Tourney, night one results.

Tourney, night one results.

First match was against Whisper, a Bounty Hunter Firespray, and Backstabber.
The firespray came into range first, and I did some damage. Backstabber was going around for a flank, and Whisper was moving up behind the firespray.
On turn 4, instead of switching to Whisper, I kept on the Firespray, which was my mistake for that match. I managed to take down the Bounty Hunter, but Whisper and Backstabber took my squad apart.
Lesson: I should have switched targets to Whisper and focus fired through the cloak advantage, removing 4 attack dice from the table.

Second match was against Corran Horn in an EWing and Dash Rendar in the Outrider. I took Corran out quickly, but was nibbled to death by Dash, flying the perimiter of the board and using his turret advantage.
Lesson: Split up the squad, pursue with the fast fighters, the Z-95 and the X-Wing, and use the B-Wing and Y-Wing to cut through the center of the board and cut off the large ship as it tries to fly the perimiter.

X-Wing miniatures

I've got a decent start on X-Wing miniatures, and have played a few games in-between Warmachine.
Tomorrow I'll be joining a local tourney with this list.

Garven Dreis — X-Wing   26

"Dutch" Vander — Y-Wing   23
Ion Cannon Turret   5
R2 Astromech   1

 Airen Cracken — Z-95 Headhunter   19
Wingman   2

 Blue Squadron Pilot — B-Wing   22
Fire-Control System   2

The schtick is to maximize the amount of focused, target locked shots per turn. We'll see how it goes.

Miscellaneous Saturday.

The Linear Obstacle.

In my meta, we usually alternate placing terain. For a long while, I did this haphazardly, not wanting to "game" terrain placement. But I recently got over this when I strategically placed a linear obstacle in favor of my Strider unit. For review-

A linear obstacle is a piece of terrain less than 1" in depth, usually a low wall. Linear obstacles give units behind and within 1" of it +2 DEF against melee attacks, and +4 DEF versus ranged attacks.

Look at it this way, terrain is there to provide advantages to units, and if you alternate placement, it's part of the game to set up the terrain so that you have tactical advantages for your units. Your opponent has just as much ability to set up terrain as you do, so there's no unfair advantage to gaming terrain placement. Just so long as it doesn't get out of hand, in which case you can have certain gentlemen's agreements.
Another important advantage of linear terrain, is that it can easily block charge attacks. A unit cannot charge over a linear obstacle unless it has pathfinder, and no unit can charge over a linear obstacle if there is not room for the model after the charge. So if you place your units within 1" of the obstacle, and "fill up" the wall, there's no room for charging units, even if they have pathfinder, to complete that charge movement.
Also, there are counters. Reach attacks allow units to reach over that wall, and spray attacks ignore cover. And they can always walk around the wall. It's simply an advantage that will probably give your wall hugging troops a round or two of terrain advantage.

I picked up a bottle of Loctite Ultra Gel yesterday. The problem with typical super glues is that they are brittle, and they also do not resist shearing forces very well. Super glue can give a strong bond, but not a flexible one. I recently found out that some superglue formulas include some rubber into the cyanoacrylite, giving it the ability to resist those sheering forces, and some flexibility so that it doesn't *snap* so badly. I hear good things about the performance of these types of superglue, and am going to give it a try on my next batch of minis.

Update.

A quick update. My Everblight are at about 25 points, counting the starter box shredders. I've decided to keep with the shooty army, and get a Ravagore with a Shepherd next.
Khador are going strong. I have the last two Demo Corps units to finish, and then I'll catch up with my Battle Mechaniks. I also have pEiryss to paint up. Kovnik Joe is finished.
I'm eyeing the Man O War Drakkhun as my next Khador purchase.

And I have started to collect X-Wing miniatures. I got to play a bit at Around the Table Games, but X-Wing is a side game, and I don't put as much time into it as Warmachine.

On a painting note, I have given up on GW's new wash formula. The stuff is leaving a gunky residue in the crevices, and since I had good results with making my own washes, with a simple medium-water-paint mix, I see no reason to buy GW washes anymore. Let me know if they change the formula, and I'll give them another shot.

X-Wing Miniatures

I can't resist the siren song of X-Wing anymore. I'm probably going to pick up a starter this weekend.

Everblight Battle Box is done.

Next up is the Succubus to get my army to 15 points.

Some critical thoughs on Everblight.

They is hard.

Out of my plastic battle box, pLylyth was easy-peasy. Simple assembly, easy to paint.

The Carnivean was a difficult assembly. There are two joins near the tail and the torso that are bare skin, and either leave a gap, or have to be filled and smoothed out. This leaves the jumble of legs/limbs difficult to reach with a brush. Partial assembly is not a good option if you want to fill those gaps.

The Shredders are tiny, with lots of mold lines on the insides of the legs, and fiddly bits to file and clean.

The Succubus wasn't too terrible, just time consuming.

And I'm nearing completing of the Naga Nightlurker. I'd call it the Naga Nightmare. The section where the tail meets the main body is hard to pin, hard to glue, and hard to fill the gap. I've used superglue gel, green stuff putty, testors gap filler AND am going to use a thin coat of white glue to try and smooth it all out. I'm hoping that pinning both the body and tail sections to the base will give it some stability and strength.

In all, I'd say that so far the Everblight models are a bitch to work with, and are definitley not for a beginner. Go with Khador if you're a newbie. My Khador army was, with a few rough spots on the resin/plastic Jacks, pretty simple and straightforward.

Oh, and I got the Man-O-War Kovnik matte coated today. It feels good to get him off the painting table.

Painting disasters.

I had hoped to be able to put a GW Druchii Violet wash over the white primer for my Everblight warbeasts, but the primer did not take the wash well. I'm going to have to go over and fix the whole thing.

And then tonight I spilled nearly the whole bottle of violet wash on my painting table. I swear, GW paint pots get worse and worse every time they change the pots. I've switched to Reaper colors for most of my layer paints, but I still use GW metallics and washes.

I really need to transfer the paints to empty Reaper bottles, but it sometimes takes a little disaster like that to put a fire under my ass.

Highlighting with washes.

I did up my Pan Oceania starter box with an experiment. I got a bottle of matte medium and used it to make my own washes on the fly. I used Reaper triads, using the lightest color as the base coat, and then did a wash of the medium color, and a second wash in the darkest color.

Not bad results. Fast and easy. The Orc trooper on the left was done with more traditional layering, which is why he looks a bit darker than the others.

Everblight, the lists.

After doing some research on Battle College, I started to form up my lists.

Battle box to 15 points. I'm going to add the Succubus. She brings the army right to 15 points, and has some neat support abilities.

15 to 25 points. I'm going to drop three of the Shredders, and add a Naga Nightlurker, a unit of Blighted Nyss Striders with the Unit Attachment, and a Forsaken.

The Naga is for hunting troublesome solos like Gorman DiWulfe. I'm starting with the Striders because of their stealth ability, and their Combined Ranged Attack.

25 to 35 points. I had considered more tarpit units, but instead decided on a very shooty army. So at 35 points I'll add the Blighted Nyss Archers, and their Unit Attachment. I'll also add a Blighted Nyss Shepherd, for more fury management, and a Strider Deathstalker to add more value to the Striders.

35 to 50 points. Time to add Typhon! And add 4 more Nyss Archers to round out the 50 points.

Should be a fun change from my Khador army. I'm really looking forward to building up this force and trying them out.

Mini review. Krylon primer and gloss sealer.

Over the Christmas break, I started my Everblight boxed set. I picked up some primer and sealer.

http://www.krylon.com/products/dual-paint-primer/

I primed pLylyth with the flat black. The paint went on smooth and matte. Excellent black primer. I will be using this in the future for my black priming.

I primed her warbeasts in the flat white. This went on a bit gunky and a bit gloss. After drying, the results were adequate. Not as good as the flat black, but acceptable. I will use this in the future if there is no better white primer available.

I finished pLylyth and gave her a coat of the Krylon Colormaster Acrylic Clear Gloss.

http://www.krylon.com/products/colormaster-acrylic-crystal-clear/

This went on extremely well, even though the humidity was 86%. I did use a green army man to test the gloss before blasting it on Lylyth! I can't stress this enough: It's much better to see a 25cent plastic army man get a frosted coat, than your newly painted miniature! 
The colormaster gloss is excellent, and I'll be using it in the future as well.

After the gloss coat dries, I"ll give Lylyth a coat of Testors Dullcote to take off the shine, while leaving a nice protective layer underneath.