Of Bendy Pikes, and Magnetic Shields.

Iron Fangs have got to be my favorite unit aesthetically. I think the unit that made me want to get Khador was probably the widowmakers, as well as the big stompy robots. But once I had gotten into Khador and began looking into the different options that they contained Iron Fangs were definitely the coolest. There is a reason that my forum name on privateer press is "The Iron Fang."

Unfortunately when I initially got into the game Iron Fang's were lacking a bit. I started shortly before the release of Colossals and Khador's best bet for a victory then was high defense. So I made the winterguard purchase and the Kayazy Assasin purchase. . . and then Colossals dropped and while not completely invalidating those purchases, Iron Fangs stock certainly began to go up. Then the Iron Fang Kovnik came out and they really started to shine. But since they are an all metal unit they aren't that cheap so it took me some scrimping and saving to be able to get them.

When you do get the Iron Fang unit, whatever drives you to them. You'll notice very quickly one painful fact. . .

The pikes are downright squirly. They will bend and twist to the point that instead of looking like a spear you can make them look like a crazy straw. The solution to this problem is more or less universally agreed to. You remove the pewter pike and replace it with a brass rod. 

The other thing that might not be readily apparent but that you should nonetheless be made aware of is that Privater Press currently has two units both based on the same Iron Fang kit. One is the regular Iron Fangs, and the other is the Iron Fang Black Dragons. I won't go into which is better, in part cause i don't think there is an answer and in part because this is a hobby post, but the fact is that the Black Dragons differ from the regular pikeman primarily because of the shields they carry and the banner that their UA holds. That's it!!! As someone who hates repurchasing units because of slight variations, I decided I would also take the step of magnetizing my pikeman's shield. The end goal being to go from this. . . 

To this. . .

With the option of Magnetically attaching the shield like this. . . 

WARNING PICTURE BARAGE TO FOLLOW.

So I figure in this post I can give you a run down of how to make the change from the regular super bendy pikes to the brass rodded ones. 

From left to right the tools I used were just super glue, sprue cutter, a pin vice with 1/16" drill bit, exacto knife, file, saw, and a dremel with 1/8" drill bit. 

Materials. . . other than the box of 10 Iron Fangs, I also used 1/8" magnets, brass rod I found at hobby lobby, 1/16" magnets, and copper rod (for pinning). 

So step one is separating the pike bits. The warhead and counter weight come off pretty easy the arms can be a bit trickier but should cut away pretty easily. using the 1/16" drill bit you get the holes for each end and drill through the arm. You'll want to cut the rod to the right length as well. I looked at lengths between an inch and a half and two inches, but each looked a little bit wrong. I ended up going with an inch and three-quarters. then just cut them all to the same length. Uniformity is the key. Then just glue on one end, thread it through the hand, glue in place and then glue on the other end. 

For the shields I drilled out a small pot in the arm and put in a 1/16" magnet. initially in the shield I also drilled out a 1/16" spot for a magnet but found that the shields held better using a 1/8" magnet so I actually ended up using a larger magnet than is pictured below. 

Here is an image with the arm and the shield both drilled out and glued on.

When you get them all glued up they will start to look like this. 

And a group shot to let you see what they look like all shield walled up. 

Here they are charging full speed ahead. 

 Till next time, keep your pikes straight Komrades.

"I'm a Grolar Bear and it's ok . . . "

"I work all night and I sleep all day."

Ok just in case you play Warmachine but don't follow Warmachine news, the last of the spoilers are in from Vengeance. I'll admit that a number of things are somewhat disappointing to me, I don't mean to complain really, I would argue that Khador is the winner of this book, (with Retribution coming in at a strong second place.) I'm merely a little dissapointed because I was hoping for more. Maybe that is just because most of the "new" models being released in the book are already out. In fact of the 5 entries that Khador gets, 3 are already out, and one was spoiled ages again at the Warmachine Tactics Kickstarter. While I didn't mind getting access to all this stuff before the book is released to find out that there was only 1 thing left in the book that belonged to Khador that hadn't already been spoiled was a bit disappointing, I was at least hoping we would get the warjack of renowned and then a character Jack. But oh well, it is what it is, and this may give me time to catch up and get all the vengeance models before a new book comes out.

So without further ado, I give you the Grolar. . .

No I am not kiddin, that is it's name. . .  Grolar!!! And no it is not fictional. Turns out a Grolar is what you get when a male Grizzly Bear decides it's ideal mate is the largest living species of terrestrial predator known to man, the polar bear. Oh I see this isn't the picture of a Grolar you were looking for, well how about this.


The art on this thing is pretty cool. Stat wise we have the following info from http://www.belloflostsouls.net

He has Kodiak stats of course, and like a Kodiak, has the Pathfinder rule. No Double Boiler though. Instead he has the fleet rule. If he spends a Focus he'll get an extra 2" of movement for a round. Some of the more outrageous rumors I was reading about this guy are true. He does indeed have a RoF 5 gun: the Auto Cannon. It has the Double Strike rule allowing it to make two extra attacks per focus spent. The downside is it has a mediocre RNG and POW of 8 and 12 respectively. It also has Gun Fighter rule which means with it's open fist and Piston Hammer it can make three initial attacks. And to make it even sweeter it has Virtuoso as well. As for the Piston Hammer, it's a nice solid P+S 18. No Reach, but it has the Ram special rule. It's like Beat Back but also knocks it's target down. I feel like there's another model out there with this rule but I'm blanking on it... At 9 points, this is the most expensive warjack [in vengeance] so far.

I've seen a lot of discussion on this jack just in the few days since info on it has become available, and it seems like people are of a mixed mind on how good it is.  As to how good it is or will be I will leave that for another time. But I want to suggest an axiom to live by for this game. I will probably come up with others as time goes on. Proof is in Practiced Play-testing. Anything else, any other theories or dojo are just that, theoretical. If there is one thing that you see way to much of online and in the forums it is theorizing without ever giving it a chance. If you want to know how good something is, don't trust anything anyone else says. Take it and play-test with it. Multiple times, not just once, this game has enough complexities that just one run through is not enough to know how well something works. This is something that Khador players in particular seem to struggle with on occasion. (Probably stemming from the fact that most of us were originally attracted to the big stompy robots and quickly forced back to reality.)

All this being said I fully intend to do a quick comparison that is entirely theoretical because the model just came out. So here is my magical, mythical, sparkly Grolar theory.

The Grolar is the best 9 point jack that we have in Khador. Not to say that is will see a lot of play or replace all other jacks. Not even saying that it will replace the other 9 point jacks in every list. But by straight up comparison it just has so much utility. As a refresher the other 9 point jacks available to us are the 4 D's: Decimator, Demolisher, Destroyer, Devastator. Enter the Grolar. For arguments sake lets say that you have exactly 9 points left for your 1 warjack. Lets do a quick comparison here. All 5 jacks are speed 4. But only one has a built in way to gain +2" movement. . . GROLAR. Only one of these has a built in pathfinder. . . GROLAR. They all have the same MAT/RAT but only one has gunfighter and virtuoso. . . GROLAR. So only one of the 5 jacks gets 3 initial Melee Attacks. . . GROLAR. In terms of Utility only 1 jack has an auto knockdown weapon that also has built in beatback, and can easily target either hordes of infantry or a hard target, or both, in a given turn. . . GROLAR. 

Decimator will still be better at shooting hard targets from range. Demolisher and Devastator will likely still be better for scenario play as they can be ARM 25 wrecking balls you swing at your opponents army. Destroyers, well Destroyers will forever be sad, so we don't talk about them lest we get depressed. But the Grolar, for my money play-testing will prove Grolar to be an excellent choice of Jack. I'll follow up on this more once i've had a chance to prove it through play-testing. 

Untill then. . . GROLAR BEAR I CHOOSE YOU!!!