Between our various summer excursions (the last of which involved helping my in-laws move), I've been continuing to prep my Khador, along with some Bartertown shopping for Cryx, and a fair bit of number / point / list crunching, always a favourite pastime of the skirmish wargamer.
I'm now 2 figures away from completing the prep on my 35p Khador list, but tragically, have run out of super glue. Once the remaining models are prepped, I'll break out the gesso, and have at them. As an aside, I mentioned this to my wife, who had been talking about picking up some groceries tomorrow; I asked her, if she got the chance to pick some up some Lock-tite. "You use the one with the blue cap, right?" she asked. To hell with hearts and cupids; I'm married to a woman who knows my preferences in super glue. That, my friends, is love.
While waiting for my glue to dry, I've been shopping. Bartertown, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is an excellent source of deals on used miniatures. I've been able to set up two buys in the last week, and as I write, the following should be winging their way to me via the US (and eventually, Canadian) postal service.
Asphyxious
Deneghra
eDeneghra
Witch Coven
Stalker x2
Defiler x3
Deathripper x2
Seether
Cankerworm
Magnetized plastic slayer kit x2
Necrotech and 7 Scrap Thralls
Warwitch Siren x2
Pistol Wraith x2
Skarlock
Full Satyxis
Withershadow combine
In other words, pretty much everything I'd need to run any of the "arc node" warcasters from Cryx. I'd have preferred nightwretches to defilers, but at the price at which I'm getting them, I won't be too picky. As I've said before, I used to play Cryx. In fact, I've painted a Cryx army twice. The second time forms some of the earliest posts on this blog, but I've been going through old pictures of the various Warmachines armies I've painted, starting with my first Cryx army, from when I was just learning the game.
To be honest, I'm wondering what possessed me to sell these off at the time, or for that matter, to sell off the last Cryx army I painted either. I think I hit some sort of saturation point on game expansions. Warmachine is a game where to play competitively, you need to stay on top of everything in the game. List building is a factor, and I think I got to a point where staying on top of the game felt more like work than like fun.
What I forgot was that I'm not really a competitive player. While I like to win, play to win, and expect my opponents to do the same, half the fun of this game is when someone pulls out some evil new trick, and you learn the hard way ;)
It may just be that I needed a break. Coming back into the game, looking over the forces books that have been released since I dropped out, along with expansions like Wrath, have gotten me wildly excited to play.
I find myself wanting to simultaneously reboot every force I've ever built for the game, all at the same time.
What's so exciting about my dip back in this time, is how fresh everything seems. The impact of things like tier lists (which exchange a more limited list build with rewards for accepting "tiers" of limitations) and the impact of the new faction models (key utility solos like Warwitch Sirens, for example), have essentially made the game new; much of what I took for granted as the "meta", the context for play, no longer applies.
While the Privateer Press forums are as full of drama and nerdrage as ever, they're also revealing. I was reading a post the other day talking about the utility of machine wraiths, a long-time favorite model (it remains, I think, my favourite in the warmachine range), but a long-time loser in terms of utlity. A version change in the game, a revamp of his abilities, and a radical shift in meta, and it's now a useful, if subtle, component to lists - what it should have been from its introduction back in escalation.
I've been looking over the tier lists for both pDennie and the Coven, 'casters I've used before, but not to the extent of pGaspy and eDennie. I think the game plan will be to use the Khador as a "get playing" force while I spend some time really doing up the painting on my Cryx. I have some ideas for a desert colour scheme, based on some pictures I gleaned of Navaho country.
For whatever reason, Warmachine seems to be back in my life. I hope this time it's here to stay. In the meantime, for those of you who are historical games, and have been viewing the last few posts aghast, fear not. I've word that my missing bases are on their way, so I should have some Spartan content up in a week or so, plus I've booked off a Wednesday two weeks from now to play the next game in our Maurice campaign. You may have to put up with the occasional steampunk extravaganza, but there's still load of historical painting and gaming in the works.
FMB
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