WFB Vampires v Warriors of Chaos and Skaven

On Thursday four of us assembled to play some Warhammer.
We're due to kick of a small campaign so this was an excuse to get the armies out for a warm-up.
Sadly my camera saw fit to behave very poorly, so I can but apologise for the poor quality pictures. However, having taken them I figured I might as well slap 'em up.
We played Blood and Glory with a minor variation. In one corner of each side was a terrain feature desirable to the opposition. A Temple of Skulls and a Graveyard respectively. Having a unit of five or more models on the feature counted as an additional point of fortitude for your army.
We also tried out the rules from the BRB scenarios section where each player can only talk tactics with his team mate if he uses up a "messenger". Each player has two messengers, granting three minutes of conversation with his team-mate. Apart from that you can converse about rules, beer and whatever else floats your boat, but not the tactics of the game.
I was using my WoC who haven't had a run out in this edition (or, probably, with the current army book) and was allied with the notorious Hall-Scurry - Skaven warlord of ill repute, facing off against a pair of VC armies. I'd gone for a sorcerer and two units of 18 warriors backed up with five hounds and a unit of Marauder horse. Unlike our undead opponents we failed to make much of an initial plan and so were on the back foot a bit from the off...

 The Chaotic alliance lurches forward

 The undead shamble to their doooom!

 Yikes, a terrorgheist!

 Skellies claim the Temple of Skulls

The chaos and rat alliance edged forward a little and prepared to unleash a storm of magic and war machinery. Hall-Scurry promptly miscast and the Warp lightning cannon hit the terrorgheist only to roll a misfire for strength. This was to form a pattern for the rest of the battle. My marauder cavalry moved between the Direwolves and ghouls, hoping to get around into backfield to cause havoc (or at least some irritation).

 Through the gap lads

 The warriors hold steady

Sadly the Terrorgheist had other plans and breathed on them, leaving just one alive.  Meanwhile the Skeletons led by their vampire made good progress toward the graveyard supported by the Hexwraiths.

 Vampire and his bony chums crash home

Over by the ford Ghoulies clashed with rat Ogres, with poison (and poor dice) helping to even up the fight.

I launched my hounds at the bats, but failed to destroy them, leaving the poor dogs easy prey for another unit of skellies

 The hexwraiths make themselves at home

The Plaguemonks hurled themselves at some undead constructs, but failed (again) to get Deathfrenzy off which might have helped. And the Warp lightning cannon kept right on missing and failing to wound anything.

The Tzeentch Chaos Warriors were giving a good account of themselves, despite the fearsome presence of the vampire, and the hexwraiths were thrown in to help. In the centre the Graveguard got in a long charge to crash into the front of the Slaanesh warriors. The huge unit of clanrats meanwhile was struggling to kill ten Direwolves.

Finally the Terrorgheist (still largely un-singed) was launched across the river into the flank of the Tzeentch warriors, and with that they were wiped out.
At which point my force reached it's break point and disappeared. Although the Skaven lasted another combat it was clearly only a mater of time and the field belonged to the lords of undeath...

I'm coming for ya...

As usual a good fun game. I was pleased with how hard the warriors are and am looking forward to using them in the campaign (though I'd like to get some of the new warrior models painted!). The rules about not talking to your compatriot were fun, but two messages each is probably too many two or three per side in total would add to the hilarity.

In the end we were outplayed and deserved to loose, although seeing my playing partner's dice rolls reminded me that maybe I'm not as unlucky at rolling as some folk...

WFB Dwarfs v Vampires Battle Report

My new job doesn't start until tomorrow and my regular WFB chum has a few days off work, so clearly a game of Warhammer was in order.
We rolled up the Blood and Glory scenario, settled on six items of terrain and then lined up and went at it.
I was intending to use a Dwarf list with a fighty Lord to lead it as the magic sapping abilities of the Runesmith with Anvil list had made it a tough slog for the Necromancer led list they'd fought last time - however I couldn't locate the list in time and anyway my opponent had tooled up with a fighty Vampire to lead the line on this occasion.
I deployed a little to the left in my deployment zone and the cursed hordes of Undeath bunched up opposite me to try and stay close to their leader.

 Noble Dwarfs of Clan Groznog

Evil hordes of deadmen

My list was:
Runelord, Anvil, Rune of Balance, Rune of Spellbreaking
Thane ASB
Thane, great Weapon Rune of Resistance
29 Warriors with shields
10 Quarrelers
10 Thunderers
10 Miners
20 Hammerers
25 Longbeards
Cannon
Organ Gun

From Narn Silvania came:
Fighty Vampire
Horde O' Ghoulies
25 Graveguard
5 Hexwraiths
Banshee
Necromancer
25 Skellies
Banshee
Terrorgheist

The Vamps finished deploying first but I won the roll and elected to go first. I didn't move much. The Thunderers walked up the the fiery fence that stood in front of them and the Longbeards moved to hold the flank, but other than that we just locked and loaded.
The canon took careful aim at the huge Terrorgheist and misfired. The crossbows killed a couple of Ghouls and the Anvil killed a single hexwraith. Gunlines are awesome.

The dead shuffled forward with the Terrorgheist leaping forward to shreik terrifingly at the Thunderers, killing eight of them! Meanwhile some Zombies emerged from the earth right in front of the Organ Gun. Almost like some sort of meat shield. However as it was a miscast the magic ended at this point with a couple of Ghouls being blown up in the process.

 Where'd everyone go Snorri?

Braiiinzzz!!

Again the Dwarf line held pretty steady and got ready to shoot. The Thunderers failed to hurt their nemesis, but a cannon shot and some lead from the Organ gun sent the huge beasty to it's doom.
The Vampires continued their forward shamble with the Hexwraiths running over the remaining Thunderers killing them both. The Zombies hurled themselves at the Organ gun and forced a draw in the ensuing fight.

 And it's dead horse, leading dead horse with dead horse bringing up the rear...

 Come on then! No, you come on!, No you...

Meanwhile the Longbeards faced off against the grave guard on the right flank whilst the Lord of undeath urged his horde forward.
Finally the battle-lines clashed with the Ghoulies and their Vampire leader smashing into the Hammerers and the Grave Guard going toe to bony toe with the Longbeards

 SMACKK!

WHACKK!

The Vampire and Ghouls took a  fearful toll of the Hammerers but they stoically held whilst the Longbeards fared better against the Grave Guard.

In backfield the Hexwraiths glided across the anvil, killing both guard whilst the Organ Gun crew eventually dispatched the zombies.

"Heigh-ho, heigh-ho a killing dead things we go!"

Despite the heroic efforts of the Thane the Hammerers were eventually ground to nothing by the fury of the Vampire Lord, but the stout Dwarf Warriors crashed into the Skeletons and the late arriving Miners ensured the Grave Guard were all cut down.

Charging on into the Organ gun and wiping them out the Vampire Lord re-arranged his Ghoulies to strike back at the Dwarf Warriors who were not chopping the skeletons down fast enough. Meanwhile the Banshee made enough racket to burst the Runelord's eardrums and suddenly the Dwarfs were in trouble.

 Yikes!

More braiiinzzz!!

The Vampire and his poisonous minions smashed into the side of the Dwarf warriors and the Dawi began to sing their death-songs. The Vampire Lord, free at last to wreak magical destruction with the passing of the Runelord worked his dark powers only to suffer a miscast. With a mysterious sucking sound and a peculiar sulphurous smell the mighty undead lord vanished into the magical realm and with that the battle was over!

A really fun game that hung in the balance to the very end. The combination of Anvil, Runelord, Rune of Balance and some poor magic dice meant the Vampires had a tough time of it and yet if it hadn't been for the final miscast they would probably have cut straight through the Dwarf unit to claim victory. A good fun game, and very fast - though with one side not playing in the shooting phase and the dwarfs avoiding both magic and, largely, movement it was always likely to be!

Dux Bellorum Bases (2)

Some progress.
Over a white undercoat I painted them with some cheap sampler emulsion paint from Wilkos - Java Bean similar to the old GW scorched Brown then a drybrush with a warm orangey colour similar to Bronzed Flesh and finally Crushed Almond, a dead (arf!) ringer for Bleached Bone.
The rocks I picked out with Charadon Granite - drybrushed with a couple of lighter greys, the Spears with some brown or other and the shield got a spare LBMS transfer.
Not looking too bad IMO.

Still some work to do, including some grass tufts to add but they should be finished soon.

Dux Bellorum Bases (1)

A while ago I picked up a copy of Dux Bellorum at a very reasonable price from the excellent Northstar.
I had a look through, got quite excited and then the Hobby Funk hit. As an attempt to crawl out from the Funk I started work on some sabot style movement tray base things (a catchy title) for the game. Dux Bel uses an element based system and as my Saxons are individually based for WAB I needed some kind of sabot to put individual figures in. Whilst at Partizan I spotted these skirmish trays made by 4Ground which looked to be the right sort of size, so I grabbed the only pack in stock and took them home. Reviewing them, they seemed exactly right, they are roughly 11cm x 6cm and hold 8 20mm square bases, which will look fine for an element of the more barbarian style armies (such as my Saxons). They also have rounded corners which I found pleasing to the eye. So I placed an order with 4Ground for three more packs to give me 12 bases in total (more than enough for most armies in the game). The only slight problem was that 4Ground don't make a cavalry base to the same dimensions and all elements in the game need to be the same size. I did ask 4Ground if they could make some, but they're snowed under with work apparently - though they did suggest Warbases would do custom ones if I asked. In the end I took a punt on buying some of the 4Ground cavalry bases and figured I could do something with them - which it turned out I could. Their cavalry bases are the same depth (6cm) as the infantry ones, so a simple "cut and shut" job meant I could leave a gap in the middle large enough to hold a third horse while using a base piece from the infantry packs to get the correct frontage.
I then sanded (as in covered them with PVA and modelling sand rather than took a Black and Decker to them) the bases and added a few rocks and a smattering of debris  in the form of abandoned weapons and bucklers. I also embedded a brass rod spear in the rear of each base as a way to hold the little rings to record casualties, much like we've done in our Hail Caesar games.
Below are a few photographs. Once again apologies for the poor quality pictures, that's the last time I use the new camera for stills, honest.

 Cut and shut horse base

The first of these have now been sprayed white (to seal the sand as much as anything) and will hopefully receive a first coat of paint sometime tomorrow.

Anderson Shelter

Another in my occasional series of School Holiday Modelling Projects. After the success of the Roman Villa and the Tomb Raiding Mystery of the Egyptian Pyramid it was time for smallest boy to step up and demand help with his Home Front WW2 project. Initially he was planning to do it all himself via the medium of Lego and I tried to be supportive and hide my disappointment. However, having squandered most of the holiday he suddenly decided he wanted to do it in cardboard and could Dad help?
So I slipped the hot glue gun into it's hot glue holster, saddled up and raided the recycling bin.
This is what we came up with.
Pretty easy but the cabbages (son's idea) are a nice touch I reckon.

Apologies for the poor quality pictures. I got a movie camera for my birthday and I keep trying to use it to take still pictures (which it's not very good at).

Hobby Funk

My regular reader got in touch recently to point out that I'd not blogged for a while (thanks Mum).
This is because I have been in something of a hobby funk since the big game at Partizan.
Just haven't much felt like painting or hobbying much. I played in the El Cid day earlier in the month and had three great games and I've played a couple of Warhammer games too but even that didn't shake me out of it, so my models have sat unpainted and unloved for more than a month now.
Anyway I finally roused myself to get the brushes out the other night and did some work on a Citadel giant that's been half done for about for years now. So not a complete return, but some stirrings of interest.
I also ordered the X-wing game everyone seems excited about and I'm off to pick it up from the PO along with a copy of WI301, so we'll see if that brings my Mojo back.

Y Gododdin - Wargames Illustrated Version

As I've already mentioned I played in a really big wargame earlier this year, first in a secure bunker in Nottingham and latterly at Partizan, in which we re-fought a version of the battle of Catraeth as recorded in the early poem Y Gododdin.

The original version was played as a battle report for inclusion in the bumper 300th issue of Wargames Illlustrated magazine. So the pictures and thought have been under embargo until now.

As the magazine covers the detail of the game I'm not going to post a full account of how it played. If you want that go and buy a copy (it's a massive issue with loads of great stuff in it, so I'd recommend it even if I wasn't in it). However I did take almost seventy pictures of what was a hugely impressive set-up, so it'd be remiss of me not to share them.

Myself and Scrivs were the two chief play-testers of the scenario and special rules with James as we built up to the big day (and if you're interested you'll find some reports back in December and January on this blog). We're both Saxon players and had taken the role of Saxons in all the warm-up games however on the day of the game it was felt that one of us should play on each side, with James acting as Umpire. As a result I ended up in the centre of the British line with a load of beautifully painted (by Matt Parkes no less) cavalry at my command. The scenario was based very much on the version of events re-told by Rosemary Sutcliff in her lovely book the Shining Company. As I'd only just read it, and knew James had prepped the scenario with reference to the book I played very much in character with that and led my cavalry in a suicidal headlong charge. On my left Andy had some terrible dice rolling which stymied his plans and Steve played a sensible tactical game. The upshot of which was I piled up boatloads of Glory (special victory points award for heroic and characterful actions - see the magazine for a more detailed explanation of how this worked) early in the game and was able to cling on for a narrow personal victory despite getting almost all my men killed.

But enough with the words, it's pictures you want - and here they all are:

If that lot has whetted your appetite, the official extra pictures can be found over on the Wargames Illustrated website.

I know I've said it before but it was a truly splendid day of gaming with some great chaps and it looked fantastic.

Please go and buy WI300 if you want to see more and read the official explanation.