30 November 2008

Warlord vs. Foundry


I dug up one of my old Foundry Gauls to compare their size (and a change in painting style over the past decade, it seems...) with the Warlord figures.

I was too lazy to move the unit I was basing out of they way, so you get them charging at you in the foreground.

As usual, click to enlarge.



28 November 2008

Burgundian vs. Swiss Turkey Showdown

So I just took 2500 points of Burgundians against their best-friends-forever, the Swiss, and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Charles would be proud.

I only snapped one pic, a bit blurry because my newer-better-more-expensive phone takes the crappiest photos on the planet.




This is at the turning point, from behind the Burgundian lines. On the left are some Swiss mounted crossbowmen and way back behind a wall by the farmhouse in the upper left is their ribaldquin that never fired a shot. To the right of the building are my coustilliers who had plowed through the shot-up remnants of some halberdiers, then through some skirmishers, and into the flank of a pike unit. Just to the south of them are some dismounted gendarmes waiting to join the fight above. Behind them are some skirmishing handgunners who had fled from the afore-mentioned but now annihilated halberdiers, but later rallied.

To the right of them is the Fustercluck Royale. (Pardon my French.) On the Burgundian side we have (from lef to right) ordonnance archers with hand+half swords, Low Countries pikemen, and ordonnance pikemen. A second unit of archers with hand+half swords has maneuvered around the flank of the Swiss line. On the Swiss side (again, left to right) are unarmoured pike, gewalthut with heavy armour, and more unarmoured pike. The Swiss were the chargers. My mounted general and BSB moved left, from behind the lines, just in case they needed to avoid the fleeing of their own troops. On the hill to the left are some Burgundian crossbowmen. Not on the table are some more Swiss halberdiers and a huge unit of allied knights and lighter cavalry in a combined formations. To the north of the hill are my gendarmes who were running down successive waves of skirmishers desperately throwing their bodies in my way in an attempt to slow me down. (Halberdiers had killed several gendarmes already, due to my inability to roll anything but 1's for their armour saves. This is a curse for me in WAB, as my Sarmation cataphracts always did the same thing. I can make saves for nekkid guys with wicker shields all day, but never for the tin-men on horses.)

So I was doing OK up til this point. The Swiss had a substantial pile of bodies, and I had lost a cannon, some skirmisers and a few gendarmes. Due to the loss of the skirmishers, though, the resulting combat above aligned funny and was one single combat involving six units. This was my downfall. I did OK with two of my three units, and considering that I had worn the Swiss down already, I would have probably won the two outside combats if they were three separate ones. The pain came from the gewalthut in the center. Not only did they still have all their ranks, they did a lot of damage in combat and my Flesmish pikemen were typically ineffective. (I notice they make a good scapegoat for the Burgundian dukes, so I'll work with what history has provided.)

In the subsequent break tests, my archers on the left stay, but all the pikemen run. And run fast. Off the table. Then the panic tests set in. My coustilliers, who had just beat the tar out of the pikemen (who were stubborn, so stuck around despite casualties) AND the mounted crossbow (who had charged them in the rear but then fled from the combat), take off running. The archers who were ready for a flank charge also take off running.

The subsequent turn, my dismounted gendarmes charge the pikemen, but with a less secure position than if the coustilliers had stuck around. The archers on the left lose combat again and are run off the table. The Swiss pike swing in to the side of the general, who panics from the loss of the archers, letting the pike hit the BSB instead. Except that the general is caught by pursuit. Dead, so more panic tests all around. Everyone but the dismounted gendarmes fail. The worst of it is that my mounted gendarmes flee from skirmishers. How embarrassing.

I get the last turn, so most of my fleeing troops do rally, but the loss of 3 big blocks of infantry plus the mounted gendarmes (who were below 5 figures at this point) hurt. The fact that I had beat up on several of his pike units didn't help, since they still had small remnants left. If there were half-points as in WFB it would have been a closer game.

So the big battle in the center was the pivot. Two things went wrong. One was the alignment of the combats. Second was bad break & especially bad panic rolls.

Fun game nonetheless! 2500 points in about 1.5 hours. That included a bit of flipping through the books as we were making sure not to confuse WFB & WAB rules. Afterward we both commented on how much more fun WAB feels vs. WFB anymore. We're alreay speaking of a rematch and getting a couple more people for either a mini-round-robin or team game in the Classical period.

26 November 2008

Burgundian Banners from Imperial Forge

I recently received a preview set of Burgundian Ordonnance banners from Imperial Forge. ( http://stores.ebay.com/Imperial-Forge ). So here's the first set of photos & a bit of a review.

Actually, I'll get right to the photos (click to enlarge) of some heavy infantry...




...and Antoine, The Grand Bastard...


Those are the only ones I've got on figures right now. I've got some more that are "prepped" but are awaiting a few finishing touches on the figures on which they will be mounted, and a couple more still drying.

First off, a little background. I've been painting figures for, well, quite a while. I've gone through different materials & methods for doing banners, but I've always painted them myself. I want my Burgundians to look good (as I'd like all my armies) but after much consideration, I figured it would not be in my best interest to hand paint all the standards. So prior to receiving these standards, I tried printing my own on an inkjet at home with decent but unimpressive success.

So enter Imperial Forge's recent Burgundian banner preview. Even before I received them in the mail, I could tell from his own photos that they were more detailed than what I had pieced together on my own and definitely more detail than I could paint by hand. They're also right about the size I had scaled for mine.

So this week I started cutting & gluing the IF banners. Keep in mind that what follows is my first real experimentation with printed banners... I'm using brushed on watered down Sobo (PVA) glue. This has been a bit tricky for me. The paper drinks it up fast (the dry environment here probably doesn't help), so once I start sticking the two halves together, they don't want to move. I was afraid I was going to destroy one or two of them when I had to pull them apart a few times, but they survived intact. I'm getting better as I go.

While they dry, I am wrapping them around various plastic tubes, paint brush handles, paint bottles, etc. to get them to dry in a wavy manner. I tried giving one some more "extreme" folds, as I saw someone selling pre-fab banners at Historicon with severly wrinkled folds, but I was less successful. These banners appear to be on a slightly heavier paper, so the folds were creating some unattractive wrinkles/lines in the paper & printing when you looked very closely. I'll stick with the curvy waves as above from now on. The ones I saw at Historicon may have been on thinner paper, possibly regular stock, since they were a bit less colorful if I remember correctly.

Speaking of color, these are nice and bright. Almost a bit too bright compared to my figures. This may be a trick of the slightly gloss finish of the banners. This was helped by hitting them with a layer of clearcoat, and did take the edge off the gloss. You can still see a hint of it in the photos, but a second coat should do the trick. I also ran a thinned layer of paint very carefully along the edges of the paper, to hide the barely visible white thickness of the paper.

I think one of myh favorite things about the banners is the texture on some of the fields. You can see it in the photos above, but it's not overbearing. Definitely something I would not have had the patience to paint had I done this by hand.

My own inexperience with printed banners aside (though I've improving as I put more together!), the only downside is that some of the text is a bit hard to read on one of the banners. The one I'm looking at now (I'll post a pic in the next day or two) is the St. Judas banner, with the Je Lay Empirins motto and details in yellow (or/gold/whatever) on a black background. I notice a black outline helps define the details and lettering on the other colored fields, but I think on the black one is a little visually confusing. A similar thing happens with the more delicate/thin areas of the fleur-de-lis on one of the other banners.

Speaking of saints, I do like the level of detail on the saints' images and the tiny lettering identifying them (which is legible.) I hope to see a St. Thomas banner in the next set, since I share a name and occupation with him. ;)

So basically, I'm pretty happy with the banners. I'm a convert. After seeing the two above in place, I'm planning on using more for the rest of the army. As I said, I don't have a lot to compare these too, but compared to my own attempts at paper banners and the thought of trying to hand paint them, I'm digging the Imperial Forge banners and will be on the lookout for more.

24 November 2008

Warlord Games Celts (part 3)

I'm more or less done with the figures. I still need to base them. I had considered doing some plaid/stripe/tartan/check patterns on some of the clothing, but I'm not sure I've got the enthusiasm for it at the moment. But I'm a moody painter, so who knows what tomorrow will bring.

After I transferred the photo to the computer, I noticed the menacing figure coming around the cardboard backdrop. I decided to leave him in. (He's one of a group of figures I'm touching up for a friend.)





So, after doing all of this on the Warlord Gauls, how do I feel about them?

Pros:
Price
Ease of convertability
Good detail

Cons:
Assembly time
Difficult to rank
Bad poses

Middle:
There's a certain ability to create variety with the figures, but considering the potential for multi-piece figures, there's a lot of same-ness to the figures. If the would have made the bodies single piece, but with a variety of separate arms, this may have turned out better. I don't know. I bitched about the heads already, more variety there may have helped also. Still, compared to something like a range of say, seeing the same 12-16 metal figures over and over, they're not really worse off.

The way I see it, they are nicer looking competators to Old Glory figures. They're both cheap and make it more affordable to buy a huge barbarian horde. The trade off is that although you get nicer looking figures with cleaner details than Old Glory (in my opinion), you end up paying for it through time spent cleaning & assembling the figures.

Maybe that gets quicker with practice. I doubt it, though. My WFB Empire army could probably grow to twice its size just with plastic kits hidden away in my basement. But after putting so many of those plastic figures together, I've lost the will to continue for the moment. In contrast, I just quickly cleaned up some more metal Front Rank medievals for my Burgundians. They're quality figures, and I pay twice as much for that. But I spent a fraction of the time prepping them, which means more time painting.

So while I'm not going to bash Warlord's Celts, I can't honestly say I'm a huge fan. I do look for a good balance between price and quality. Unfortunately, I think the frustrations of these figures listed in the "cons" column push them just barely over my tolerance. The newly announced mixed metal & plastic Britons don't help generate enough enthusiasm for me, as I'm not fond of mixed plastic & metal kits and can already image the problem, for example, of a plastic figure with a metal carynx or standard.

I still can't comment on Wargames Factory, as their Celts haven't shipped. I'm going to assume that they will still involve similar issues in terms of prep time. But if they manage a similar level of detail while avoiding goofy looking poses, and manage to rank up decently, they could swing my opinion the other way a bit. Addressing some of the variety issues would help, as well. Even better if they scale up with Warlord's figures, since that would help with varity already.

I'll post some final pics once these are based.


Coming next... more Burgundian Ordonnance. A preview of some new banners from Imperial Forge. And maybe a battle report from a Thanksgiving weekend showdown between Bold Chuck against those pike-wielding pussies from the Alps. The Burgundians are practically guarenteed a win. ;)

21 November 2008

Warlord Games Celts (part 2)

I've got at least a basecoat and wash on everything but the weapons & shields. I've started highlighting the clothing, belts, etc. after this pic.

I'm going to try saying some nice things. The detail really is pretty good on these figures. Although I complained I was disappointed in the variety of heads, I do like the detail and expressiveness of the faces. There are a couple of awkward mold lines, but that's plastic figures I suppose.

The folds & details on the clothing are nice. A tiny bit on the smallish side for fast painting, but it's not a bad thing per se.

There was a little too much daylight coming in the windows (from the left) for the camera settings in the photo below.






I've recently re-read Agricola and Germania, and I'm about half way through Caesar's Conquest of Gaul.

Since I was "in the mood" I decided to reserve the first season of Rome on DVD at the library. I just got done watching the first episode. So of course now I'm thinking, "well, a Roman army wouldn't really require too many figures, and I could use Gauls or Germans to fill them out a bit. And I could do some civil war stuff with the one friend I've managed to get interested in WAB recently.

I've got the attention span and focus of a typical wargamer.

So I am seriously considering a small Roman force. I probably will go ahead and try out some of the new plastics. What can I say, they're the latest craze. And they're affordable enough to make my lack of focus somewhat acceptable. I just have to decide between Warlord & Wargames Factory.

20 November 2008

BTD Ancient Germans

I've seen the figures in person, but not directly next to Foundry's Ancient Germans. If anyone would care to comment on how well the two would mix, leave a reply. I suspect they will work well together.

BTD Ancient Germans

Also, I've not ordered from them before, but have heard some people in Europe/UK mention delays. But since I'm in the US, I'd be curious to hear if everything's OK ordering from them in TX.

Just spotted that they sell gift certificates. I'll have to drop some hints to friends and family for the holidays. ;)

17 November 2008

Warlord Games Celts (part 1)

I've assembled and started painting one box of Warlord Games Celts. So here's the start of a quick painting project and a bit of a review.





I like big horde armies. Multi-piece plastic sounds like a great idea, in theory. That's what I figured, initially. You get 100s of figures all looking different, they're cheap, and you don't risk back injuries carrying around all that lead. Whether you like GW or not, you've got to admit they've done some great things with plastic kits. I would think that the companies starting to manufacture similar kits for the historical market would pay close attention. (Especially those companies run by ex-GW staff...)

So with that optimism in mind, I picked up two boxes of Warlord Games Celts, and pre-ordered two boxes of Wargames Factory Celts.

I've got to admit that after assembling just one box of the Warlord Games figures, I realize I had overlooked one of the negatives of plastic horde armies. Assembly time. It was tedius. And after all of that cleaning and fitting and gluing, I've still missed a number of mold lines. And the mold lines are one of my issues with the figures. Some of them are quite prominent.

The detail is pretty good. They're not metal figures, but that's an acceptable trade off. The bad spots are some of the "mitten hands" and one of the heads has some sort of strage issue with the eyes. I'm not sure if that is a molding problem or a sculpting problem.

Which brings me to the low point. I've got several significant complaints with the sculpting and choice of "bits." Some of the poses are bordering absurd - doubled over and harshly twisted torsos. Add the outstretched flailing arms to the mix and the figures are a pain in the ass to rank up. In my photo below you can see that there is actually an extra loose figure. That's because when I mounted the figures in the center on a couple of group bases, I just ran out of room. Plus I couldn't stand having even one more of the bent-over-sniffing-someones-butt poses in the formed unit.

At first I was annoyed by the lack of shields for all the figures, but in the end there's no way I would have got them to rank up if they all had shields.

I do admit that part of the issue may be that I am basing them on 20x20 bases (or their multi-figure equivalent). Maybe if I was putting them on larger bases, they would work out better. But unfortunately, that's the size I need for the games I'm playing. It's not honestly that unusual, so I find it surprising that a manufacturer would design figures which are difficult to rank up in popular or common basing schemes.

You're really got to match up the right torsos with the right legs as well. They're posable, but only to a limited extend before the anatomy starts looking even more screwed up. Add the limited variety in heads (many duplicates) and there's not as much variety as it seems there would be.

So far all I've got is the black primer and a few coats of flesh done. This has gone pretty well, at least. They've far more pleasant to paint than to assemble, probably because of the fairly crisp and well proportioned detail.

So far: I'm disappointed.

I'll post some more pics as I make some progress.

16 November 2008

More Khador pics

The two commission figures are done.




Mine are just about finished. I need to decide how to finish the bases. I was going to do something rocky with snow, but now that I've done the basic texture & painting, I'm not sure about the snow. My fear is that it will blend in with the rest of the base too much.

14 November 2008

More Khador

I worked on the previously posted Khador figures for Warmachine. As usual, you should be able to click on the pics to enlarge.


First up is the one who's furthest along, Drago. He's almost done, though I've got a bunch of tiny detail work I want to do on him.





Next, my two warjacks, um, Jack and Jack. I guess they don't have proper names. I don't even know the generic names off hand. I suppose I'll need to invest in the reference card deck if I'm actually going to use them. (Again, the two below are mine, the first pic and the last pic are commissions.)




And finally the Devastator.




My plan is to finish up tomorrow or Sunday, depending on how the weekend goes.

Germania Calls - a shameless plug

My copy of Tacitus' Agricola & Germania has been AWOL for many years. I just picked up a used copy through Amazon after too much waiting to find it at local bookstores. I haven't managed to find it at any of the local bookstores and the chain stores' (Borders and B&N) "History" sections are full of Hitler and pseudo-history and conspiracy stuff like Templars, masons and how aliens built the pyramids. A sad state for the study of history, if you ask me.

So I tore through it the past two days.

I've been leaning increasingly to Ancient Germans for my next project. I'm still trying to trade/sell off some of the odds & ends in my collection to help fund this. So I've made the brave/foolish decison to dive into the world of eBay...

http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/zerotwentythree_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZQQ_mdoZ

By the way, in addition to Foundry's wonderful looking (though still a lot of cash in one chunk) holiday sale, I'm very tempted by Black Tree Design's Ancient Germans for a bit of variety!

10 November 2008

Warmachine - Khador

I do occasional commission work and have been sporadically painting a few Warmachine Khador figures for one person in particular. Recently I picked up enough Khador figures for a small starter force for myself, as mentioned in my last comments re: Loot.

So I've started working on 4 big Khador warjacks this week. Two on commission and two I picked up for myself. My plan is at each step I'm using the latter as a testing ground for techniques to use on the former.

I've done all of the steel portions so far, though I think they will get one very thin wash before I move on. I've used a similar technique to one I recently read about on the Too Much Lead blog. The difference being that I reverse the first six stages or so. But I am working with small details where that article is dealing with edges along larger areas.

What I've done is start off black, then a sloppy coat of a an orangy-brown mix. Then I start drybrushing a mix of the orange and/or brown with some dark steel metalic, then just some dark metalic, then I start feathering on some lighter metalics & silvers along some of the edges and spots I want to look scraped or clean. So I end up with weathered metal with a bit of rust in the recesses, but cleaner looking steel on the edges and areas where it would be more likely to have rubbed off.





The top pic are my two figures, the bottom two are the commission pieces. It may be a bit difficult to see the details of the "rust" in the photo, but I think it gives the general impression. (As usual, click the photos to enlarge them.) After I paint the rest of the "painted" surfaces & details, I'll probably go back with some very thinned down orange and add some rusty streaks where they make sense. It may not show well, though, since the "painted" surfaces will be red.

I forget the names of all of the above warjacks except the twin-axe wielding loonie, who's a unique warjack named Drago. He was about 25 pieces and one hell of an assembly job. The two I bought were already assembled, but were glued together pretty sloppy. I'm hoping the weathered look & rust helps hide some of the sloppy glue.

09 November 2008

Recent Lootings

Just thought I'd give a run down of some of the loot I've picked up since the Summer...

At Historicon I managed to nab some deals in the flea market, including a cheap if somewhat used Army Transport bag/case, some more old plastic GW Empire state troops, and a small starter force of Warmachine Khador figures for about 1/2 price. I looted some of the remaining WotR figures from Age of Glory's dwindling Front Rank bins, as well as some OG Flemish figures, some of which I've recently painted (and posted photos.) I got a few odds & ends, modeling supplies & such as well. I don't recall if I posted this figure from Ramshackle Games or not, but I will do a review in the near future. (When I get up the inspiration to paint it.)

At Buckeye Battles I won a few prizes and grabbed some new Fleshhounds and Galrauch the chaos dragon. I just like the figure for the latter, and want to paint him up. The former were going to be used in a Daemons of Chaos army, but after picking up the book I just can't play that army with a clear concience. It's so out of whack with the rest of the game that it didn't seem fun. So I traded them off.

I won some prizes again at Marauders Mayhem and got some gift certificates for the Krystal Keep, and cashed them in immediately for some GW wood elves and the WAB Alexander the Great book. I also spent some cash the first day on a few older figures that were in a clearance bin, but the most important score was two bottles of the old GW Flesh Wash, which is now out of production. I've tried all their other washes, but they don't work the way I use the Flesh Wash. So I've postponed my having to resort to finding an alternate solution. (The alternative will probably be to go back to Coat d'Arms Flesh Wash.)

I recently purchased the Hannibal & Punic Wars book for WAB at Recess Games (the more-or-less local game store), which just came in last week.

At the Recess Rumble this weekend, I got another prize certificate which I used to pick up the WFB Bretonnian army book and a few paints. I'm not certain I'm actually going to do a Bretonnian army, but like a sugared up 8-year-old with ADD, my army plans change daily, so who knows. The benefit being that I can use historical figures to serve a dual purpose.

Recess Rumble

Recess Rumble

This weekend was Recess Rumble, right in my back yard. Well, more like the other side of town. But still Cleveland-ish. I was going to bring a variation on my Marienburg list, but didn't think of it until too late and didn't have time to paint the figures I wanted to use. I think I'm going to continue playing the army for a full year, which means Marienburgers at BASHcon. But after that, I think they're on a shelf for a while.

Back to the two day Recess Rumble. It was the first year for the event, so it was fairly small. It ended up being a 12 player tourney, with half the players representing the local Team BREWS and the other half representing Columbus' Team SLACKER. All the scenarios were story driven, almsot like a linear campaign. Some of the scenario rules were a bit funky, which threw a twist on the usual games. I appreciated this, since it was something different than usual and IMHO it's the sort of thing that takes the edge off of competition. (Not that either Team really had any win-at-all-costs type players.)



Game 1
vs. Dark Elves

Her list was mainly infantry, with two units of spearelves, two units of black guard, some dark riders, a hydra and a pair of bolt shooters. 4 heroes on foot (mostly in the black guard), 2 assassins and no spellcasters. There were two craters from which we had to sit units and a character in order to mine "magic rocks."

I'm usually pretty good with ranging artillery shots, and I had some good dice on my rockets early on and managed to get both units of black guard down to 1 figure + heroes by about the second turn. I managed to nail the hydra with 6 cannon shots, but it regenerated 5 of them and took only 3 wounds from the one that it didn't. My pistoliers did fairly well for a change, and managed to take out the dark riders and a few spearelves before falling victim to one of the scenario rules (which let the spearelves unexpectedly skirmish and charge them!)

I ended up with a solid victory, but my opponent had almost as many battle points as me by virtue of her following the scenario objectives better than I did and mining more rocks.

I've got to give my Team mates a hard time -- I was the only one to win in the first round. ;)


Game 2
vs. Orccs & Goblins

Out of six SLACKERS players, three had Orcs & Goblins. I guess their showing at Marauders Mayhem made an impression! (The overall winner from Marauders was, in fact, one of the SLACKERS.

This was a fairly typical looking O&G horde army. Low magic again, which was good, since I have minimal magic and enjoyed that aspect of the first game. The scenario was again a rock mining quest, this time with a single crater in the center of the table, a river bisecting the table lengthwise, and two 6" fords on either side of the crater. This created an interesting bottleneck.

I set up with all my shooting in the center, right across from the bottleneck. Infantry was on either side, and cavalry on the flanks. The bulk of his infantry was aimed at the center. My artillery did OK, but not as good as last time. Miraculously my 10 handgunners, who are usually more a liability than a benefit, became infamous orc killers over the course of the game. The knights managed to quickly cross the river by charging goblins as they were crossing and then pursuing/overrunning the rest of the way. Combined with some key failed animosity tests, this meant I had two units of knights with warrior priests running around in the backfield. One unit took out a unit of night goblins, two bolt throwers, a doom diver and a unit of orc arrer boys! In the meantime, I was able to isolate and deal with Orc units individually. First a couple of wolf rider units, then a unit of savage orcs, then the boys themselves.

It ended up a massacre for me, thanks in part to orc animosity.


Game 3
vs. Orcs & Goblins

This was the same army that beat me at the Bookery RTT about a year or so ago (vs. my Skaven) and then beat me again at Buckeye Battles this summer. Again, another horde army.

The scenario was the wierdest and most difficult of the set. The deployment zones were lowlands covered in fog (only see 2" like in woods) and the rest of the battlefield was uphill to a ridge that ran lengthwise along the center of the table. Again there was a magic crater in the center. Anyone in the center crater could only see out to the edge of the crater, and the only way to see units in the crater was to be on the edge (or inside it as well, obviously.) Various special rules came up due to the mining of the "magic rocks," the most important one ended up being large numbers of orcs going ethereal. 8O

My shooting was limited, and there was just a lot of strange interaction between the two armies due to limited lines of sight. In the center and on my right flank, however, the Orcs managed to push straight through and just pound out everything I had. Everything that went well with the previous game went wrong in this game, especially my inability to isolate and pick apart units. My opponent really made good use of his advantage of numbers.

The game ended up as a loss for me.



Game 4
vs. Orcs & Goblins

I ended up with the green hat trick. This was the overall winner at Marauders Mayhem. Again, a horde army, but a bit heavier on the chariots plus a giant and a lord on a wyvern.

My normal artillery skill left me. I managed to miss every cannon shot. I put 3 wounds on the wyvern with the pistoliers, but that was it. All the fast moving stuff was on my instantly, wrapping around both flanks. By the time I was engaged in the center, everyone was getting hit in the flanks. Even when I thought I was making good decisions (like hitting a chariot in a flank) it would turn sour (like rolling 2" for overrun which let the unit get hit in the flank by orcs...)

By about turn 4 the game was a hopeless massacre. We played through to the end anyway. I had a few figures left by the end.


Game 5
vs. Warriors of Chaos

Last game was against a fellow BREWS player. Strange scenario in which we deployed in opposite corners, on cliffsides overlooking a valley in which there was a central objective zone in which we had to bring two objects in order to gain battle points and certain benefits/curses.

This will sound a bit odd, but by the time we hit turns 4 & 5, each of our armies effectively counted as "undead" with all of their rules (unbreakable, crumble, fear, etc.) Our spellcasters all got IoN, but we each had a single weak spellcaster.

Admittedly, the terrain favored my empire, with 4 artillery pieces & a unit of 10 handgunners.

It started off fairly slowly, though. Other than sniping a couple of chaos knights withe cannons, I didn't do much with the shooting. What it really came down to was a couple grinding match in which I beat his giant but lost my knights and more importantly a freak cannon shot. A unit of chaos warriors had beaten a speedbump unit of archers in combat, exposing their flank to a cannon shot. The unit was about 6 figures wide, with two warriors in a second rank. On the far side of the front rank were the BSB and general. I thought I was under-guessing, in order to guarentee getting at least a couple of the warriors. (I had been overshooting a bit earlier in the game.) They're close, so I guess 4" range. I roll a 10 on the artillery die. This lands the cannonball on the BSB's head and carries through into the general. I figure, "well, at least I get two warriors" since he's got enough to be covered by the "Look Out Sir!" rule. He rolls 1's for both of them, and I max out on wounds, killing them both. Including the bonus for killing the general, that turns the game about 700 points or so further in my favor.

Both sides lost all their heavy knights, but all of his infantry were below half strength, mine were above half. His fast cav & hounds were gone, my pistoliers survived untouched. His warriors who should have cut through my greatswords, but multiple turns of crappy rolling turned that fight in my favor. Massacre for me.


Results

So in the end I was 3-2. Not too bad. I did poorly in scenario objectives (I had -5 battle points in Game 4!) I ended up in the middle of the pack in terms of overall scores. I did manage to squeek by with best painted, which was judged on a 100 point itemized scoring system -- only 2 points ahead of my nearest competitor, who got overall 2nd place anyway. (A very nice army - it got one of my votes for best army at Buckeye!)

So that was the first Recess Rumble. I've been busy and distracted lately, so I took this tournament off in terms of photos & detailed battle reports. It was a good first year for the tournament.

Marauders Mayhem

Marauders Mayhem
Day 2, Game 3
vs. Daemons of Chaos

OK, it just looks like I'm never going to finish that last battle report from Marauders Mayhem. So here's the short version, without photos. Sorry. Honestly, it wasn't a terribly exciting game anyway.

My last game was against an all-Nurgle Daemons of Chaos army. I used to have one of these back in the days of the hardbound Realms of Chaos books up through the 6th edtion Ravening Hordes list. I even still have a few odd figures lingering around waiting to find a new home.

So this was my first experience with a mono-Nurgle list under the new army book. The list seemed fairly reasonable. Three big units of plague bearers, 4 heralds on palenquins, 2 beasts of Nurgle and a small unit of Nurglings.

The table was fairly open, so I set up pretty far back in the deployment zone to max out my shooting time. After 3-4 turns of dropping rockets, cannons, arrow, pistol and handgun shots at the regenerating & ward saving horde I managed to kill the nurglings (one turn shooting then melee with the pistoliers) and a couple of plague bearers. That's it. That includes numerous direct rocket and cannon shots.

The beasts of nurgle were tied up fighting a cannon crew and then stalled for a bit longer with some archers and spent most of the game doing that, so I consider them somewhat irrelevent. The big units with the heralds, on the otherhand, were just tarpits. I simply couldn't kill enough of them and they don't run away. In spite of the fact that I pretty much had them surrounded and was attacking them from all sides. But they didn't do a whole lot of damage to me, either.

So we ended up with a draw.

I don't fault my opponent for his army. He obviously had a lot of interest & modeling involved in his Nurgle theme, and if I understand correctly he had been playing them since the old days when I did. But under the new rules it's just a bit of a boring army to play against. Unless maybe you've got flaming attacks to negate the regeneration.



Results

I've previously commented on the results, which can be reviewed in the old entry...

Basically I went 2-2-1, did OK overall, took best general and painting, and was on the winning team. More importantly, I played some new opponents and had a good time. And saw giant concrete corn.