every person needs spikes on their armor. Also, one of their units is a calf from the elephant-type things, except that its been tortured. I have moral issues with that...

The last ACTUAL faction is the minions. The minions are like mercenaries for Hordes players. There are two groups thusfar: The Blindwater Congregation and the Thornfall Alliance Minion Pact. The first one is gatormen, and the second is pig people. Both are kind of cool, but really small armies, with maybe ten different models in the whole group. For either faction. And there's a lot of overlap. However, they also have all of the cool utility solos and such. Now most factions can hire Alten Ashley, the big game hunter with the elephant gun, as he's a minion/mercenary.

Sorry for the huge text-dump, but I figure people would like to know who is who. I personally find their motives to be awesome. So many times two people have set up the table to realize that their casters are the Ash and Gary Oak of the game, hating each other more than they have ever loved anything. And those players tend to get into it, which is awesome to watch. A good backstory makes a good game great, in my opinion. You're not just cramming two groups of meat together, you're on a mission, whether it be invasion, defense of your homeland, punishment on trespassers, or just good old-fashioned dick-headedness.

You know what? I'll just have more pictures.

The Warhammer World.

This is mostly backstory to the games I play, so no one is entirely lost as to what I'm saying.

So, the games I play are Warhammer fantasy, and Warmachine. I also play some Mordheim from time to time. Each one is different, and here I'll give a brief description of each world, why I like it, what I play, and all of that jazz. I don't play Warhammer 40K. Honestly, it seems cool, but each game takes several hours

Mordheim and Warhammer take place in the same world, Albion. Albion is a world torn into two directions: law and chaos. Virtually no faction in the game is "good" though many are outright evil. And that's not a bad thing, in my opinion. I'm opposed to this idea that one guy has to be the evil orcs and the other has to be the righteous who-the-hell-evers. The world of Albion is like Earth in the renaissance. Men and dwarves have gunpowder weapons, while orcs and lizardmen (who look meso-American) use the most primitive of weapons. Beastmen haunt the forests, orc hordes gather and tear themselves apart with regularity, dwarves are slowly dying off, as their fortresses are slipping away to relentless assault from goblins and all kinds of other things, and they refuse to change their tactics, being bound by tradition. The elves are either living in a forest that bends the laws of time and space, or living on an island in a state of perpetual civil war. The humans live all over, but the two main groups are the Empire, and the Bretonnians. The Empire uses renaissance technology and various fantasy creatures. The Bretonnians are classic knights, riding horses, and backed by peasants. Meanwhile, demons spew out from chaos gates at the poles, which also warp the locals, who are prone to raiding anyway. The skaven, cruel rat-people, live beneath the world, doing what they do. And in the cursed land of Sylvania (guess where this is going) the undead crawl out of their graves, bent to the will of the local vampires.

The thing I like about Albion is their historical randomness. I mean, every world borrows from our own, taking interesting concepts and seeing what they can make them do. But there is no "British" faction, and I love this. The Bretonnians are French-like, the Empire is Germany-like, and that's that. The world has a crazy history too, with lizardmen being created to do the will of "the Old Ones" who created the world as they see it, planting various species found elsewhere in the universe on a single planet. The orcs were a native fungal species, but they spread by spores released from their bodies when they die, and as such, their entire society is based on fighting. Fighting for land, fighting for food, fighting for literally no reason...orcs win at orc life when orcs fight. And if they die, then at least they weren't defeated. Orcs are stupid.

Mordheim is a game based on a single city in Albion. Backstory first. The Empire was established by Sigmar, who is sort of like Jesus, if Jesus wielded a hammer and was also Conan the Barbarian. Sigmar united the tribes and pushed out the orcs, making alliances with the elves and dwarves, before finally leaving his own empire for parts unknown. His birth was heralded by a twin-tailed comet. Mordheim was a city that, one night, found a comet over their heads. They assumed Sigmar was going to come again, so everyone gathered at Mordheim, waiting for the day...but the day never came, and the people got bored, so they went back to their "sinnin' ways." Then the comet struck the city, and lots of people died. The city became ruins almost overnight, and most living people left, because the comet was made of warpstone, which is a valuable  material for most dark magic. The key word there is "valuable." That's where the game starts. Each player has a team of mercenaries, and during their duration in the city of Mordheim, they gather as much loot as they can, fighting where they must.

I LOVE this game, and I love that its campaign-based. When one of your guys goes down in combat, you roll one dice if he's a minion, and two if he's a hero. If he's a minion, he either lives or dies, but his odds of dying are higher than those of heroes. If he's a hero, you roll on the injury table, meaning that he may be fine, or he may lose an arm for the rest of the campaign. He may have been killed, or captured by the enemy, or sold to the fighting pits, or even driven mad. The idea that you suffer permanently for bad luck is great, because its kind of realistic. And the deaths of heroes are almost always awesome.

Who am I and why should you care?

            I am a geek. I have been for over ten years. And every minute of it has been wonderful. Every late night spent with a rum-n-coke and a classic Conan story, every Saturday afternoon spent cheering my loser team on in whatever minis game I happen to be playing, every second I spent locked inside my head, silently screaming because I had one red mana and two black, when I needed two RED and ONE black mana. Every minute of it has been magical…by default. There are very few geeky games that don’t involve magic in some sense, but that’s what makes the games great, you know? That sense of otherworldy involvement. That sense that, while you may BE only the player, in a sense, you’re also a god, doling out your favors and curses to the little people running through the ruins/forest/dungeon/kitchen table.

            I suppose I should probably get to the part where I started this bad ass lifestyle. I mean, very few loser high school kids went on to this devil-may-care lifestyle, where you stab a goblin without even asking its name first, and the enemy army limps home after a sound thrashing while you dance like a happy ewok on their grave which is actually the other side of the table.

            My first memory of the genre was early. At some point when I was a kid, my parents sat me down and had me watching tv, but there was a Conan marathon on that day. When Conan tore the horn off the monster at the end and it died, two year old Mike watched. And then it went through the ridiculous Beastmaster movies, and when some vampire thing engulfed the cowardly cannon fodder in its embrace, then spread its wings to reveal only slimy bones, two year old Mike watched. At some point, he would be doing this, but like any good story, we have a massive time gap.

            Now that the massive time gap is over, we enter Mike’s sophomore year at small-town high school in Hillbilly Hell, Iowa. Mike is a loser. He spends all of his time watching tv, has no hobbies, and no life. He’s interested in zero girls at school, because none of them are remotely interesting. Also, he is fat. One day he gets an itch and watches The Fellowship of the Rings. He’s into sci-fi, but has never attempted fantasy. He loves it. A few days later, in study hall, he sees a kid he’s always regarded as “weird” reading a book that has the hand of Sauron wearing The One Ring on the cover. He’s intrigued and he learns that this is a “roleplaying game,” which involves him making a character and then playing this character with a set of rules in a Middle-Earth of this other boy’s imagination. But there are others to this group. There are eight boys, total. They gather in the basement of this weird kid, James. James is the dungeon master, so it’s his world. His mom brings us wonderful snacks, and we have enough Mountain Dew to last for an entire campaign. We all begin our adventure in a tavern in the city of Bree, a rustic country town. Suddenly the doors burst open and…

            Its four years later. Mike is in college. He’s still living in Iowa, but it’s not so bad now, because he has friends and hobbies. Some of his friends from high school he still hangs out with, but they were all involved with the Lord of the Rings roleplaying game. He’s in the dorms, playing Dungeons and Dragons. He knows the other few men in the room. Each of them is a repeat offender, worthy of calling themselves his geek-qual. It’s 4 A.M. on a school night. He wants to get to bed, but the adventure has gone on too long. It’s a pre-constructed adventure, so it’s bound to suck and make little to no sense at the end. Chances are we won’t even know the name of the boss at the end. Mike and the group have been exploring this dwarven keep for hours, and have little to show for it, except some dead dwarves. I guess they were were-rats or something. His geekery is in full bloom, spreading like fire where it takes hold. He has Warhammer guys at home, but no one to play with. He has boxes of Magic cards, and dozens of decks. He plays Dungeons and Dragons at LEAST once a week. No, there are no girls in his life. It’s complicated, but not as complicated as he would have wished. His character douses the end boss in grease and starts him on fire before there can be any monologue. At 4 in the morning, Mike doesn’t play around. Then his character eats a pound of soap and dies so Mike can go to bed. Money well-spent.

            Its five years later. Mike is in school at the University of Wyoming. He plays games regularly down at the local shop, Games Gauntlet. He personally knows all of the owners, and has collectively spent more hours with some of these guys than he has with members of his own family. The table before him is 4 foot by 6 foot, and covered with little buildings, trees, and walls.  The guy across the table is Orlando, a tall Hispanic guy who's one of the more popular guys in the shop. We each have a partner, and its a 2v2 game, but our partners are both concentrating on each other, occasionally shooting into the other person's fight when a target presents itself. Orlando made a few errors, but mostly tactically. He never read the cards from my army, which you're allowed (and encouraged) to do. Also he didn't quite understand his own guys. This made positioning for something especially brutal quite easy. Mike easily walked through most of Orlando's army, and its showing. The best way to end the game is to kill the enemy caster, but Mike's caster is Orsus Zoktavir, who's a bit of a tank. Orlando's caster gives Nightmare, a special assassination-happy heavy jack, the ability to walk through walls and enemy models, and Nightmare streaks like a bat out of hell at Orsus the Butcher, but Orsus has bodyguards. A war dog, which is a mastiff covered in plate mail, and a man-o-war drakhoon, which is a man in steam-powered armor, riding a Clydesdale, which is also wearing steam-powered armor. Both rush the enemy jack, and the drakhoon takes off one of the beast's arms. The beast lays into Orsus, but he survives with a single hit point left. His power shield is down, and his armor is in tatters, and single hit from anyone will bring down this mighty Russian bear of a man. On Mike's turn he rolls to see how much focus (magical power) Orsus gets. No one else has to roll, but Orsus is demented, and his brain isn't particularly responsive. Mike rolls a single dice and gets...4, giving him a total of 5 focus for his retaliation. Focus can be used to enhance the attack ability and the attack power of a caster. Orsus spends his focus points on extra attacks, swings his mighty axe, Lola, around 5 times, and the mighty helljack, Nightmare, falls into the grave he has dug for Orsus.

I am a geek. I have been for over ten years. Every minute of it has been wonderful.

So, this is my first post...or something. These are my Iron Fang Pikemen. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Secretly I just really enjoy blogs with pictures. And these are my dudes, which I painted myself. They hail from the country of Khador. But you probably won't know what that is for a few more posts.

Ok, the point of this blog is to become a repository for geek knowledge, stories, games, cool models I come into contact with, tips I've learned about all kinds of things, sometimes battle reports, and whatever else gets thrown in there. And the title MAY be deceptive. I do more in my life than play minis games, and from time to time, some of it is likely to creep into this blog, but its ok. I can count the number of times I've done meth on R2-D2's fingers. There's probably going to be a heavy chunk of video game stuff, roleplaying stuff, probably some reminiscing, and absolutely some tactical information. Tips and tricks learned by men with bloodied noses, reaching down to the new recruits, telling them to remember to duck.

Well, that's what I've got so far. I'll probably be posting things all day. Don't worry, I geek out at LEAST once a week, and I have about a decade's worth of stories.