Manticon 2016 pt 2

People often say to save the best for last.  Well screw that.  Manticon had some simply incredible armies.

The winner of Best Appearance went to Billy Smith, with a beautiful Dwarf army.  This was to technically beautiful, with stunning detail.  From the handpainted banners to the glowing runes on the war machines and tatoos on the slayers.  He used the new GW model for his Steel Behemoth - it was simply incredible.  It didn't catch you eye quite as quickly as others, but when you took a little time to start looking at it in depth, the brilliance just shines through.

Billy Smith's Dwarfs

Cannon - check out the glowing runes.  I love the projectile

He used a scibor model for his King on Large Beast

I am no longer a fan of GW, but using the Magmadroth as a steel behemoth was stunning.

Robert Brandon's Forces of the Abyss were stunning.  They had a coherent scheme and theme that made them one of the most beautiful, if creepy, armies at Manticon.  Of course with an Abyssal force, creepy is what he was going for.

Robert Brandon's Forces of the Abyss

These are reaper miniatures, swarming all over the base, giving you some tentacle kisses

Combining an Arachnarok spider and a Soul Grinder, this huge centerpiece of his army was incredible.

Just looking at this picture still gives me the creeps.  These are nurgle plague drones that he reversed the body and carapace on.  They really look like evil bugs swarming over a broken piece of pottery

His well of souls was made from two of the GW terrain pieces that came out with Storm of Chaos, with evil wraiths floating around it.

Another of the stunning armies was the Night Stalkers from Patrick Justice.  He used some of the new HUGE Reaper bones models to fill in for regiments and hordes, and the result was incredible.  Some of his conversions were more mundane - using plastic fishing worms for his blood worm legion was a stroke of genius.  Even his smaller models, such as using zenomorphs (I'm guessing these were from the new AvP game?) as reapers was just really impressive.  And of course the Beholder.

Patrick Justice Night Stalker Army

Do you have a moment so I can tell  you about my lord and destroyer, Cthulu?

From the maw to the tail to the glistening slime - horrible and awesome at the same time.

I've always loved Beholders since I first started playing D&D and saw them in the brown booklets.  This is awesome.

Cool and disturbing.  You will never mistake his bloodworms for anything else.

There were more dwarf armies (6) there than any other army by far, and all were beautiful.

One of my local players (three came down) who came down from Dayton, Amy Stamper brought her dwarfs.  I have watched this army just get better and better, and it isn't because I helped her assemble her bulwarkers (which are not here - they should be premiering at Adepticon in less than two weeks). Her display is pretty cool as well - with lights inside the mine tunnels, and she gets lots of comments on her Steel Behemoth, which is an old Mage Knight giant.

Amy Stamper's Dwarfs

I really like this organ gun.

David Lundy's hit my weak spot with the berserkers carrying a keg, and one leaping off of it into the fight.  It was his allied Elf Drakon Rider horde that drew the most attention, using an old gyrocoptor and dwarf rocketeers because he didn't like elves, and why not?

David Lundy's Dwarfs

Converted allied drakon riders - even the allied elves weren't elves at Manticon.

Not that I would ever condone dwarfs bringing beer to a battle :-)

Nathan Clevenger was another dwarf player.  He integrated the mantic dice holder wound counters into the base of his models themselves, so no loosing wound counters or having them get knocked over. His steel behemoth looks like a true dwarven battle tank.

Nathan Clevenger's Dwarfs

And this is definitely a steel behemoth.

I was really glad that I did not have to do the appearance judging (this was the first of my tournaments where I finally had others to do it for me).  For many of the smaller ones, it has felt a bit weird for me to give the best appearance award to my son's undead army - though I attempt to always judge as impartially as possible.  It was nice to see that he got a justifiably high appearance score here as well. As his father I have watched his skills grow, and each new unit he adds to his army just gets better. The conversion of his Mantic Werewolves is one of the best units in his army - making them not quite so 'naked' as the studio paint job did with the sculpts.

Jon Carter's Undead

Hairy, bestial werewolves - ready to tear your heart out.

Todd Perkins, who (along with organizer Gavin Gossett) celebrated his birthday on Saturday at Manticon, had a very interesting way to fit the oversized AOS models he was using for his Brotherhood army int the correct sized unit bases.  Instead of moving out - they moved up.  It was a little odd seeing buildings move across the battlefield, but overall the effect worked.

Todd Perkins Brotherhood

to keep things consistent, even the models that would normally have "fit" on unit bases still used the layerd building approach.

Richard Reiter uses a similar idea for his display board - putting his wraiths and heroes up inside of a building to better show them off when surrounded by his hordes of zombies and skeletons.

Richard Reiter's Undead army

Nice centerpiece with his Vampire Lord on Undead Dragon

Rob Phaneuf, who took 2nd place General and Overall Champion is known for his display boards (I believe he also made the board for Billy Smith).  His Ogres went on to show they are a strong army, even if they cannot spell Mammoth.

Rob Phaneuf's Ogre Army

Seth Cook also brought Ogres, with some elf allies

Seth Cook's Ogres

Justin Rigdon brought the League of Rhordia, but no halflings in it.

Justin Rigdon's League of Rhordia

Tyler Brown used his old GW Beastmen as Varangur to great effect.

Tyler Brown's Varangur

Bryan Tucker went the more tradition route of using his Warriors of Chaos as a Varangur army

Bryan Tucker's Varangur

Ken Lewis' Varangur were a bit shy and didn't want to come out for pictures.

Ken Lewis' Varangur

Jesse Cornwall came all the way from West Virginia to let his goblins get into the fight

Jesse Cornwall's Goblins

Seth Deaton used Napoleonics for his dwarfs with allies

Seth Deaton's Dwarfs

The barbie house was from a dark elf barbie army, but Chris Gibney still thought it would be funny for Barbie to find rats in her house.

Chris Gibney's Ratkin

 Chris Clark brought his herd out to play

Chris Clark's Herd

Devlin Smith was undaunted when GW squatted the Tomb Kings, bringing them over to the Mantic side and playing Empire of Dust!

Devlin Smith's Empire of Dust

David Reid's brotherhood in all their pagentry

David Reid's Brotherhood

Kara Brown (who is the US Kings of War Clash of Kings Champion for 2015) brought Basileans

Kara Brown's Basileans

Matthew Mobley mustered the Forces of the Abyss

Matthew Mobley's Forces of the Abyss

Unfortunately, not everyone has as much time as they need or want to be able to completely finish their armies.  While this does affect their overall scores, we don't want to turn anyone away, and I'd rather see an unfinished army than not have someone be able to play at all.

Chris Edmondson's is making great progress on his Kingdoms of Men army.

Chris Edmondson's Kingdoms of Men

Tim Bowie is working on his Brotherhood army

Tim Bowie's Brotherhood

Dan Payne is making progress on his Orcs as well

Daniel Payne's Orcs

Andrew Shadel is close to finishing his dwarfs, if the flyers would quit attacking them.

Andrew Shadel's Dwarfs

Ray Coger is just getting into the game, coming to his first tournament with his orcs that aren't quiet ready for prime time.

Ray Coger's Orcs

Because it is all fun and games . . .