Monday, October 26, 2015

Video Battle Report: Ulthwe Wraith Host vs Tau Empire with Storm Surge 1500 pts



I finally got a new camera.  I think people will be pleased with the quality of the most of the shots, but I'm still learning and testing with it.  It's always slightly tougher trying to film in the shop because the regular din of other people there creates an ambient, undulating background noise and can limit where I can physically place the camera.

So far I'm happy with the resolution of the images and how they capture a more realistic look of the paint jobs, but it also makes silhouetting from backlight even more of an issue along with glare.  It will probably take me a little while to adjust to all the little nuances in operating the camera, so please bare with me as I seek to improve the videos.  At some point I'm sure I'll push to have a better sound capture as well, but the cost is substantial so I need to take it in steps.

As to the game... The Storm Surge is a complete monster in a smaller game.  I feel like the stabilizer rule is designed to keep the Storm Surge from landing complete and total first turn domination in smaller games.  People can say what they want about lack of playtesting, but that is a clear indicator to me that they made strides to account for smaller games vs larger ones.

It's been a while since I'd played against a full Tau army, so I felt, once again, surprised by the firepower they brought to bare, especially since I had a no man's land to cross to get to grips with the enemy.  The Wraith Host is great, but it's so fragile, especially against Tau who can reliably ignore cover, wound more regularly, and often ignore saves all together.  My force was designed to be resilient, but the Tau list was a great counter to mine, often making the high toughness worth less than against other forces.

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Project Wraithguard: Another Task Done

Well, after nearly a year I finally have a game scheduled that (with the additional shame of not having finished them) inspired me to finish the revamp of my old Ulthwe wraithguard as I blend the metal models with the plastic. First up is the d scythe squad. At just 5 members I'm considering buying another box to bump them up to 6 and my two blade squads to 7.


The real showcase of this little project, however, is the standard wraithguard unit made up of a mixture of new plastic and classic metal models.


I'm really quite pleased (or as they say in Australia quite chuffed) with the final product. The hip guards as shoulder pads really blended the unit quite well, and changing the gun barrels helps sell the look as well.

I intend to spend a bit more time dressing  up their bases like I do with my other units, but in the mean time I'm happy enough to play them on the tabletop.

For all the folks that think me ridiculous for playing the unit as 10... I make this choice with years of experience under my belt and I'm anticipating the unit can continue to impress as they take to the field of battle at full strength once again.


Sunday, October 18, 2015

New Squad

I feel like I accomplished a lot this weekend, but I don't know that I have. That said, I finished what I Intend to be a fully mobile squad, Spring Thaw, for my Ulthwe Guardian Host.


This allowed me to get more than half way through completing my revamped wraithguard squad, two units I'd been working on for some time. I hope to sweep through a couple projects over the next few weeks and give myself some fresh new options for lists.

In related news I finally acquired a new video camera for recording battle reports. I'm still running lots of tests with it, but I'm hopeful it will improve the overall quality substantially.

Early news has hit from the 2nd edition of Doom of Mymeara and I'm extremely excited about the new Wraithknight Variant with two Deathshrouds.  Other than the really great look of the model the load out on it will likely be devastating.

I've also been tweaking the Void Spinner and Storm Serpent rules to work a bit more appropriately within the revisions of the new book.  Now I'll have to make some more minor changes just to keep it all in line, but I'm looking forward to releasing those shortly.