30 July 2008

Historicon 08 - Part 3

I was looking for something to do Saturday Night, and came across the painting contest stuff in the event listing. I figured I'd drop off a few figures from the army I'd used in the WAB tournament the day before. I was told the "other" catagory might not have enough entries to run, so I went back to my room and got an almost-but-not-quite-finished Warmachine figure that I'd used in a late night game Friday, so that I might be able to help out the people who had entered keep from missing out.

While asking about the painting contest, I also inquired about the Iron Paintbrush sign on the entry. I'm glad I did, it ented up being one of the highlights of the weekend for me.

I was told it was something like Iron Chef for painting figures. I asked a couple friends to join me (we needed a team of 3) and we met up at the painting pavillion (next to the pool) at 8pm.

After being asigned tables, we went through a process in which randomly determined rules/elements were generated for the competition. What it boiled down to was that each team had an hour and a half to create a diorama from a bag of bits, a small wooden base, and a communal table full of painting & modeling supplies. For this event, the theme was "highwaymen", the base had to include flowers, a circular pattern had to be used somewhere, and we had to feature the color turquoise. Only one person could leave their table at a time. A minimum of 3 figures had to be painted. The bits ended up being from the GW empire militia set. We also needed to have a title.

As we cut, glued, painted, flocked, etc. the judges blasted music, wandered around the room trying to distract the contestants, and called out anyone breaking rules like hording paint, exploiting child labor, or an entire team disappearing to get paint and/or another bottle of wine. (A good number of the teams seemed to be half-lit when the event started...)

So after an hour and a half of brainstorming and fast paced work, we turned in our entry, "Beating Around the Bush."





There were 13 teams (I think) and all were good entries. We scored a silver and each took home a bag of loot, mainly modeling supplies (greenstuff, zap-a-gap, cans of armoury primer & clearcoat, and one of those super-no-stick mats.)

In hindsight, my idea about painting the circular pattern cobblestones with only 3 minutes to deadline (and all hobby supplies had to be returned to the shared table) might not have been a good one. I wanted to make sure the pattern was prominent, but it looks a bit messier I would have liked. Whoops.


WAB battle reports and general photos still to come.

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29 July 2008

Historicon '08 - Part 2

A unit of Ottoman Turks from my first game:



Low Countries pike and plançoniers from my second game:



BEAUTIFUL unit of Hundred Years War English knights:





I will post some battle reports and photos from the rest of the convention in the next few days.

For more information and photos, including results from the WAB tournament:

http://www.wabnews.com
http://web.mac.com/dalydr/iWeb/Site/Historicon%20%2708%20Tournaments.html

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Historicon '08 - Part 1

I'm a bit behind, since I haven't finished my Buckeye reports. I will get to those, but wanted to start posting a few things from Historicon this past weekend.

This year I returned to playing in the Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB) tournament after quite a few years away. I entered the medieval division, which covers the Age of Chivalry and Vlad the Impaler suppliments (basically late medieval Europe, including the Ottoman Empire). I was rushing to finish my Burgundian Ordonnance army, and came close, but sadly (and embarassingly) had to field a half painted unit of pikemen. But I got the rest done.



A photo looking down a row of the medieval division tables. I think we accounted for 12 of the 50 +/- players in the WAB tournament:



One of the medieval games. Looks like Italians vs. Teutonic Order:



Classical division? Looks like a Punic Wars match up? (Corrections/input welcome.)




Another Classical game? Macedonians?



At this point I give up. Anything that involves chariots goes a bit too far back for me. Bah, cavemen. ;)

22 July 2008

Burgundian Progress, 2 days remaining

I'm painting like a madman. Or a sane man feeling slightly mad due to sleep deprivation because he's up late painting. Here's some shots of my progress as of 1:30 am last night:


Almost finished with the archers, I think that will have to be good enough. I will give the bases a quick basecoat of color, then go back and finish that and the little details on the figures at a later time. I'll just put these guys in the back ranks, behind the completely finish archers.



Assorted figures. I'll finish these tonight.



The hopeless pikemen. No way I will even get close to finishing these. I think a couple of quick blocks of color on the figures an the bases will be as good as they get. Disappointing, because I think they will look cool when they are done. And everyone knows, well painted figures do better.

Who knows, maybe tonight will be super-productive.

21 July 2008

Historicon '08 Prep

I might not get to finish the Buckeye Battles reports until next week.

This coming weekend I'll be at Historicon in Lancaster, PA.

We're leaving Thursday morning, but I'm busy all week leading up to that because I'm trying to get enough figures painted for the Warhammer Ancients Tournament run by NEWS. The three rounds require 1750, 2000 and 2250 point armies. I'm running a Burgundian Ordonnance army (in the AoC division.) At the moment, I still need to finish:

18 archers (almost done)
25 pikemen (barely started)
4 crossbowmen (barely started)
3 standards
1 army standard bearer + standard

I don't have any of the standards started, which is disappointing because I know I will not be able to finish them. I like to hand-paint them, but I think I will temporarily print something up on paper for the tournament.

Here's a peek at some of what's already finished:

Gendarmes
Archers
Coustilliers
Cannon & Crew
Cannon & Crew
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18 July 2008

Buckeye Battles Indy GT (Part 2)

Game 3: vs. Tomb Kings

Game 3 was against one of my fellow Team B.R.E.W.s. members. Actually, I think he's been a member of half the clubs represented at the GT from around the state. But we've turned him to the, uh, B.R.E.W.S. side. Or something. I've played him before at the local club, so knew roughly what to expect: a challenging battle. Fortunately he's also a fair & balanced player, and all-around nice guy.

From left to right he had tomb prince and chariots, bone giant, fast cav, carrion (behind cav), tomb guards with caster & BSB, ushabti, and archers.

From left to right, I had pistoliers, knights, greatswords, artillery, handgunners in front of artillery, swords & spears, more artillery, handgunners, and more knights.

The scenario replaced the normal table quarters with diagonal ones. My objective was to get into the upper left corner of the table (in the photo) with at least US10 and one command figure, his was to do the same to the lower right corner. I didn't forsee either of us having an easy time of it.

Opening moves, the chariots take the gap on my left flank from the pistoliers I've moved there. Again, my wings advance, handgunners step down in front of the hill. Once again I manage to land an early rocket shot, wiping his tomb guard down to 2 figures, plus a wound on one of the heroes. By his turn, he's already managed to bring himself back to better than half strength, though.




The chariots head back around the woods as my knights manuver to wait for them. The bone giant hides like a big bone, uh, sissy. The knights on the right continue their long flank march, and his archers pull in some ranks to hide behind the hill. The carrion charge my handgunners in what could be the end of my hilltop artillery. The artillery on the right near the woods gets a momentary reprieve from the potential eruption of tomb swarms, who pop up on the other side of the archers.

Things get slightly wierd after this.





After failing to cause a wound, the carrion are smashed to pieces by the handgunners, who cause more casualties in a single round of hand to hand than all my handgunner do by shooting the entire weekend. The balance to this is that the tomb swarms overrun the archers, panic the cannon crew, and charge the rocket crew. My other cannon misses the best Ushabti shot I could hope for, and misfires. My knights advance on the right flank, and the greatswords see an opening for the back corner objective...




I didn't get an end-game photo, this is as close as it gets.

On the left, the greatswords continue their dash for the objective. The bone giant would eventually charge, do some initial damage, but then be brought down in the last turn. His chariots are destroyed, but the mummy escapes (his chariot was sniped out from under him before the chariots charged), runs for the woods, charges the knights, but dies. I manage another great rocket shot, as you can see in the photo, but by the end of the game, the unit was back to better than half strength. After 3+ turns of flank marching, not only do the knights not get a charge, but they are counter-charged by the ushabti (failed to dispell an easy roll on the movement incantation) and wiped out without causing a wound. The fury of the tomb swarms has not abated. They beat a detachment in combat after killing the rocket crew -- the detachment panics and flees through half my army, and the swarms follow up and eat my swordsment for lunch.

In the end, the Marienburgers manage to pull off a win. As freaked as I was by the unholy rampage of the tomb swarms, their casualties, my pistoliers and the knights on the right were about all I lost. In exchange, I got his chariots, two heroes, the giant, the fast cav, plus some points for grabbing territory and a captured standard. Still it was not a huge win, but enough to land me with a 2-1 record for Day 1.

17 July 2008

Buckeye Battles Army photos

Below are photos of some of the armies that caught my eye at Buckeye Battles. There were others, but some of them just didn't come out, and I didn't have time to get pics of all the armies I saw.



Beasts

Bretonnians

Daemons

O&G

Hordes o' Chaos

Another Hordes o' Chaos

Lizards

And finanlly, a shot of my own Marienburgers

Buckeye Battles Indy GT (Part 1)

July 12 & 13, 2008 I attended my first WFB Indy GT just outside of Columbus, Ohio: Buckeye Battles http://www.buckeyebattles.com

I'm a veteran of quite a few RTTs, but this was the first GT I've been to. I believe attendance was 48 (a couple last minute cancellations.) The venue was the theatre at Ohio Wesleyan College, with the tables all being set up on stage. The tables & terrain were nicely done, but simple & generally ideal for the tournament. The scenarios were all interesting and gave some objectives & conditions besides a vanilla pitched battle, but without screwing anyone over or drastically altering balance/gameplay. I thought everything was done very well.

Personally, I had 5 great games & 5 great opponents. The general atmosphere seemed pretty relaxed & friendly.

I took a 2250 points Marienburg (Empire) army:

25 Swordsmen
9 Detachment - Swordsmen
5 Detachment - Archer
25 Spearmen
9 Detachment - Swordsmen
5 Detachment - Archer
24 Greatswords
9 Detachment - Swordsmen
5 Detachment - Archer
10 Handgunners
10 Handgunners
5 Knights - Sons of Manann
5 Knights - Sons of Manann
5 Pistoliers
1 Helstorm Rocket Battery
1 Helstorm Rocket Battery
1 Great Cannon
1 Great Cannon
1 Warrior Priest of Manann (with knights)
1 Warrior Priest of Manann (with knights)
1 Battle Wizard
1 General of Marienburg

Not my ideal, but it was what I could get painted in time. The twin rockets were a new thing. I had mixed experiences in my few games using a single battery and thought I would give this a go, especially since there was no DoW allowed and I wasn't interested in any of the other Rare choices.


Day 1

Game One: vs. Orcs & Goblins

I'd played Grumgor before, about a year ago at a RTT and totally had my Skaven head handed to me on a platter. I was hoping for something a little better. His army is a straight forward O&G horde. I forgot to start taking pics until several turns into the game.


The scenario was hidden deployment, we set up secretly behind a screen dividing the two halves of the table. We ended up focusing on opposite corners of the table. He said afterward that he thought I would park on the hill. My thinking was that I wanted the large open area to my right to deploy in a solid line with anchoring terrain. On the left I put some artillery, one unit of knights, pistoliers and one unit of handgunners to delay the enemy. My pistoliers and one rocket launcher had already been overrun by his squigs by this point.

O&G were set up heavy on that side, in the fist pic there's Orcs, wolves, a pair of chariots, the giant on the hill fighting my knights, a troll & some gobbos, more orcs, then two more units of gobbos. Not on the table are one bolt shooter on the hill and a unit of orcs that started somewhere between where my knights and his last unit of gobbos are. They got nailed with a lucky rocket shot on turn one, panicked and ran of the battlefield without a chance to do anything. (I had the first turn.)




Onward... My left flank is collapsing, the handgunners & grape-shot from the cannon did manage to inflict some casualties on the squigs, though. The giant beat the knights to a pile of scrap, assisten by a last minute charge from a chariot. On the right I slowly swing in, but his wolf riders managed to slide through and hit my handgunners.




These last two shots show the disasterous end... O&G mop up on my left flank. A horrible mis-estimation on my part ends up with my spearmen fleeing & being destroyed by a lone wolf riding goblin hero, without having taken a sinle casualty. My knights + warrior priest got bogged down in combat with the luckiest night goblins ever, who made two break tests on rolls of 3, then gained the support of a second unit plus a chariot. Even the goblin bolter crew charged into a full block of swordsmen... alone... and survived and didn't flee.




It was a bad start to the day. O&G totally overran Marienburg.




Game 2: vs. Dark Elves


I was feeling a bit down after my first beating, mostly due to stupid mistakes I made. I blame it on the early hour and lack of coffee. So I was looking to redeem myself in game 2.

DE were lined up from left to right, spearelves, chariot, reaper in woods, dark riders, hydra, spearelves + mage, spearelves + mage, reaper, dark riders, manticore, dark riders.

I was lined up from left to right, knights, handgunners, greatswords, rocket & cannon, spear & swordsmen, rocket & cannon, knights, handgunners, and pistoliers.

The scenario allowed each player to choose an advantage for their army from a list. My opponent essentially got +1 armour save for all his spearelves. I got an 18" range for my general's leadership rather than the normal 12", plus I got to redeploy one unit after regular deployment was done. Originally I placed the knights that ended up on the left, in a "reserve" spot behind the center of the line, then shifted them to the left flank. (I deployed the handguners about 2" back, so the knights could go in front.)

Opening shot in the first photo... I move forward and have an amazing first round rocket shot right on one of the spearelf units (with mage) and send them panicking. They stopped just short of the table edge.



A couple turns in, the elves move up, I hold back in the center, but move my flanks in. I gambleds on a frontal charge to some spearelves on the right. Off the right side of the screen, the pistoliers moved forward, but look to be in a bad spot, facing two units of dark riders and a manticore, with only 10 handgunners backing them up.

I land another rocket on top of the spearelves on the hill, plus unload some handgunners into them. The knights who were originally going for a flanking manuver on them move up for a frontal charge now that they've been decimated anyway.




My knights on the right completely miss and lose combat, sending the rocket crew on the right fleeing as well. The dark riders and manticore advance agressively.

The spearelves on the right pursue into my artillery, but I turn my swordsmen to hit their flank.



My knights flee of the board from a manticore charge. Spearmen and their detachment charge the hydra, break it and destroy it in pursuit, then hit the spearelves who have finally made it back to the center of the battlefield. The greatswords on the left chase off the dark riders.

Game over, this time with a win for the good guys.





to be continued...



Startup

Just started this blog to keep all the wargame reviews, reports, paint log entries, and other posts from other forums in one place.

On the horizon are reports from Buckeye Battles GT, Historicon 08, and some painting...