Battle of La Maisontaal - Warhammer The Old World

Half term now seems to mean an annual trip down to The Isle of Manly Men to play Warhammer. This year Kenton came along for the ride. We would be taking The Old Word version of Warhammer for a bit of a stress test as we'd all gone a bit giddy and bought the rules.

Andy would join us on the Saturday, but as we were arriving after a stupidly early start (I took advantage of taking Mrs Tom's Toy Soldiers to catch a plane to Dublin to leave at 4am) there would be time for a game or two on on Friday in a three player stylee. 

Casting around for something suitable I suggested the Revenge of the Lichemaster scenario wherein Skaven and Undead attack a Bretonnian monastery with cavalry galloping to the rescue. The original scenario was in the Citadel Journal about 40 years ago and there have been at least two subsequent versions in White Dwarf, so I fettled some kind of rules together that would work (hopefully) for The Old World and Triumph and Treachery (which we love to play).

I took the noble Bretonnians, Stephen took the Skaven and Kenton was the Lichemaster. You may also notice a Space Marine in some of the pictures. Stephen said he had a Dalek, like in the original scenario, but on the day he couldn't find it, so a Marine stood in for the Mechanical Monstrosity.

A cardboard chapel for some added Old School vibes.

A mighty Skaven horde assembled to the South.

Brave Bagrian and his stout-hearted yeoman defenders of the chapel.

Kemmler shuffles on!

Tally-ho!

Wraiths versus Bell!

Flappy knights as well as hooved ones.

Kerunch!

Still the spirits struggle with the giant musical instrument.

The flower of Bretonnia hangs a right to deal with the ratmen.

Flap, flap, flap!

*Thunderous hoof noises*

Oh dear.

Stiffies block the passage.

"Forward mes braves!"

Not going well...

Eat flappy horse death, big zappy gun thing!

Uh-oh, banshee in the courtyard!

Spray the musk of fear tiny slinger rats!

Kemmler's in the courtyard. He's nearly captured the Magic Wheelbarrow of Dooooom!

Don't run in to the peasants you stupid cowards!

"At last the power of the Wheelbarrow of Doooom shal be unleashed!Mwahahahahahaha!"

As the battle drew to a close Kemmler and Moaning Mildred found themselves in th posession of the Wheelbarrow of Dooooom! and so he could claim the victory. Or possibly the Skaven had the biggest warchest, so they won. 

Either way, Warhammer was the real winner.

(And I wasn't)

In reptrospect a three player complicated scenario with added T&T was perhaps not the most sensible choice for Stephen's first game of The Old World (and mine and Kenton's second one). Could have been worse though - we were stone cold sober for this one.

A situation we rectified for the second game.

Billhooks Order Counters

To play NMTBH you need markers to show which units have had orders. The rulebook shows some lovely examples from Captain Blood which I have crudely emulated.

Spare helmets on pennies, bit of Contrast Paint (Blue and White for Lancastrians) and then some basing. Job done.

Agincourt French Men at Arms

 The last models from the box of French infantry are these rather jolly men at arms.

Yes I know they should probably all have individual heraldry  and not be all in blue and yellow, but they're for games of Lion Rampant, so historical accuracy isn't exactly paramount and having them all in a "uniform" pleases me.

Not exactly sure why I only took pictures of five of the six, but hey ho.

Definitely need some knights now

Even More Warmaster Night Goblins

 Another 30 whole points.

"Slapchop" style as I believe the yoof say.

These are objectively lovely models, but they're a pain to paint. Digital Sculpting is a marvellous thing but some sculptors could do with learning that just because you *can* put something on a 10mm goblin, say, for instance, a crescent moon belt buckle barely visible to the naked eye, it doesn't mean you *should* put it on there. These are gaming pieces and also they're 30 points a unit - a gamer needs them to be functional and easy to paint. And these aren't, really.

I'm also not enamoured with the resin. Every time I drop them they lose a weapon or two. 

Warmaster Goblin Wolf Riders

I discovered a set of sprues from the old Battle of Five Armies game, some of which were even already undercoated, so i thought I'd see how quickly i could turn them around.

They're not the most detailed models, and they're a bit wee, but they painted up very quickly, nothing like as fiddly as the (objectively technically better) modern sculpts.

And anyway, quantity has a quality all of its own

They'll certainly do good service in my Goblin army - that's 240 points right there.

I think I have a few more sprues of these and some of the foot goblins too.

I mean I do also have an entire still in shrink wrap boxed version of the BoFA game that I'd love to paint all of one day, but that's a project for the future.

Chain of Command WW1

James came over for a game of WW1 Chain of Command. We played a version of WW1 CoC quite a bit at shows a few years ago (blimey eight years ago where does the time go?) but the Great War seems to be stirring a bit with James so it was time for a revisit.

Simple attack and defend scenario. We dispensed with the Patrol phase as the static nature of WW1 didn't really call for it. Just selected a few sensible looking JOPs and went for it.

The grim desolation of Flanders Fields in 1917.

The craters are Kallistra, most of the defences are from Amera.

The trees are made from twigs collected from the battlefield at Oppy Wood.

The game began with the German trenches under a barrage - I made the explosions many moons ago

 

James began cautiously with a Lewis section deploying on my right.

 

I passed for several phases, seeing no need to get my men in a position to be shot at until James showed his hand.

He began building a firebase on his own right.

Some serious artillery trained on my bunker.

 

As more men deployed amid the trees. These with rifle grenades.

Then a tank rolled on the the table. But shortly it bogged down, blocking part of the artillery's line of sight.

With still no Hun to be seen the British built up on their left ready to launch an assault.

Despite the sticky effects of Flanders mud they began to approach the wire.

Still the barrage pounded my trenches. I was in a dilemma. I had a CoC dice and could end the turn, lifting the barrage, but that would also give the British the chance to restart their tank. I quite liked it stuck in the mud.

Soon however the British were at the wire and I could wait no longer and removed the Barrage.

Fortunately I followed this by rolling a double phase!

As the British crept up their guns finally fell silent

And Germans rushed to line the trenches.

They'd bought a Maxim with them! Which barked death at the poor exposed Tommies.

Caught in the open my shooting was below average, but then James managed to roll poorly for the results and men fell and shock piled up.

Two phases of shooting, Junior Leaders getting wounded and British morale began to tumble. Forced to choose between returning fire and trying to get his men in cover James chose men's lives.

But to no avail, more bad luck including another double phase and both a Junior and Senior leader going down saw one section thrown back.

There were no dice available to activate the tank, so it remained in the mud.

Still the German shooting sluiced down on the British stuck on the wire.

The Lewis team tried to give support but another British section was soon fleeing back toward safety and morale was tumbling.

So far the Germans had weathered the storm.

Finally the tank freed itself and at last the guns of the British could target the Hun.

Shock began to pile up and a Junior Leader was wounded, however the Senior Leader arrived to steady the nerves.

The Germans continued to pour fire on the pinned British and it was only a matter of time before they too broke and the game was up

Although the British Behemoth remained functional the attack had ground to a halt and the British returned to their own trenches, leaving only bodies behind.

That was good fun and looked great. Chain of Command always gives an interesting challenge. James was unlucky a few times (or I was lucky) but then again assaulting a German Trench line shouldn't be easy.

Although we enjoyed it we are beginning to feel that maybe CoC isn't quite right for WW1 games. It's brilliant for the skirmish nature of WW2 but for the rather more linear nature of WW1 we may need to play something different.