Welcome and Intro

My name is Kyle Maxwell. I go by IAmSweeps (@IAmSweeps on Twitter) on the various interweb sites. 

I have been playing Warmachine/Hordes for a year with no other war gaming experience. Set the Wayback Machine, Sherman, to when I was in Middle School. I had a friend who was into Warhammer 40k with his brother and father. They had  every Space Marine model available, probably duplicates. I don't remember what other armies they had just the insane amount of Space Marines. Another friend of mine got hooked into Tyranids. I have always had a very obsessive personality so I knew if I started down that path I would go all in and might not make it out. They almost had me playing Orks but the cost of an army was just too high. I always loved the look of the miniatures and the idea of the Waaaaagh! really drew me in.  

Fast forward to the very early days of Warmachine. MK 1 for sure but I can't put an exact date to it. I am in a gaming/hobby store in northern Virginia. I'm super bored looking for something to paint. I really wanted to buy a model, maybe an A-10 Warthog or something. I am a super geek when it comes to steampunk so when I see the Magnus the Traitor battle box I'm instantly like "Those models would look super cool on display on my bookshelf." I had never heard of the game and really didn't have any interest in going down the road of 40k level of money spending. I thought the models looked super cool and was satisfied with just that. 

Fast forward, again, to the Summer of 2012. Spoiler alert, I hadn't put the models together yet or even opened the box. I was playing the Pokemon card game, competitively and I reached a point where I was tired of the cycle of "I can't wait until next expansion when we get cards X, Y, and Z and the game will finally shift to a better, more balanced, format." It was never ending. As far as competitiveness goes, I had also reached a point where I was going to have to go all in and travel to every tournament within 200 miles if I wanted to make it into the upper tiers of players. The new season was about to begin and I was ready to make the leap. The entire format of legal cards shifted but, rather than it being a new beginning, the cycle I described before begun again. No thanks, not for me. I just cold turkey walked away, never to play that game again. 

One of my friends I was playing Pokemon with had been talking about this game, Warmachine, he had been playing for a couple of years and he was trying to get some of the Pokemon players that were getting burned out, same as me, to come check it out. He said the name and I had no idea what he was talking about. One Saturday, during our normal Pokemon playing time he brought his models for us to check out and see what the deal was. He is a Menoth player and pretty much owned the whole faction. As soon as I saw one of his warjacks I said "Wait a minute, what is this game called?" He said Warmachine and I had to laugh as I told everyone I already owned some of these models. They didn't believe me but I knew I was right. He sets up some battle box level battle groups and shows us how the models move and work and I go home tickled that I already owned some of this stuff and I was kind of excited to see what these cool looking models could do. 

I open the box and the metal models look amazing. I pull them out and find a set of black and white stat cards and think "This isn't how his cards looked." I wasn't too worried about it. The models were old and I am used to rules changing over time. A quick Google search told me that the battle box I owned was not even sold in stores anymore. Uh-oh. Without too much more drama I got the updated cards and started down the path as a war gamer. I fell deeply in love with mercenaries and my first caster, Magnus the Traitor. I know there are tons of people who say Magnus is the worst Merc caster in the game, but I made that guy work. I bought every model that was available in his theme force except Croe's Cutthroats, not realizing I was buying my way into a corner if I ever branched out to other casters. It was a glorious time that was doomed from the start. When Galleon came out Magnus's stock went up even higher with Snipe, Iron Aggression, and Temper Metal. I had finally left the theme force behind. It worked really well up to 35 points but seemed to really fall apart at 50. I finally found my list after growing it from the battle box. 

Magnus the Traitor (+6) 

• Galleon (18) 
• Renegade (6) 
• Mangler (8) 

Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (max) (9) 

Alexia and the Risen (5) 

Rhupert Corvollo (2) 

Gorman di Wulfe (2) 

Master Gunner Dougal MacNaile (2) 

Lady Aiyana and Master Holt (4) 

During my first nine months of play I learned how to play Warmachine and not a lot of Hordes. I played the list above to great success in my local area but caught the itch to try out a hordes faction. Looking at the different Hordes factions I looked at the Trollbloods, immediately thought back to the Waaaaaaaagh! and the decision was made. All in. At first, I thought Trollbloods could be my Hordes faction and Mercenaries could be my Warmachine faction and that could work out fine. I played one game with Trollbloods and that all changed. I sold all of my Mercenaries, except for Boomhowler and Co., and have not looked back since. 

I would definitely say that I am still in the exploration phase with the faction. My favorite warlocks so far are pGrissel, who will commonly be referred to as "My Lady", and eMadrak, who will never be referred to as a lady. 

I love the hobby aspect of this game and I am a huge proponent to Play it Painted! 2013. I am nowhere near a professional painter but I love to bring my army to life with a brush. Call me superstitious, but painted models hit more often and hit harder. 

I am going to close out this post with a common theme that will reoccur in all articles here on Trollbloods: Kith, Kriel, and Kin. This site in not meant to catalog my journey into the faction, though I will share many trials and tribulations, successes and defeats, and many steps in between. This site is meant to be OUR journey, as one unified faction. 

Thank you for taking the time to visit Trollbloods: Kith, Kriel, and Kin. As with all Trollblood: Kith, Kriel, and Kin articles this is not meant to be the end of the discussion but, rather, the beginning.