Convic 2018 Aftermath - Part 1

On the weekend I attended my second Kings of War tournament of the year. Convic is the most high profile of the events held in Victoria, and attracts a number of interstate players for the occasion. Given my lack of focus recently, I didn't give all that much consideration to the event in the lead-up. But when I was reminded that it was coming up a couple of weeks out, I decided I should get involved. I had failed to attend last year, but I had enjoyed Cancon back in January and figured it would be silly not to take advantage of a 2 day event only about 10 minutes from where I live.

Convic is a strange "escalation" type of event, where you play 2 games with a 1250 point list, 2 games with a 1750 point list, and then the second day consists of 3 games with a 2150 point list. I briefly considered a few different armies, however given the format and my lack of practice, the simplicity of an Ogre army appealed to me. Hordes of Warriors and Siegebreakers make lovely 200 and 250 point building blocks, and it makes the whole process that bit simpler. I don't know if it results in the army being better, but that wasn't really the point.

Pete (who also made the late decision to enter) hurriedly ordered the Clash of Kings 2018 book, and it arrived just in time for us to flick through it and discover new and interesting things before submitting our lists. Chariots have received a boost, and I noticed in particular that Ogre Warlords on chariots no longer lose their Nimble. They are faster too, which is another bonus. That seemed pretty appealing to me, so I set about putting a couple of these into my lists (where more than 1 was permitted). So these are the lists I put together:

1250 points:

• Horde of Ogre Warriors
• Horde of Ogre Warriors
• Horde of Ogre Warriors
• Regiment of Shooters
• Warlord in a Chariot with Dwarven Ale
• Boomer Sergeant with Inspiring Talisman
• Giant

1750 points:

• Horde of Ogre Warriors
• Horde of Ogre Warriors with Brew of Haste
• Horde of Siegebreakers
• Horde of Siegebreakers
• Horde of Shooters
• Warlord in a Chariot with Dwarven Ale
• Warlord in a Chariot with Staying Stone
• Army Standard with The Boomstick
• Boomer Sergeant with Inspiring Talisman

2150 points:

• Horde of Ogre Warriors
• Horde of Ogre Warriors
• Horde of Siegebreakers
• Horde of Siegebreakers
• Horde of Shooters
• Horde of Boomers
• Warlord in a Chariot with Dwarven Ale
• Warlord in a Chariot
• Army Standard with The Boomstick
• Boomer Sergeant with Inspiring Talisman
• Giant

You may notice a lack of subtlety in my list construction. I find Ogre hordes to be very solid (if not necessarily very imaginative) selections. I'd normally fiddle with the odd item (like the Brew of Haste on a Siegebreaker unit), but the points worked neater this way. In the 1250 point list you couldn't have anything worth more than 200 points (which conveniently is the cost of a horde of Warriors), and nothing more than 250 points in the 1750 point list (which is what a horde of Siegebreakers costs). This all contributed to my choice of both army and units.

Anyway, I played a single practice game against Pete with the largest list and got soundly thrashed, so my tournament preparation was complete. Hopefully that wouldn't happen in every single game of the event...

Round 1 (1250pts) - Invade
Clint Richards - Undead

Regiment of Revenant Cavalry

Regiment of Revenant Cavalry

Regiment of Revenant Cavalry

Regiment of Revenant Cavalry

Regiment of Revenant Cavalry

Regiment of Revenant Cavalry

Troop of Revenant Cavalry

Necromancer with Bane-chant and Inspiring Talisman (maybe?)

Right. So. First up I would be playing Clint, with his list of eleventy billion Revenant Cavalry. The list amused me, but the threat of the entire army charging 16" was slightly less amusing. Still, I felt slightly relieved to know there was not much Inspiring or Surge for Clint to work with. Given how solid Ogre hordes are, I felt maybe I had the edge in this game. He'd need 2 units or a flank charge to be a good chance to rout one of my hordes, so if I could avoid that I'd be in good shape.

Knights! Dead knights! ALL the dead knights!

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Hello again! Long time, no post. Things have been rather quiet on the blogging front, which I of course feel guilty about, as usual. But these longer gaps seem to have become the norm recently, for better or worse.

The gaps largely relate to me not having done a lot of hobby-related activities in recent weeks. I tried to generate some painting momentum by proclaiming the Year of the Goblin, however after doing pretty well with the first horde of Night Goblins, I kind of ran out of steam. It was partly the Goblins' fault, of course. Night Goblins might be simple to paint, but they're not terribly exciting. 

As it was, I tried to encourage myself by shifting across to painting a couple of characters. I painted these 2 guys shortly after the Night Goblins, however they did little to improve my level of hobby energy, and my momentum stalled. 

A couple of ugly little retro twins who need a hanky. Was too lazy to take a proper photo in the light box, sorry...

Rather than trying to force myself back onto the painting wagon, I decided instead to let myself focus on less demanding things (ie: PC games). This was partly driven by the arrival of a Kickstarter project I backed some time ago, Battletech. I was pretty excited by this, and set about playing my way through the campaign. The game is not without its occasional flaws, but overall I really enjoyed playing through the story.

Turn-based mech combat. Basically it's what it says on the box - the Battletech tabletop game in PC form.

A Dark-Robed Horde

It's been a while since my previous post, but I've finally completed the full unit of Night Goblins. After the initial large multi-model filler, I painted the remainder in 3 batches. It all seemed pretty manageable, but that still didn't mean I got through it all quickly. Oh well, at least I did get there in the end.

40 Night Goblins, ready for battle. Or you know, ready to squabble a bit and then run away.

A Base Full of Gobbos

I declared in my previous post that I thought I could get my Night Goblin Archer unit filler finished by the end of the week. Turns out that was true, although I didn't quite manage to get photos taken and posted in that same time-frame. Anyway, here they are:

A 5x4 unit filler of Night Goblin Archers, all based and ready to go.

2018 - Year of the Goblin

Way back when this blog was born in 2011, I decided that I was going to focus my painting efforts on a particular army. I proclaimed 2011 would be my Year of the Empire, and set about making as much painting progress on my Empire army as I could. In total I painted something like 5000 points over the course of that year, and it formed the foundation of the army which would continue to grow in the years that followed. 

There is no doubt that over the last several years, my Empire have received an inordinate amount of attention compared to my other armies. There have been brief bursts of focus on things like my Dwarfs and Ogres, however I have never focused on another army pretty much exclusively for any real amount of time. I think it might be time to address that.

I have spoken previously of my intention to try to recreate the Battle at the East Gate of Karak Eight Peaks. This is still on the cards, however it is really still in the early planning stage. One of the things that is holding back progress is the state of my Orc and Goblin army. I do have a painted army of greenskins; I think it totals something like 8000 points. However, a lot of it was painted in a hurry for tournaments around 15 years ago, and is really pretty rough. I have gone back and revitalised a couple of elements, and some of the larger models like Wyverns and Arachnaroks were added more recently and therefore hold up better. But the army lacks a lot of stuff, in particular Goblins. Sure, there are Goblins there, but not in the sort of numbers that would be required for a game like Karak Eight Peaks.

I've been trying to make myself knuckle down and focus on the problem for a few months now, however I have barely made any progress. I have not yet built up any momentum, which is key for larger hobby projects like this. In an effort to address this, I have decided to proclaim 2018 the Year of the Goblin.

OK, so technically Skarsnik got painted last year. But he's just ahead of the curve. Leading from the front!

Buying more models and an interview with a fellow lunatic

I am feeling very Spanish at the moment. Well actually, I don't feel very Spanish at all. I'm on the other side of the world, after all. But recently I seem to be being inspired by numerous things from that part of the world. It feels like in various ways, the people over there are keeping the hobby alive and kicking!

First up, I ordered another pile of models from MOM Miniaturas during the Black Friday sales. Granted, they took a while to get here. I gather they've been keeping themselves very busy, with the sales and Christmas and preparation for their upcoming Kickstarter.

This is the second time I've put in a big order with MOM, and although I've painted a few of the ones I got the previous time (a few warrior priests and some heavily armoured Dwarfs), I now have quite the backlog...

My loot spread out on the table for me to fondle...

Cancon 2018 Aftermath - Part 7

This is the final part of my report of the recent Clash of Kings tournament at Cancon 2018. You can find the previous part here.

Game 7: Control
Tony Lee, Conquistadors

You what? Conquistadors? I did think I remembered someone asking if you could take Kings of War Historicals in the event, but I didn't realise someone had actually gone and done it! How interesting. I actually looked at Tony's list properly, on account of not recognising a single thing in it...

Hernan Cortez leading an army of Conquistadors with Aztec assistance. I don't know what I was expecting in my final game, but this was not it.

I used Vanguard to start closing the gap using a hill as cover on the left flank.