Iron Painter Round 1: Fool’s Gold


I’m participating in Wyrd’s Iron Painter.  In each round, participants are paired off and given two weeks to complete a miniature to fit a theme.  Round one’s theme is “Fool’s Gold.”

I’ve decided to interpret that as this poor idiot carrying too much and getting stuck in quicksand.

The model is Reaper’s Oswald the Overladen Henchman, yet another from the Reaper Bones Kickstarter.

I had sculpted a ripple effect into the base, but the texture (corn meal) seems to have filled it all in.

ToMB2: Month Two Findings

I’ve gotten a couple of games in with my second month of Zoraida.  The full crew list now consists of:

  • Zoraida
  • Voodoo Doll
  • Bad Juju
  • 3 Silurids
  • 3 Waldgeists (new for month two)
  • Nurse (new for month two)
  • Performer (new for month two)

Last month, I found that I didn’t have enough Swampfiends for Eternal Fiend to let Bad Juju pop out when needed.  The Waldgeists have definitely helped with that, plus give a great 9.6″ engagement bubble (40mm base plus 4″ on either side) to give trouble to the opponent for some schemes and strategies.

The Nurse and Performer were brought in for Voodoo Doll Poison tricks.  The basic tactic looks like this

  1. Zoraida summons a Voodoo Doll, who Hems a tempting target.  The Doll should get dropped in engagement with the Nurse, if possible.  From this point, any damage or conditions given to the Voodoo Doll go on the target as well
  2. Zoraida still has one AP left.  If the Hem doesn’t go off, Zoraida can Obey the Doll to try again.  If not, she can potentially Obey the Nurse to hit the Doll instead.  Or maybe Obey to move the Doll into a better position.  There’s another great movement option available – Zoraida can Interact with the Doll to move the Hemmed model.  If nothing else, her Voodoo Pins can hit the Doll with Poison +2.
  3. The opponent gets to activate something.  Hopefully they can’t remove the Hem condition.
  4. The Nurse activates.  She hits the Doll twice with her Syringe.  The Doll relents, and probably takes 0 damage and Poison +8 (+12 if Zoraida Obeyed the Nurse)
  5. The Performer chain activates off the Nurse’s Accomplice.  She Siren Calls on the Hem target (requires 12″ range and LOS), with the real goal being the built in Sip of Wine, which does damage equal to the Poison condition, with no upper limit.  If that doesn’t finish off the target, you can do the same to the Doll for another 6 damage.

When this goes off, it’s awesome.  Only two of the actions (Hem and Siren Call) can be opposed, and neither needs suits.  The Chain Activation makes it fast.  Once an opponent knows it’s coming, though, it’s harder to pull off.

What I haven’t been so successful at is coping with failures, especially if I lose one of the models.  Shenlong or other condition maipulators make it hard to use as well.  The Performer has great scheme marker tricks, which I need to get better at using.  With Don’t Mind Me, she can Interact when engaged.  She can also blow up both friendly and enemy markers at range.

The Nurse has a lot of other manipulation options, but they’re tricky enough that I have a hard time coming up with uses for them on the fly.  I should work out another couple of options.

I’m really not sure what I want to do about month three.  I have $20 to play with, since I borrowed $2.50 from month two.  I’m considering either Killjoy or doing something with Gremlins.

Killjoy’s MSRP is $18, so neatly fits into the budget.  It also would give an extra bit of face beating, either to supplement or replace Bad Juju.

I’m already working on some Gremlins, which would be convienent. I haven’t figured out if there’s a useful chunk of models that fits into the budget, however.  Maybe I could ‘sell’ Ophelia and the Young, then split the rest of the Kin into months three and four.

Rapeepzel diorama

For some reason, this year my family decided to do a Peeps diorama contest, inspired by the Washington Post’s competition.

My wife was totally into it, so we submitted the following.

Rapeepzel excitedly awaits Prince Peepsalot’s visit (of the East Peepshire Peepsalots) while the evil Purple Dame Peepthel angrily plots his sticky demise.

Rapeepzel
Rapeepzel

My main contribution was the name, the tower (except for gluing on shingles and the vines), and consultation on the trees.  The tower was built as a variant on what I did at Adepticon stuck to half of a Pringles can.

We had gone for a semi-realistic vibe, although once you put brightly colored Peeps in there, realism kind of goes out the window.

 

Adepticon Wrapup

I recently spent four days near Chicago attending Adepticon, a major miniatures con.  It was my first time there, and I had a blast.

Thursday

First up was registration.  I arrived at about 10 am on Thursday, which would have been after the main rush.  I had splurged and gotten the VIG badge, which gives you a tshirt and other fancy bits in the swag bag.  I ended up with starter boxes for Dropzone Commander, Wrath of Kings, and Hordes, plus a bunch of individual minis.

Some of the VIG swag
Some of the VIG swag

My first event was a seminar on building scenery.  Marcin Ignasiak, the instructor, did a nice job of corralling people through making a foamcore tower.  I have kind of a catch-22 situation with terrain.  I don’t have any, because I don’t play at home, because I don’t have terrain.  Maybe I can get myself out, or at least make some pieces to donate to a store.

My watchtower, slightly damaged on the flight home
My watchtower, slightly damaged on the flight home

I then had a little time to check out the vendor hall, redeem some vouchers from the swag bag, and learn about some of the games on display.  I got a demo in for Aetherium, which is a minis game with a Matrix/Tron setting with a very interesting mechanic around manipulating the board.

My first game event was Combat Patrol, a rapid fire collection of 400 point 40k games.  I brought my Deathwatch, which was chosen more around models I had painted than what I thought would be good at 400 points.  I ended up pretty low in the rankings, but had three fun games.

Friday

My main event for Friday was the 40k Friendly.  I brought my Dark Eldar for this, which I only had one game in with the not-so-new codex.  They split us up into teams of about 15 players, and it had a camping theme, complete with merit badges.  During the breaks, I helped win the pie eating contest for Team Pink.  This was another fun three games, although my Reaper got its gun blown off all three games, and managed to immobilize itself between table quarters, making it completely useless.  I brought a bunch of small Reaver units, which were awesome.  I miss my drive-by attacks, but D6 S6 Rending hits on the charge are pretty nice.

Friendly sash and merit badges
Friendly sash and merit badges

I had a bit of time, so I learned a bit about Wreck Age, a post-apoc skirmish game.  I also demoed Broken Contract, a skirmish game which pits exploited miners against The Man (reminds me of Red Faction).  It just launched a Kickstarter for its miniature starter set.

In the evening, I went to a seminar on green stuff.  It was a nice introduction to actually sculpting.  Joe Orteza, the instructor, was clearly experienced at giving the class.  My one criticism would be that he would sometimes work on your piece without being entirely clear on what he was doing.  I’m hoping to put these new skills (and tools) to work.

Green stuff, plus some tools
Green stuff, plus some tools

Saturday morning I ran into Matt Stanley of Nova Open fame.  Once I said I was playing Malifaux, he went into sales mode.  Sadly, flying to just one game con this year is already pushing it a bit.

The main event of the day was the Masters of Malifaux.  I played Neverborn, and played all three of my masters across five rounds (Lynch once, and Lilith and Zoraida twice each).  I lost the first three rounds, although not by much.  The highlight for the first set was in game three, with Breakthrough and Deliver a Message in the pool.  I managed to Leap a Silurid to deliver to Seamus early in the game.  At the end of the game, there were a bunch of dudes converging on Zoraida.  I decided to Animal Shape her 15″ out of the way.  My opponent saw an opportunity.  He managed to walk Sybelle out of engagement with a Silurid to get close to Zoraida.  He then Called a Belle from across the board, who activated to Deliver a Message right back to me.  Even though it cost me the game, it was well played and exciting to see.

Game four I managed to pull out a win with Lilith vs Rasputina.  I threw Lilith into the fray, which got her killed.  She did manage to keep my opponent’s crew bottled up in a corner, though.  I had Waldgeists holding both Stash markers all game, and other models running around accomplishing schemes.

Game five started out rough.  I was so fried from playing all day that I could barely put a crew together and didn’t end up having a good idea how I wanted it to work.  It was my Zoraida vs Lilith.  He brought the twins, who messed up my left flank, while the rest of his crew advanced up the middle.  On my right flank, however, I was able to send a Silurid forward to get Breakthrough and Power Ritual scheme markers down.  The Performer ended up being the MVP of the game.  She pulled off the pseudo-Expunge trick pretty well with the Voodoo Doll and Nurse.  She also used her Siren Call to pull models into and out of position, foiling plans.  In the end, we managed a 5-5 draw.

All in all, a really fun set of games, although five rounds is rough.  Surprising enough. the 105 minute round time worked pretty well.  I finished all games except one.

I then had just enough time to shove some food in before heading into my final seminar, Blood, Pus, and Guts with Michelle Blastenbrei.  This class was largely showing a few techniques and materials, then a chance to play.  I was pretty worn out from Malifaux all day, so wasn’t able to get as much out of it as I would have liked.  I also managed to forget the handout in the room.

Playing with Blood
Playing with Blood

Sunday

I had signed up to do the Malifaux Story Encounter on Sunday, but I wasn’t feeling it.  My schedule had been full enough, and the Masters the day before long enough, that I wasn’t really interested in another full day event.  Instead, I spent more time in the vendor hall and attended the Crystal Brush awards ceremony, plus I actually ate lunch outside the convention center.  I got a demo for Dropzone Commander.  The apparent focus on mobility is very interesting, plus I have a army starter box now.  I also got a Wild West Exodus demo, although it didn’t grab me.  I think the demo may have glossed over enough of the details that it was hard to get a real flavor for the game.  Wreck Age and Deep Wars both look interesting, but I didn’t get a chance to demo them.  ModCube is working on customizable counters in a cube, which seems interesting for damage markers and the like.

I ran into the Swag Wagon just before I was about to head out, and got handed a $25 voucher for one of the vendors, Toledo Game Room.  They had a ton of new and used minis for sale. I considered getting some beat up vehicles to use for terrain, but in the end decided on Malifaux and got a shiny new The Kin Ophelia box.

Lessons

I scheduled myself for too much.  I wasn’t completely exhausted, but I ended up being happier skipping my Sunday event.  Even still, I didn’t get a chance to demo everything I wanted to.

Part of why I didn’t feel like the second day of Malifaux is that I didn’t feel like playing Neverborn again, even though the different masters mix it up.  So I should pick up another faction.  As luck would have it, I already have the Somer box and the Nightmare Whiskey Golem, since I’m a sucker for limited editions.  Combined with the Ophelia box, I should be in business.

I didn’t take enough notes or pictures.  I had a bunch of great games, but I can’t tell you too much about them, or even the names of most of my opponents.

By the time I decided to go (which was well before actual registration), the actual con hotel was sold out, and I ended up at the Embassy Suites a short walk away.  It was okay, but it meant I was hauling stuff back and forth, and didn’t really have an easy way to ditch my stuff and go be social or whatever.

I kind of wish I had opened my wallet a bit more in the vendor hall.  I resisted buying a bunch of things for a bunch of good reasons (how am I going to get it on the plane, con discounts aren’t any good if you don’t actually use the item, you can always buy it later from the FLGS or mail order if needed, plus do I really have time for another game?).  Still, I kind of regret not picking up the Aetherium base game.  Or some terrain from Tri-City Laser, which had some really neat stuff.  Or maybe something from Forge World.

All in all, I had a great time, and hope to go again next year.