Playing Aleph

Well, I played my first 300pt game of N3 today, against Tom.  300pt game, against his Militant Orders.  My list

Maruts - Leuitenant
Deva with Devabot
Deva with Devabot
Naga Sniper
Sophotects
2 Yudbots
Dakini with HMG
2 Dakinis with combi rifles
2 Netrods

The idea being that the Maruts could advance supported with the deva's on its flanks and the sophotects following providing healing.  The Dakinis and Naga provide two additional threat vectors which are too dangerous to ignore, but seperating forces to deal with them will reduce the forces available to deal with the Sophotects.

In the game itself, this nearly worked.  the forces were set up with the Maruts etc on the left flank facing down his link team, and the Deva and the Dakinis on the right, opposite his TAG.  He had first turn, and moved the link team up to an advanced position.  His TAG's support bot Heavy Flamered the Naga, and was cut down by the Maruts in return fire.  In my first turn, the devabots flamed the link team (Tom, SPREAD OUT YOUR LINK TEAM).  Then died.  Then did the same again with the other one.  The Maruts then managed to sneak out enough to spray 2 of them with Heavy Multi MG fire, cutting down their numbers further, and taking a Panzerfaust to the face for its troubles.  Further sneaking round and shooting, and then repair attempts by the Yudbots (1 passed, 1 failed) left the Maruts on 1 Structure.

The rest of the game followed a similar pattern, Trading models.  The Pan O TAG spent most of the game not wanting to advance into the Dakinis, the Maruts fell, taking out all but 1 wound of the link team, and eventually dying to the now bot less Deva's.

By the end of the game I had 101 points of models left, and him 107.  End result, a marginal victory to Tom, and well deserved.

Fear of the Trolls

Right, its time to talk about fear.  And Trolls.  And fear of Trolls (or something)

I have a largish collection of Trollbloods that I have picked up from ebay about 18 months ago whenever they came up at reasonable prices.  So far, I have painted exactly 3 of them, a Dire Troll Mauler, Madruk and Janessa.  They weren't based.  I had no idea how I wanted to base them.  So they sat, unbased, surrounded by their boxed colleagues.

This weekend, I decided that I had to do something about the trolls.  I had been painting Warmachine stuff, and that had led me to want to move on.  So, I built my Trolls.  More specifically, I built a unit of Kriel Warriors, a unit of Krielstone bearers, a sorceror, a bomber, and started on a Blitzer and a bouncer.  It was here that the fear first hit me.

I HATE privateer press plastic units.  I remember with horror trying to clean up and assemble the 2 units of Stormblades and the unit of stormguard.  No instructions.  Pieces that fit badly.  Mold lines over important points.  The trenchers with bent guns.  This all combined to make me put off assembling my Fennblade unit.  Even though this is the oldest set I have for the Trollbloods, even though they would fit beautifully with my idea for a force of infantry with Tough.  No, the fear of just how bad they are going to be means that they are still in their box, not even examined.

To get over this, I moved on to the Krielstone Bearer.  And this is where we get to the fear MK II.  I have painted the skin, and I have painted the stone itself.  And now I find myself at the point where I KNOW that these look good, and are at the limits of my skill.  And I find myself reluctant to move on.   I worry that I am going to take this model that I have worked hard on and think looks good, and spoil it by messing up the rest.

So, before I wreck a model, I will show some WIP pictures of the Krielstone Bearer.

Thoughts, comments, criticisms all welcomed.

Storm Strider - Finished

So the Storm Strider is finished.  Unusually for me painting a large model, i managed to do so without getting very bored halfway through and rushing the end.  I think it has come out reasonably well, and am pleased with the results.  I think I may have to delay for a bit before I start on another large model though (by which I mean the Stormwall)

Infinity and Warmachine

Well, this is supposed to record my games as well, so I probably need to write about today's game.

Played infinity at LvlUp vs David.  YuJing vs My Aleph.  At 200pts, attempting to learn N3.

My list consisted of
  3 Devas (Lieutenant, Hacker, Spitfire)
  Naga Sniper
  3 Dakinis (HMG, 2xCombi Rifle)
  2 Thorakites (SMG, Combi Rifle)

It was a good fun game, with me winning deployment, getting everything in cover initially, with the HMG and Camo sniper covering most of the board.  I got no pictures sadly, but 1st turn was basically David running stuff forward, and exchanging fire with those 2.  The HMG eventually went down, as did the Sniper, but only after dogged had meant that she continued to shoot people even while bleeding to death!
The rest of the game was back and forth, with NWI and templates eventually helping me to win by eliminating the last model with my last order of the last turn.  I had the Devas, and a thorakite left, so it was a bit of a pyrhic victory.
I have to say, that I am liking N3.  This is probably the most fun I have had playing infinity, against another new player, where we both had a bit of a shaky understanding of the rules, but enough to play fairly independently apart from a few rules questions.  My opponent was a really good fun guy, and I look forward to more games against him.

Painting recently has been Warmachine based.  I rebased the Storm Tower that had somehow fallen apart, and worked on my Storm Strider.  The actual strider is finished now, and I just need to paint up the crew.  Of note, the legs have fallen off this thing at least 3 times.  Its probably my fault, but pinning them seemed like too much hassle, and now it is on the base, it should last.  This is the same Strider that feel out of a 2nd (3rd if you are american) floor window a while back.  The array at the back was lost in grass at this time (it was 24 hours before I realised it had fallen), but I have finally managed to get one from Privateer.

Talking of Privateer, its interesting to note that the first time I contacted them about this, I got a message asking which part was missing, and then nothing.......For months (at least 6).
The second time, I went through the missing/damaged parts service, and was very honest in how I had lost it.  They couldn't help, but gave me an alternative part of equal value to order from the online store, and instructions for letting them know I wanted something else.  I was nervous (this had the potential to net me a spare pair of Stormclad legs after all), but they came through and I quickly got the part I actually needed.  So, all I can say is well done store and replacement parts, and BOO HISS at their customer service department.

Comments and thoughts most welcome, both on the Infinity list and also the paint job.