How to get the Stormwall safely across the ocean

The top layer of my Battle Foam holding the infantry models.

Whenever I go to a Warmachine tournament in Europe people keep asking me about my P.A.C.K. Air from Battle Foam. Yes, they are rather expensive compared to other products and yes, models still break, but ever since I had Battle Foam this has been reduced to a minimum. Every once in a while a model's arm may fall off, but that's nothing that can't be fixed with super glue in a couple seconds.

The only time I had several models break was when I flew to Texas for Wargames Con. I had only two foam trays in my P.A.C.K. Air to fill the remaining space with my new custom cut foam trays for my Cygnar/Trollbloods armies. I filled the remaining space with clothes figuring that would be soft padding and a filler enough for a safe transport. What I didn't realize, however, was that the clothes didn't exercise enough pressure onto the trays so about half of the models fell out. Although they were still fairly well padded by the clothes, they bumped into each other so paint was chipped off and several limps had to be glued back together once I had arrived in Texas.

Good thing I took my trusted superglue and minimal modeling equipment to Texas.

To make a long story short - in my eyes, Battle Foam is worth the purchase, you just really want to fill the entire bag with foam to prevent anything from falling out of anywhere. Thinking about taking other things than minis and foam in your Battle Foam bag for the weekend trip to the tournament because it's convenient? I suggest you take another bag instead.

The bottom layer with a custom cut for my Warjacks/Warbeasts plus  a cube for the Stormwall and the War Wagon.

Currently I am really excited about the new Stormwall foam tray as the Stormwall perfectly sits in its tray. The fit is firm and snugly so it doesn't go anywhere even if the case is being bumped. This kind of safety comes at a price, though, because one has to be careful not to exercise too much pressure onto the model when putting it into or taking it out of its tray. When pushing the Stormwall into its tray, I suggest to push it at the base with your stretched fingers. When taking it out of its tray, I suggest you gently lift it with a finger below its perineum. If necessary, wiggle the model carefully as you softly pull it out. The worst thing you could do is to just grab it by its shoulders and pull it out.

One thing I really like about the new Stormwall foam tray is how it lets you pluck part of the foam so it perfectly fits its arm positions. Here I even plucked so more so that its right shoulder canon doesn't rub with the foam either.

I am not affiliated with Battle Foam at all, I am just a happy customer. Since Battle Foam still mostly is a US company geared to the US market, Wargames Con is a great opportunity for me to buy their products. However, I suggest you advance order their stuff because they only have a very limited supply and it's flying off their shelves.

The Battle Foam stand at the 2012 Wargames Con.

This year they announced their presence at the Wargames Con and brought way more stuff, but certain things were either not available (foam toppers? they had no foam toppers - bought them at the FLGS instead) or only in limited quantities (they only had one display tray for WM/H - if I had bought it, they'd have had to keep it for the remainder of the Con to show it to other customers). An important point also is that the Wargames Con substantially grew in size since last year, but I hope Romeo ships the necessary quantities of products to the 2013 Wargames Con. After all, he'd be a fool not to.

Battle report Cygnar vs. Trollbloods (35pts)

Sara Wood chatting away at the 2012 Wargames Con with fellow WM/H players.

After the 2012 WGC I was able to play two games with Sara Wood, WM/H Masters player, over at Darkwynn's house on the 4th of July. This article covers the first of the two games, the second will follow later. Since my current record in Texas (W-L-T; 2-7-1) wasn't that good and Sara definitely knows how to play Trollbloods, I knew I was in for an uphill battle. Yet we had a great time and playing her I could observe and pick up tactics that I will use in my upcoming Trollbloods army. Sara also helped me with army list advice, so I have to say she is a great resource for anything Trollbloods related.

Sara's army - Kriel Warriors with Kaber Throwers, an Axer, Mulg,  pDoomshaper, a Mauler, and an Impaler.

In both games we played simple caster kill scenarios. In our first game, Sara was playing pDoomshaper vs. my eCaine. We played on the Dust Warfare board from the 2012 WGC in Darwynn's garage (damn it was hot!) and we just agreed that the cliffs were rough terrain, but the miniatures could pretty much walk anywhere except up the walls of the houses - they could use the stairs, though.

Deployment

Sara goes first and carefully moves forward and into cover.

I pretty much do the same. I was hesitant about the Gun Mages  because I could have sent them up the stairs and on top of that roof, but I was afraid of them jamming on the stairs and get eradicated in that tight spot. Therefore I decided that they have to walk around the building on the left instead. Then I showed Sara that Cygnar armies can be tough, too (Greygore Boomhowler & Co. in combination with Heightened Reflexes from eCaine, Rhupert Carvolo). eEiryss shoots at the Mauler and removes one point on the Spirit.

Sara basically just moves into the center of the table to make a stand there.

The Gun Mages on the left move around the building and start shooting the Axer. Greygore Boomhowler & Co. plus the Stormclad charge into the Kriel Warriors. eEiryss continues to fire at the Mauler.

Sara gets only very minimal gains in close combat as Greygore Boomhowler & Co. just eat up all damage. The Impaler charges eEiryss, which I didn't like too much.

The Gun Mages continue to shoot the Axer. Sara is less fortunate with her Tough saves, so Greygore Boomhowler & Co. start to run down the Kriel Warriors in the center. The Stormclad finishes off the Mauler. The Stormblades charge in as well. eEiryss successfully escapes from the Impaler and starts to shoot pDoomshaper - even with Janissa's wall that's an easy task for her. eCaine moves to the right flank, kills the Impaler and hopes to get shots at pDoomshaper in the near future, too.

Well, when Sara sees an opportunity for a casterkill, she seizes it. First Janissa kills eEiryss on the far right (just to be save), then the Axer finishes off the Stormclad, then Mulg tramples through the Stormblades and uses Fury to purchase additional attacks to swing his giant club at eCaine. With boosted attack rolls he hits and kills.

My really big mistake in this game was that I knew that Mulg can trample and likes to do it, but that I didn't consider the option that Sara may just do that to get in range of my warcaster. In other words, my line of defense made out of Stormblades is basically worthless against Mulg, so I have to keep this in mind for future games. Jedi Master Gati won't be happy with me, he will assign additional training and study to me upon return. ^^

Failcast? Not really

An unboxed Fennblades unit. Every model comes in its own compartment, can easily be snap fit together and requires almost no cleaning.

Being a Cygnar player since Christmas 2009, I have assembled many metal models and there was nothing slow curing super glue in combination with green stuff and the eventual pinning couldn't do. One thing that always amazed me how little flash and mold lines I had to clean off a Cygnar model if you compare it to one of the old GW metal models. If you have ever cleaned eCane and a Space Marine Librarian, you know the difference.

With the arrival of more and more Privateer Press resin products this has gone even better and I simply loved putting together the trolls in the starter box. I am really looking forward to doing my Fennblades next. All those models come with holes for snap fit so you may even put them together without glue.

So in the light of all this, everything would be perfect except for my Stormwall I just put together. I spent approximately one hour cleaning off flash and mold lines. Now this is nothing extraordinaire in comparison with other companies - if you ever ordered from Forgeworld, you know what I am talking about. However, compared to Privateer Press' standard of perfection, this was unusual.

Now the bitter pill in combination with the Stormwall really were the casting/assembling errors I have on it. Once again this is totally acceptable on a kit that big and it's nothing that can't be fixed, but once again it is unusual in comparison to Privateer Press' perfection on other products.

The upper torso of the Stormwall comes preassembled as the cast is made of two halves that are being glued together at the factory already. The Stormwalls right shoulder (not seen on this picture) is a perfect match, but here on the left shoulder the two pieces didn't align well. In the center you can see how I used some green stuff to fix one of the two plates above the railgun. You can also still clearly see where the two halves have been put together even after I cleaned the connection with a hobby knife. This will require some more filing at home.

Here we have a tiny little hole in the center of the picture. This will have to be filled with liquid green stuff. I also noticed holes in some metal parts, but they were already filled by Privateer Press with some sort of soft plastic. Those areas shimmer blue on the otherwise silver surface.

Here you can see Andrew show the individual parts of the Stormwall and how he puts it together. However, I assume that for the video he already cleaned the parts although he fails to mention it. You can skip to 3:20 as everything before is just introductory chat.

Battle report Cygnar vs. Khador

Kommandant Gurvaldt Irusk

Well, my buddy Angel and I finally got to play our own Warmachine game over at Tenth Planet Games in Cedar Park. TPG is a new gamestore with a very friendly staff, three large gaming tables, and a small community that keeps growing.

Angel and I played the No Man's Land scenario from page 93 of the MKII Prime rulebook. Basically the entire oasis in the center of the table was in the No Man's Land and we fought over it as one of the precious water sources in a desert.

This was the setup of the armies.

I moved everything carefully forward. My main force was to pass the oasis on the right so they don't get slowed down - plus warjacks don't like to be in water. The Balck 13's shots on the Widowmakers were short, pEiryss failed to hit.

Angel moved everything forward and his shooting did no damage. I slightly started to get concerned about his pEiryss and the Drakhun Dragoon on my right flank. As expected, Angel's pEiryss disupted my Thunderhead.

Delighted by the fact that the Widowmakers didn't kill them, the Black 13 moved and killed them in return. My pEiryss disrupted a Khador warjack. In the center everything moved forward and Arlan Strangewayes power boosted my Thunderhead to shake off the disruption. Now I had two options: I could either commit my Thunderhead to energy pulse pEiryss (and the dragoon, too) - which was a very attractive option - or I could energy pulse all that Khador infantry tied up in the center. I decided to go for the jucier center, although this meant that pEiryss could virtually run unchecked.

In his turn, Angel charged in with everything in the center. The Thunderhead took some damage from the dragoon. Angel's pEiryss disrupted eHaley. The pikeman to the left ran to get into melee range with my pEiryss so he couldn't hit her in this turn.

eHaley walked into the oasis and popped her feat. The Thunderhead killed off the Dragoon and was free again. My pEiryss killed the pikeman and the Black 13 started to take shots at the Khador warjack near them. Arlan Strangeways performed minor repairs on the Thunderhead.

Because of eHaley's feat, Angel was seriously hindered in his turn. His major moves were to regroup his entire infantry in the center to bring more guys into close combat (one of them even managed to reach eHaley) and to kill my pEiryss with a template weapon (I think it was grenades from his warjack).

In my turn I gladly noticed that the Thunderhead was not in close combat and had tons of Khador infantry around him. All my units were immune to electricity except Rhupert Carvolo, so my Thunderhead said a big "Sorry Rhupert" and then used the energy pulse. Well, in this picture you see the few models that were still standing after that. The Squire moved a little closer to eHaley in a feeble attempt to minimze pEiryss' firing lane on my warcaster. The Black 13 shot Kommandant Irusk, but did minimal damage.

In his turn, Angel moved Kommandant Irusk back a little and killed Ryan. Irusk also popped his feat, but he should have done so earlier for greater effect. pEiryss continued to disrupt eHaley and the assassin fought with her in close combat, yet didn't do any damage.

In the center, my warjacks attempted to push forward towards Irusk, but this was a hard task because Irusk had a spell that made everything in his control range rough terrain, so my guys were very slow. The Black 13 continued to fire at Irusk, yet to no avail. Arlan Strangewayes ran into close combat with pEiryss just for the sake to stop her shooting for at least one round.

In Angel's turn, the assassin successfully broke off from eHaley and charged Arlan Strangewayes. Arlan was killed and pEiryss disrupted eHaley again. Irusk ran into close combat with the Black 13. The Khador warjack finished off my Stormclad.

In my turn, the Black 13 fought in close combat with Kommandant Irusk to no avail. My remaining Stormblades and the Thunderhead put the pressure on the remaining Khador warjack. When I ended my turn, we realized that eHaley and the Squire were the only units in the No Man's Land since the assassin moved to kill Arlan Strangewayes. I won by winning the scenario. ^^

Although it worked nicely, I am still torn if I made the correct decision on how I committed my Thunderhead. In an ordinary game, letting pEiryss run unchecked means loosing the game. Also my Thunderhead was lucky to get out of close combat again so he could use his energy pulse. I guess if the same situation arose again, I'd commit the Thunderhead to energy pulse pEiryss instead and then move back to the center to energy pulse the massed infantry.

Battlereport Cygnar vs. Protectorate of Menoth

High Allegiant Amon Ad-Raza

This was a pickup game with David Villareal over at Dragon's Lair here in Austin during its weekly Warmachine night. David and I played a 15pts game of Mangled Metal first - which David cleverly won - until we noticed that the store is open till midnight, so we decided to go for a 2nd larger game, too. We decided to go for a 35pts game and I was to face Amon Ad-Raza, a warcaster I had never faced before.

Warmachine night at Dragon's Lair in Austin.

David definitely is one of those guys you wanna play with. He greatly enjoys the fluff behind his Menoth army, he is beaming when his mischievous plans work, he is a great sportsman where both players can learn from their mistakes, he also plays units in Menoth you usually don't see, and he also knows to tell interesting stories outside of Warmachine. If you have the opportunity to play with this guy and you don't take it, then you're doing something wrong.

Just a quick remark concerning the Amon Ad-Raza model: I briefly touched it during last night's game and immediately felt how delicate it is. It has to be handled very carefully for the chain not to break off. I guess that puts it into the same cathegory like the Kara Sloan model.

David goes first and runs everything to/up the hill. His warcaster is running with his Warjacks on my right flank, so that's why I had pEiryss hide in the ruins in the hopes of at least disrupting one warjack so they won't punch me all at the same time.

I am always having a hard time with those Exemplar Errants so when it was my turn, I did two things: I just walked my army rather than ran (to stay out of charge range) and I moved eCaine aggressively forward in the center in hopes to kill at least a few of them. It paid off better than I thought; eCaine killed almost the entire unit and could also have killed the remaining officer if the last two shots had been more lucky. On the right, pEiryss was in range to shoot the warcaster so she disrupted him rather than a warjack.

Because of the disruption, David had basically no choice other than walking everything forward.

This was probably the decisive turn. My Gun Mages on the right used their Thunderbolt ammo to push back David's warjacks to buy even more precious time until the hammer hits. pEiryss on the right was not engaged in close combat with the monk, so she moved back and disrupted the warcaster again. The Stormclad ran to tie up the Knights Exemplar in close combat with his reach weapon.

In David's turn, the monk charged pEiryss and Amon Ad-Raza charged the Gun Mages. The Stormclad suffered wounds from the Knights' attacks.

In my turn, my infantry on the left flank first moved forward to open up firelanes. Then the Gun Mages disengaged from close combat with Amon Ad-Raza. Amon Ad-Raza killed all models with his free-strikes except for the officer who passed his Tough roll (from Rhupert Carvolo), so the officer lay knocked down on the floor still engaged in close combat. The two remaining Gun Mages (on the right) that never were in melee range stood and shot their very own officer, so with their aiming bonus and the officer's defense of 5 on the ground they were able to kill him off despite the penalty of firing into melee. However, adrenaline rushed into my blood when I had to make the Tough rolls again and it was the first time in my life when I thanked God for failing a Tough roll.

With all firing lanes open on Amon Ad-Raza, eCaine simply popped his feat, stood, shot, and killed.

So this was another great game with another great player. I guess David will do much better next time if he consequently hides his warcaster behind his warjacks, kills pEiryss as early as possible, and makes it very risky for me to move eCaine forward so aggressively because the return fire may kill him off. David also noted that he has Deliverers and yes, I don't like those. :-)

Conquest vs. Stormwall on BoLS

BoLS just posted a great video battle report today where you can see Privateer Press' Lyle Lowery play BoLS' Relasine as they both hit the table with the Conquest and the Stormwall. I especially like Relasine's paint job on the Stormwall, he did a great job there. However, he also did a great job on the infantry; in the video it looks as if his Black 13 merely have a black basecoat, but if you get to see them up close you get to see that they actually have some really nice layerings and shadings.

Wargames Con Warmachine Review

left to right: Lyle Lowery, me and Will Hungerford.

Looking back at how the WM/H games at Wargames Con were run and managed I have to say it's the best WM/H event I attended so far, although I have some issues that I am not totally happy about.

For the readers not familiar with Wargames Con I guess I should clarify a couple things first (or at least that's the way I understood them to be):

• The Bell of Lost Souls crew was responsible for the overall event, e.g. registration.
• The WM/H tournaments inside Wargames Con were run by the Texas Renegades. They were responsinble for the judging, timing of the games, and giving away the prizes.
• The people from Privateer Press (Lyle and Will) were responsible for the demo games with great support from the local Press Gangers.

Angel getting a demo game from Steven.

Those demo tables were really nifty and fun to play on.

Now with that being said, here is the list of things I really liked:

1. Registration was painless and the judges carefully checked all lists.
2. The judges did an excellent job supporting the players whenever a question concerning the rules or the scenarios arose. In the important tournaments/games that were about qualifications and winning the prizes they also actively patrolled the tables just to watch how everything's going.
3. Everything was calm, speedy, and efficient, which can basically be sourced back to the quality of the WM/H rulebook and the Steamroller rule set. The publication of the rules in the WWW and the use of chess clocks (we were allowed to use Privateer Press' very own) made a very smooth tournament. In the WM/H community we basically shook our heads when we observed how the 40K judges had to work their butts off and frenetically call the time and Dice Down over the microphone in order to manage the 40K events.
4. It was great to have representatives of Privateer Press on site, although this meant they had to work on the weekend. It's just great to talk to them directly and hear their views on things and is a sign of how well rooted in the community Privateer Press is. It's greatly appreciated.
5. As you could guess from my pictures above, the demo games were truckloads of fun - and everyone was even happier when they got to take home a free starterbox. I got myself the Trollbloods starterbox to start building a new Trollbloods army next to my Cygnar army. That way I have pretty much the entire Privateer Press universe covered and its initial boost with the free starterbox is greatly appreciated.

There is one issue where I see room for improvement, though, and I guess that's mostly based on the decisions by the Texas Renegades: the time table. Now I understand that running a tournament isn't easy and I am not saying that I could do it better. I also understand that the time tables published on the Wargames Con website in the WM/H rule packs may be subject to change. However, there were still incidents that I was not entirely happy with:

1. As I wrote earlier, I missed my third game during the Classic Hardcore because I thought it was lunch break. The judges basically canceled lunch break because they wanted to move on with the tournament as fewer players than expected showed up and only one more game may have been needed to determine a winner. This tournament was announced as a six rounds event, but effectively played were only four.
2. On the second day/Saturday I had only 20min for a lunch break as the schedule was sped up again.  This tournament was announced as a four rounds event, but effectively played were only three.
3. On the third day/Sunday, the Flanks For Everything tournament didn't start until 10:30 a.m. although the published times on the Wargames Con website said it starts at 09:00 a.m. However, once again only three out of four games were played again.

Now I know this is complaining at a very high level. I also know that players who choose to drop out after they have lost one or two games in the Swiss system are an issue. I also understand this may be an issue of cultural differences because locally the focus is on determining qualifiers and winners and not necessarily play out the entire time/game schedule. However, I have to say this still left a somewhat unhappy taste in my mouth and the reactions from some of my fellow players showed me that they had similar feelings, too. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe for most people the motivation to attend a tournament is to get in games and if they can get a prize on top of that, then even the better. However, they are basically there to play games. Cutting the games schedule definitely has its advantages and I have to admit, too, that I was glad when we could end a tournament early and relax. However, if I could pick the options I would still rather have a tournament with more breaks and all games played simply because I want to do the whole thing - after all that's what we're here for, right?

Wargames Con - Flanks For Everything

Well, here's my report for my last games on Sunday of Wargames Con. For Warmachine, Sunday was a split as the top players played their Masters and those less fortunate played their own Flanks For Everything (35pts, all scenarios with reserves). As it was appropriate for the event I sure did wear my new Privateer Press bandana. ^^

Will Pagani briefing the players for the Masters.

Game 1 vs. Roger Yohn (Retribution)

This game lastet only seven minutes in total. Roger basically rushed his Myrmidons forward and they shot eNemo who hadn't even left his deployment zone. From André Suwanda I know that I have to be really careful with Mage Hunters and their ranged attacks, so I found myself in a wrong sense of ( at least temporary) security when Roger had his Mage Hunters in reserve. He basically taught me that Myrmidons are excellent marksmen as well.

Game 2 vs. Nikki Andraka (Circle, pKrueger)

In this game I got to play one of the two female players in the tournament so this was probably my most charming defeat ever. ^^

My army moved into its first line of defense, Nikki moved her army forward, too, and also did the trick with the Shifting Stones that I knew already.

At the end of my second turn, my army had moved far enough to at least contest the various objectives and either be charged or charge in the next turn.

Also my reserves arrived from the east supporting my right flank. On the turn of their arrival they could not really shoot anything, but on the other hand they were also more or less save behind this building.

On her turn, Nikki moved forward and was mostly concerned with my Fireflies on the flanks. I didn't care because as long as the Fireflies were alive, I could still use them for my Triangulation.

On my turn, my Thunderhead moved forward and eradicated the druids with his Energy Pulse. Arlan Strangewayes moved into B2B with the Stormclad and repaired it so I was pretty positive about that close combat. My Gun Mages on the right flank moved in the hope to get a shot at the units in Nikki's backfield, but their shots still fell short. I also secretly hoped I may be able to throw the Woldwarden at Krueger in my next turn with my Thunderhead.

Well, unfortunately here it was over already. Nikki walked Krueger and the Woldwarden forward and showed me that they both have strong ranged attacks, too.

I guess after the game with Nikki it is very evident that I need to protect my Warcasters more. All my games during Wargames Con I lost because of casterkills (except two), so I need to change something about that. However, I generally don't feel like I am doing too much risky or offensive stuff, e.g. in this game I considered eNemo to be savely lagging behind. With a command range of 14" - although it is a rather comfortable one - I also don't want him to lag too much behind so he can still allocate focus to the Fireflies. Well, maybe I should run the Fireflies just closer to the center.

Game 3 vs. John Booher (Cygnar, Kara Sloan)

John played a classic Kara Sloan list that was filled with Mercenary Pirates for buffed shooting. In this game I really got to feel how (literally) tough pirates can be. A single model isn't very strong per se, but in a game where saving rolls still are the exception, Tough rolls for every infantry model make a difference and give them much more staying power.

Job won the dice roll, decided to go first, set up most of his army in advanced deployment and rushed them forward. As it turned out later, this was going to be decisive. My army moved to its first line of defense.

Our armies got stuck in close combat just south of the mission objectives (an imaginary 6" diameter measured from the two white circles). The battle turned into a war of slow attrition at the center line where both he and I were equally successful, but John started to score on the mission objective to the west.

Well, this picture looks pretty much the same except that John and I have less infantry. At this point John scored enough points and won the game based on mission objectives. :-)