Saturday 29 December 2012

The Princes are in Town

Hi All,

A quick painting update.

My summer goal is to get my Dragon Princes painted and the new War Alter (+ the odd high elf archer/RBT/spearelf/mounted BSB and Prince).

First up I have the minimum tabletop requirement of 5 Dragon Princes with Musician.






Stuck to the usual High Elf paint scheme. I've got 5 more to paint (Santa gifted me a GW voucher) with 1 done up as a Standard and one as a unit champ.

War alter is on the table, painting in progress, so pics should be up early in the new year.

On the gaming front I had a game last night vs Ryan's vamps.  My list:

lvl4: high, ring of fury, scroll (shield, curse of arrow, stubborn, flames, drain magic)
Prince: GW, Armour of Caledor, Seafarer Bow, Talisman of Loec
BSB: Barded Steed, GW, Heavy armour, Dragonhelm, luckstone
10 Archers: M
25 Spears: M, SB
25 Spears: M, SB-gleaming pendant
15 Whitelions: FC-Banner of Sorcery, Iron curse (to prove I wasnt tailoring!)
5 Dragon Princes: M
4 Eagles
4 RBT's

So yeah-5 bolts/turn. And man were they effective. Turn 1 = 7 out of 13 Black Knights skewered with only 4 able to shoot (diagional deploy -1 in reserve), and 1 missing (curse of arrow was dispelled). Sneaky eagle schenanigans = Whitelions with Prince flank the remaining "bus" and crumble Vamp lord and supporting vamp turn 3. RBT's then wipe out 38 Ghouls (with help from flames of phoenix and an ill-fated spears sandwich), and strip a zombie unit down to 4. Very exciting game, and looking forward to see how this incarnation of the Highelves plays out.

Saturday 22 December 2012

Down and Dirty in the Maw pit

Hi all,

First day of the Summer break =  a chance to get in some Warhammer. Scouts had reported a marauding force of Ogres had made their way down from the Worlds Edge Mountains, so an expeditionary force from the local garrison was sent to intercept.

The force sent to intercept:

Art Collector: GW, Armour of Meteroic Iron, 4+ ward
lvl4: light, scroll
BSB: Full Plate Armour, Enchanted Shield, Warriorbane
lvl1: fire, rubyring
Engineer

48 Halberds: Full Command
2x5 Archer Detachment
10 Archers
10 Inner Circle Knights: Full Command-Gleaming Pendant

2 Cannons
2x4 Demigryph knights: Musician

Hurricanum
Hellblaster

The Scouts had managed to inflitrate the Ogre camp and managed to report back (alive) that their warband consisted of:

Ogre Warband:

Slaughtermaster: Glittering scales, WS10 sword, Crown of Command
BSB: (armour) GW...possibly other stuff but the scouts never managed to break into his tent
Firebelly: ASF sword, scroll
Firebelly: I10 sword, rubyring

7 Bulls: Full Command-Runemaw
8 IronGuts: Full Command-banner of swiftness

2x3 Mournfang: Musician
3x1 Sabretusks

2 Iron Blasters

The Empire marched out at day break hoping to catch the Ogre warband unawares, only to find them ready for battle...the armies lined up and an erie silence fell across the land between them.


TURN ONE
However, it was the Empire's finest that were first off the mark (taking advantage of Ogre cultral pre-battle taunting traditions to start the battle). A bit of a shuffle forward to get into a comfortable position for most of the army, while the archers eagerly marched forward. The light mage muttered under his breath and the Demigryphs to his left found themselves moving as if they were in a timewarp. The Bright wizard then yelled in fury to unleash the largest hail of fire he could muster on the Ironblaster (Empire right), however the Slaughtermaster ate a squirrel just in time (does Ogre magic still work like this?). The Light wizard then had a go, attempting to Banish it to another dimension, taking a single wound. This of course, just encouraged the "Gunshow" who, not to be out done by the posing mages in silly robes, promptly blew the Ironblaster up.

The Ogre General then found himself in an awkward position. The mournfang were eager to get into the fight, but the un-natural speed of the Demigryphs meant they had no way to safely move...so instead they shuffled forward a little confused. The Ironguts and Bulls however, were not restricted by such trival matters and marched foward in blood lust.
The Slaughtermaster then dug into his bag of treats and ate a rock...much counter yelling by the Empire mages stopped the Mournfang on the ground getting tougher, however while the Mages were yelling to stop that, the Slaughtermaster took a sip from his flask; the Mournfang were overtaken by aroma of the brew stolen from a Dwarven stronghold, and were filled with stubborn steadfastness. The Ironblaster took a shot at the Hellblaster...it can re-roll bounce, but it can't re-roll 1's to wound!

TURN TWO
The archers saw this as their moment. The centre detachment ran into the face of the Bulls and pulled funny faces and made rude comments about their mothers.The unit on the right (along with some Demigryphs!) charged a sabretusk. The timewarped Demigryphs smashed into the Stubbborn Mournfang, while the ICKs strategically moved up to tempt the 2nd unit away from a flank charge/provide a good incentive not to take the Demigryph flank!

Magic drew out a scroll, however the real phase was the Gunshow. 2 cannons = dead 2nd Iron Blaster, while the Hellblaster let rip on the Ironguts, stripping a rank.



In combat, the Demigryphs could hit the Mournfang, but only managed 4 wounds...thankfully all 4 went through the armour, for the loss of a single wound in return. The Dwarven brew was still floating around, and the Mournfang stood their ground.

 On the other flank...well archers + Demigryph (could only get a single 1 in base to base) = 2 dead archers, 1 wound on sabretusk = thank goodness I have a musician! Kitty runs, archers unsuccessfully chase, while the Demigryphs turn to face down the Iron Guts (and sit within the Hurricanum bubble...).

 The Demigryphs smelt them before they saw them; the Ironguts came smashing through the undergrowth into combat. The sabretusk thought they would have a go at the cannon, however it was a little too far to pounce on. Tossing up whether to hit the ICKs or the Demigryph flank, the Mournfang decided it was more fun to run at ICKs, and thundered off the hill at the Empire's finest.
The bulls, enraged by the unfounded comments about their mothers ran at the archers who fled...but not far enough. The Slaughtermaster went to cook them up, but the Empire Mages pulled out their recipe scroll and corrected their cooking techniques. In combat...12 Demigryph attacks hitting on 2's...especially when they had just been heated up by the Firebelly = some very, very, very dead, fleeing and run down Iron Guts. The Dwarven brew wore off and the last remaining Mournfang on 1 wound ran from the Demigryphs who decided it was better to turn around than chase. The ICK's didnt fair as well as hoped. 2 were squashed by the impact of the Mournfang. Their swords only managed a single wound before their armour failed them, 2 more dying to s4 attacks. Re-rolling ldship 4, the Standard bearer gets pulled down and the final 5 escape the over run.




TURN THREE
So what do you get when you have Halberds in the front, Demigryphs in the rear, and Demigryphs in the flank? Suspiciously woodelf-like tactics if I've ever seen them!
The ICK's rally and brace themselves for more Mournfang "fun".The Light mage after much "do I cast on single unit or bubble" thinking, decides to target just the Halberds with Timewarp only to IF it, wounding everyone that can generate dice (including hurricanum!)...however the Art Collector's ward proves true. The Gun show decided to light up the Mournfang. HellBlaster kills them down to a single wound. The cannon on Hill fails to finish it off (can't remember how), while the other one over hears the Slaughtmasters "hey wouldnt it be funny if the sabretusk got grapeshotted!"...and grape shots the sabretusk's last wound...thank you archers for your single wound contribution.

In the combat my Halberds rip into the bulls slaying many. The Slaughtermaster is taken down to a single fustrating wound and the BSB is wounded. All this slaughter is for naught as the Bulls hold on, due to the fancy headpiece the Slaughtmaster was wearing.
The remaining Mournfang thought he would try his luck and smashed into the ICKs. The fleeing Mournfang rallied, while the fleeing sabretusk ran off the board. However, the sneaky 3rd managed to make it to the the cannon on the hill. During the slaughter the flask containing the Dwarven brew's lid was knocked off and the remaining bulls found themselves not wanting the leave the presence of the wonderful drink. This of course was their downfall as all the bulls were pecked to death or pulled to their fate by the Halberds. All that remained was the Firebelly and the Slaughtermaster (protected by "hitting on 6's" and my inability to roll 4's to wound). The mournfang combat was lost by one, but the ICK's held true-encouraged by the action in the centre of the field.



TURN FOUR

The Empire went for the kill:
And kill they did. The Sabretusk wore a heap of arrows, The Light Mage IF'ed again (!) killing 4 archers, and everyone now with +1 to hit pulled apart the Slaughtermaster and Firebelly. The Mournfang vs ICK's was an awkward draw.







The Mournfang that relied hid behind the tower, hoping to sneak back to the Mountains to find another tribe to join, while the ICKs vs Mournfang combat continued as a draw for a few more rounds until the final wound was taken and the Empire were victorious!




END RESULT
The warband hadnt been routed, they had been cut down to literally an Ogre for the loss of 5 archers and 1 cannon. The valley had been saved from the marauding warband. Much celebrations and drinking ensued. 





Monday 17 December 2012

The Hub Campaign and Painting update-new Empire BSB

Hi All,

So not this weekend just been, but the one before I had a fantastic nerd-tastic time up in Levin at Glen's. He has put together a really fun 40k campaign and on the Saturday was the first round of games to determine the story path.

My list was as per last post...however one thing I didnt take into consideration when writing the list was deployment.

All three games I deployed something like this:
That's 30 boyz and the warboss on the board with rokkitcopta outflanking and the "yoofs" in reserve (in later games I squeezed the deffcopta in as well and used its scout move to get up the board).

In comparison my opponent deployment tended to look something like this:


Yeah...

The games were simple 6 turn events with 2 objectives worth 2 VPs + VPs for first blood, general, and line breaker. Needless to say the games were very easy to draw (vs marines). We tended to hold our objective (game 1 I was 2 guardsmen short of shooting them off the objective and Conan was a "oh wait-cultist champs are ldship 8" successful breaktest away from taking me off mine), I tended to get first blood (thankyou warboss) and they tended to get general (no thanks warboss). However 30 boyz+ rokkitcopta = heaps and heaps of shooting that served me well-wiping out a combat sqaud in a single round of dakka is a very, very satisfying thing for us Ork players...so is dropping 3 terminators with shootas.

Game 3 was a bit different...my army vs Drago (who got scoring unit as his trait), a dreadknight (scoring thanks to Drago), and 10 Guardsmen with auto cannon and grenade launcher. I can comfortably say I was politely tabled by a dreadknight...who was on 1 wound costing me first blood before I was wiped out grrrrr

Anywho-the Badguys (Orks included here due to my Nurgle Cultist "yoofs") won the day (thank you Genestealer cult). Personally, my Orks are there to cause mayhem and spread the Waaagh! not pick sides in the struggle of "not Ork" vs "not Ork", so hopefully Glen can write that into the campaign somehow....


Can't wait for round 2.

PAINTING UPDATE

So on the painting front I have finished off another 12 High Elf archers (no pic as they look exactly like my other ones) and have moved the 5 plastic dragon princes to the painting tray...I have also assembled and sand based another 5 Reavors to grow my High Elf Cav. However I keep getting this feeling that I really should finish painting my Orks.

 I have also officially gotten annoyed enough with my old metal BSB to do something about it:


So meet Barry the BSB part 2. Straight from the plastic Gold Swords sprue, epic feather and free-hand comet + usual paint scheme (with a little bit more care taken on the beard-3 drybrushed coats) = sorted. I have yet to finish the basing, but it will be exactly like all my other Empire stuff. I decided not to kit bash it because the Gold Sword standard bearer looks cool enough and if I EVER wanted to field greatswords (fluffycon?) I have the metal standard bearer to do me right.

So that's all from me for now. Next post should be a battle report of my Empire getting stomped by Will's "no skills net listz FTW" Ogres (that counts as trash talk).








Thursday 6 December 2012

When the cat's away, the nerds will play

Hi all,

So the other half's work Christmas do is a weekend away in the Malborough Sounds meaning I get to Warhammer it up Friday night, all Saturday, and most of Sunday...epic. Last year I just sat at home painting warhammer watching American Dad. This year will be sooo much better.

FRIDAY:

Conan and Ryan are coming around for epic night of Warhammer assembling (Conan) and small skirmish 40k games (all of us...once Conan has assembled his stuff :P). I have my Bolt Thrower CD all ready to pump through the sound system NICE.

SATURDAY:

Conan and I drive up to Levin to visit Glen. Glen has written a very cool 40k campaign (the sort of 40k I like...small, fun, fluffy). The story can be found here.

My army:

In the depths of the Hub a community of orks has been growing from some spores that were accidently smuggled there by a a sushi chef. These "yoofs" are starting to shed their teef and become "da ladz" and the next generation is coming through. Meanwhile a Missionary warboss and his trusty copta buddy have found themselves on the planet having hijacked a transport ship. Working their way (read "speeding dangerously") through the lower levels causing havoc (humans are less tolerant of evangelical Gork followers than the average ork) they chanced across "da green gang" who became disciples of Gork and seek to spread the Waaagh whereever they go...once they figure out how to get out of the Hive.

Warboss: Warbike, Pklaw, Attack Squig, Cybork body 150

30 Shoota Boys: Nob-Pklaw, 'eavy armour, Bosspole,big shoota 230
10 Nurgle cultists "yoofs": flamer 75

RokkitCopta 45

500


Basically you had to take 1 squad of Cultists, or Guardsmen. Orks are more "bad guys" so cultists as yoofs works for me...good thing nurgle makes things green and t4! They count as battle brothers and will be represented by the BFBR slugga boyz with a burna boy filling in as the flamer model.

I'm not expecting to win anything given that my fluffy tactic is to run at stuff and hopefully cut it to pieces with volume of attacks (and loud noises shooting). That said, 30 shoota boyz and a warboss running at you is a scary prospect...

That night will be some epic D&D.

SUNDAY:

 Sam and James arrive for the official NZTC practice event...or playing games as it is also known. I'll be running my "post masters" list:

Alector: GW, AOMI, 4++            200
lvl4: light, scroll            225

BSB: FPA, Ench. sh, wbane        101
lvl1: fire, rubyring            90
engineer                65

48 Halberds: FC                318
5 archer detach                35
5 archer detach                35
10 archers                70
10 ICKS: FC-Gleaming Pendant        285

4 Demigriffs: M                242
4 Demigriffs: M                242
cannon                    120
cannon                    120

Hurricanum                130
Hellblaster                120

2398

Basically everything that worked for me at Vermintide + lore of light to give me combat advantage (EMPIRE NEED), the ever-so-felt-the-absence-of Hellblaster + engineer and some flanking knights, because it wouldnt be Empire without some knights.
Unlike my Masters list I can afford to sit back a bit with this one and wear down key units, board control, then pounce. Also my chaff can deploy IN FRONT of my army as its parent unit wants to be up front, not at the back.

Also waaaaaaaay more fluffy-got the Halberds back. Best case scenerio for them is 38 s4 hatred ws10/i10 hitting on 2's with re-roll to wound with opponent -1 to hit vs a 5++ AHHHHH sweet, sweet Empire love.

Anywho, I'm sure I will have plenty of stories to tell.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Yummy Rats and the curious case of the moustache

So Masters huh?

Well. First off on the day Warhammer was the winner as I had 6 very enjoyable games against some quality opponents.

I forgot to take pics 90% of the time, so I wont do "proper" battle reports sorry :(

SO my list was the list in the last post. It wasnt tested before submitting (time restraints), and after Vermintide I have a much clearer idea of how I like to operate Empire...and it wasnt what I submitted!

My first game was vs Locky's Skaven-random deployment. The game went as I expected it to. My cannons kill stuff, the Demigryphs destroy stuff in combat, and my knights pretty much avoid the action and look important. 15-5 to me.

Game 2 was also vs Skaven-though this time it was vs the rat master himself, Pete D. Now for all the crap he gives Dwarf players, I want to document on the internetz his deployment (please note this was blood and glory-hence the 9 inch gap to table edge)

Yes, you are correct, that is the very definition of castling in the corner-the Dwarf tactic of choice. And as soon as he could, the bell moved into the corner. This game was going to be a big challenge for me, however I had the Demigryph combat chomp, and a few lucky storm banner rolls. My first target was the doomwheel (Dead turn 1), then the HPA with wizards, while I worked my way through the rats. Turn 3 I managed to kill the Seer giving me a huge advantage (+ a couple of insane courage break tests...) allowed me to clean up what I could for a 16-4 win to me, and in the NZ world, an achievement unlocked.

 Game 3: So sitting nicely in 2nd place I came up vs Rory's Vamps, but more importantly, I came up against Rory's moustache.

With that staring at me from across the table, I was bound to find myself distracted! Rory pushed forward aggressively turn 1 (went first). I saw an opportunity in his chaffing for an overrun from Fell bats into flank of skele unit with wraiths with my ICKS. So naturally I also put the unit of 5 demigryphs in too...meaning my ICKS didnt get to align for my advantage....overrun was 1 inch short as a result, meaning my Captasus who had valiantly charged the front, found himself stranded with a Vamp lord, vamp hero and the last remaining black knight (searing doom kills 9...grr) staring at his flank. On the topic of Black Knights, you know a game isnt going well when you kill 23 in a game when the list only had 10....yeah. 0-20 to Rory...

Game 4: Vs Ant's Brets. Antony is a real great guy to play, and I love the fact that his banners are labels from cheese labels. We were playing watch tower, and this is the 2nd time I have lost it to Brets. I was always going to struggle in this game as I had no true anvil that could hold up his units, so it was a case of him grinding me down, and using his narrow units + terrain very well vs my considerably wider units. 0-20 to Ant.

Game 5: Vs Pete W's High Elves. So the internet thought the list was crap...all I saw was 3 bolt throwers + curse of arrow attraction + 2 decent magic missiles = I cant sit back and weather the storm = I have to move forward + my magic range threat is minimal vs his defence.  I deployed first (diagonal mission) and picked a corner that would give me a good central position to work from...so naturally my ICKS dont turn up = have to move my line to keep BSB/general bubble (vs all that ranged threat!) to not a desirable location. Despite losing both chariots turn 1, Pete held on, my lances were made of rubber, his shield of sapphery was borrowed from a demon player and my army disappeared. HOWEVER I would like to point out that Pete pulled a game winning move turn 1 so it was his tactics that beat me. I didnt see it due to calv + forest + range, but Pete took his changes, charged flank of some vanilla knights with reavers through a forest, broke them and they fled across my line and ruined my already sub optimal battle line. Fantastic move that made me re-assess how I interact with terrain. 0-20 to Pete (seeing a theme???)

Game 6: vs Sam W's OnG. Last game and I get Sam's can opener list. Well guess what? some cans got opened. However, I did manage to epic charge, break and run down his trolls (yeah!) and also killed both his wizards with a single Final Transmutation (first time in 13 games with lvl4 metal that I have killed a character). This game was the perfect representation of why my list was wrong. No steadfast, no anvil, no real ranged threat and of the spells my lvl4 had, literally the only one that was useful was final transmutation. This game swung from a 10-10 to a 4-16 to Sam in turn 6.

End result: So despite being 2nd on the table, three 0-20's really hurt me and I came last. Oh well, I had lots of fun and it was an event where submarining really wasnt an option! Congrats to Tom D for winning,  thanks to Pete for organising it,  and a big thanks to the refs for doing what refs do.

Thoughts on list:

Having seen what hurricanum + hatred/prayered up halberds can do, I have to say the Knight heavy Empire is a poor man's choice of list-especially when you have to play missions. I had no answer in the watch tower, and nothing that could happily grind away. Lore of metal was a poor choice given the lack of armour that was there, especially when Empire really need to be able to sit back for a bit and pick their battles. On sitting back-I now appreciate what a Hellblaster brings to the army-not killing power (though it has that), but board denial. My opponents were free to roam whereever they pleased because I had no way of dis-incentivising their movement. What worked? Demigryphs did when they a) had the space to play, and b) had the upper hand-something a hurricanum provides, and so does the lore of light.

I have been frantically drafting lists, and with a weekend of nerdom ahead, I'll post up my Post-Master's list thoughts, and also there is a 40k campaign that I will be taking part in.

Till next time...