Making Terrain on a Budget: Acid Bath

I have been continuing making terrain for my home table, I really wanted to get some of the lesser used terrain types made so I can include them in my games. Like all my other terrain I want to make them look good but be as playable as possible. Removable decorative pieces are a great way to have the balance between terrain being visually appealing and playable.

Like all my other terrain pieces the base part is made using thin mdf, I used cling film (saran wrap for those overseas) to make the acid pools. These acid pools on the terrains base are not as good looking as the removable pieces but it does enough that players will always know what type of terrain that area is.

One of my gaming buddies gave me these resin terrain pieces and they seemed perfect for this project. I love how they look but if they were glued down they would make it very hard to play as models would have a very hard time balancing on them.

It was fun to paint the acid looking pools, I do want to give them a coat of gloss varnish but currently I don't own any. I will likely go back and do it one day if I get some.

What do you think of my Acid Bath terrain? Do you use this terrain type in your games? If you do please share with me what your terrain looks like I would love to see it.

I did a review for the resin acid pool pieces you can find it here

You can find them for sale here should you want them

(I you can, let them know you found them here it could help me out who knows??)

Jack Marshal Explained

This article was picked by Greylord Dave as his prize for my 5 years of blogging celebration.

Jack Marshals are available to most Warmachine factions and two Hordes factions, they are a different way to add a Warjack to a list without it using your Warcasters rescources.

The choice to put a Warjack with a Jack Marshal is made during list creation, so you can't swap a Warjack from your Warcaster onto a Jack Marshal before a game starts. You also can't spend a Warcasters Warjack points on a Jack Marshalled Warjack.

Jack Marshal Benefits 

During the Warjack's activation it can gain one of the following benefits if it activates in its controllers command range. If its controller is knocked down or stationary, or the Warjacks cortex is crippled then it can't gain any of these benefits.

Crush

The Warjack can make an additional melee attack during its activation and gains +2 to all its melee damage rolls this activation

Hurry

The Warjack can run, charge, or make a power attack without spending focus during its activation. It also gains +2 to charge and slam attack rolls during its activation.

Strike True

The Warjack gains +2 to all its attack rolls this activation.

Take Aim

If the Warjack forfeits its movement to aim this turn it additionally gains +2 to all its ranged attack damage rolls.

Shake
The Warjack can shake the following effects: Knockdown, Stationary, Shadowbind and Blind. This will remove all these effects, you don't need to just pick one effect.

Drives

Many Jack Marshals have a special rule called a Drive, this is an extra bonus that they grant to a warjack that they control.

These can vary a lot and they often influence what type of Warjack you would give to the Jack Marshal.

For example the Cygnar Gunmage CA gives a Warjack it controls the Drive: Rune Shot, which allows it to use the Gunmage's shot types and makes its ranged attacks magical. This makes it a given that you would put a Warjack with a decent ranged weapon for the Jack Marshal to control.

The death of its controller...

Should the Jack Marshal be destroyed or removed from play the Warjack becomes autonomous. Which means it can still activate normally but is unable to gain any of the benefits listed above.

A friendly faction Warcaster, Journeyman warcaster or another Jack Marshal can take control of an autonomous Warjack by moving into base to base contact and spending a focus (for Warcasters and Journeyman Warcasters) or forfeiting their combat action (for Jack Marshals) the Warjack must forfeit its combat action the turn it is reactivated.

It is worth checking what other models in your army have the Jack Marshal special rule so that you can bring the Warjack under their control should its original controller die.

If a Jack Marshal is a member of a unit only the model with the Jack Marshal special rule actually controls the Warjack. This means you measure from that model for the Jack marshal benefits, and if the model with the Jack Marshal rule dies the jack has no controller. (Unlike in mk2 which made the unit take control of the Warjack. I have seen a few people still play it this way unaware that it has changed)

Spells

Jack Marshalled Warjacks can still benefit from a lot of spells, but spells that mention "battlegroup" will not work for them. A battlegroup is the term given to a Warcaster or Journeyman Warcaster's and their Warjacks

Focus

The most common question I see asked about them in forums and Facebook group is "do their Warjacks gain power up Focus?"

The answer to that is no, as they are not part of a battlegroup they don't gain power up Focus.

Because they don't gain any Focus during the Control phase they can not shake effects like Knockdown, Stationary, Blind and Shadow bind. This makes them more vulnerable to being taken out of use for a turn or two if the other players army has easy access to these effects.

A Jack Marshalled Warjack can still gain Focus from alternative ways such as the Empower special action some models have, or from Accumulator special rule.

Ranking officer

Ranking officers attach to Mercenary units to make them count as the faction of the army they are being used with. Currently at the time I'm writing this there is only one Mercenary unit which has the Jack Marshal rule which is Captain Sam MacHorne & The Devil Dogs. They can be taken in Cygnar and Protectorate of Menoth.

The question which often gets asked about them is can they still bring a Mercenary Warjack or can they bring a Warjack from their adopted factions. They can bring a Mercenary Warjack and can control it, even though technically they count as being from different factions while the Ranking Officer is attached.

This means that Sam MacHorne can't benefit from her Iron Sentinel while base to base with her own marshalled Warjack, but will gain the benefit from her adopted factions Warjacks.

If the Ranking Officer dies during the game she reverts back to being a Mercenary model and would be able to gain the Iron Sentinel benefit from her own Mercenary Warjack.

In summary Jack Marshals are an alternative way to run a Warjack in your lists, with their own pros and cons. I personally recommend writing out a "cheat sheet" of the 4 different Jack Marshal benefits to remind you during your games when using them, until you are familiar with them all.

 I hope you found this article helpful, if you did please let me know. If there was anything you thought I missed I'm sure you are already typing it! I appreciate all feedback as it all goes towards improving future articles!

If you want to support my content consider taking a look at my Patreon which you can find here. I don't put any content behind a paywall but I do offer rewards to people who support me in ways like getting to vote on what content I work on in the future or outright just picking the next subject of an article.

See you all next time!

Blackhide Wrastler for Widowers Wood Painted

The Blackhide Wrastler for the Widowers Wood board game has a bunch of extra details that make it look really awesome in my opinion.  

Again with the rope... minions love rope for some reason!?!? I don't see what purpose all the rope on its hands serves but its there...

The net on its back holds a bunch of bones, bits of some person and a small amount of crab. Like a budget lunch box

The shell on his shoulder is the same as one half of an Ironback Spitters, I painted it in the same style as my Ironback spitter I hope I managed to match them well enough. You can see my Ironback spitter here and see how I did matching the shell

His necklace isn't as fancy as the Blind Walkers...

Better close up of the food he brings with him. I like the leg of pork especially, I imagine it was from a Farrow

His mask is made from the skin of defeated foes, you can see arms hanging down the front edges and patches with eye and mouth holes. Nice gristly details

What do you think of my Wrastler? This model is huge! Much bigger than I imagined it would be before I got it.

Blind Walker Painted

I won't beat around the bush here this was a tough models to paint! But it was well worth the effort, I really like how it turned out.

The rope... dear god the rope!!! So much of it to highlight while trying to not ruin the gator scales underneath...

I painted the head and the attached necklace separately which is unusual for me but it was well worth it to be able to paint the chest and the back of the necklaces details. I love all the little trinkets that are mixed in with the bones like a voodoo doll some feathers and a bottle. 

I like how the gemstone eye looks, the purple really contrasts with the rest of the model nicely.

I was really nervous about painting all the candles mixed in with all those bones. I wanted the choices of different colours to look random I didn't want a red, black, yellow - repeat. It would look boring and maybe a little jarring to me.

What do you think of my Blind Walker? I'm so pleased with it now its painted!

Hunter light warjack Converted for Competition winner

One of the prizes I gave out as part of the celebration for my blog turning 5 years old was a commission. Alex was the winner and asked that I convert a Cygnar Hunter light warjack to look less hunched over and squatting. He also asked for the axe to be changed as he wasn't fond of the shape of the head of it. 

The hardest step was to cut the legs apart. Once I had the conversion was underway and proceeded quickly.

I use a pipe cutter to cut plastic tube to length, this keeps the cut perfectly straight.

I also cut two small sections of a wider plastic pipe for detailing later.

First test fit of the legs, they looked too long at this point and I wasn't happy with how the pose looked. It looked too much like a lanky version of the original pose so I figured Alex wouldn't be happy with it.

I drilled into all the various parts for the project. I like models I assemble to stay assembled, so I pin everything I possibly can to make it as strong as I can.

I was able to use one pin to go all the way from the knee joint through to the leg then the foot and into the base.

I shortened the leg a little and measured it to make sure that both legs would be the same length. I also cut lengths of brass rod to attach behind the main bulk of the legs.

I added the small sections of wider pipe to the tops of the lower legs, this was just to add detail and isn't structural at all.

The brass rod then got attached behind the legs. I repeated the process with the second leg and pinned that leg to the hip joint.

I wanted to get the model into a pose that was not squatting but also dynamic enough without making it look unbelievable. To get the legs to fit onto the base I elevated the left leg onto some cork which represents rocks and posed the right leg backwards to make it look as though the warjack is striding up the rocks or perhaps taking aim.

The guidance Alex gave me about the axe was to make it more like a woodsman's axe I found this image and used it as a reference for reshaping the axe.

I cut it down and filed the cut edges to make them smoother and less obviously cut.

I added a scope to the gun to make the warjack look more like a marksman.

I did a test pose of the arms using bluetac to hold them in place, I do this to see how the finished model will look before committing to gluing. I don't attach the head at this point though as I like to use the head as a final posing option, a small tilt to one side can often change the feel of a model so I like to wait until the end to choose how to attach the head.

I wasn't happy with how the axe looked raised up like this, it looked too much like it was happily strolling around, I wanted the pose to look a little more like it was stalking its target.

Lowering the axe and tilting it inward achieved the look I was going for, it also helped to keep the models centre of gravity lower so it would have less balance issues on the table.

The pin in the left leg really helps anchor the model to the base, its running from the underside of the base through the cork,into the foot then the lower and upper leg of the model.

I covered it over with greenstuff to fully secure it.

Now I had the pose sorted I pinned the arms and head to the body to firmly attach them.

I then added an extra detail that seemed fitting, the severed head of a previous kill...

Here it is next to one of my painted stock pose Hunters, there is quite the difference in height. 

The squatting pose issue is completely solved, you can see here looking at my stock hunter what Alex was mentioning. 

I actually sent this out to him a while ago and he received it about a month ago, but I wanted him to have the model for a while before I posted about it here on my blog.

He was happy with the conversion and the name that I gave it while I worked on it.

So thats "The Huntsman" conversion complete and I am very happy with how it went.

What do you think of this conversion? Have you reposed a Hunter before? If you have let me know how you got on with it! I would love to see your work.