21 February 2010

Siege at the Tower





I went to a WFB tournament at The Guard Tower, in Columbus, Ohio, today. This is the third year I've gone. It's a little over a 2 hour drive for me, and well worth it. Most of the other players are people see at other regional tournaments - largely COWS (Central Ohio Wargaming Slackers) members, and the environment is usually pretty relaxed. It's a nice store with 12 tables. I think we filled 11 this time.

I had planned on doing some battle reports, as I usually do. But I forgot my camera, and my phone took horrible photos. Also, between being sick and working on figures for the tournament, for my WAB demos at Cold Wars, and doing some stuff for my old game club, I'm a bit wargamed-out for the moment. So just a quick run down.

My three games were a massive victory against High Elves, a massive victory against Lizards, and a minor loss against Tomb Kings. I ended up winning the tournament overall.

I took a mixed Skaven list. It probably had more magic than I've ever used before (a lv. 4 and two lv. 2.) Sadly, magic did very little for me all day. The best shot was a "Cracks Call" that killed a tomb scorpion (though I had already hit it once before, plus blasted it with the lightning cannon, but rolled a 1 to wound it -- so it's time had come.) My "powerful stuff" was a plague furnace and an abomination. The rest was mainly just a bunch of troops.

My warp fire thrower continued as usual. It misfired ever time it shot, caused no casualties to my opponents, and not only killed piles of my own troops, but sent a unit of clanrats (with a warlock engineer) panicking.

The real downer is what I forgot was in my army. In my first two games I forgot to roll for my assassin and gutter runners to come on to the table until the last turn in each game -- so they were effectively of no use. In the third game I remembered to roll, and then deployed them, but then forgot to use them the turn they came on (to kill a liche priest,) then failed two fear tests the next turn and they ran right back off the table without doing anything. I also just realized today that I had put the Banner of the Underempire on my plague monks, but forgot I had it. So, effectively, I was playing without using about 210 points of my army all day long. I'll credit that to the fact that I'm just getting over the flu.

Like I said, not much in the way of photos. Below was about the best I could get. The left half of my army in the second game, against the lizards. From left to right are my slaves and abomination going up against cold one cavalry and skink skirmishers, plague censor bearers chasing terradons out of the woods, and my monks and their furnace closing in on skinks, kroxigors, and a stegidon (in the woods). Beyond that, a big lizard on a carnisaur is eying my clanrats, hungrily.

15 February 2010

Treachery and Greed Newsleter 1

The first newsletter for Warhammer-Empire's upcoming online campaign has been released. You can download the PDF from the front page.

It contains campaign background, fiction, rules for allies in the campaign, and a couple of modeling articles by yours truly.





More information, such as preliminary campaign army lists, and discussion of the first conversion contest, can be found in the forum.

13 February 2010

Crusader Minis German and Converted Skaven

First up...

One can never have too many ancient Germans. I'm not exactly in dire need at the moment, so I only purchased a few packs of the new Crusader Miniatures Germans because I'm a fan of his figures, I was placing an order for some other stuff anyway, and I was curious to see how they compared to other brands.

Excuse the photo, bad day with the camera, it seems. (I'll be working on a larger batch in the near future, but wanted to get one done for comparison first.)



Second...

...and unrelated... I painted up one of those last minute Skaven I mentioned in my last entry. I previously posted a pic of this in the raw. It's a Poisoned Wind Mortar from the new army book, for which there is no model. It's got bits from several sources, including some extra stuff added to the gas mask made from various plastic tubes cut & drilled out.



It's only supposed to occupy the 25x50 base, I think. Actually, that's a bit unclear as GW has not blessed us with such game information as base sizes or unit strength stats. So for the moment, I'm going with the base size of the older weapon teams. In this case, I included a loader (old 3rd ed. globadier) on a separate base -- he will just be ignored in game terms, and tag along with the guy lugging the mortar around on his back.

12 February 2010

Last Minute Rats

I'm playing in a 3 round WFB tournament next weekend and I need to get some last minute painting done to run the list I'd like to bring with me. It involves some troops I've not used before, namely the Plague Furnace, Poisoned Wind Mortar and some Plague Censor Bearers. I posted a pic of the Mortar conversion a while ago, and I'm almost done painting it. The PCB's I've had for years, but never used them in the old book. I've started painting them.

Then there's the Furnace. I bought one a while ago, and assembled it yesterday. As I phrased it elsewher,

This thing has so many spikes on it, it's nearly impossible to avoid stabbing yourself multiple times while cleaning mould lines & assembling it. Really, it's essentially a spiked ball, hanging from a spiked wheel, which is suspended from a spiked arch, and is swung by spike covered crew pulling on a spike covered chain, all of which is mounted on a spiked platform rolling on spiked wheels.
I now have many holes and cuts on my hands. Keep in mind, I am by no means a beginner modeler, either.

Here's an artist's concept sketch of my model by the time I finished assembling it:


To top that off... and please note, the Plague Furnace is, not surprisingly, an engine to spread disease and contagion... this morning I woke up sick.

Coincidence? I think not!

On the other hand, I do have to admit, it is a really nice kit. A bit over the top and huge, but nice. I'd even say I'm impressed. I assembled and started to paint the plastic Empire steam tank a while ago, and that was a nice model, but this is well above that in terms of detail and complexity. To top that off, it was also very cleanly moulded -- which is a very good thing. I can't imagine trying to clean ugly mould lines off the entire perimeter of some of the larger/spikier pieces.

Now the trick is to paint it. In a hurry!

09 February 2010

Still More Romans...

Back to another unit of legion, bringing my total up to 5. The next one is primed up and ready to go, but I will probably be doing some more Germans first. It helps keep me from getting burnt out on the Romans, plus... I got a few packs of the new Crusader Miniatures Germans and want to see how they turn out compared to the others.




I will also try to get an army shot very soon.

This unit of legion finishes off the most recent army selection I've been using at 2000 points in WAB. So I can now field 2000 vs 2000. I am running a couple of WAB demo games at Cold Wars in March, and my aim is to have about 2500 vs. 2500 points -- though I'm not strictly counting points for the game.

Once I'm done with the stuff for the demo game, I'm also planning on branching out into Alexander's Successors. In addition to the Germans, I picked up some pikemen from Crusader. Their boxed sets combined with the OG Army card is too good a deal to pass up.

05 February 2010

Mighty Empires: Random Thoughts

Just a bit of me my thoughts leaking out into my blog, regarding the recently posted update on our Mighty Empires WFB campaign.

I feel a bit like a rodent version of Hannibal. Maybe I'll rename my Skaven warlord to "Handleball" or something crudely similar. I've crossed the mountains down into the land of the goblins. For the most part, they've sought refuge in their capital city, where I probably have little chance of taking them by force. In the meantime, I ravage the countryside and turn their empire to my side. Winning battles but not the war. (I'm not even certain fighting the gobbos is the best thing to do, but I'm a a bit cramped for space in my little corner of the campaign map!)

I need to model a new Abomination to look a bit like a twisted rodent version of an elephant. ;)

So I'm wondering if it will all end poorly for me, as it did for Hannibal? Here's hoping there's no Zama in the Skaven future.

Next Wednesday's battle doesn't seem like it should be an important battle, but I think the results will actually influence the course of the remaining year for the Skaven.


+++


I am thinking of trying to adapt the Mighty Empires campaign system to Ancients. I think with a few tweaks, I think I may try to manage something.

03 February 2010

Mighty Empires: Year Two, Month Two

We finally wrapped up the remaining phases of Winter, cast our Spring Equinox Magic and campaigned for the first two months of Year Two.




The Espionage phase was fairly uneventful. The only aggressive player was the Lizardmen (blue). Chaos (red) and Skaven (pink) played defensively, sending agents into the field to diffuse any potential trouble. The Lizards made an assassination attempt on the Orc (yellow) warlord, and attempted spying on the Goblins (green) -- both failed.

Equinox magic was a little more interesting. Several storms were summoned up, all in the unfortunate Orc realm, as well as an earthquake that leveled the Orc city on the coast (now being fought over in the map above.) The Skaven failed to cast a similar storm on the Goblin capital. An undead host was also rose from the ground beaneath the Lizardmen's feet in hex E7.

The Lizards dealt with the undead in the first month, as their remaining banners, as well as half the Chaos forces, explored and expanded their empires. The Skaven also went on a bit of an expansion binge, much to the chagrin of the Goblins, razing two fortresses and a village (all former Goblin possessions) along the way. The Goblins moved into a neutral village to their north in the first month, which is now being contested by the western arm of the Skaven field army. The Orcs stayed holed up in their capital (well, stuck there by the storms, actually) losing troops to starvation, while the earthquake victims were invaded by the Lizard flotilla from across the bay.

Next week we have two battles to fight out: Lizards vs. Orcs, and Goblins vs. Skaven.