Modelling Cork Bases

I've been pretty smitten with cork bases lately.  They make easy, natural looking rock formations in a pinch and cork is cheap and easy to find.  Here is a little walk through of how I use cork (particularly on small and medium based models).

The cork comes in a pack with 2 sheets of it purchased from Daiso (2 dollar store).  They have varying sizes but I chose the thickest one I could find for some nice elevation with my figs.

I began by ripping a chunk of cork from the sheet with my fingers.  For smaller models this is very doable and looks more natural and random than using a knife.  If you really want to use a knife to cut the pieces you can just rip small chunks off the edges later with your fingers instead.  I super glue the cork directly to the base.  It has enough surface area that the glue by itself will suffice without any need for pinning.

It's okay and actually encouraged to go over the lip of the base.  In my opinion it creates more of a surrounding atmosphere to the model; you can easily imagine the rocky, uneven terrain in the figure's environs.  This admittedly sometimes conflicts with practicality and ease of playing a game from time to time.

The next stage is prepping your figure.  It may be common knowledge to some, but a good trick is using the hunk of metal designed to fit into a slotted base as your ally!  Simply cut off the majority of the metal tag but leave a little 'peg' attached to either or both of the figure's legs.  These will act as your pins without needing to fool around with an annoying and time consuming drill.

After you've created your handy pin, test-fit the model on the cork.  It's important to choose a piece of cork that will have enough surface area on the top to position both of the figure's legs securely.  Once you've chosen a suitable location for the fig, use a hobby knife to 'dig' holes in the cork where the model's pins will slide into.

I think the rest is self explanatory though I love stating the obvious:  super glue the figure onto the cork using your crafty pin and laugh as all your attempts to destroy and uproot your figure from its base are futile!

Here's the completed unit:

Drexoll League Tournament Battle Report Write Up

On Sunday November 24th, 2013 I attended a Warmachine and Hordes tournament at Drexoll games on West 4th ave near Arbutus on Vancouver's West side.  This is a brief summary of the 4 games I played using 2 50 point Skorne lists detailed below.  The tournament was run by Douglas Duncan, a newish press ganger in the area who did a magnificent job and sacrificed not only his time to run the event but various donations for prizes as well (including an Army Transport bag and some models out of his own collection!).

The 2 lists I used were:

Dominar Rasheth tier 4 chain gang:
Rasheth +5
Bronzeback Titan -9
Titan Gladiator -7
Titan Sentry -8
Titan Sentry -8
Basilisk Krea -4
Gatorman Posse max -9
Paingiver Beasthandlers max -3
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew -1
Paingiver Taskmaster -2
Agonizer -2
Agonizer -2

Lord Arbiter Hexeris +6
Bronzeback Titan -10
Titan Gladiator -8
Titan Sentry -9 (bonded beast)
Basilisk Krea -4
Gatorman Posse max -9
Venator Rievers min -5
- Venator Riever Officer and Standard -2
Paingiver Beasthandlers min -2
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew -1
Paingiver Taskmaster -2
Extoller Soulward -2
Mortitheurge Willbreaker -2

Round 1: Opponent: Andrei (Khador) Caster: Sorcha 2
Sorcha 2
Conquest
Beast 09
Winterguard Infantry max
-Winterguard Infantry Officer and Standard
Great Bears
War Wagon
Kovnik Gregorovich
Sylis Wyshnalyr
Thank goodness he chose this list. His second list was a Butcher 3 list who I'm totally uncomfortable playing against because I've never had the opportunity to face him before nor do I like playing against infantry swarms (which was pretty much was his list was).  I ended up choosing Rasheth in the hopes that he would play Sorcha 2 because I have 2 agonizers that could shut down his jacks no problem as well as having 4 titans to deal with a colossal if need be.  The game basically came down to some poor terrain situations for my opponent because he had 2 huge bases that were hard to maneuver around the board.  I had a turn 2 charge on his battle engine with one of my sentries and LUCKILY didn't kill the thing.  This created choking problems with his bases and I got a nice breath of corruption off in the space where his winter guard pretty much HAD to advance through.  They advanced anyway for the Motherland and many a Khadoran did die in that noxious cloud.  The next turn I got the jump on his jacks with agonizers and suddenly wasn't afraid to advance in to threat range of them.  The gladiator charged the damaged battle engine to finish it so my sentry could charge Beast 09 and rip off his ice axe and take out his movement.  In his next turn he tried in vain to use Sorcha's feat to put some hurt on my titans but after Sorcha herself charged my bronzeback, she epicly missed all of her attack rolls!  What poor luck for her.  The great bears charged and did a ton of damage but failed to take out any of my elephants.  The next turn I got my gladiator to do a boosted headbutt on the iron flesh'd Sorcha who was then knocked down for my bronzeback to beat her into the dirt even further.  Assassination victory for Skorne.

Round 2: Opponent: Jeremy (Legion of Everblight) Warlock: Vayl 1
Vayl 1
Proteus
Carnivaen
Angelius
Succubus
Blackfrost Shard
Blighted Ogryn Warspears min
- Warspears Cheiftan
Blighted Ogryn Warmongers min
- Warmonger Chieftan??
Forsaken x2
Spell Martyr x2
I think my opponent may have made the wrong choice in lists here.  His second list was Saeryn which would have been scary but not unbeatable for Rasheth.  I took Rasheth again obviously, for he is such a great matchup for hordes factions in general with all his debuffs and feat stacking nicely against living models.  He caught me off guard a little with a spell martyr running up turn 2 to rampager one of my sentries way up the field and then shot the sentry with Proteus' dragging tentacles.  Through all the chaos and 2 beasts focusing on the sentry, my opponent's beasts failed to get the job done and left him with enough hitboxes to strike back in my next turn.  My next turn was pretty bad for my opponent, with my feat going off and gators charging his angelius at +2 strength from the taskmaster and taking it off the field.  I ran a gobber to a nice location and with one nicely placed breath of corruption killed his succubus and all 3 of the blackfrost shard! I rammed titans down his throat and hoped he couldn't deal with all the armor and hitboxes under -2 strength from Rasheth's feat and -2 to damage rolls from my double agonizers crying in the back.  In his next turn he feats and kills the damaged sentry but doesnt achieve much else.  His cat and mouse shenanigans leave vayl protected by her two remaining heavies.  In my next turn I killed his carnivaen who did not have spiny growth on him at this time and then decided the assassination on vayl was good to go but of course i forgot about dark sentinel... lol.  so after Proteus moved and took out the mind of my sentry attacking vayl i gave up on that and just killed Proteus instead.  I removed both his forsaken and all his warspears at this point with my krea scoring some objective points out of the action.  In his next turn he vainly tried to do some damage with vayl and 2 remaining warmongers but then called the game after his efforts were futile.  Skorne victory via.. Assassination I guess?

Round 3: Opponent: Zach (Circle of Orboros) Warlock: Kruegar 2
Kruegar 2
Ghetorix
Warpwolf Stalker
Gorax
Tharn Bloodtrackers max
-Nuala
Druids of Orboros max
-Overseer
Shifting Stones
-Stonekeeper
Shifting Stones
Blackclad Wayfarer
Viktor Pendrake
Gallows Grove x2
Oh boy.. I just played against this warlock in a practice game the night before but luckily that list had more heavies to contend with my beef than this list did.  I used Rasheth again, purely for his awesomeness against hordes and the fact that in general circle has trouble dealing with that much armor in many circumstances.  I was trying to be smart the first turn by arm locking my own beasts so he couldnt forcebolt them up the field but my sentries said NO GET OFF ME! and didnlt allow either of my open fist beasts to successfully lock them.. sigh.. so in Zach's 2nd turn he pulls the gladiator probably a net 10" upfield between forcebolts and telekinesis.  Ghetorix shifts with a unit of stones and starts a swingin at the gladiator.. and fails to kill him with 1 box.  And then Zach fails to kill the gladiator through various other attempts including spraying with the blackclad, charging with viktor pendrake (lol really!?!) and then forgetting to attack it with his bloodtrackers who instead shot at their prey target - the gators.  In my next turn I didn't get a whole lot accomplished other than killing pendrake and advancing upfield a bit.  I charged a druid with a sentry and managed to also engage Ghetorix doing some damage there as well.  Kruegar feats on his next turn and primals Ghetorix to do some damage to the sentry and kill the gladiator.  The stalker also comes in to try to beat on the sentry but fails to kill it.  Now i have a good opportunity to kill the stalker and not worry about ghetorix for a turn because he automatically frenzies.  I manage to make it in melee range of the stalker with 2 sentries even while being -2 SPD from kruegar's feat.  I kill the sentry and do some more general attrition by removing some infantry and moving farther upfield with titans.  Rasheth has feated in the turn previous to mitigate damage and both agonizers are still crying away at -2 damage rolls.  In his next turn he turns my titans around with telekinesis and kills an agonizer from a frenzy attack with Ghetorix.  Kruegar is in a vulnerable spot.  My last turn I enrage the bronzeback and the sentry and have rasheth throw Carnivore on the bronzeback (mat 9 bronzebacks dont miss!).  the bronzeback then tramples for free toward a druid, casts trainwreck on himself, kills the druid and moves an inch engaging the stonekeeper, kills him advancing an inch toward kruegar, and then proceeds to beat kruegar to the ground with a fury point to spare.  Skorne assassination victory.

Round 4: Opponent: Ralph (Menoth) Caster: Kreoss 2
Kreoss 2 Tier 4?
Fires of Salvation
Exemplar Errants max
-Exemplar Errants UA
Knights Exemplar
Knights Exemplar
Daughters of the Flame
Daughters of the Flame
Exemplar Bastions max?
Bastion Seneschal
Menoth Dragoon solo (forget the name I never see it)
Errant Seneschal
Wow.. what a swarm of dudes.  I chose Hexeris 2 naturally for both of my opponent's lists featured many an infantry model.  This game basically consisted of me backing up with most of my stuff while I cast ashes to ashses, black spot, and hellfire at his stuff.  I'll spare the details but the game came down to me having hexeris 2, my bronzeback, 1 venator reiver, my extoller, 3 paingivers, a taskmaster and my willbreaker.  I was down to 48 seconds left on my deathclock! My opponent was dominating a zone with nothing but kreoss 2 left on his side of the board.  I hastily ran hexeris at full camp on to an objective so i could dominate it, and then ran the bronzeback toward my opponent's destructible objective, and ran the 3 paingivers, the taskmaster, and the willbreaker toeing into the zone to score and prevent my opponent from dominating.  in Ralph's final turn, he had to dominate to win or I would win on control points the minute my turn started.  He managed to clear the infantry I had in the zone using every last point of his focus and dominated to win the game!  what an epic battle!  This game was probably the best game of warmachine I had played.

Results: After it was all counted up, Ralph came in 1st place due to the amount of control points he had scored throughout the day.  He had a total of 15 while I had 12.  He got to take home an awesome Army Transport carrying bag and I got a $40 gift certificate to Drexoll games.  The rest of the prizes were given away at random to the attendees of the tournament.  What an exhausting but fun day of Warmachine!  I'm looking forward to my next warmachine tournament at Strategies in the new year.