Silva Towaa and Moar

Some motivation for you my fellows!  Happy Wednesday (or whatever day you guys are reading this, except Tuesdays, they can go rot in Hell).  Hope all of you are doing well!  Today I have lots of talk about Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower - nothing crazy like a review or anything, just some quick thoughts on it.  I'll also be discussing the future of my Skaven and my Bloodbound, as well as some of the plans for my other armies - INCLUDING A FLASH SALE!

Let's go ahead and get started on this amigos, and see if we can keep moving forward!

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Silver Tower.

This is a game that, quite frankly, has been one of the best purchases I have made in a long time.  For $150, you get 51 models, plus an entire board game!  $2.94 a GW model?  Uh, yes please.  Plus a board game, that's actually quite an exciting time!

Quest for the Amulet of Chamon in #warhammerquest #silvertower featuring a big win for the players! Great way to spend the evening!

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on May 28, 2016 at 9:45pm PDT

 I mean, our group has REALLY, REALLY enjoyed this game, probably more than any other board game that we have played lately.  AND as an added bonus, a couple of people from our gaming group have bought AoS models to use in the game, which means they are one step away from buying into AoS itself!  Truly, a win win for the community here in Atlanta.

As of this writing, we are 5 pieces into the campaign.  All we have left are the shards of Life, Fire, and Light to collect.  (Yes, the piece of light is the tutorial game.  Yes, we died.  Horribly).  I have been playing as the Fyreslayer Doomseeker.  Our group has evolved with their characters into a mostly chaotic group from there.  We have a Dark Elf Assassin, an Exalted Deathbringer with Impaling Spear, and a Slaughterpriest with the sword and hammer.  Tonight we will have a replacement for the guy with the Slaughterpriest, so there will be a new hero.

The game plays great, and each of the trials is unique - which makes its awesome for replayability.  My personal favorite trial has been the quest for the piece of Azyr and the piece of Ghur.  Not to get into the story too much, but both of those quests feel very much like they should, and if you are a fluff-nut like I am, then the story coming to a head in both of those is very satisfying.

After 5/6 hours of work from about 4 people, managed to get base coats down on all of the Silver Tower models and get first round of highlights on to about 80% of them. Another couple days work from myself and these will be fit for table top! Managed to snag a game in of course! Great game! #ageofsigmar #silvertower #warmongers #warhammerquest

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on May 30, 2016 at 10:09pm PDT

We all gathered together to try and get a good bit of it painted, and - as the caption states - we managed to get basecoats and highlights on just about everything from the box!  Which was awesome, because now everything looks pretty good on the table already.  These models just eat up the paint, they are a breeze.  Some of the best models in a long time (so since the last AoS release basically).

Disaster finally strikes! After 2-3 games going easy on us, my group stumbles into the realm of Death and gets ambushed by the Guant Summoner. nEedless to say, we didn't last very long. #ageofsigmar #warhammerquest #silvertower

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on Jun 4, 2016 at 9:03pm PDT

I highly recommend picking up the game.  The only complaint I have, and that our group has had, is that the beginning of all of the trials feel very similar, and not a lot happens until you get into the thick of the various trials.  From that point on you feel like you are completing the quests in unique ways, facing the myriad challenges with wild abandon.

11/10, would buy again.

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So, on to the second point!  What am I working on currently, and how will we continue to move forward?  Well, dear reader, that is an excellent question!  

I am finding myself more and more at a hobby cross roads.  I have always believed that one should have a couple of main games that they play and enjoy with people all around them.  However, that has - over the course of many moons - turned into a plethora of games that I no longer play or have the desire to even look at in some cases (Uncharted Seas you sad, wonderful game - RIP).  So I have many, many models.  

It is time to cut them down, dust out the cupboards, cull the herd, etc.  I have the following that is all going to be looking for a new home soon:

• Firestorm Armada - Terrans (Stripped)
• Firestorm Armada - RSN (Stripped/unbuilt)
• Firestorm Armada - Relthoza (Unpainted)
• Firestorm Armada - Dendrenzi (Unpainted)
• Firestorm Armada - Misc. (various)
• Guildball - Alchemists (everything but Compound from the line, all but 2 painted)
• X-Wing (I don't even know, I really just want to put all in a box and get rid of it)
• Malifaux - Lucius (unopened)
• Malifaux - Lady J (built, unpainted)
• Malifaux - Ten Thunders
• Misaki Box (unopened)
• Metal 10T Brothers (unopened)
• Samurai (2 assembled, 1 on sprue, unpainted)
• Malifaux - Misc (Again, just want to box and get rid of it)
• Age of Sigmar/9th Age/Kow 
• I have a box of misc. Dark Elves, nothing spectacular, mostly Corsairs that are not assembled and some other bits and bobs.  I would just want to pretty much give this away.
• Warhammer 40k
• This is an oddball for me.  I have a lot of Chaos Stuff, but none of it is very exciting.  I am just looking to get rid of this so that I can justify - in my mind atleast - starting fresh into a game that I have abandoned for so long.  
• I also have vanilla Space Marines that have some Black Templars painted up among their number.  I could be convinced to get rid of these too.

For all of these, just ask me what I have through email (olearypr@gmail.com) and I can send pictures and hash out prices.  I am looking to get rid of a lot of this, so I can't imagine asking more than around 50% Retail for any of it.  

I'd be willing to look for some trades as well, including the following:

• Imperial Guard - Catachans a plus
• AoS (ordered by level of desire)
• Skaven
• Khorne Bloodbound
• Tzeentch Daemons
• Savage Orcs
• Uncharted Seas (ordered by level of desire)
• Ralgard
• NEW SCULPTS Empire/Humans
• Elves
• Sky Pirates
• Dragon Lords
• Anything else would be a case by case basis.

As for things that I am actually working on, besides flash sales, I am just working on painting up more rats for the Rise of Empires in the Age of Beasts Campaign.  I have been slacking lately, and then with Silver Tower popping up all of my painting time has been sunk into that.  For this month, I would like to actually finish my half done Plague Censer Bearers and all of my Warlock Engineers and Arch Warlocks.  IF I get that done, then I would be happy to finish up my Stormfiends and get my Verminlord built.  

On the NEW 40k front, I would love to start building a Catachan force.  Something totally unique from all other armies I have collected.  Plus, I should probably play a good guy at some point in my tabletop escapades.   

Looking forward to writing to all of you again in the near future, hopefully with some painted models and empty shelf space!  Until then, happy gaming!

Zulrot - Rival to Malkk, Painting Progress, and New Shinies

Suh doods.

Hope everyone is doing well out there in internet land!  Lots of KUH-RAZY things going on out there with points and narrative and open (oh my!) coming to our favorite fantasy setting, AGE OF SIGMAR!  Also, Season II for Guildball dropping it hot like a fresh new groove yo.  Plus we have the craziness that is Halo Ground Command from Spartan Games coming out, new Malifaux silliness on the way, Bloodbowl teases us DAILY it seems, and to top it all off?  Some got-damn sexy looking mo-fo Orruk Ironjawz.

So, lots and lots to coming up in the very near future, es fookin' noots m8s.

Let's start off small, shall we?

Zulrot, a PoS Plague Priest who is doing everything in his power to stand up against the one true Plaguemaster, Malkk, in the Narrative Internet Campaign that I am participating in.  Sounds peachy right?  Well, I got a good amount of stuff painted up to represent this homeboy on the tabletop.  Check it out:

Es nice, no?  Muy bien.  

So yeah, that all happened about a month ago, no big deal, because since then? 

Plus no time with the end of a bunch of classes coming up here in the next week or so.  I got good amount of stuff squared away with base coating, but nothing that is even remotely tabletop worthy.

I had started to work on a good amount of "Skyre Stuff" ™ What does that mean?

- Stormfiends

- Skyre Acolytes

- Weapons Teams

- Arch Warlocks (plus a sexy converted "Baron von Rattus")

New kitbashed warlock engineer for #festerscar in the Rise of Empires Campaign. He'll need a suitably Doc Oc inspired name with his backpack looking like that. #AoS #warhammer #warmonger

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on Mar 23, 2016 at 8:53am PDT

- Warlock Engineers

- Warplightning Cannon

- Doom Wheel

 PLUS

- 17 Plague Censer Bearers (ooooooohhhhhhhh yeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh)

Heres the family WIP shot

#ageofsigmar painting and base paring on a lazy Sunday! #wip #warhammer #skaven #ageofbeasts #riseofempires

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on Apr 3, 2016 at 1:53pm PDT

Loving it.

So what else is new then, eh?

These are:

So it this:

And so is this, among other things....

A photo posted by Patrick O'Leary 🇺🇸 (@patrick_r_oleary) on Apr 16, 2016 at 8:19am PDT

Truly, we are in the absolute GOLDEN AGE OF GAMING.  I am so happy to have Age of Sigmar here, along with all of the other goodies that we have here in 2016 for our gaming needs.  I love it all, with the exception of how many releases Space Marines get every other week it seems, minus the 30th Anniversary Space Marine, hes pretty baller.

So with that, go out and look at pretty shit and buy it.  Age of Sigmar points and "competitive play" is coming, the General's Handbook with 22 scenarios, points for ALL (yes that means Tomb Kings and Brets) warscrolls, 5 (FIVE) Styles of campaigns, and even more coming down the pike.

You have no idea how pumped I am.

Lets rock.  Peace out sweet readers.  I have to go paint something.

New Month, New Post!

Hey hey hey!  It's your favorite blogger here to talk to you about the dangers of goal setting - if you set em, more than likely you are going to complete them!

So, what have I been motivated to complete since my last post here a little over a week ago?  I HAVE A PICTURE FOR THAT TOO.

I did a thing in the bottom right over there and completed (to a tabletop standard) a couple of models from a range that I have never painted before.  I did this by getting my Alchemist team completed for Guildball in time to go and get some gaming in at the beach against some buddies of mine from Atlanta.  

Here is some photographic proof that I can indeed complete models in a rather quick fashion should I so choose to do so!

I really enjoyed playing Guildball over the weekend.  It is a refreshing change of pace from the types of games I was playing before in that you can get it done in a little over an hour in most circumstances.  These games that I was playing were learning games, and as such they were all more geared towards helping me along with the game system and learning the niceties of the system.  I played against both an Engineers Guild team and a Union Team.  I lost all three games, but as the weekend progressed it was closer and closer.  The final game I managed to score 6 to his winning 12 points.  Other games before this I had failed to score a single point with my team either time.  

I really am enjoying Guildball, but I definitely need to get more practice in with the team that I have and - of course - pick up the rest of the Alchemist models that I don't already have.  Which of course will lead to grabbing more Union team members, a Union team, and then grabbing another team after that as it snowballs out of control.  But that's ok! Who gets into tabletop games and doesn't have that happen to them over the course of their gaming life?

**********

In other news, I have postings about the news!  That's right folks, I have just a few items of business that I would like to bring to the attention of the model loving public.

First, the birth of the Skaven Pestilence Battletome and all of the delicious wonders that entails:

I have not broken down and purchased the Virulent Horde yet, but man alive that is a good looking box set if I have ever seen one.  I am not a huge fan of getting another Plague Furnace, but the thought of just about everything else in the box set makes it well worth basically getting a Furnace and a catapult for free an ok prospect.  I am giddy with excitement over this release, for fairly obvious reasons I think.  I love my Plague Rats almost as much as I love gaming in general, so these are near and dear to my heart as a Skaven player.  

The other Age of Sigmar news that has my blood and creative juices flowing is the grand entrance of the Sigmarite Cavalry, and the hints of Stardragons coming to their aid soon. These models, while pricy, are some of the coolest things I have seen.  I really dig the whole vibe of the crossbowmen armed cavalry, I think they are probably the best looking of the bunch with the axes coming in a close second.  

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Anyway, this is all I have for you today.  Look for the ever increasing tide of Clan Festerscar to make a reappearance on the Realm of Ghur, and for more painted Guildball models to show up on this page in the near future!  Until next time, dear readers, happy gaming!

Katalyst is the one who will break the secrets of life everlasting.  The same might not
be true for those that he is across from on the pitch.....

Painting in the Realm of Beasts

Hey all,

Hope you are doing well.  Its been a good bit since my last post, so I am happy to be back entering your eye holes once again.  Not much in the way of gaming lately, as school has started to pick up again.  A couple of friends got together to play a couple of rounds of Splendor, but other than that it has been a draught of tabletop gaming.  Gotta love Alabama.

What does this mean I have been doing?  I must have done something if I am writing a blog post, right?  Well, my dear intrepid readers, I have been working on painting up some Skaven for the past couple of weeks.  I just thought that I would take the time to go ahead and post them up here.

I have started experimenting with P3 Paints, and I have to say that I do adore them now. As I start to get more comfortable with painting in general again - I was off the horse for about 6 months - I will start to experiment with some of the more advanced painting techniques; wet blending, two brush blending, I may even try my hand at some nonmetallic metals.  Who knows!  I am really getting back into the painting aspect of the hobby thanks to the guys over at Garagehammer and some of the amazing work done on the Age of Sigmar Facebook pages.  I will probably make a return to painting some Malifaux models in the near future as well, as I have more than a few models left to paint for that game system.

Here is my photodump for all of my recent Skaven painting.

While it may not seem as impressive a photodump as those that have come before, this isn't the full scale of work.  I already have 25 of the Plaguemonks cranked out, and am working on another 12 before I move on to the command elements of the unit and my Plague Priest - whom needs to be rebased AGAIN on a 32mm base according to what they come with from GW's main site.  I am not complaining though, as I think the 32mm will look great on Plaguemaster Malkk.  As you can see from the last photo, I am also currently working on getting my weapons teams up to snuff again, as well as back into the new and improved color scheme of my Plague army.  I think that once I have the Plague monks all done I will most likely move on to getting my clanrat units repainted.  I need to come up with a creative way to make 2 units of 30ish into something like 3 units of 20.  OR I need to just go ahead and buy another battalion box while you can still get them and make 3 units of 30 clanrats and 3 units of 20 plaguemonks.  So many choices.

Before too long I need to get my Stormvermin brought into line with the new way of thinking, or leave them as the Asian Skaven mercenaries that they are and paint up the Katana converted models to have the same scheme as the current rats of Clan Hashiji.

Thats about all I've got at the moment.  I wont bore you with my plans for the Khorne Bloodbound until I actually start getting some paint on them, which may be a country minute still.  So, until next time - Happy Gaming!

Age of Sigmar? I need a Keg

Hello all, Sinscaptain here to talk about the elephant in the room – Age of Sigmar – as well as some general hobby updates and all the regular jazz.

Hold on to your butts, it’s going to be a long ride.

I’d like to open by saying that this article has been difficult to write.  I am, for the most part, a very opinionated person when it comes to my selection of gaming ventures.  I have toned myself down considerably from the flaming rhetoric that this blog used to be, but every once in a while, that still peaks out from behind the cage it is locked away in.

Today may turn into one of those days.

For those of you that live without regular access to the outside world, Warhammer Fantasy has been replaced rather explosively by Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.  Contrary to what rumors were making the rounds for the past 6+ months, there is no 9th edition coming.  We have our Games Workshop fantasy game, and it is Sigmar.

A little background before we delve fully into the new world that is Age of Sigmar.  I have been a fantasy player for about 5 years total.  Now, I realize that this is not as long as some of you old beards, but I have played through all that was 8th edition - highs and lows, triumph and defeat, etc etc.  It was a damn good time.  I managed to sway about 6-7 people to play WHF during that time, and we all had a blast.  Some of my fondest wargaming memories are of my Skaven going ballistic or turning tail and running for the hills.  My preferences have always been for regimental combat, magic, and my ratmen.  

The End Times were an exciting proposition for me, as I might be able to sway even more people into the Fantasy fold.  However, that didn't come to fruition, but I still got the ride of a lifetime reading those books, or listening to Garagehammer talk through them. Sure there were odd rules that started to pop up in the later books, but people were still enjoying the fluff and reading about the war to end all wars in Fantasy.  What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, right.

They could blow up the entire world.  Which they did.

So, what comes next?  Age of Sigmar!  Sigmar, god-king of the Empire holds onto a shard of reality, baddabing he gets rescued by a giant dragon in spaaaaace!!! And then makes a new set of worlds yo.  Then, Chaos starts to sneak back in, and so Sigmar throws up some deuces and locks himself in the Realm of Azyr and parties hard with his bros for a couple centuries.

Fast forward to the Realm of Fire, where cannibal Khorne bros are enslaving ALL of the people making a huge pyramid when WHAMO!  

Yes, weep mere mortals!  The Stormcast Eternals of Sigmar are here with hammers and thunder, deepstriking in on bolts of magical lightning!

So, these bros are pretty cool, honestly.  They have hammers, swords, shields, BIGGER hammers, dual wielding hammers, BIG swords, crossbolters, pixie elfie bows, and giant cat dragon lizard things.  Overall, every badass thing in the book, with a dash of 40k and entirely too few hammers thrown in.

It's hammertime baby.

Oh, and there's some Khorne guys too yo.

Again, these are some cool models.  All of these, models come in the new Age of Sigmar starter box which features the Khorne Goretide against the Stormcast Eternals of Sigmar in the first installment of the Realmgate wars.  $125 grabs you a nice selection of models to get the game going.

"Game you say?  Tell me about it sinscaptain!"

I will dear friend!

Age of Sigmar has 4 pages of rules, which is nice considering Warhammer Fantasy 8th had something more like a gazzillion pages.  Scientifically proven.

So, 4 pages of FREEEEEEEEEEE rules, heres the skinny:

• No more points or army selection rules - there are some unofficial army comp rules making the rounds, but most people either go by model count or wound count to organize battles.
• Initiative rolls at the start of every turn.
• Models can move, shoot, and charge all in the same turn.  They can shoot into and out of combats without consequences.
• Everyone takes battleshock tests at the end of the turn, which are similar to the old rules for undead moral tests.  However many you fail by is how many models you pull out.  So, D6 + Dead models for the turn - Bravery = # extra models that die.  
• Every game, at the moment, is all about killing all of your enemies models.
• Magic is dumbed down to every wizard knowing 2 spells plus 1 unique spell for flavor, and all tests are done on 2D6 trying to beat a number.  Enemy wizards within 18" may attempt to dispell.
• If you choose to play with 1/3 less models then your opponent, you can pick a sudden death objective to try and beat by 6 turns in order to win.

Thats pretty much all of the main points.  Every army has received "War scrolls" for each unit - for FREEEEEEEEEE - to use until they update "all" of the armies to Age of Sigmar.  They have all the info you need, including the static to hit and to wound rolls that you need - that's right: static TH and TW rolls.  A goblin hits Nagash just as well as he hits a skaven slave.  Kinda weird, but speeds up the game nicely.

I've linked the page to all of the rules and war scrolls everytime you see FREEEEEEE.

WHAT DO I THINK?

So, now to the *brief* editorial on what I think this all means.

I am split.  Part of me, the huge fan of Warhammer 8th Edition and regiments, movement trays, ridiculous magic phases, etc etc?  That part of me hates this game.  It is NOT Warhammer Fantasy.  It is some cruel joke by Games Workshop.  It's a dumbed down version of Warhammer 40k take what you want, unbalanced, polarizing, "spread a single line of guys in a line and march em across the table" BS, where everyone wants to be Tau with a bigger gun.  The rumors swirling about Slaanesh being abducted or forced off of his throne makes me livid.  Grrrrr.

The other, more rational and understanding part of me thinks that this game is great.  It does everything that we wanted for Warhammer Fantasy - reduces time constraints, barrier for entry money wise, reduces complexity, moves the story forward, lets everyone get what they want from the game, and overall makes for an enjoyable gaming experience.  This will be absolutely fantastic for getting new players into the game and having a blast with beer n' pretzels.  

We've already gained 3 new fantasy players because of Age of Sigmar, including Matte himself.  Life is good, man.  

Overall, I would give Age of Sigmar a solid 6.5 out of 10 on the wargaming scale.  It's better than your average game, but it doesn't quite feel like a solid replacement for Warhammer 8th.  Of course, I reserve the right to change my opinion as we get more games in and more books/models are released.  But overall, make an informed decision for yourself.  Don't be that asshole who burnt his entire collection.  People like that make us ALL look like Neanderthals.  We don't need to be nerd ragers.  We need to be united in the hobby, even though we have differing views of how the game should have come out.

Basically, it boils down to this:  be adults, make a decision, and don't be an ass about your choice on the internet.  Otherwise, Papa Nurgle will come to get you!

"Neeeeeeeerd rage feeds meeeeeee, hur hur hur"

 So, the title reads that I need a Keg....

I'VE GOT ONE!

Meet my converted Soju Golem for Malifaux.  The regular model didn't much catch my fancy, but I didn't want to shell out for the Nightmare Whiskey Golem, so I gave him a staff and a little bit of character to the face with some eyebrows, and boom.  Done.  Just need to throw some paint on him and Brewie will have an angry robot kegger to throw.

In addition to the Soju Golem, I built Yin for 10T Brewmaster, and for my incoming Yan Lo crew.  Toshiro will be painted up to go with the Yan Lo crew as well.  I also built a Tuco from the male TTB kit, just because I figured that he would be fun to have.  

Well folks, hope that this little article will hold you over until I can get some pictures of my Brewmaster crew up - painted by Matte for me.  They look absolutely fantastic, so I cannot wait to show them off.  I will attempt to get some pictures of the swamp board in progress, as well as any games of Age of Sigmar or Malifaux that are played this week.

So, my minions, go forth and game!  Until next time, this is Sinscaptain signing off.

Bayou, Banjaxing, and Bloody Sigmar

Ahhh, welcome younglings - 'tis I, Sinscaptain!  Back with another Malifaux Thursday battle report update, a Brewmaster spotlight (or atleast initial impressions), a project my gaming group is getting ready to work on, and some rumblings and thoughts on the Age of Sigmar for Warhammer Fantasy!  Lots to get through today, so lets get started.

So yesterday I was able to snag our regular weekly match of Malifaux.  Unfortunately, I have already broken the streak for taking lots of pictures, and the other members of our gaming group were occupied giving demos or playing, so there is a lack of pictures this time that is unfortunate as we had an absolutely lovely table provided by Matte to play on.

50SS Standard/Gaining Grounds Encounter

Strategy:  Headhunter

Schemes:  ALitS, Plant Explosives, Vendetta, Assassinate, Breakthrough

Flank Deployment

Sinscaptain's Drunken Company

Brewmaster [3SS Cache]

+ Binge

+ Hold Their Hair Back

+ Running Tab

Fingers

+ Drinking "Problem"

+ Dirty Cheater

Moon Shinobi

Moon Shinobi

Moon Shinobi

Apprentice Wesley

Merris LaCroix

Wild Boar

Sinscaptain's Schemes:  ALitS (Revealed) and Breakthrough (Revealed)

<AUsome Friend>

Pandora [~ Cache]

+ 2-3 upgrades

Candy

+ upgrade

Baby Kade

+ upgrade

Teddy 

Sorrow

Sorrow

Poltergeist

<AUsome Friend> Schemes:  Assassinate and Plant Explosives

My thoughts on taking this crew for these schemes was that Fingers and a Shinobi would be able to run off and throw down some markers wherever the enemy wasn't headed, while the other Shinobi, Brewmaster, Merris, and the Boar were meant to stop any kind of schemes from my opponent, as well as go after any heads they can get.  

Game went great!  Since I was just learning Brewmaster and my opponent was playing his 4th game of Malifaux, we only got to turn 5 before we called it.  He did manage to kill both Wesley and Brewmaster so that he earned his full assassinate points before turn 4, but not before Brewmaster threw down 6 poison on Pandora and brought her down to a single health so that she'd die to poison.  I only managed to snag 2 heads the whole game, but that was about the same as Pandora and Co.  Plant Explosives ended up being difficult for Pandora to get since I spread my crew out quite a bit, while I managed to sling both a Shinobi and Fingers through the middle - while laying scheme markers for LitS - and get to the deployment zone for some Breakthrough goodness on the last turn. With all of that, I managed to snag 8 points in the game to his 6 - he had 2 heads, full assassinate points, and a single explosive marker go off. 

Like many headhunter games, it was more cat and mouse than anything this game, which means there usually isn't much killing.  Had I been playing Collodi or Zoraida, there would have been more pulling and luring to get heads.  However, Matte has been painting Brewie up to look beautiful on the table, so I had to give him a try - and I love him.  Probably the most cinematic point in the game was Brewmaster and Pandora going at it, which I imagine would have been Brewmaster smacking Pandora around with his bamboo pole while she tried to summon up sorrows to defend her and attack Brewie. Overall, a great learning game for both of us.  I am really looking forward to getting some more games in with Brewmaster to get the hang of him completely.

Brewmaster.

A Gremlin from beyond the misty mountains, Brewmaster has risen in prominence among the denizens of the Bayou for his many variety of Moonshine that he brings with him.  His loyal band of Drunken Kung Fu masters follow him out of sheer alcohol dependence and loyalty.  Many of the other Bosses know that to stand against the Brewmaster would be foolish, as their own boys might turn against him in order to get some of the Brewmaster's glorious 'shine.

This guy is dual faction Gremlins and Ten Thunders with key words "Gremlin" and "Tri-Chi", which is what all of the models from the Closing Time box set are at this point.  Brewmaster is an amalgamation of control master and condition distribution master.  His main condition is of course poison, which he can dish out a kegger of to everyone at arms length.  He also has means to reduce the enemies effectiveness with abilities to make negative flips to all duels for an enemy.  His upgrades give him a slew of other options for dishing out conditions and ending the effectiveness of enemy models through paralyzed.  

I really think that the main focus of a Brewmaster crew is to shut down an enemy and make sure that your models can get where they need to go so that they can complete schemes and strats while the enemy deals with negative flips, poison, and paralyzed.  This makes him a master that, from now on, probably wont see action in many of the killing strats (reckoning, headhunter, or collect the bounty) just because his crew really isn't as good at dealing strait damage to people.  They are great for running around and having schemes, but for the most part I think that killing still belongs firmly in the camp of Ophelia for my Gremlins.  

For what to take with Brewmaster, I will probably always take Fingers and Apprentice Wesley - being able to come back from death makes Wesley invaluable, while Fingers is a premier scheme runner and can hold his own against those that would take him down.  He is a little steep in the SS department, weighing in at two and a half piglets in cost, but I think that he is well worth the cost.  Other than that, I really do enjoy the Moon Shinobi, who can deal a respectable amount of damage with the right modifiers since they make all negative flips positive flips and vice versa.  Merris was a great addition to the crew for her Flaming Bottle attack and the fact that she can discard a card to drop a scheme marker.  However, I may drop her and definitely the Wild Boar in favor of taking Sammy LaCroix with Brewmaster's fourth upgrade and then having left over SS in the cache.  I will have to give that a try the next time the schemes look like they would favor something like that.

Like I said at the beginning, this is a very cursory first play through thoughts on Brewmaster.  As I play him more, these thoughts will become more refined.  I have to master the path of Brewmaster after all.

As we wrapped up our game yesterday on Matte's gorgeous Secret Weapon Miniatures Tablescapes with Angry Mojo Games Graveyard MDF Terrain my girlfriend expressed an interest in building her own table, and had been for a few days.  At this point, we began to map out everything that we needed to make for this table - which was decided would be a detailed Bayou board (as it could be home to my Gremlins and most of my Neverborn models, but that is just a happy coincidence)

So, we set about making plans.  It will be a 3x3 board, perfect for Malifaux or getting skirmish games of Warhammer Fantasy in.  It will have about 1/3 of the surface covered in water (and thus severe terrain for Malifaux).  We will build tree bases, stilt buildings, huts, a broken down airboat, alligator nests, and other such swampy things.  We are all extremely excited to get to work on it, and I am sure that both Matte and myself will be posting many updates concerning our table in the near future.  Below are some images that we really liked and will use as inspiration.

And finally, to wrap up this post, something that I hold near and dear to my heart:

WARHAMMER FANTASY

WHF is near and dear to my heart.  When everyone else wanted to play with Bolters and Chainswords, my imagination was captivated by the ideals of wizards literally pulling comets down from the heavens, ratmen swarming over the Old World, giant lizard people riding atop dinosaurs, desperate men firing round after round out of their muskets at advancing undead legions, all while mighty heroes ride their massive beasts of war and hurl eldritch blasts at each other as they close in to strangle each other with their bare hands if need be.

Desperate struggles of average men in the face of terrifying odds armed with nothing more than a shred of armor, cloth, and maybe a half rusted sword against foul daemons of the warp and massive tidal waves of greenskins always seemed more moving then armies of super humans with nuclear warhead bullet machines mowing down X, Y, or Z.  That game was always about the lighting fast mobility of tanks and bikes clashing with each other in huge explosive collisions and titans blasting each other from across continents - but this is about Warhammer Fantasy.

I have 2 Skaven armies - a themed Asian Skaven army that is WIP and an almost entirely Plague Skaven army.  They were the first models of any that I willingly and excitedly painted.  I had named characters in my army that I had come up with.  I scoured around to find old metal models in FLGS to complete my army, or converted up models to match my mental image of what they should look like.  Long story short?  I love Skaven and I love fantasy.

And then End Times came out.  Nagash, Glottkin, Khaine, Thanquol (woo!), and Archaon. All in a line.  Gorgeous models and ridiculous rules abound.  Exciting times for all, and an apparent revival of Fantasy.

And then Boom.  All gone.  CNTR+ALT+DLT.

You can imagine how this made me feel.  Then rumors swirling about huge simplification of the rules, removal of whole factions, armies maxed out at 50 models, ROUND BASES, and other things.

This is not what I signed up for.  I signed up to push units of 60 puss riddled rats down my opponents throat while cackling gleefully and shooting my own models with guns that were just as likely to blow up in my face.

I have been salty to say the least.

However, I have been swayed, mostly due to Matte talking me off the ledge repeatedly, to maintain cautious optimism for the future of my gaming love.  Malifaux is my main game - I would be lying if I said otherwise.  But Fantasy was my first car.  It didn't run all that well, it smelt kind of stale, and it's been used and abused for 30 years before my time, but it made you happier than anything else.  It is all warm fuzzy memories and good friends and simpler times.  So, here are the rumors that I have read that actually sound like they could be slightly true - gathered from various sources around the interwebs.

++SALT SHOULD BE USED++

1. Age of Sigmar wont be 9th edition, it will be a set of Skirmish rules that are meant to get people into the game.
2. The box is supposed to be Empire/Holy Knights/"Good Guys" vs some amalgamation of Chaos - some say there will be daemons, some beastmen, others say just Chaos Warriors.
3. There are rumors that this will feature round base fantasy models that can go in skirmish formation, loose formation, or blocked up like we currently know with all sorts of benefits/set backs for each of these formations.
4. Rules - or atleast 4 page starter rules - will be available for free online as a download when Age of Sigmar releases.  Personally, I think this is the most BS.  I saw the pictures of GW's website, but I am still not going to believe it.
5. All factions will still be playable to some extent.
6. There will be an ungodly amount of releases for something along the lines of 6 weeks - supposedly - with the Big Rule Book coming out at the very end after everyone has spent all of their money on Age of Sigmar stuff.
7. Alternate Rumor states that Age of Sigmar IS 9th edition, and we will see this game scalable up to army level games.
8. A lot of people are saying that this will be similar to an upscaled Lord of the Rings game that GW made/makes.

As of this morning, new models have been spotted for the Age of Sigmar starter box

And with that bombshell, I hope you all have a great day.

Peace,

Sinscaptain