Hobby Check-in March 2018

So I have a theory that when the first of the year rolls around all organizations decide they need to kick it into overdrive to get the new year started. So between work, kids and their programs, wife and her programs you can see I have not had much chance to write a article in the past few months. Because of this I figured it would be a cool idea to give ya’ll an update on what I have been doing in the hobby.

Working On and Finishing My Brotherhood Revamp

Ending out Crucible GT in 2017 I had been playing and painting the same models for close to 3 years. Starting them as Kingdoms of Men I pretty much learned both Kings of War and painting through them…. And it showed. Between Clumpy non-highlighted paintjobs, dull and washed out basing schemes, and just all around non-exciting I knew that I could do better. So I proceeded

to throw the majority of the models into Simple Green and and purchase a shiny new static grass applicator to make my favorite army beautiful like I knew I could do.

So flash forward after repainting 4 regiments of knights, a horde of bowmen, and several characters and I have brought my Brotherhood to the level I felt good about showing them off to the world. I also

redid the bases to beautiful pieces that I was even surprised with, part of which I outlined in my article about thrift store terrain finds. The bases were made of the cool statues and faces that I mutilated many nativity scene for, and the work of expensive but so worth it static grass applicator.

I expected this project to last for the first half of 2018. But with the motivation of

several of our monthly Armada Tournaments I went into overdrive to paint up the lists I wanted to bring. Therefor what was going to take me half a year really only took me two months… speed painting ftw.

Went to An Armada Tourney and Got Utterly Destroyed

With my Brotherhood revamp and the several buffs that the Brotherhood received in the latest Clash of Kings 2018 supplement, I was of the mind I was going to go try and smash face at a local one-day event. However fate got the best of me and the dice gods spat on me to give me a hard lesson of the downfalls

of a competitive mindset. Went 0-3 at the February Armada event taking an utter beating by all of my opponents. It started out against my recurring rivalry with clubmate Jacob Datta with whom from month to month we trade off winning or getting crushed. I took a good swatting from his Abyssals who amazed me with their 40 piercing 1 fireballs taking off a regiment of Order of Redemption in one round of shooting. But then again they had

just regen'ed/martyrs prayed 23 wounds down to 5, so I guess they had it coming.

My second game was against another clubmate Robert Green who is known for his xenomorph army of Night Stalkers. Now Nightstalkers are traditionally a bad matchup for me, something about their unconventional units and creepily effective butchers always keeping me of guard. This was echoed in my third game against one of the Georgia gentlemen who had traveled down to the event. I felt bad because I prob looked like a sorry sack at this point with how my dice and bad generaling had been fairing for this event. You

can see off to the right a picture of me contemplating my life’s choices during my game against his trident realms. He played a very clean battle line and his forces were very well equipped to grind my knights down until they were no more.

Biggest take away from this event with me is that I couldn’t really blame my dice (tho they were god awful) but rather my deployment being my downfall. Too much time playing orcs and my ability to deploy Brotherhood had suffered. I also needed to reflect on what my attitude is going to these events, while I am very much a creative hobbyist I am also a pretty competitive person. But I need to balance that with the reality that it is all

about having fun, and you can't win em all…. Or any in this tournaments case.

One highlight of this event is that I did come second in paint. While there isn't a trophy or anything for second place, it did reaffirm all that work I did to redo the painting and basing for the brotherhood. Plus I only lost out to the master Jamie Ward, and there isn't much hope in beating him in paint anyways :P

Got A LOT of Universal Battles 2 League Games In

If you saw my article on the Universal Battles 2 league that is going on, I talked a lot about some of the ace players that frequent the platform and the fact I am getting my face utterly beat in. I am 2-5 currently at 7/16 games in so I don't expect to win the whole thing. Yet I am learning a whole ton by playing some of the highest ranking people in the US and UK.

I've been playing around with two different lists on UB. Firstly my Brotherhood that I was dead set on figuring out how to get them to work, after getting thrashed at the local event I could not stop tweaking and learning how to deploy my Brotherhood more effectively. Though I kept getting my butt kicked I think in the end I came away with a list that worked for me and enveloped the new units I have painted for my brotherhood.

Secondly, I had been wanting to lock down a choice for my army project for 2018. I had been well on my way to starting a Forces of Nature army, using some store credit I won for getting best Sports at the local event a few times. But making lists for it just didn’t feel right, I really didn't want to do the typical lightning bolt spam with Beasts of Nature like everyone was doing for Forces, and allot of the models I had picked out for certain units were not even making it into some of the competitive lists I was building. So for 2018 I was sort of in a bind, and through looking at a few of the models I had laying around and the deals I saw on ebay, I decided that the Varangur would be the next best bet.

Therefor my first step would be to decide on what sort of list I would field these bad boys in. Universal Battles is awesome for testing out lists before even having to buy a model. So to to begin this process, I sought the input of Kings Of Warlando resident list builder, Christopher James who is a self proclaimed gamey-bastard. But don’t let his self endowed title fool you, he is a pretty good guy and pointed me in the right direction for Varangur. After playing the list in a few league games I was quite taken with the faction as it had the small elite lists I was used to with Brotherhood, yet it seemed to have allot more killing power. I even managed to scrape out a win with my Varangur in the league, which made me feel a ton better about going down the model purchasing route.

I Won My Very First Tournament

A month past since my utter 0-3 defeat at the February Armada Games Tournament and I pretty much was just of the mind to show up to the March event and push my knights across the table and have a bit of fun with it. After all feeling the utter crush of getting my butt kicked last month essentially was due to the expectations I had placed in myself. So with little expectations I set my army down on the table with a bit better deployment strategy since I had been practicing so much on Universal Battles.

My first round opponent was Jacob Datta, who like I said before is the person I trade wins or losses with on a monthly basis. My Brotherhood were out for revenge this time since Jacob’s Abyssals crushed me so well last month, and they most certainly got it with a win in both objective (Loot) and in attrition. Strangely I would go to win attrition in two of my three games that day, which is unusual since sacrificing my knights to beat my opponents face usually means that I lose attrition.

After doing well in the first round I always like to joke im in a league I don't belong. So on par with this I was matched with Christopher James and his newly painted Abyssal Dwarves. Usually I don’t feel like I have much of a hope against Chris since he is the reigning Crucible Champ and very skilled player. We were given the objective of Scavenge and since I am not good in a grind I didn’t think I’d have a hope in this match-up against high defense dwarves. However after I was able to kill Brakki Barka and Basusu by turn two without my own loss to

them things seemed to be looking up. I also got extremely lucky with my Order of Forsaken when a troop of Gargoyles failed to would them and thus gave the Forsaken a open door to Chris’s backfield. My dice were absolutely hot this day, the opposite of the month previous so I was over the moon with my performance against a player I view as pretty far above my league. In the end the game was a Draw, which shoot… I regard that as a victory against Chris.

Oddly that second round there were two sets of draws on the two top tables which made the top spot a toss up between four different people. Chris would go on to face Robert Lee and his Elves which were raining death on his enemies that day, and I would go to face Rocky

Archer fresh off his top ten placement at the US Masters in Chicago. Again I was in a position

of playing someone who was a much better player than me. Rocky was sporting his Forces of Nature Army which is not his usual army or what he brought to Masters. The objective was Eliminate and I felt a bit more confident with my deployment strategy and managed to stick my Order of Forsaken down last and in a highly optimal

placement to focus fire on his Winged Unicorn and Beast of Nature which were my targets. Most of my knights were also his targets and thus I was taking a big risk by pushing them forward, but in the end while it was very close, I managed to kill two targets (Beast of Nature and Horde of Naiad Ensnarers) and shoot off the Winged Unicorn giving me the victory.

So after going 2-1-0 I was very close to Chris who actually beat me out in battle points. However since I had dumped like 20$ of static grass into my Brotherhood display board to make it look super top notch, and to further reaffirm all that work I did to redo my Brotherhood, I managed to beat out some really awesomely painted armies that were present that weekend and take Best Painted, which is actually the only award I had come to really try and win. With all the extra paint scores I was able to secure overall 1st place. I’m pretty sure I was not believing that had happened because I don’t think I had even come close before to such an award. BUT, it sure felt good to have that cool trophy in my hand.

Began Painting My Varangur Army

Just like I outlined in my bit about Universal Battles, I had been planning my new Varangur army for a little over a month. I had a few models laying around for them already, some Harad Horse Archers from the GW Lord of the Rings line, and some cool characters. I also have lots of monsters that I use in my Orc army that will also fit as units in Varangur, giants and trolls and such.

I quickly decided on a theme that would more or less match the theme I have for my orcs. Some of the stereotypical evil blacks and reds, but I also wanted to have some unique aspects such as Ice Weapons. Little did I realize what I was signing up for in trying to do wet blends on all the swords,

the technique produced some amazing looking swords, but it was frustrating as hell and very time consuming. I quickly decided only my Mounted Sons and Fallen were getting wet blended sword and the rest would suffice to get a dry brush ice weapons. Also it was my first time using gloss varnish which I have to say really makes things pop when it comes to ice or crystals.

So far I have really only painted these guys and not done much in the way of basing. Mainly this is because I need to go drop money to import more static grass from World War Scenic in the UK, and also because I plan to write an article on the start to finish basing techniques I use for my Varangur bases. I plan on doing the same sort of reddish brown earth I did for my orcs, but instead of tan stones I want to go back to some darker grey with some ruins scattered about much like my Brotherhood army has. I also will be adding some dead looking grass patches and snow, which will be a new one for me that I am hoping helps the overall unit pop.

Overall this is going to be a hard project because of how soon I want to have this done. A big reason for this is that I want to put up my Brotherhood for a bit while they are on top, and also because I am going to be playing Varangur at Discover GT if I feel I have enough practice with them. Varangur seem a tad more competitive than the Brotherhood and without several more Hordes of Orcs it is the closest thing I have to an army that I can make a name for myself with.

We’ll see how life treats me with time to paint between now and August.

Closing

So that has been me for the past few months. I hope to be a little bit better about writing articles on a more frequent basis than I have been. Publish or perish amirite?

Until next time, this has been Fred on Fantasy.