Bier her!

Just a small update, but I got Borka's Pyg keg carrier done. It's the first time I freehanded a kilt and I think it's ok for a first attempt.

I am especially happy that I dared to use the full bright orange on the "skin bumps" as it really makes the miniature pop. (on the Trolls those bumps had much more brown mixed into the orange) I guess I'll have it for fluff reasons that Trolls are much older and longer living than a Trollkin so that's why they have darker bumps as they lose color with age.

I also like how the keg and the stein turned out, you could really think that the Pyg is on his way to a party. ^^

Crosscheck: Colossal damage with the EBDT

After my latest blog post, +Gergely Gati pointed out that the EBDT may not be the best Troll to do damage to Colossals (and Gargantuans) as he may be too pillow fisted despite (or because) of his morphing fists.

Well, time for a crosscheck.

The EBDT has a STR 12 and POW 3 for a P+S of 15. However, the Adaption rule on his claw lets him use the POW of a melee weapon in the EBDT's melee range. So if the EBDT hits a Colossal with (let's say) POW 6 on its melee weapon, the EBDT has a new P+S of 18. Also, the Pyre Troll's Flaming Fists animus adds +2 to melee damage rolls, so the EBDT would hit with a base damage before dice of 20.

So, let's go through al the Colossals and Gargantuans the EBDT may have to fight.

Hmm, I don't like what I see, obviously +Gergely Gati was more right than I expected. The EBDT only gets a mild malus against Hyperion, the Mountain King, and Archangel, whereas trying to hurt a Woldwrath you can basically discard an entire dice.

Also one has to consider that the Colossal's ARM may be buffed as well, e.g. Stormwalls with Arcane Shield (ARM 22) are pretty standard these days. On the other hand, the P+S of the EBDT could be further buffed, too (e.g. by the Stone Scribe Elder), but it's never good to start with a malus on the dice anyhow.

Let's go back to the list:


Borka Kegslayer - WB:  5
-    Pyg Keg Carrier
-    Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 10
-    Pyre Troll - PC: 5
-    Rok - PC: 11

Gatorman Witch Doctor - PC: 3
Janissa Stonetide - PC: 3

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 4
-    Stone Scribe Elder - Elder 1
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters - Cylena & 9 Grunts: 10
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
-    Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper - Standard & Piper 2


Rök hits with an 18 on his Battle Axe, 20 with the Pyre Troll's animus. Also he has a higher Fury threshold because he is bonded to Borka. In other words, Rök could be the Colossal killer while the EBDT is being used defensively instead. Or to throw models around, for example at warcasters. Or the EBDT could simply charge the Heavy Warjacks because most heavies have a POW of 5 to 7 points.

Leaving my existing list aside, which Troll has the highest base P+S to hit a Gargantuan? It's Mulg with a 19 on his Mace, also the Dire Troll Mauler with 19 on his two fists if you count in his animus. However, Mulg is 2pts more expensive than the EBDT (and I couldn't play him twice with character restrictions), so he's out of the question. However, the Mauler could be a replacement for the EBDT as he's even one point cheaper. I guess I'll just have to try and see if Borka needs more the EBDT's or the Mauler's animus against colossals.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone, may you always have enough pressure in your steam kettle or fury in your monster's brain, whatever you fancy more in 2013. :-)

This post is about what the GW glazes can do for you as a PP fan and about my final army lists for 2013 - I gotta get painting!

It's been over a month since my last post as life got in between things - I moved my household so there literally was not time to do anything hobby related. Good thing is now my office is also my painting room, so it's much nicer than my previous spot in the cellar - and the path to the kitchen is shorter. ^^

GW Glazes

First thing I did at the new place was touching up my three already painted Trolls - obviously not very breathtaking. However, I had to do this as I put coats of varnish onto them earlier but was not happy with the result. So these are the steps that I did since I "finished painting":

1. Added a coat of glossy varnish. It's important to have a least one coat of glossy varnish because it protects your models properly, matt varnish doesn't. (I once read on BoLS (IIIRC) it's because matt varnish has lots of tiny little cracks in order to be matt and not reflect the light which in return reduces its ability to protect the paint.)
2. Added a coat of matt varnish.
3. Added a layer of the new GW glazes (Guilliman Blue & Waywatcher Green).

Now the GW glazes don't add a drastic effect that would even be visible on the pictures - just compare yourself:

Old

New

However, the glazes did

• reduce the effect of the varnish where I applied it too thickly;
• it makes the blue/green pop more due to higher color saturation;
• it brings together the various layers of color (e.g. different parts of the blue skin) and makes transitions even smooter.

All in all I think the glazes are definitely worth it and from now on I will apply them to all my models as they are extremely useful.

Trollblood Army Lists For SR2013

The second topic today is army lists - I gotta get started painting for the upcoming tournaments. The first milestone will be the Swinnish Tournament as it has hardcore painting requirements.

Now for my army lists, I changed them after all these rumors about a 14" killbox and warcasters/locks being able to dominate mission objectives. In other words, one should bring two very resilient Trollblood warlocks. My original picks were Borak and Madrak (either pMadrak or eMadrak, though I favor pMadrak as his spells are more useful to support units IMO), but I felt afraid to drop Grim as he fills a gap that every Trollbloods army has otherwise. Therefore, after much consideration, I decided to go for Borka and Grim.

Here are my two lists plus explanations:

Borka Kegslayer - WB:  5
-    Pyg Keg Carrier
-    Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 10
-    Pyre Troll - PC: 5
-    Rok - PC: 11

Gatorman Witch Doctor - PC: 3
Janissa Stonetide - PC: 3

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 4
-    Stone Scribe Elder - Elder 1
Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters - Cylena & 9 Grunts: 10
Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
-    Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper - Standard & Piper 2

Borka is a beast as he can easily have DEF 21 (Iron Flesh +3, Cover behind Janissa's wall +4) and ARM 21 (Kriel Stone Aura +2, EBDT Animus +2), so try to move that off a mission objective. Furthermore, the Pyg makes Borka stumble away if being hit.

The EBDT and Pyre Troll are working together to counter any colossal I may be facing - the EBDT's morphing fists with the Pyre Troll's animus on them puts out serious damage. If playing against the Protectorate, the Pyre Troll's animus comes in handy for protection as well.

The Gatorman Witch Doctor now makes things truly nasty together with the Nyss Hunters - Borka can put Iron Flesh on them so they are DEF 18(and they don't care about the -1 SPD as they are excellent marksmen) and the Gatorman Witch Doctor makes them Tough and Undead - woohoo! The Nyss Hunters will simply walk behind the Kriel Warriors, take shots at whatever they like, and charge in as a second wave to kill anything left standing with their weapon master.

Janissa can provide her wall to either protect key elements of the army as explained above or to prevent colossals from charging (this current list evolved out of my anti-colossals list), which will be quite handy for all the colossals we're going to see in 2013.

Grim Angus - WB:  6
-    Troll Impaler - PC: 5
-    Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 10
-    Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 10
-    Pyre Troll - PC: 5

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 3

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6
-    Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper - Standard & Piper 2
Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 5 Grunts: 4
-    Stone Scribe Elder - Elder 1
Trollkin Fennblades - Leader & 9 grunts: 8
-    Fennblade Officer and Drummer - Officer & Drummer 2

My Grim list starts traditionally with an Impaler, Bomber, and Pyre Troll, plus I couldn't help but add the always reliable EBDT for the heavy lifting and some extra protection. The Kriel Stone is a must have, too. After that I leave traditions as one would normally expect nyss Hunters, but they are a No GO here because of character restrictions that every SR tournament has these days. Well, I simply filled up the ranks with infantry because 25pts games with Grim made me realize that his battle groups firepower can dish out a lot of hurt, but they are really fragile to counter attacks even with Grim's feat. So put simply, the infantry has one job to do: hold the line to keep the battle group firing as long as possible.

I really wonder what the new eGrim model will bring to the table - expect this list to be tweaked again once it hits the shelves.

New lists from the Trollblood Scrumcast

My medal from the 2012 Bavarian Moshpit - Nighty was so nice to have prices for everyone. I clocked in at rank 49/52.

Well, a direct consequence of my participation at the 2012 Bavarian Moshpit and the Iron Cabal 3 is that I have the strong desire to improve my competitive gaming. In order to do so, I need a couple not only solid but really good lists first.

From what I have learned at the Moshpit, too, I feel that Trollbloods have these three problems:

• Cryx
• High DEF Death Stars
• Their shooting power is laughably small

In order to deal with these issues I did quite a bit of research and came to these conclusions:

• Nobody really knows how to play Grim. Yes, of course the top players (e.g. Andrew Galea) play him, but there's no "one size fits all" Grim list, rather every player has to discover his/her own.
• The Gatormen Witch Doctor in combination with Nyss Hunters is the new black as he gives them Tough Rolls and makes them undead.
• Brick lists are still popular as they are what Trollbloods excel best at. They are not the perfect but the best option a Trollblood army offers.

cb_crusader (5/52 at the 2012 bavarian Moshpit) is making sure his medal is the real thing. If I wanna become that good, I need excellent lists and a lot of hard training.

With that in mind I had some interesting revelations as I listened to the most recent episode (14) of the Trollblood Scrumcast. In that episode the boys report some unconventional lists they have seen at Duell Con in Arizona. As they don't seem to be typed down anywhere I decided to do it, mostly for my own reference, but if you can benefit from them, too, then even the better. Please note that these lists were created by some US players (probably) at Duell Con and not by myself, so whoever out there invented those deserves the credit, not me. I am just the stenographer. ^^

The Jarl list

Jarl Skuld
Slag Troll
Impaler
EBDT
Rune Bearer
Nyss Hunters
Greygore Boomhowler & Co
Sons of Brag
Alten Ashley
Fell Caller Hero
Champion Hero 

Boomhowlers & Jarl's feat & clouds give -4 MAT for enemy so they usually attack on MAT 1 or 2 against DEF 12 Trolls

The Calandra list

Calandra Truthsayer
Bomber
Bomber
Impaler
Impaler
War Wagon
Max Fennblades
Swamp Gobbers
Thumper Crew

Kills infantry spam (Cryx), Calandra at DEF 18 in the cloud

The Mountain King list

Andrew Galea already wrote quite a bit about the Mountain King and he runs him with pMadrak, but this here sounds interesting, too:

eGrissel
EBDT
Mountain King
Impaler
Janissa Stonetide
Min Krielstone & Elder
Thumper Crew
Whelps
War Wagon 

ARM 25 on the MK (Feat, Kriel Stone, EBDT animus, Janissa), MK (melee) and Grissel (ranged) do the heavy work, Grissel doesn't need to support anything

The alternate Grim list (against Colossals)

Grim
EBDT
EBDT
Rök
Gatorman Witch Doctor
Nyss Hunters 

EBDTs are being used to kill enemy heavies, Rök is being used to bodyguard Grim.

The Scrumcast concludes that each of those lists can handle Heavies really well - so yes, this could be the foreboding of the meta change.

Iron Cabal 3 review, part 1 of 2

Winner of the Iron Cabal 3: Henrik (black shirt, 3rd place), cb_crusader (red shirt, 2nd place), and Botond (in his lucky green shirt, 1st place).

Well, here's my Iron Cabal 3 recap in pictures. Out of four games I managed to win two and ranked 12/22.

Registration - why do we keep printing nice lists in advance just to scribble them last second on a sheet provided by the TO? ^^

The Knights from St. Gallen arrive...

...the guys from Bern have last minute strategic discussions...

...the first participant is already worshiping the glue god...

...and final questions are being cleared.

Waiting for the official start. (Did you admire lovely flowers on the side of the road, Tudes? ^^ )

Game 1 vs. Sidarius Calvin (Mercenaries, Ashlynn D'Elyse)

I decided to go for my pMadrak brick list and started to move it forward.

Sid starts to wrap his army around the lake and the tower in order to play a refused flank.

I am desperately trying to pull my Kriel Warriors to the left in order to bind the Gun Mages in close combat.

The Gun Mages make quick work of my Kriel Warriors, I run into the danger of loosing this game by loosing my left flank. I commit the Axer to the left flank, too, while the EBDT has to kill the Jacks in the center alone.

Ashlynn charges in on my Axer but fails to kill him. In my next turn  my limit of three Fury on the Axer are just enough to hit back and boost the necessary To Hit and To Wound rolls.

So I won game 1 based on a caster kill rather lucky - one bad dice roll of my Axer and it would have been over for me. The most interesting experience for me was Ashlynn's feat turn - it sounds devastating on paper, but once you get to feel it you realize how devastating it really is!

Game 2 vs. Revanon (Cryx, eDeneghra)

This was the game with the two large control zones one needs to score one after the other. I picked my Grim list to just bomb away what is in either zone.

Me moving forward and throwing bombs on the chickens/arc nodes.

The Kriel Warriors run into base to base contact with whatever undead stuff is standing in front of them, the Bomber keeps throwing bombs at the arc nodes and successfully kills one.

The Nyss fire away at the last arc node, Grim knocks the Warjack down to the left while the Bomber throws bombs at him, the Kaber Thrower keeps hitting the other Warjack in front of him, and the Kriel Warriors dissolve the Cryx infantry.

Stupid mistake on my part: the Warjack to my left gets up with one point of focus and then charges Grim. Grim successfully transfers and the Bomber plus the Nyss finish off the Warjack, but this cost me valuable resources in the center.

My Kriel Warriors swing in on eDeneghra and start to hit her really badly despite her high DEF and stacked Focus.  She survives barely with a few health points left when the last Kriel Warrior rolls an 8 instead of the required 9 to hit her.

eDeneghra kills the Kriel Warriors, the Warjack shoots the Bomber, and Grim himself moves up for a final last stand.

While Grim was still able to dodge the Warjack, the Warjack in combination with eDeneghra was too much.

Maintaining position

Just a small part of Turmabar's excellent Circle army.

So this saturday there will be the third installment of the Iron Cabal 3 or IC3, our local WM/H tournament in Wetzikon, Kanton Zürich, Switzerland. The IC started because of the initiative of Turambar who is a man of action and wanted to test the waters in the fall of 2011. A couple local players signed up, so did cb_crusader and I and we took Botond with us. It turned out Botond had to play, too, because one player didn't show up, so he got an ad hoc Cygnar force from Logan and did remarkably well.

Fast forward 18 months to the IC3 and things look different:

The current Swiss WM/H Top 10 - players are mostly from the area around the Lake of Zürich.

In the German part of Europe we use the T3 platform to keep track of tournament scores and players' performances. (it is similar to RankingsHQ) The picture above is a screenshot of the current national WM/H Top 10. cb_crusader and Botond are running on the two top spots followed by Turambar and me, but Kirin and McMortison are closely following up. Due to their performance at the OETC I actually expect Kirin and McMortison to pass me, but I am currently squeezing everything out of my Trollbloods lists for the IC3 to not let that happen.

However, just looking at my local gaming group won't be enough in the future anymore, this is the list of registrations for the upcoming IC3:

If you are sort of familiar with Swiss geography, you immediately notice that now people are signing up from various parts of the German speaking part of Switzerland. This will bring fresh blood to the tournament scene and new challenges. In other words, keeping my 4th rank will be even more difficult, so that's another motivation to ramp up my game.

In the end, our goal is to have an active national WM/H community we can use as a player base for the WTC qualifier event for 2013. Switzerland is a small community by definition, so we definitely wanna make sure we send the best of the best. :-)

Doing stupid things

With the next tournament around the corner, today's practice games were primarily a great opportunity to make stupid mistakes in order not to make them at the tournament...


Game 1 vs. Rahn

My list:

Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain - WB:  6 

- Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 10 

- Troll Axer - PC: 6

Janissa Stonetide - PC: 3 

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 3 

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 3 Grunts: 3 

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6

Short battle report in pictures:

Kriel Warriors and the Fell Caller move up on the flank to the right; their Prayer and the  Fell Call gives them MAT 9. To the left we have the beast brick with Janissa/Kriel Stone/pMadrak lifting the Trolls to DEF 16 / ARM 22.

The Trolls hack a bloody path through the Elves, but the Kriel Warriors have a hard time on the right with the Sentinels - I am still struggling heavily with these.

On pMadrak's feat turn, the EBDT tanks his way through the Sentinels to Rahn and attempts to hit him four times on a 6 - and fails each of those four To Hit rolls. Oh yes, I could have boosted, but you don't really boost when you need a 6, do you? Well, in return Rahn was so nice to shoot pMadrak, game over.

Game 2 vs. eSorscha

The purpose of this game was to find out if I am able to come up with an answer to the Winter Guard Death Star. Well, my big conclusion is "not really" since I felt like a newb with this list:

Grim Angus - WB:  6 

- Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 10 

- Troll Impaler - PC: 5 

Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters - Cylena & 5 Grunts: 7 

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6 

- Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper - Standard & Piper 2 

- 1 1 Thrower's: 1

On the one hand, I have never played shooty Trollbloods before. On the other hand, Grim is a - let's say - unusual Trollbloods warlock to play with. And on the very effing third hand, I was over the points max because I put a max unit of Nyss Hunters onto the table rather than the min unit I had in my list!!! Fortunately, I had an opponent who really knew what he was doing and who also was an excellent sportsman, so this can be written off as a silly attempt at anything. I really need to do one thing: play, play, play.

The Cheat Hunters are walking on the left flank doing nothing since the pikemen are still out of range.  Everybody else is moving up the middle doing nothing either for the same reasons. 

Things start to get really bad. I forget to move half of my Kriel Warriors because I was only looking at those standing in front of my warbeasts. The Cheat Hunters continue to do nothing because now everyone is in a close combat. The Bomber throws bombs at eSorscha in the wood, but after we found out I was incorrect on the strength of a deviating template he does hardly any damage to her. I am loosing a terrible amount of time and - what's even worse - I don't know how I lost it as I am not aware of playing lazily. Basically I should have lost the game right here right now.

With 3 minutes on my clock left, my opponent sends me a gift by trying to assassinate Grim (at full fury) with eSorscha. Grim shoots his gun back at her, the Impaler charges in, end of story. Oh, the Cheat Hunters also managed to shoot the pikemen standard bearer.

So all in all this game was underwhelming simply for the amount of mistakes I made and the "victory" is not deserved in any way. Yet I consider it to be an important game for me as I sort of got an idea in real life what this list can do and what it can't.

Bavarian Moshpit 2012 Recap

The winner takes it all.

So one week ago, the 2012 Bavarian Moshpit took place in Germering (Munich) and this is my *short* recap. ^^

First, the essentials:

With that out of the way, let's focus on the games:


Game 1 vs. Jan Müller (Legion, Saeryn)

I lost on scenario - his beasts were simply too fast. The only thing I could really do was putting a toe into the scoring zone to contest it. Yet for my first game against Legion I think I did ok.

Jan scores (the yellow area) and wins.

As it turned out, I briefly met Jan at the OETC already and then mostly mailed with him concerning Eva's pictures, but when we got paired at the Moshpit I first didn't realize that it was *the* Jan. Jan is a really nice guy and a former Trollbloods player, so once he realized I had no clue about Legion he actually helped me with tips on what to do. If you wanna buy a used car, buy it from this guy.


Game 2 vs. Andreas Krisch (Trollbloods, Borka)

I lost on casterkill - shame on me. I already had fun during the first game, although I lost, and I continued to have fun in this game. Trollbloods vs. Trollbloods is a sure ticket to the moshfest.

Light conditions in the room were pretty bad as it was rather dark, yet when the sun beamed through the windows the glare could be just too much for the cameras depending on the angle you were standing. Either way, I guess the picture above shows how intertwined our battle lines were - and I lost when I moved pMadrak too much forward in order to support the troops at the front. Yet this just showed to me how much of a beating pMadrak can take, Andreas had to fully unload on him in order to take him down.


Game 3 vs. Chris Schürmann (Legion, Saeryn)

I won this game on scenario points 3-0. The game didn't start too well as I was about to receive the same beating from Saeryn as I did in my first game from Jan - I can clearly see why Legion players take her against Trollbloods as her feat turn leaves Trollbloods with limited capabilities to retaliate.

However, then something happened that I'd like to attribute to my genius, but I didn't notice myself until I scored my first point.

The end of the game - I win 3-0 on CP.

The scenario was Close Quarters so I simply tried to put anything into my red circle (top left) while keeping my warlock (Borka) in any circle. I already had given up hope on my plan and lost track of it due to the onslaught of the Legion warbeasts when I realized at the end of my turn that I actually won a control point because I controlled my circle alone. In his previous turn, Chris swung in with all his Angelii in order to assassinate Borka. After I got my first CP Chris tried even harder to assassinate Borka, but Borka simply stood as a rock. At the end of Chris' turn I scored a second CP, at the end of my third turn the third and so I won my first game at a major tournament. ^^


Game 4 vs. Phil Steiner (Retribution, pVyros)

With Phil Steiner (from Salzburg, Austria, Team Iron Hookers) I played against another OETC player. Phil is an easy going dude you can have a fun game and a beer with so there I had a nice conclusion of the day.

My Fennblades and the Fell caller move to the left effectively preventing Phil from scoring anything. Borka and the EBDT have to make it to the wall in front of my scoring circle in order to prevent Phil from unfolding his true strength.

On the left flank, Phil's reserve arrives in form of a Mage Hunter and a Pony - the Fennblades don't really care, though.

The Fennblades killed everything that is to kill on the left flank and start to move towards the right where the attrition fest is going on with my full Kriel Warriors that arrived in the previous turn. Some sort of Retribution warjack decided to say hello to Borka, but the EBDT instantly wrecked it.

Fennblades to the rescue!

As things are getting too tense and the EBDT is lost, Borka has to run - but with the still fully active Hyperion aims well enough to shoot and finish him.

Diner

Bayrisches Weissbier

Wiener Schnitzel

Mohr im Hemd

Apfelküchlein

Apfelstrudel

Kaiserschmarn

Game 5 vs. Andreas Bernrieder (Khador, eSorscha)

Sunday morning had a special treat for me - my first game against the Khador Winterguard/Khayazi Death Star. I lost on casterkill because I simply didn't have anything in my still new Trollbloods army that could deal with this.

Sorry for the bad picture quality. Next time I should do it like Eva and bring a better camera rather than a smartphone.

Eitherway, I plan on building a Bomber first rather than Rök, so that should make it easier for me to deal with this Death Star. Carefuly analysis also showed that Fennblades with pMadrak and Fell caller may work as they can be buffed up to MAT 10.


Game 6 vs. Botond Gati (Cygnar, eCaine)

For the entire weekend I felt really good because I didn't really make any stupid mistakes even in the face of armies I have never physically seen and played against before. Botond from my very own gaming group felt really good, too, because he was sure to get the youngest player trophy and probably also quickest caster kill as his record prior to this game was around 17mins.

Prior to the game he was also joking that he can use this game to secure his caster kill even further whereas I was firmly determined not to let that happen - I was even joking that we are not Ferrari (red shirts) where Felipe Massa has to let Michael Schumacher pass in order for the later to secure his world cup.

I was still setting up my army (had to go second) when the master clock already started to run. Botond urged me to set up faster so he could shoot me. Then he did his entire first turn in like 2.5 minutes. I took for my first turn around six minutes trying to make sure I didn't do anything stupid he could exploit. Yet the scenario was Incursion so I had to take a certain risk and run up everything the middle so I could quickly swing to either side as necessary.

End of Botond's second turn and Grim is dead. He stood in the third rank behind the Fennblades with no direct line of sight, but first the Black 13 and then eCaine were all it took as I failed all my Tough Rolls.

Caster kill in 11 and something minutes and my insight that I should rather play more than less frequently with Botond Gati.