Last week I painted .... some standing stones.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Okay, so last week I gave myself a to do list (but never wrote it down because I didn't want to jinx it). it went like this:

Glue some of (but preferably all) 12 spikes on the 2nd warpwolf.
paint the skin on both Grimdalf's
fill the gap in the slot and paint the base of the second argus who's really been waiting for almost a year now
paint both units of shifting stones.

And by the end of the week the second unit of shifting stones was only half finished but everything else was done. So today, while it was all overcast but had at least stopped raining, I took some photo's of the finished unit (the second lot have bits of rock flock on their bases so I'll be able to tell them apart). Yes, there are two or three shades of green and three different shades of grey on those (the second unit merely need the final highlight on the grey then I can base them up too :)). Finishing two entire units (well, almost finishing two) was a great psychological milestone.

[Keeper]

They look great Balgin :)  What game are they for?  I assume they're not just scenery or objective markers.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

They look great Balgin :)  What game are they for?  I assume they're not just scenery or objective markers.

They are the utility unit from hell my friend :).

In Hordes the druid army (it's more of a skirmish game than an army game) can use the stones for many different purposes. OH yeah, and they're dead cheap as well (same ammount of points as you'd pay for a unit champion, so basicaly you could field 3 units of these for the same price as a normal unit, exept you can only have two, maybe four in big games :)).

1: The stones do not "move". However, they can "drill down into the ground" and then "drill up" at another point up to 8" away but must each be within 3" of another stone after all 3 have moved".

2: A stone may use it's action to remove damage points from itself and all friendly things within 1" of it (it's specificaly called removing damage because all the various stone constructs cannot be healed by normal means). Any given model may only benefit from having damage removed once per turn (no doing it with all 3 stones on the same thing, it doesn't stack).

3: All three stones may combine their action to teleport a friendly model who's base is even partialy in the area between all 3 stone's bases (and yes, that means the outer edges of their bases, not the inner edges) up to 8" in any given direction. The creature may not move after being teleported this turn (but can move beforehand such as walking into the ring of standing stones and waiting to be teleported :)).

Because they're made of stone (and not moving) they use the same rules as scenery - stationary targets, very hard to damage etc. Because they have bases you can't move through them (so they can easily disrupt charges) and also they can box in and trap small based models by drilling down and bursting up equaly spaced around with so there's no gap large enough for them to movwe through.

And having two units of them is just nasty :). What's even nastier is the new druid solo who can teleport so long as there are a unit of these stones anywhere on the table. He can either A: teleport from anywhere on the table to within 1" of any shifting stone, or B: whilst standing within 1" of any shifting stone he can teleport to anywhere on the table! Combined with his other spells that's just sickeningly good.

The druids are the shifty tricky faction who basicaly ignore scenery penalties to moving and shooting, can teleport about like yoyo's and do whatever they want. They might not pack much of a punch but they exell at ganging up and table control (which makes a nice change from my "fifteen hundred points of Khadoran Steel" or my small Rhulic dwarf gun force).

[Keeper]

They sound great.  But I think I'm missing something.  Which game are they for?  One must know these things in order to research such stuff properly! ;)

[Balgin Stondraeg]

In Hordes

Hordes is fun (it's like Warmachine but with monsters instead of silly robots). The druids are the unpredictable faction. Whilst Trolls smash (and are all about individual achievment), the Skorne cooperate as an actual army, the tainted Legion swarm like genestealers and then the druids can play a fast & flexible game, an all stone "tough" list or a magic heavy list depending on what the player likes :).

[Carcharoth]

I seem to have similar tastes to Balgin, at least for Warmachine/Hordes... My tricksy Circle do make a very pleasant change from my old beatstick Khador!
Nice job with the shifting stones. What else have you got painted? I think I'll have a quick browse through the forum and see what else I can find of your circle...

[Balgin Stondraeg]

I seem to have similar tastes to Balgin, at least for Warmachine/Hordes... My tricksy Circle do make a very pleasant change from my old beatstick Khador!

Do you have about 650-700 points of pure Rhulic mercenaries as well? And do you have enough other miscelanious stuff to field a 500 point mercenary force anyway?

I'm considering converting Haela into an alternate Hammerfall sergeant/squadie but I suspect it'll be hard work.

[Keeper]

I seem to have similar tastes to Balgin

Now there is a statement you don't see every day! :icon_wink:

Thanks guys, I shall investigate Hoards, although I'm so fickle about what I'm interested in painting and playing I'll probably try _not_ to pick it up, so that there isn't something else on the list!

[Carcharoth]

Do you have about 650-700 points of pure Rhulic mercenaries as well? And do you have enough other miscelanious stuff to field a 500 point mercenary force anyway?

Dammit I almost do... or I would if they would just get on and release another rhulic unit (for a while I was tempted to convert some rhulic halberdiers, but managed to resist that particular random idea). Kev's hammerfall are great sculpts, but I can't quite bring myself to get a second unit when I've got so many other models in need of painting.

Ashlynn's force never progressed very far, but I can just about field 500pts.

And yes, a quick conversion of Haela as a hammerfall, or perhaps a random solo, was the first thing I thought when seeing her...

Not sure if I should be concerned  :icon_wink:

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Do you have about 650-700 points of pure Rhulic mercenaries as well? And do you have enough other miscelanious stuff to field a 500 point mercenary force anyway?

Dammit I almost do... or I would if they would just get on and release another rhulic unit (for a while I was tempted to convert some rhulic halberdiers, but managed to resist that particular random idea).

They need a non ogre, non solo close combat unit (like Hammerfall but with enough P+S to actualy hurt something and enough mat to actualy hit for once).

They also need a mechanic but now the pirates got one so there won't be another mercenary mechanic (despite the fact that the rhulic jacks are the worst mercenary jacks around, unless you line up the tripple gunbot firing squad of doom).

Not sure if I should be concerned

Don't worry. Whenever Selya announces a WIP there's a 75% chance that I'm painting the exact same thing. That's scary. I often seem to be painting stuff she's painting too if I announce it first. We clearly don't have identical tastes as she likes Rackham stuff (she actualy likes it) and I don't. Our tastes are very similar in most other areas 'though right down to specific models.

So you've got nothing to be worried about. Clearly you've just got very good taste (or we all have very bad taste in which case we won't mind your preferences so it doesn't matter anyway :p).