Saturday 30 August 2014

Warhammer Triumph and Treachery

Gruzzkup stroked his enormous chopper idly and gazed out across the plains. To his left, the clamour, smoke and smells told him that Spiggy's Night Goblin army had arrived. To his right the rank stench of decay and unwashed armour told him that the foul minions of Chaos were abroad. Good. Plenty of stuff to duff up!

On Wednesday Stevo and I journeyed to The Ilkeston Gaming Hut for the first time in ages, for a get together of the Sherwood, Hucknall and Ilkeston Team and a game of Triumph and Treachery. Before we even began the first act of deceit was wrought as Stephen turned up with filthy Chaos Warriors meaning we weren't going to get the Orc and Goblin dirty hardcore threesome action (I'm working on my SEO to drive visitors) Matt and I were expecting. Lame excuses poured forth about how he'd been painting them up and really wanted to use them, but we weren't deceived by his filthy Chaos lies.

We set up as we found ourselves, with me in the centre of one long table edge and Matt in the left hand corner and Steve in the right as I looked at it. Steve warned us before starting not to "fight a war on two fronts", but I got the first turn and did anyway.

 Matt unveils his Army Scroll(tm) 

 Matt's impressive Temple of Skulls - must finish mine off...

 Gruzzkup managed to squeeze his impressive horde into a small slot

 Foul, flatulent and pox-ridden. But he's quite good at painting.

Pesky Night Goblinzes

 Loobinz hides the ladz from sight

 Gruzzkup's Waaagh picks up steam

 Initial infighting means da little 'uns don't get to move much

 Dirty Chaos men

 More filth

 Rashly the spiders decide to charge. It doesn't end well.

 In a display of overconfidence the Hoppers charge the Knights. And win!

At around this juncture the greenskins declared an alliance. From now on the Chaos horde would be the sole object of our warmongering.
Curiously at around this time a high-pitched noise began to emanate from the end of the table. A sort of whiny, pleady, bleaty, woeful sound. Like good greenskins we ignored it and put the boot in.

 Doom Diver's eye View
 This appears to be the same picture...

 Walls. Not ideal for Fanatics

 The combined greenskins surge toward the Chaos lines

Nubinz leads da way

Around this time Stephen excused himself. Some time later Matt's daughter appeared and asked why there was a ginger haired man-child sobbing in the toilet. We carried on attacking him

A slight miscalculation leads to disaster

Night Goblins overestimating their capabilities

Gruzzkup prepares to spring the trap!

Matt's still taking his time...

In your face 100pts of Chaos Hounds

Yeah!

Time was ticking on, the shadows were beginning to lengthen, we'd drunk all Matt's beer, and Stephen's little bottom lip was wobbling. So I decided to attack Matt. It seemed Orcy.

In go da Boar ladz

At this point my phone ran out of charge. This is probably for the best as Steve, taking full advantage of my attack on my erstwhile ally proceeded to launch his warriors at my army whilst scattering Triumph and Treachery cards like confetti and duly wiped out my entire force. Oh.
With that the game drew to a close. Matt's army was largely intact, but a long way from the action, I had no models left and the Chaos Warriors ruled the field.

This was splendid fun. The T&T rules have a few idiosyncrasies, but mostly work very well for multi-player games. The trash talk and picking enemies adds to the fun, and we had three very nice, fully painted armies on the table. Hobby win. 

Friday 29 August 2014

Dux Bellorum Campaign

Inspired by my game of Dux Bellorum earlier in the week and an excellent article about a Fall of Rome campaign in the current Miniature Wargames (issue 377, a stand alone follow up to a biblical campaign system in MW 368) I'm going to attempt a Dux Bellorum campaign.

Here's my map of England, circa 500AD.



I followed the rules in the article (Diamonds Romans, Clubs Saxons, Hearts Irish), but in my version spades are Welsh. The picture cards are the (Roman) settlements of London, Gloucester, York and Carlisle (York looks a bit low to me).

I may try and transpose it onto a more aesthetically pleasing England/Wales shaped map/grid.

I have three options:
  1. To play the campaign elements solo, probably as an invading Saxon and use various of my regular gaming buddies as my opponents.
  2. Play the campaign as written in the article with me as a Late Roman and my regular Welsh opponent as a subordinate/rival commanding Welsh allies from Gloucester as we try and reunite the countries under a Christian banner
  3. Play as the Saxons against the Welsh as we each try to conquer the kingdom.
I'm inclined to option one, as then all anyone else has to do is turn up with an army (or I could even try solo games...) and I can manage all the campaign elements myself.

Tuesday 26 August 2014

Dux Bellorum - getting reacquainted with the rules

After a lovely couple of weeks in a WiFi and 3G free part of beautiful West Wales its back to the wargaming grind.
Tonight I popped round to my regular SAGA opponent's for a game of Dux Bellorum.I've been wanting to have another go at these rules for a while as I remembered them as simple and straightforward, but with enough period flavour to satisfy. And also quicker and easier than a game of WAB. I don't think we'd ever had a game before and I've not played since Salute last year, so it was a proper fumble through the rules.
We used 24 point armies and reduced the LPs to 4 (rather than 32pt armies and 6LP). Sophistication was not the order of the day and we hurled our battle lines at one another without much real thought. However about half way through my opponent declared "I like these much better than Dux Brit" and I agreed. Simple, effective and easy to understand. And also all over in about an hour an a half (even with plentiful rulebook flicking) which for me is a good thing on a "school night".

Some pictures follow (apologies for the poor quality - the camera is broken, so the iPhone is being used)








In the end I lost, but my opponent had but a single unit left by the time we'd finished failing morale checks. We both (I think) enjoyed the game - its easy enough for our limited attention spans and curmudgeonly refusal to grapple with complex rules  whilst being sufficiently Dark Agey. I know Martin and Scrivs have played recently and not enjoyed it as much, but I think I'm going to persist (at least until my wargame muse takes me elsewhere...)

So we've agreed to play again - next time with 32 point armies. There are some "Fall of Rome" campaign rules in the current edition of Miniature Wargames, which might inspire us to some linked up gaming too. However the fly in the ointment is the fact that we're both off to Partizan in a couple of weeks and Crescent and Cross is calling, so we may well be sucked back into SAGA...

Friday 8 August 2014

Da Red Arrerz


Da leader gives the universal archer symbol of disdain

Twelve Orc Arrer boyz.
I even converted a command for them, though I'm not crazy enough to actually use one.

Models are from the venerable 6th edition boxed set. Single piece and a bit lumpen, I have another thirty or so to paint, but I just can't face doing it...


Thursday 7 August 2014

Warhammer Giant

Technically this was built as a Chaos giant for my never-quite-got-off-the-ground Slaanesh army.
However I wanted one in my Orc and Goblin list and couldn't be bothered to start from scratch (even though there's at least one more set of sprues in my loft somewhere..)




It's a terrific kit with loads of great detail and options. One of Brian Nelson's finest to my mind.

Maybe I will dig the sprues out and build me another one...

Tuesday 5 August 2014

Broke Back Rulebook

At Call to Arms one of the pages started detaching itself from my "small" Warhammer rulebook.
So I took advantage of this to finally get round to something I'd been threatening since I first got the book - I had it rebound.
Just a simple job at the local copy shop, for which i was charged the princely sum of £1.75.

Now it lies flat, opens nicely and none of the pages are falling out.





Monday 4 August 2014

Warhammer Orc Chariots

A Black one



And a Red one.




I've got a yellow one on the painting table.
This is a venerable kit, dating from the 6th edition box and the pigs pulling it are tiny compared to the new boars, but I still quite like them.
Technically then need a crewman each, but I didn't get them finished in time for Call to Arms.

Warhammer Trolls


Three River Trolls



And Three Stone Trolls.


I love both of these sets of models, very different though they are. The metal Stone Trolls are iconic Citadel miniatures from the cartoony phase of Warhammer, back when Rick was still writing and jokes were allowed. Gangly, goofy and yet menacing, they're terrifically characterful.
Meanwhile the River Trolls are a masterpiece of the modern plastic sculptor's art. They go together like a dream and have a plethora of detail - the vomit (complete with fish bone) is a great touch and the various watery accessories add to the charm.

I field them in a single unit as Trolls. This irritates my regular opponent, who wants me to have either Stone Trolls or River Trolls, not both mixed together. But I quite like the contrast (almost as much as I enjoy irritating him).












I finished these up for Call to Arms.