WarmaHordes with Sam

So I met with my friend Sam at Chimera in Appleton on Saturday morning to play some WarmaHordes (Warmachine / Hordes) and see how it turns out, with both of us being pretty new to the game. Sam has played more WarmaHordes games in general than I have, and this was actually my first game (I think) under the new Mark II ruleset. We played a 25-point game and had local expert Jason along at the beginning to help us out.

I was playing Khador, and had three warjacks (Juggernaut, Destroyer, and a Decimator), a unit of four Widowmakers (snipers), a Manhunter, and my warcaster was The Butcher. Sam was playing Hordes and had a Trollkin (I think that’s what they’re called) list with more than twice as many figures than me, because he had more troops and fewer warbeasts (the Hordes version of warjacks) than me. We set up, and with Jason’s help we started the fight.

Sam's award-winning troll dude assaulting my painted Destroyer and unpainted Decimator

I won the first game, though I didn’t think I was going to. Sam changed his list up a bit, and then the second game I lost rather badly. I have to admit, I still don’t understand a lot of the rules and the tactics, and some of the rules that I do seem to understand seem wrong to me. I’ll keep at it for awhile, and see if my mind changes about it. It seems to me that the game is all about the alpha strike, and I don’t think I’m very good at that. In the mean time, I’m going to try to finish painting up some of the figures I already have.

Starting the Widowmakers

These are the Widowmakers, sniper units that didn’t do a hell of a lot in the game. I want their overcoats to look like old, worn, almost dusty leather. Therefore, I airbrushed them a dark brown and then dusted them from above with white. After that was all dried, I dulled down the white and warmed up the brown with a wash of GW’s Gryphonne Sepia wash, as I thought the Delvan Mud wash would be too dark and get rid of the dusty nature I was trying to acheive. Next I’ll start working on faces and then picking out details. I’ll let you see how they turn out when they’re done.

Zombies in Spaaaaaace!

I attended a fun, pre-Halloween event at Chimera Hobbies & Games in Appleton on Saturday the 29th. It was called ‘Zombies in Space’ and all I knew going into the event was that each player was supposed to bring up to 150 points of Warhammer 40k troops, no vehicles. I assumed we’d be fighting zombies, so I figured I shouldn’t need heavy, vehicle-killing weapons so I just brought six Plague Marines: five with standard loadout and one was a “technician” (scenario-specific figure worth five extra points) with a flamer.

A lot of people showed up. Evidently this is an annual event and it’s getting more popular.

A lot of zombie-lovers, or zombie-haters more specifically

This year it was played on the Space Hulk tiles. Since the GM was planning on 10 players and 21 showed up, this made things even a bit more cramped, but it still scaled quite nicely. The players were all on the same team in the first mission, and we had a few objectives we all had to try to hold. There were tons of zombies all over the board, and if one of a player’s models died, it then sprang back up as a zombie. It was tough going, but eventually we beat the first mission.

My squad of plague marines, after cleaning up some zombies

The second mission was quite a bit tougher. We split up in to two teams, with each team trying to fight their way through to get to the center of the board and the teleporter off of this ship. Of course, there were many zombies and the entire other team to worry about. Plus, the ship was falling apart from the outer edge: each turn, each of the two GMs (Nick and Jason) would randomly pull a few tiles off of the outer edge of the ship. If there were figures on that tile (zombies or players) then they were lost to space.

Long story short, my intrepid yet putrid plague marines fought through a pile of zombies and got into the main room in the center of the crumbling ship, full of even more zombies and turret defense guns. Due to a botched run roll of a ‘1’, I was only able to get my technician with the flamer to the teleporter. All of the rest of my squad was cut down by the defense turrets.

My only survivor. John decided that his swiftly moving crotch would make an excellent backdrop

However, my technician was the first figure for either side to actually get to the teleporter. Very few from either team actually made it. By the end of the mission, we only had three and the other team only had four survivors, but we won because it was based on the percentage of surviors, not the number; the other team ended up having many more figures on its side than we did. And since I fought through it all and got the first figure to the teleporter, I won a zombie-killing shotgun as a prize.

Sweet over/under suction-cup shotgun for killing very weak zombies or for sticking to the fridge

It was a long day but it was still a lot of fun. I knew a bunch of the players, but there was an equal amount there that I had never seen before. I saw a few nicely painted minis and won a neon-colored shotgun. And I killed 30+ zombies over the course of the two missions. Who says gamers don’t live a full life?