Lock and Load, Steamroller 2012 and Golden Guardsmen

 Well it's been a while since my last post. I'm still here, just haven't finished anything in the paint department. I've started quite a few painting projects that either never get finished or get finished much later. I seem to loose interest in finishing a model about half way through. Not sure why but I'll look over at my pile of stuff and think "damn that would look awesome finished" and move on... But hey, I've been a painfully slow painter since the beginning. I'm ok with it. On my table right now: Nightmare, Machine Wraith, Scaverous, pSkarre, eSkarre, Cankerworm, Gorman, Pistol Wraith and a Harrower. All are about half way right now. I just need to start finishing them.

Lock and Load

So what have I been up to? Well I went to my first ever CON, Lock and Load. I had registered for the masters and hardcore tournaments but when the time came I found myself not looking forward to the added stress. I decided to just take it easy and enjoy my first major miniature event. It helps that Friday morning was crazy busy at work too, which caused me to miss the masters preliminaries.
I was able to play a handful of games over the course of the weekend. All the people I played with were very nice and respectful which helped me ease into the whole thing. I checked out the PP store which was fully stocked with goodness. I was able to get some caber throwers for my trolls finally, and the sons of bragg too. I snuck into a sculpting seminar that was pretty neat. All in all it was a fun experience. I would go again. Maybe next time I'll take part in the tournaments though.

 This big blue 'Jack was stationed right outside the main gaming hall.

 Deploying my army on one of the scenic tables.

 A hard fought battle for the bridge.

The MOUNTAIN KING! And Sons of Bragg.

Steamroller 2012
 
So it turns out that the following weekend after Lock and Load my local game store was holding a steam roller 2012 tourney. Being amped up from the con I decided to attend for better or worse. I spent quite a while trying to come up with strong lists to bring but in the end I just took whatever was painted. The only model that didn't have a finished coat of paint was Nightmare who will be done someday soon. I was only able to assemble one list as a result of only using painted models too. But I wasn't going to win it, I was going to look good. Anyway, my first round was a bye (I was the odd man out, but it was considered a win). Second round I went up against an epic Caine Cygnar list. I was using pDeneghra and most of the painted models in my Cryx archive here. It was a hard fought battle swinging the favor back and forth until my opponent ran out of time on the deathclock. I won by time however, if the game had gone on it could have gone either way. Very fun game that was though. So, on to round three. With two 'technical' wins under my belt I now faced the reigning champion in these parts with his Bethayne Legion of Everblight list. It was ugly for me, my soldiers were getting killed like it was going out of style. At one point my opponent edged Belphegore up to the killbox limit, later in the game he popped Bethayne out the back of the Belphegore but opted not to move her. Whilst allocating my focus it dawned on me that she was out of the killbox. So somehow I managed to win and move on to the final round. I felt a little silly at this point especially considering how much my ass was being handed to me. But hey whatever. Final round was against a Kaelyssa Retribution of Scyrah list. It was a hard fought battle that my opponent was dominating. In the end I just barely managed to squeeze Nightmare through a hole and walk up to his caster and kill her. On the final roll of my attacks I needed an 8 to hit and needed to do only a few more damage. One dramatic pause later and pDeneghra was washing Kaelyssa bits off of Nightmare's claws.
Yeah, so after all of that, I won the tournament. Pretty silly.

Golden Guardsmen Forge World Fail
 
On the 40k side of things I have been pretty unproductive. I was going to enter into the Golden Guardsmen painting competition hosted by the Imperial Guard message board. The theme was big guns. I had just the thing in mind. A while back I ordered a Medusa siege tank and a Death Korps of Krieg artillery crew from Forge World. I had all the time in the world to paint it up to match my Leman Russes. It just arrived two weeks ago, right about the time when the competition finished. Damn them, that's the longest I've ever had to wait for a Forge World order. On the up side, the next Golden Guardsmen will be command models. I have my command squad assembled and waiting for a touch of green stuff. Maybe I'll paint them up and enter.