British Naps for Sharp Practice 2 (5)

Finished the last eight that I need for the Sharp Practice starter British force.
(Though I may want to go back and replace a couple of the shonky Vicrix ones at some point)

Now need to do the movement trays and fettle the bases.

Then decide what (if anything) to add...
I fancy some cavalry and I have some rifles on the go, but I may need to paint something other than Naps for a while

40K with the Gaming Heir

A wet and windy Saturday with the current Mrs ToySoldiers away in Spain (will she be allowed back?) and Son and Heir out watching movies with an assortment of lady friends meant the smallest boy and I had a window of gaming opportunity.

I suggested Frostgrave or OGAM but they fell on deaf ears - he wanted to play 40K.
Mostly he wanted to use his all new Twin Linked Lascannon wielding Centurion Devastators of Doooom on me.

So we set up on the diagonal setting, placed three objectives and away we went.

I won't bother with a breakdown of the tactics and nuances of the gameplay because this is 40K we're talking about, the game for children, deviants and accountants so there aren't any of those things. Just pile your models up and whoever has the best special rules is the winnah! Yay!

But here's the pictures:

 Da Boyz arrive

 Terminators and their ride

 Orks in da house!

 Insert music from Apocalypse Now* here

 Brum, brum, dakka,dakka!

 Steady lads, steady....

 The grim work begins

The game ended, unsurprisingly in a victory for the Imperium of Man.

It really is a very unsatisfactory game 40k. The models look good, and I like the background, but you end up just shoveling loads of models into a clump, rolling lots of dice and then taking most of the models off.
That or you shoot something from miles away and take it off.
God only knows what it's like if you have some of those big robot things all the cool kids have these days.

*Yes, yes, I know it's actually from Wagner but you recognised the cultural reference point, didn't you Mr High-brow

Warhammer Raze and Ruin

Abelard von Gesegnet lolled in the saddle of his warhorse. The knights around him looked at one another as the distinct sound of snoring came from beneath his large feathered hat.
The landscape was unnaturally quiet, not even birdsong disturbed the air.
Suddenly a cry went up from the watchtower and the captain of the knights slapped the flat of his sword across Gesgnet's horse barding.
"Eh, what?" roared the General "Charge!!!!"

Steve and I have decided to play some Warhammer. Currently the Sherwood Hucknall Ilkeston Team is undergoing it's very own political turmoil to rival that in the wider country, riven as we are between the Age of Sigmar faction (or AS-hats) and the fans of Warhammer 8th edition (Warnkers)
General Ballroom is a complete AS-hat
I am a Warnker.
Steve just wants to play soldiers.

Fortunately Gen B is currently indisposed, so Steve and I are in a position to play proper square based manly Warhammer.

Steve suggested the Raze and Ruin scenario from the WFB rule book as we've never played that and we settled on 1500 points of  Empire versus Undead.

I deployed some handgunners in the building on the left, crossbowmen in the tower and militia to defend the wall. The cannon sat in a corner and the spearmen defended the left of the village whilst my cavalry and pistoliers were deployed at the back of the board.

The host of Stefan von Grünstein shambled into view, replete with Graveguard, ghoulies, flying dead things and some skeleton archers.

The undead pushed forward and the Empire prepared to shoot
Unfortunately the poisoned arrows of the skeleton archers took a nasty toll on the crossbowmen in the tower.

In response the knights pushed up and the pistoliers cantered forward on the left flank.
Sadly the shooting wasn't very effective though the cannon mangled  a few graveguard.

Von Grünstein's flyng dead things lolloped over to the left and the spearmen turned to face them.

Another turn of ineffectual shoting followed before the charges began.
Unfortunately the graveguard managed to contact the knights.

And the Vampire count kicked down the door of the tower and slaughtered everyone inside.

Suddenly the flying dead things were in back field!
Meanwhile poiseoned arrows, wind of death and some skullchukka chucking means the militia were seriously weakened.

The graveguard began their grim work, hacking down the knight's champion and then the general in swift succession. And the flying dead things began to kill handgunners in the house.

Finally the ghouls hit home into the severely reduced spearmen.

Inevitably thre knights were thrown back and salughtered.

With the spears breaking and the handgunners all dead the battle came to a close with Stefan von Grünstein in control of the small village.

Well I took a bit of a pasting there.
I think I need more warm bodies, better understanding of the magic and just being better at Warhammer.
I've always found VC a tough nut to crack and my Empire army is at best "sub-optimal".
However it was good to get the WFB toys out again.

General Ballroom is making noises about not beuing able to return to gaming until the end of August, so in the absence of any AS-hats Steve and I are free to be Warnkers for a while - he left muttering about a campaign.

Excellent service from Too Fat Lardies

A few years ago I bought the At the Sharp End supplement from Too Fat Lardies. At the time I was intending to use it for games of Bolt Action, but we decided BA was a silly game and so the plans lay unfulfilled, though AtSE it did look like a good system with good ideas in it.

The other day, thinking of ways to get more Sharp Practice games in I began musing about some sort of linked gaming and thought that I might be able to adapt/update At the Sharp End for use - creating some sort of At the Sharp Practice hybrid.

However in the intervening couple of years my old tablet had rolled over and died, and guess where the only copy of At the Sharp End resided?

Anyway, a short email to the TFL team and Rich quickly re-enabled the download ink and I am now once again in possession of the rules.

So thanks Rich for a bit of "above and beyond" customer service.

British Naps for Sharp Practice 2 (4)

Six metal Perry British Infantry light company skirmishers.

Painted the same way as the previous ones, simple basecoats and then an, ahem, "coat" of Coat D'Arms wash with a little highlighting on the white bits.

The metals are (due no doubt to the vagaries of the metal casting process) a bit chunkier than their plastic fellows, but they look mighty fine despite this.

8 More line infantry to go and the Sharp Practice 2 initial force is complete.
Then I have some rifles to add (obviously) and probably some light cavalry.
And I'd like to do 2 units of plastics in green jackets to be Canadian militia so I can play War of 1812...

Sudanese sidetrack (6)

Another six men of the 3rd Foot and Mouth arrive to face the Mahdist forces

Lovely Perry Miniatures Sudan Highlanders. The Tartan's a bit of a faff, but also a bit of a cheat, so I'm happy with it. Painted to match the previous batch.

I did try and take a picture with the finished unit of 12, but I can't find my wide gradiated background and the blue cloth one that comes with the lightbox plays havoc with my white balance.

Anyway, stout British infanrty need someone to fight, so here's three more Dervish/Fuzzy Wuzzy/Hadendowa

So now I need to clean up six more metal British and glue together another 8 Fuzzys.

Sudanese sidetrack (5)

A few more Sudanese tribesmen

Should be some more British to follow in the next few days.
And there's three more Fuzzys on the paint table too.

I did an audit and I reckon I need a half dozen more riflemen and a similar number each of Sudanese and Fuzzy tribesmen to have a starting force for TMWWBK.
3 units of 16 Fuzzy Wuzzy tribal troops, one unit of 16 Sudanese tribesmen and a unit of 12 Rifles (which count as irregular as I understand it).
Normally that would be just 16 points (3 each for the tribals and 4 for the irregulars) according to Dan Mersey's blog but I'm expecting it'll be possible to upgrade the Fuzzy Wuzzy units with "aggressive" or similar to get them into combat quicker and make them more effective in HtH.

The next batch of British gives me a single finished unit of them for the Sudan, so I need to crack on with them really to ensure I've got both sides ready for TMWWBK coming out in August.

Warhammer Siege Campaign - Final Assault

Throndin Groznog pulled the ancient helm of Groznog down onto his head and hefted the great Groznog axe in his right hand.
The time had come for war.

The climax to our siege campaign! Despite some success at attacking the Orc war machines the Dwarfs have largely been on the back foot. Could I turn it round and throw back Ruglud’s forces as the prepared for a final assault (regular readers – thank you both – can probably guess the answer to that one)?

Steve and I settled on 4,000 points of defenders versus 2,000 of attackers. We toyed with 6k and 3k, but in the end decided it would interfere with our drink consumption too much to have to move all those soldiers.

 Gyrocopter's eye view of the (open) Dwarf gate

 Crossbows, followed by Ironbreakers, try chewin' through that!

Longbeards keep the Thunderers in line

As a result of my earlier success the greenskins would have to pay double for any war machines. However the gates of the Groznog hold were open and one of the walls was undermined!

Crikey there's a lot of 'em

Over on the Dwarf left a hulking spider deployed. The only sensible response was a cannon shot or two right between the (many) eyes.

On the right a pair of giants and a siege tower held sway whilst most of the remaining greenskins surged toward the gate and collapsing wall.

The greenskins lobbed more rocks at the damaged wall and soon a hole appeared large enough to break through.

The giants took crossbows and organ guns to the face, but still made it to the wall.

The Trolls made it to the gate, but the dwarf defenders stood prepared with a pot of molten nastiness. There then ensued a small debate about whether or not a huge pot of molten metal was “flaming” or not and thus prevented regeneration. Common sense triumphed over strict rules and the trolls were not coming back from their fiery bath.

Look up, lads

Throndin's hearthguard moved to cover the gate and slaughtered the remaining trolls. Meanwhile the Orc siege tower hit the wall and disgorged some angry greenskins into the crossbowmen.

 Waaaagh!

 Some support arrives

Right, let's be 'avin you!

The clansdwarfs moved to cover the gap in the wall, expecting a giant to come rampaging through, but instead some spiders failed their animosity test and scuttled over the ruined ramparts and into the warriors. The result was as expected, however the dwarfs pursued the fleeing spiders through the gap in the wall and out into the open.

Cut them down and stand fast! Oh.

A giant duly crashed into the dwarf unit, however the stout fellows stood strong and the giant was vanquished. His death fall saw two more dwarfs squished, but he also toppled into his fellow badly wounded giant. Sadly for both the dwarfs and comedy he failed to kill the other giant as he fell.

However the rash charge of the clan dwarfs had left the breach in the wall undefended. Frantically the Longbeards marched toward the ruins, grumbling all the way about "young 'uns abandoning things and leaving it for proper dwarfs to sort out and me with my bad foot..."

Up we go!

Meanwhile the Ironbreakers held the Orcs from the siege tower on the wall.

We could do this all day long..

From nowhere a unit of spiders ran over the wall and headed for the innards of the fortress. Frantically the dwarf cannon crew took aim…hit…but failed to kill the eight legged horror and with that the greenskins raced into the Groznog hold and claimed the victory.

Yikes, where did they come from!

This was great fun.
The armies and fortress looked splendid and for the most part the venerable Siege rules served us well. And when it didn't we made stuff up. Just like we usually do.

At the start of the battle I said out loud that I intended to kill a spider from each of the small units Steve had, as they had the best chance of quickly getting off the table and winning him the game. I then did that for all but one of the spider units. With inevitable consequences.
However, given the successes the Orcs had enjoyed in most of the previous battles the result seemed mostly to be fair and appropriate.

Throndin Groznog wiped the thick Troll blood from his axe and gazed in horror as greenskins poured through the gap in the fortress wall to begin the sack of the Groznog hold. As he watched centuries old Dwarf architecture began to be ripped apart as goblins, orcs and giants rushed deep into the internal corridors of the hold.
"Bugger. They're going to take some shifting" he sighed.