I had a busy weekend, taking part in two Warhammer Underworlds tournaments.
Dundee
The first was on Saturday in Dundee at Highlander Games. It’s about a 20 minute walk from the train station (nearly everything in Dundee is), but in this case I was walking into the wind, being pelted by sleet, hail and snow most of the way. But it was worth it. The tournament was in best-of-three format, and 8 people showed up.
I took Rippa’s Snarlfangs because I’ve been focusing on them recently and didn’t feel like running Skaeth’s Wild Hunt again. To build my deck I consulted a couple of tournament decks and Can You Roll A Crit’s recent article about the dog-goblins. I ended up taking all the flex out of the deck I’d been iterating on for the past few weeks, putting all the focus on aggro. I removed objectives that were pulling in different directions. I also removed all my extra mobility power cards. This was a mistake.
Match 1
My first match was a goblin-off against Zarbag’s Gitz. This was a good matchup for me because my warband and deck is all about killing things, and the Gitz have plenty of easy-to-kill, non-threatening fighters.
My dog-goblins got to work, hacking and pillaging, with Rippa quickly becoming a 7-wound beast thanks to Sudden Growth and another +1 Wounds upgrade. I underestimated Snirk the fanatic, however, who eventually managed to kill Rippa. Way ahead on glory, I still took the win.
Game 2 was more one-sided as I managed to kill Snirk early. Moonclan grots and squigs were deleted left and right, and I pulled into a strong lead.
Match 2
There were 2 other Rippa’s Snarlfangs players at the event. For my next two matches, I had to play both of them. In a aggro-off, when you probably both have very similar decks, it really comes down to the subtle differences in those decks, card draw, and luck of the dice. Fortunately in match 2 I managed to pull ahead in both games thanks to the power of crits, plus some lucky card draw.
Match 3
Going into match 3 I was pretty exhausted after the tension-filled rollercoaster of the previous Rippa-off. My opponent had chosen to add a little extra mobility to his deck rather than get rid of it all, like me, plus a lot more plink damage. This meant he could out-position, out-maneuver and out-damage me. When the dice didn’t go my way, I was defeated roundly.
Dundee Denouement
In the end I took 3rd place. In fact, all 3 of the Rippa players were in the top 3, with my opponent in the 3rd match taking 1st. A good day for dog-goblins.
Thanks again to Highlander Games for putting on a great event!
While I was at Highlander a trio of Dundee friends popped in and said hello, which absolutely made my week. I miss living in Dundee a lot and being able to see these folks more often.
Also, on the way back to the train station I met up with another friend who gifted me a bunch of unpainted terrain she wasn’t using anymore. I am lucky to have such incredibly generous people in my life. More on that soon!
Glasgow
On Sunday I travelled through to Glasgow for a tournament at the Drury Street Bar & Kitchen. This time it was a best-of-one format. I don’t think I’d have gone if it was best-of-three - two of those in one weekend would definitely have been too much.
I swapped out Pit Trap (1 damage when an enemy is driven back) for Tracking (+2 move), learning a lesson from being outmaneuvered the day before. It also makes scoring Gathered Momentum easier because I don’t have to rely on Inspiration to get up to 5 move. You can see the final decklist here.
14 people attended the tournament, which is an excellent turnout for Scotland. It feels like the scene up here is growing!
Match 1
My first game was against Paul, the tournament organiser, and his Zarbag’s Gitz. Once again I went into this matchup feeling confident, but I was schooled on a few rules and subtleties of how the Gitz work. They’re very complicated! I would not recommend them to people starting the game. For example, Snirk’s inspire reaction shares the same reaction window as the Snarlfang’s extra attack, so can be used to block it once per game. I’m glad he didn’t gotcha me with that!
Despite managing to keep the pressure on him with my wolves I wasn’t able to stop him from scoring most of his objective-grabbing objectives and get glory from keys (and key-like things), so we ended up with a quite close 23-19 finish to me.
Match 2
Grymwatch. Finally time to let rip. The deck excelled against them, able to turn all those little 2-wound fighters into glory bombs. At one point I got 5 glory from a kill: Amberbone weapon, Trophy Belt, Tome of Offerings, plus a surge. It really is a very fun deck to play when these big swings happen.
Meanwhile my opponent had a very disappointing opening hand and was never able to get his machine started. I hope it wasn’t too bad of a game for him :s
Match 3
The nasty nasty Wurmspat. I was a little bit worried going into this - when your deck is built around turning enemy fighters into exploding glory bags, a warband with only a few very tough fighters is hard to profit from.
My opponent deployed very defensively, I deployed aggressively. It was clear very quickly that he was going for a Temporary Victory or Supremacy, so I attacked and put the pressure on, managing to deal 3 wounds to each of the 2 Blightkings by the end of the first round. I was also able to get Stabbit onto one of the 3 objectives in his territory, locking him out of his early glory swing.
At the start of round 2 stabbit killed both the blightkings with a spinny attack and a wolf chomp. What a hero! The rest of the game consisted of Fecula sitting in the corner, becoming impossible to kill with a few upgrades. We finished 10-4 to me.
Awoo!
Somehow this meant I won the tournament, taking home my first trophy. I don’t really go into these things expecting to do well, let alone win - I mostly just try to have fun games for me and my opponent - so I was very surprised!
Thanks again to Paul for running a great tournament. I’m already excited for the next one.
I was pretty worn out after such a busy weekend. Thankfully I had this Monday off work, and got some rest.
I want a whole army of wolf riders but I cannot have one! These are the only 3 wolf riders currently available in AoS! It’s Kurnothi all over again! A terrible shame.
These came together really well. I started off with a zenithal basecoat, but hadn’t made up my mind about what colours to use until I grabbed a pot of yellow Contrast paint and tried it on the plume. That bright yellow dictated the rest of the scheme and it all fell into place. Blue, green, yellow.
They were quick, too. Contrast and washes allowed me to get good results on the fur, leather, plumes and wrappings really quickly, with just a little drybrushing and layering at the end to add highlights.
I’m particularly pleased with the metal, another successful test ride for Vallejo Metal Colors. Look at Stabbit’s shield:
In one smooth coat of Copper I was able to lay down the base. Next, I worked a bit of Aethermatic Blue into the grooves (looks cool as heck). Then a little bit of Nihilakh Oxide in places where I thought there should be stronger oxidization like around the bolts. Then I just highlighted up a bit with Gold and, finally, edge-highlighted with Silver right on the top of the shield. Very fast, very simple, very fun.
For the blades (e.g. Rippa’s sword) I used Burnt Iron followed by a dark green-blue wash, then highlighted up to Silver.
A note about the rims of the bases: Some people don’t like base rims to be anything other than black or dark brown. Now, my opinion is that the rim is as much part of the model as everything else, and it can be used to contribute to the overall effect. In this instance, the sky blue on the rims contrasts with the yellow ground and suggests the desert sky under which the Snarlfangs ride. To choose black instead would be a shrug. In fact, I think it might detract from the final result, because nothing else on the model is black enough for it to match with, or white enough for it to pop against. I’m not saying you should never paint rims black, just that you should probably be able to justify it artistically.
I made these by roughly following this tutorial by Terrain Tutor. Instead of spackle I used modelling compound and instead of slate I used bits of foam for the rocks. The trees are from Woodland Scenics, and while they’re a bit diminuitive, they’re not so small that they look entirely out of place next to 28mm-scale minis.
This was a great way to start making terrain and I gained a lot of confidence. I’ll make a few more, with bases of different sizes and shapes, to scatter about the battlefield.
3 more Stormcast on the Stormcast pile! These are the Castigators from Storm Strike.
I adore these models. Turns out they actually come in units of 3 after all, so this is a minimum-size unit. If I get a couple more I can run a unit of 9. I’m sure I’ll get at least 6 of them on the table at some point, just to see if they can do any work.
This was my first proper project using Vallejo Metal Colors paints. I was trying to match the look of my usual Retributor Armour recipe. The end result is a little less yellow, but plenty shiny and rich, and it took less than half the time to do. Going forward I think I’ll be doing as much as possible using Metal Colors - they really are amazing.
Also in the box you get a lovely little bird-dog companion!
I want more gryph-hounds to go with her!
In the background you can see my new Army Painter wet palette. I’ve been using a homebrew tupperware-and-baking-paper solution since I started in the hobby 2 years or so ago and after Christmas I felt like spending some money and making the leap to a “proper” wet palette. I feel like a bit of a mark every time I notice the Army Painter logo on the case, but otherwise I am very pleased with my purchase - the special paper and foam perform much better than anything I could have homebrewed.
Finally, I have painted the Knight-Incantor from Soul Wars. I’m not super pleased with her face but I did my best. Apart from that I think she looks great.
With that, I’ve finished all the Stormcast from Soul Wars and Storm Strike. Looking forward to running a mostly-Sacrosanct army sometime soon.
I still have that one remaining Sequitor to paint who I got for free in the Warhammer shop on the Royal Mile, but I think I’ll chip away at him as I proceed with other projects. I am done with painting Stormcast Eternals for the moment.
Many keyboards are worn down by the annual flurry of conversation about New Year’s Resolutions - whether they work, how to do them properly, and so on. It’s tiresome. I’ve always seen the beginning of a year as a good opportunity for a kind of reset, some time for reflection on and reappraisal of priorities. Following that, a sense of optimism and excitement about what is to come.
Over my winter Holiday, which was especially long, I made the vague decision to stay in Edinburgh, or at least stay with Rockstar Games, for the next few years. I’ve been here 3.5 years and the whole time I’ve viewed my presence as kinda temporary. 2019 was especially indecisive should-I-stay-or-should-I-go at some points, so it’s nice to now have a sense of certainty about what I want to do with the future.
Here’s some resolution-type things. They start off as vague ideals, then I force myself to refine them into clear specifications for achievable goals.
Write more. Write a bit every day. Therefore, write 100 words a day. (These are my 100 words for today!) I manage to achieve this on days when I write blog posts, which the 100-word-target has motivated me to do more of, but otherwise I keep missing it. So I might downgrade it to a 50-word target, because the original intent was to motivate me to literally just open up a document and add a little bit more to it every day.
Hobby every day. Just do the smallest measurable amount every day. I’ve already written about my lofty hobby goals for 2020.
Learn Scottish Gaelic. Do Duolingo every day. I rather like Duolingo, but I’d be kidding myself if I thought it was enough to pick up enough Gaelic to speak it fluently. I will look into more hardcore learning methods.
Finish the Warcry Card Creator. To this end, plunk 5 minutes of work into it every day.
Keep up my very basic exercise regime. To get started, I do 20 squats every day. On lazy days I can just leave it there, but on energetic days once I get started I will work through the whole suite. It’s definitely paying off, getting easier to do and improving my body shape, so it might be time to find some more exercises to add to the routine.
Play videogames more. Last year I barely played videogames at all because I just hobbied a whole bunch. Play a videogame for 15 minutes per day. (I suck at this one. Why is it so hard?)
Read more books. Read 5 pages every day.
Go swimming. Once. This is a matter of overcoming a fear of being publicly mostly-naked that has prevented me from enjoying swimming, one of my favourite forms of exercise, for like 10 years. I want to punt that fear right into the bin where it belongs.
Hitting all these targets in a day isn’t easy, even though they’re all quite small. I suspect I need to build a daily routine that gets me through them all.
What are your ‘New Year’s Incredibly Specific Targets’?
