#cog2

[kaitcreates]

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

first tsc books (cob, clockwork angel, lady midnight, cog2, and rsom)

last tsc books (cohf, clockwork princess, qoaad, cot, and tlbotw)

Idk if you want 1 list or 2 separate ones (?) so I'll do both

Chain of Gold

Clockwork Angel

Red Scrolls of Magic

City of Bones

Lady Midnight

Chain of Thorns

Clockwork Princess

The Lost Book of the White

City of Heavenly Fire

Queen of Air and Darkness

I also just realized how consistent I am. Huh.

Anyway:

Chain of Thorns

Chain of Gold

Clockwork Princess

Clockwork Angel

The Red Scrolls of Magic

The Lost Book of the White

City of Heavenly Fire

City of Bones

Lady Midnight

Queen of Air and Darkness

I really do just sort things by series. Huh

[minisception]

Took home 1st place with a 3-0 record (doesn't mean much, this was not a serious competitive event) and best painted - even with my unfinished blood knights.

Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of the actual games. whoops!

Format: contest of generals 2 with the additional limitations of no battalions + your army is exactly the contents of a single vanguard or spearhead box (including mid game summons, so no free wolves for vyrkos), played on half-sized tables. This is not at all a balanced format, partially because AoS 3e in general is balanced for 2,000 points and scales down badly in ways this format doesn't address, partially because half-sized tables + CoG2 scenarios means opposing sides typically start 15 inches apart from each other, which is within easy charge range for faster units, and partially because the vanguard box contents are selected to be roughly the same dollar cost worth of models, not the same points worth of units, leading to some painfully mismatched forces. Also, with relatively little play experience for most of the players at the event, few games got very far in the 2 hour game limit, despite the small army sizes.

My army:

Soulblight Gravelords - Vyrkos

Vampire Lord, flaming weapon, driven by deathstench, Ulfenkarni phylactory

20 skeleton warriors, 2 banners

5 blood knights, banner

3 vargheists.

Note that this is currently 710 points eorth of dudes.

My main plan of attack: put skeletons & vampire lord in the middle, vargheists & blood knights to either flank. on the first turn run the skeletons & vamp lord to claim the center, rush the opponent with vargheists & blood knights up the flanks while trying to use using the general's 9" reroll charge aura and the short table width to secure a first turn charge. The knights and vargheists together can do a potentially crippling number of attacks, and if that isn't a decisive blow then the blood knights with all out defense can at least occupy the opponent for a few turns while the skeletons scoop up victory points. anything that eventually breaks through still has 20 skeletons with 2 attacks (from the vamp lord's ability) and 5+ ward (from the phylactory) to deal with.

...

game 1 vs. legion of blood, don't remember their list details, but the units were the same as mine, making this the only fair game in points value, and against my only experienced opponent.

battleplan: head-on-collision, typical long edge deployment, 3 objectives accross the center line. standard 1-2-more-battle tactic scoring.

opponent won the attacker/defender roll off, which effectively meant he could control who would go first, and he reflexively made me go first since that's usually the smart move in AoS to control the double turn, but that's on a normal table where soulblight isn't usually threatening a first turn charge. we both opted to deep strike pir vargheists even though there was really no reason to?

anyway, he made me go first, i picked 'seize the center' for battle tactic, ran my vampire & skittles up to the center objective, moved up the blood knights, dropped my vargheists on theobjective to my left, successfully charged the blood knights tagging both the opponents skeletona and blood knights. in combat i popped all out defense as planned, & killed some skeletons - less than you'd think. awkward terrain prevented either of us from bringing more than 3 blood knights to bare at a time. his blood knights killed one of mine. turn ended with 5vp to me.

most of hos army was locked downthanks to my blood knights. he healed some skeletons & opted to drop his vargheists 9" from mine hoping for a long bomb charge + stolen objective (his battle tactic? don't remember). It didn't happen. his blood knights killed another of mine, mine killed some more skeletons. 0vp, putting him eay behind.

I won priority going into round 2 & I moved up my vargheists, skittles & lord & charged them into his lord & skittles, which iirc i needed to kill for my tactic. i should have gone for assassinating his lord with my vargheists, but he had the loblood etherial cloak & i just didn't trust it, so i put everything into his skittles & killed a bunch, but not enough. In return he reduced my blood knights to just the champion & my vamp lord to 1 wound. no battle tactic for me, but did score three more points on objectives bringing the total to 8-0

Opponents turn, he picked slay the warlord for his tactic, retreated his knights onto the rightmost objective, moved his vargheists onto the leftmost objective, & killed my vampire lord, the last of my blood knights, and iirc a vargheist. 5vp, and if the game had been able to play out he probably would have won, with the full strength blood knights vargheists, vamp lord, and a few skittles left (though just a few goes back to full easily enough), to my vargheists & full unit of skittles, plus him having advantage on objectives.

as it us, though, game ended 11-8 (we both got 3 points for our grand strategy).

...

the next two games aren't worth going into in as much detail due to 1) both players had never played aos before today, 2) due to vanguard contents I was up 120 points on the nighthaunt player and 170 poonts on the lumineth player, and 3) in both games I got to go first on the first turn & charged with both my blood knights & vargheists.

Nighthaunts can retreat and charge, and fly, but I did cause a bunch of damage and gummed up his movement options anyway. the countercharge was scary, lots of extra rend from their charge table, but I weathered it & won prioriry, & game was pretty much over after that. might have been a different story without the unfair points advantage. plus looking back I don't think he picked a subfaction?

The lumineth player did manage to kill my blood knights, thanks to a wealth of mortal wounds. But his spears broke on my skeletons, & the vargheists they left behind munched his archers, after finishing up the last of his sword masters. By the end of round 2 only his wizard general was left & we were out of time. Still, as lop sided as the final result looked, if not for the 170 point mismatch it could have been just as lopsided the other way around.

So yeah, I have my first place trophy, but i absolutely do not deserve it, as i would have lost the first game but for time and the next two were wildly unbalanced in my favor.

But oh well! A good time was had regardless, and I don't think anyone was taking these games seriously. Mostly it was just nice to see some aos happening at the local store.

Bad news. I didn't sleep last night, & was far too burned out after work to put in the hours of focused effort needed to rush though the edge highlights on the black armor. So I just didn't do it. As a result the blood knights are clearly unfinished, though enough work was done that the overall aesthetic effect of the Vanguard still mostly comes across, so I'm not entirely unhappy with these.

And I did make some progress today. I re-applied the flat black to the knight's armor (which would have been necessary anyway for error correction), and did some extra detail work on the banner bearer, particularly around her face & hair decoration. And snow on the knights' basds, which I was going to leave for tomorrow morning back when I though I'd be able to do the armor highlights today, but it took a long time so it's good I didn't end up leaving it for the morning.

In the end, yeah, the knights aren't done, but they're as done as they're going to be for tomorro. Again, I think the overall effect of mostly black clad warriors on a snowy white landscape with some ghosty/necromantic green bits showing through does come across I think. I've been away from this color scheme long enough (and made enough slight changes) that I do kind of like it again. Makes me wish I had gotten more painted back when the Legion of Sacrament was still a thing.

Hopefully I can actually get some sleep tonight, & be awake enough to play well tomorrow.

[lady-lye]

“Show me how to kiss,” she said. “Properly.”

James and Cordelia from a certain tied-up angst-ridden kissing-lesson make-out scene in Chain of Iron... Hope you enjoy it! :) I had a blast working on all the tiny details. Note the William Morris wallpaper-- I like to imagine James has the same interior decorating tastes as his mother. 

Characters belong to @cassandraclare ! This piece is also on my instagram @ /ladylyeart <3 

[heronchildlove]

I had to work through the live, but my friend told me 2 things Cassie said about Matthew during it and I'm dying:

One, Cassie said Matthew has this habit of telling elaborate tales about himself that half the time are complete lies and half the time true and you honestly don't know which.

Two, someone asked if they went on a road-trip, who'd be doing what. Cassie said James would drive because he's a control freak, Matthew would navigate and get everyone lost because he doesn't know how to read a map, and Thomas would know how to read a map but he's too polite to say anything.

[trislutteur]

“No one can follow me into the shadows. Not even you.” ~ A hot James Herondale from The Last Hours by @cassandraclare

[dreamgirlneutral]

— tlh characters + textposts (3/?)

[cordeliaxcortana]

[hotdog-frenchfries]

Reminder that Alastair thinks Thomas looks like a knight out of a legend

[nairafeather]

The Merry Thieves in the 2020's!

[cuebooks]

Cassie watched Bridgerton Season 2

“You are the bane of my existence”

“Because you vex me”

“Because you’re stupid and I can’t stop thinking about you.” -Thomas

[kaitcreates]

[carstairss]

Someone needed to do this

[carstairsc]

some things cc said haunt me to this day cause there's no way fairstairs is endgame or she writes heronchild, even unrequited. so what's the point of all this

lack of povs - intentional

twist - non existent

...sure

watch chot matthew end up either with 1) no povs 2) no plot twists 3) dead, or all three

[lariablog]

(CHAIN OF GOLD SPOILER)

Whispering room scene :)

[heronchildlove]

Matthew: Tom, can you toss me my will to live?

Thomas: I can’t throw Jamie across the table.