Month in Review - February 2020

Well, back again, and I have a lot to cover.  It's been a busy month one way or another, so let's jump straight in to the recap.

20 more down...

Painting - It's been more Stonecast Eternals this month.  The theme for the #talesofinstahammer challenge was Monster, so, the real obvious choice from my planned list was to paint up all 3 Celestar Ballistas to theoretically deal with all the big bads running about.  I didn't want to just paint them up, so I figured I'd knock out a unit of Castigators too, because that would give me access to the Hailstorm Battery battalion.

Who needs machine guns when you have these?

Castigators.

Along with the theme of Monster, the secret challenge was Duel, and I thought that I could cover that by painting up Garrek's Reavers and Steelheart's Champions, as the opposing warbands from the original Shadespire box, but Red Dead Redemption 2 ate up a huge amount of my time and I only got Steelheart's Champions done.  To cover that, I painted up the special store birthday figure Larissa Shadowstalker, as she is pretty much a Monster Duellist.

Steelheart's Champions.

Larissa Shadowstalker

I also ended up painting the Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger because my Lord choice for the challenge won't be done until June, and it gives me a suitable leader model to use in the meantime, seeing as I have enough stuff painted now to play some small games.

Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger.  Looks impressive, bit squishy in reality.

Looking at my planned list, I've already finished 890/2000 points, plus the extras I've done over the last 2 months which is another 800 points (go me!) so, hopefully a full/tournament sized army isn't too far off.


I've also managed to completely clean up, assemble, base , add spears if applicable, and prime my Footsore Vikings for my SAGA Age of Vikings list, so I'll have to move on to the next project now.


I've also gotten back into gaming this month after my sojourn to Linlithgow, and spent yesterday gaming at Common Ground Games after Sarah finished work.  We played two games of Age of Sigmar, with the same lists both times, Stonecast vs. Cities of Sigmar at 1000pts.

You don't get much SCE for 1000pts...

I had the Lord-Arcanum on Gryph-Charger, a Lord-Ordinator, 2 x 5 Sequitors, 6 Castigators and 2 Celestar Ballista, and Sarah fielded a Freeguild General, Sorceress, 2 x 20 Darkshards, 10 Bleakswords and 20 Freeguild Greatswords.   I felt severely outnumbered.  And outgunned.

The first game was a basic affair, we didn't bother with Allegiance Abilities or Magic Items or any of that, just the core stuff to get a handle on the rules, seeing as the last time we'd played was when the AoS rules originally released.  I'd been a stand-in at a tournament since, but had fudged my way through that on my opponent's advice.

Sequitors

Stars of the show were the Celestar Ballista on my side, and the Greatswords of the Freeguilds, both doing pretty horrific casualties, those zweihanders are deadly.  We finished up with the Cities army being wiped out to a man, mostly from Ballista shots (and it would have happened quicker if I'd set up both in the Lord-Ordinator's bubble).  The second game, we added in the Allegiance rules and stuff.  The Cities spread out a bit more this time, but I knew to focus fire on those Greatswords.  The game ended up the same as the first, with the Ballista whittling down the superior numbers of the enemy.

We then changed over to Dragon Rampant, and, aptly, played the Into the Valley of Certain Death scenario, apt baptism of fire.  I had some Elite Riders, 3 units of Belicose Foot and a unit of Light Missiles with the Sharpshooter upgrade.  Sarah had 2 units of Elite Foot, a unit of Offensive Light Foot and 2 units of Heavy Missiles with the Weighty Projectiles downgrade.  We fudged through it with my new knowledge of Lion Rampant, but had to pack up before the game finished as the shop was closing. Ultimately, we had both managed to get one unit  off the table, destroy one unit, and complete our quests. 

Needed more terrain in hindsight.

In other news, we also went to the Vapnartak show at the start of the month.  most of my purchases were books for a change, picking up Too Fat Lardie's Dux Britanniarum and the Raiders supplements (plus cards), Lucid Eye's the Red Book of the Elf King, along with cards and figure from the bring and buy, and the Age of Ravens sourcebook for Clash of Empires from Great Escape Games (didn't realise it was a sourcebook...)  Other purchases were 2 Knight figures from the bring and buy (the one that Footsore sent out with the Age of Crusades book) and the metal Champions and Command for the Oathmark Goblins.  Final purchase was some Teutonic SAGA dice for when the army is done.  Sarah picked me up a set of Nordvolk Armed Villagers from Westwind as some generic Dark Age standers by, as well as Peter Cush... Van Helsing from Wargames Illustrated, purely to sate my disapointment that the Viking one was sold out.

Other additions to the hoard this month include my Oathmark Goblins from the Nickstarter, one set each of infantry and the new wolf riders along with a metal wolf rider champion and the limited release foot model, as well as the big wolf resin miniature, and my copy of the deluxe edition of Rangers of Shadow-Deep (IT IS AN ABSOLUTELY LOVELY BOOK!) I also picked up one of the 2nd issues of Mortal Realms, as I wanted a set of Banshees to keep on bevelled bases for Shadespire (I put the first set I had on lipped ones).  I got a set of Squigs and 2 boxes of Squig Hoppers from Sarah for Valentine's Day to finish off the NightGoblin list I have planned for Age of Magic (the second box of Hoppers was extra, but lets me build 2 units of warriors and one of hearthguard) Sarah also picked me up the 4 metal Tribal characters for Frostgrave: GA in the Northstar flash sale, along with an Ancient Guardian.  Final purchases this month were a couple of Underworlds warbands (Zarbag's Gitz and Ylthari's Guardians) before they go out of the cycle.

Finally, some real world news...  I am starting a new job on Monday.  No more night shift after almost 12 years doing the same thing.  Still working about the same amount but, it will be during the day from now on.  The hours are great around the kids, and I'm really looking forwards to getting to the club on a more regular basis now and finally pushing about all these figures I've been painting over the years.  On a more serious note, I'm hoping it just picks me up in a more general sense and stops me being such a recluse.

Actually, I'm hoping my new work schedule has a positive effect on my hobbying in general, and whilst I still dabble most days, I find it bitty.  I'd like to get a good routine (which is admittedly a lot easier when your day off wasn't already half way done by the time you finish work and get a sleep) and maybe focus more on smaller, quicker turnaround projects, than big armies.  I've even considered dismantling the massive paintstation to make space for a smaller more focussed area.  Time will tell.

Anyway, enough waffle, that's been my month, and hopefully I'll be back soon with more gaming exploits or painted minis.

Cheers,

John