Squad Challenge - Dwarfs?

Last year after the Old World Army Challenge, I learned there was a smaller, more relaxed "off-season" challenge in Oct. & Nov. in which any of the OWAC participants who wanted to paint a 10 person squad or unit. I ended up doing double-double duty last year and painted 24 half-orcs which also coincided with Orctober. Doubleplusgood!

This year I've been looking at a couple of options, but a new one jumped out at me today and I thought I would elaborate a little with a group photo.

Similar to the sea & wood elves, half-orcs, trolls, fomorians and other minor factions, I've had a small dwarf sub-faction developing for many years. In my mind, they're much more an integral part of the Marienburg forces (which are largely mercenary anyway)... but I've always had a thought to expand them to a more fully developed (yet small) faction.

Here's the state of things right now.

(click to enlarge)

 

Close-ups...

Handguns, pistols, and a couple of crossbows.

Artillery.

Pike/spear in back, dwarf-style zweihanders up front.

Light artillery in back, sword & buckler skirmishers in front.

Yes, we have a mage. Or at least a wise elder.

So on to the possible challenge figures...

Primed & ready figures. I'm thinking about adding to the pike/spear regiment for the 10 figure challenge. In terms of the rest of the force I've got waiting in the wings (or bins) I have the actual Marauder cannon/siege gun, more artillery crew, a few more (duplicate) command figures for the spear/pike regiment(s), 6 (I think) of the White Knight dwarf spear/pike, and a few odds and ends. Maybe not quite enough to round out the force the way I would like, but it will still get me closer.

Confession: I still view these as distinctly mercenary and at some distant point in the future wouldn't mind doing a small, more "traditional" dwarf clan contingent as well.

Master of Hounds - Conversion

Inspired by a conversion contest that's taking shape at Warhammer-Empire.com, I quickly put together this Master of Hounds.

OWAC May Entry

My May Entry is up at the Old World Army Challenge!

Kill Team & Memories

Over the weekend I played my first two games of Kill Team and enjoyed it quite a bit. There's a lot to like in the game. It was also great seeing old friends as well as meeting some new players. I'm looking forward to playing some more.

My 40k minis are all gone, and I have not yet painted my Meat Hating Robot Pirates -- and from the look of it, they're not very suited to proxy for anything in Kill Team. BUT, I did have something else, something old. My old Nurgle chaos cultists, which were built from old Skaven. I used them as proxies for the Genesteal Cult. Thus: Cheese-stealer Cultists. I just needed to paint two large aberrant (didn't get the second one completely finished... yet) and a model with a mining laser (old half finished jezzail conversion.)

I played two games, one against Eldar, the second against Tyranids. Opposite styles of play, and my Cheese-stealers were right about in the middle it seemed - not overwhelmingly good at close combat or shooting, but decent at each. So they did well.

I'm now looking into acquiring some legitimate Adeptus Mechanicus minis. (Though I may turn them into AdMech renegade meat hating robot pirates...)


In addition to playing a few games and visiting with friends, I rummaged through my friend Rich's collection and pulled out a few things to take home. I picked out some wormie things and some beat-up chaos knights, and a pair of old warriors. But the most important thing to me was to have one of his WWI planes. He's the reason I got into WWI aviation, both in terms of gaming and history. I chose an Albatros D.V -- my first love in planes of the period. I never had much luck with it, but I used this model many times over the years (decades!) in games of Blue Max & Canvas Eagles. It's a fine looking model of a fine looking plane. Maybe someday I will finish my own planes (currently stalled... haha) and play some more. Until then, I'll have this one out on display.

I couldn't pass this next one up...

The Grenadier giant on the right was on display in Rich's living room at both houses he had while I knew him. In the latter, he was on a hill facing a dwarf giant slayer (I should have looked for the dwarf so I could recreate the scene at home!) situated on a table beside the TV/entertainment center. He will obviously have a place of honor in my giant collection. If not for the memories, then possibly as the heaviest model I own! I'll need to find a spot for him in our family room.

I also picked out the second giant, on the left as well. It's based on a Larry Elmore painting, a print of which hung in Rich's game room alongside many others.


One final, totally unrelated item. I picked up this from the local craft store...

The Marienburgers need an airship. The basket will be replaced with a suitably sized armed & armored gondola.

Swordslingers and Spellsellers and Stuff

After reading the Sellswords and Spellslingers rules a month or so ago, I decided there were a lot of things I liked about the rules. I was convinced enough that I bought most of the cards online and picked up some MDF to make a 3x3 tabletop, figuring that I would use it for some sort of skirmish gaming anyway.

Since then I haven't been able to get out to the garage to glue some sand, paint, etc. So today I "gave up" on doing a full oldschool table like the old (larger) one that's been hanging in the rafters for the past few years. The weather was nice, so I spent a quick 10 minutes spray painting a piece of MDF, hoping it will look convincing enough to work with the rest of my terrain. I'm still hoping I can find some time in the next few years to spend a little time gluing sand and then painting it, like I had originally planned.

So... here's the half-assed table in basement where I paint. I put my usual scale-reference handgunner on the table, as well as on of the converted Fomorians. I managed to clear some space near a light, and mostly away from the beams that I usually crack my skull on.

I've got two ideas for starting warbands, and I think I've decided which to try first...

...It won't be all of them. And there will be a more recent entry. These are from the Warhammer-Empire "Pleasant Surprises" miniatures exchange, and I had started thinking about making use of them in some sort of skirmish game a couple years ago. The essential premise will be this:

Rune, Etrigan (just the zweihander), Claus, all three crew members of the Chump Change Artillery Corps, Anvalous, and the (not pictured, and still to-be painted) Artoban's Ghost have been stranded behind enemy lines. Fighting off whatever come their way, while trying to reunite with the rest of the army. The undead King may show up as a villian.

Hopefully I will finally play the game soon....

Marauder Ogres - Happy Ending

Finished.

Grail Found - MM Ogre

I have been searching for this miniature for long years. Finally got one!

"We've been waiting for you..."

Everything on my painting table has now been pushed aside.  I can finally complete my MM Ogre regiment/collection!

Lucrezzia Belladonna

Painted up one of the mounted mages. Went with a color scheme similar to my favorite Mordheim warband (who have been distributed throughout the Marienburg mercenary regiments.) I wanted a subtle pattern on the caparison, similar to the standard I painted on a Repanse model turned standard bearer many years ago.

A peek at my thumbnail sketches for trying out colors and patterns prior to putting them on the model...

January Goals

I mentioned before that I had some plans for the first few months of 2018. Here's what January's looking like...

I've previously shared some pics of high elves I've painted as an ongoing, long term commission for a local gaming friend. I'll be starting off the year with some interesting additions to that army. As much as I'm a lover of rank & file mass battles, I do still love cool fantasy models. That's part of what sets fantasy gaming apart from historicals, after all. So this will be a fun diversion from all the undead that I've been working on.

I'm counting on these taking most of January to work on. There's a lot of fiddly little details that will be a difficult to paint. But I'm going to squeeze in a few of my own models as well. Especially since I have to wait at least a couple days for the weather to cooperate for priming. The current plan is some more odds & ends, such as...

(Finally) finishing two mounted mages for the Marienburgers/mercenaries, and a second mounted undead-necro-whatever.

The plan for the latter is to sculpt a hunched figure of tattered robes riding that horse. I've got the lower half of a skeletal rider on there for a guide. Maybe I will leave the feet showing out the bottom. Maybe not. Not really sure how to go about it yet.

As for the former two, I need to decide on a color scheme. That's what's largely responsible for holding up the progress for the past few... years.


On that topic, I was looking for inspiration on the internets and stumbled across this: http://beardbunker.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/battle-wizards-now-with-ovaries.html

What an awesome conversion, and great painting as well! Not relevant to what I was looking for, but I had to share. Click the link to check out the whole process and more photos.

Lord of the Feast, Desk Move, Casualty Base

Trailing a bit behind the Deadcember goals is the Lord of the Feast. A Warmahordes figure that I thought would go well with my Undeadish. I broke my rule and gave him just a spot of color, but sometimes the exception to the rule is what matters. (Arbitrary rule anyway.)

At some point I do have more Undeadish rank & file to finish. And some more characters and critters. Maybe later in the year.




I also put some flock and a magnet on the base of the figure I got from the Oldhammer in the New World trade. Will have to get a shot of him in use/context at some point!

My desk situation wasn't working out, unfortunately. So I've fled to the only other space available, a table in the corner of the basement. Not sure if this will work out any better, but it's worth a shot. Still getting set up, but I took a break to paint the Lord of the Feast, above. I miss my old attic.

Casualty

I got an awesome surprise in the mail!

The painted figure below arrived, from a fellow Oldhammer in the New World member (Ben), as part of the group's holiday trade. (He got the Skrolk I posted a couple weeks ago.)

Perfect figure for my Marienburg army, and beautifully painted!

Kings of War - Marienburg

I did, in fact, get to hang out with some old friends and play a coupe of games of Kings of War today! I didn't think about taking pics for the inevitable blog post until after the second game had started. So that's what ye get.

We played 1500 points, which seems like a decent size for a casual game. This time I took my Marienburg army and went with a bunch of regiments instead of all of the hordes I took with the undead last time.

First game was against orcs. I learned about their good ME score, and crushing strength. I lost (technically a draw based on the scenario, but I had almost no army left to theoretically contest the loot left unclaimed,) but did better than I thought I would after the early game seemed to go downhill for me. As much as the orcs were tough to deal with, I think the flyer (a chimera) was what really screwed me up. I just didn't deal with it very well. My cannon and mage never managed to do more than a single wound to it, it kept my knights tied up most of the game, and still managed to cause some decisive casualties at the end.

Second game was against Skaven Ratkin. More hordes. I did much better this time, though I think I owe a lot of that to my dice and my opponents dice. This time it was the Invade scenario. I did take a few pics, below. On the left I hung back and tried to soften the rat ogres and plague monks up with a cannon and mage, while on the right I charged forward, hoping to hurt his weaker troops (mostly warriors and slaves) quickly and decisively. It worked, but took a little longer than I had planned. Things went better than expected on the left. The first turn I put 5 wounds each on the two heavy hitting units, pressuring them to move up as quickly as they could while I moved back so I could get the charge first.

I was once again very pleased with the way Kings of War played. The rules were pretty clear and simple, and the gameplay fast, though everything still felt the way it should, even if some of it is a bit abstracted. Although combats usually seem to be brief, there is also a buildup of casualties that prevents the lack of casualty removal (and full ability to cause damage) from being a problem. I think the game encourages decisive action. I'm once again impressed, and admit (again) that my initial aversion to the rules is unfounded. The simplicity of the rules is misleading. It is a fun and fulfilling game. I'm definitely on board with Kings of War.

KoW: the Gateway Game, and Some Deadcember Planning

Kings of War

Holy crap, I'm going to slip in a THIRD day of gaming this year! Here's my 1500 points of Kings of War, Kingdom of Men "Multiversal Marienburgers" army. I'm starting to consider a (my) version of Marienburg as another iteration of Moorcock's Tanelorn.

I'm also going to try introducing a friend to miniatures gaming soon. We've played boardgames and RPGs together. I think Kings of War will make an excellent "gateway" game to get into miniatures. I measured everything out and, as small as our new house is, I'm pretty sure I can temporarily set up a gaming table in the dining room. So I brought up the idea, we just need to see when our schedules can work out time for a game.


Deadcember

I'm kind of getting into some of these painting themes... Orctober, Deadcember, Month of Marsh, and my own April Whatever I'm Going to Paint Giants. I totally failed at Deadcember last year (and didn't even realize that it was already a thing -- I thought I had made it up!) As with 2015, the end of the year is already a non-painting fustercluck. November has been pretty dry. But maybe I can turn it around in Deadcember? Going to be tricky...

Here's what I've got prepped: 4 skeletal ogres, 8 remaining Nightmare Legion skeletons, , an oldschool Ral Partha skeletal balrog, 10 old Citadel wight cavalry, the Lord of the Feast, my vulture-man sculpt, and I have a painted skeleton giant that needs a base. I think I have a Citadel mounted wight lord I should probably prep, too -- awesome figure.

Orctober & Hobbits

I decided to get into the "Orctober" spirit and try painting the last two of my small collection of Great Orcs.




I'm sort of torn, though, since the approaching holidays are putting me in an Undead spirit. Mostly, I'm trying to wrap up some commission painting right now, though. And then there are the hobbits...

---

I've received the bulk of my Westfalia Halflings. I'm dying to get working on them, but I'm trying to hold back and finish a few other things first. But waiting is hard. The eternal struggle of the wargamer -- to finish projects (or even just a portion of one) before moving on to the next. As I've been painting other stuff, I've been reworking some of my campaign ideas in my head, and just set some of it down. I've mentioned it a bit before, as part of my planned solo gaming experiment. In short, it's an alternate history WFB, centered around Marienburg and the Wasteland in IC 2439 (shortly after Marienburg's secession.)

At some point I hope to polish it all up into a cohesive and complete multi-campaign set. Unrealistic plans - maps, illustrations, actually playing the games & doing battle reports, etc. Maybe published on this blog and/or downloadable as PDF. But for now it's still evolving, drastically at times. The arrival of the Westfalia figures have encouraged me to start re-writing one chapter. Here's the start of the fresh draft...




I.C. 2439. Marienburg. The hobbit convoy was halted outside the walls of Marienburg. Guards and teamsters all were a bit impatient with the delay. It wasn’t just the idle time -- being forced to wait in the Cursed Marshes outside the Suid Gate had made even the animals jittery.

The job wasn’t one without it’s dangers. Roads through the Wasteland were more dangerous than those of the Empire or Bretonnia. Trade most commonly passed along the waterways. But there were no navigable rivers from the Little Country to the City of Gold, just streams, marshes, moors, and a good quality road through uncertain country.

They were working under contract to an ambitious hobbit looking to trade the region's produce, especially it’s famed sausage, to the larger markets of Marienburg. The people of the Little Country -- man and hobbit alike -- were rustic folk. Although they engaged in trade with merchants of Bretonnia, Reikland, and even (rarely) the dwarfs of Grey Mountains, they usually relied on the foreigners to come to them. Nob was the first hobbit (as far as anyone knew) to make the effort to market the communities’ wares directly to the outside world. He argued that by traveling to Marienburg, he could command a better price, and in the process employ some of the restless or ambitions youth of the Country in his venture as well.

The promises of mild peril and moderate profit worked. A significant train of wagons and an adequate force of guards had signed on for Scrobbleton’s Jackrabbit Trading Company’s first undertaking. And it had gone well. Better than expected, in fact. Flush with silver, and with the promise of further expeditions, most of the profit (after food and drink) was spent on new equipment -- better wagons, larger draft animals, heavier arms and armour.

This second trip to Marienburg had gone just as well so far -- until they had reached the gates, that is. This time they were barred from entering the city. Only Nob, along with his master of books, Will Smallroot, and a pair of personal guards, were granted entry to meet with the authorities. Now it was past first supper, and uncertainty was leading to disquiet. There was little room to pitch camp outside the city walls, and the landscape was pretty miserable to begin with. Rumors of marsh beasts large enough to swallow a hobbit whole were well known.

Minutes after a Bretonnian caravan had passed by the hobbits and entered the gates, Milo Greycap, one of Nob’s guards, emerged from the tall reeds to the west of the road.

“We need to leave. The master’s been taken, so has Will. I snuck out the gate but they will be coming for the wurst. Maybe us too.”

His comrades stood silent and dumbfounded.

“I don’t know everything. I was waiting down the hall. Through the door I overheard something about contraband, mushrooms, and the corruption of Marienburg’s youth. If we don’t get out of here, I don’t know what will happen. We need to leave now.”

More dumbfounded stares.

“Marienburg dungeons serve three meals of fishy broth with old roots a day, that’s it.”

The caravan became a rapid and precise maneuver as wagons were turned around, ranks were formed, and the entire party began a brisk march South.

As the walls began to disappear in the distance and growing darkness, a distant voice was heard, “Stop! Hold the wagons!” followed by a whiny blast from a horn. The hobbits pace quickened.

Campaign

Forced Marsh

Setting

Forces


The Wurst Case Scenario

Setting

Forces


Anabasis - Part One

Setting

Forces


The campaign maps will be based on this composite from various sources.

Oldhammer Day USA 2016

I was going to do some good old battle reports, and give a blow by blow of the games this weekend. But I just don't have that in me. I'll leave that to better bloggers. But I did enjoy the weekend immensely, and will report with something like a lengthy summary and some photos. So...

I ran into multiple last minute car problems, and almost cancelled. Luckily I only had to make it from Cleveland(ish) to Pittsburgh(ish) and my friend Bill offered to drive the rest of the way. That was (possibly literally) a lifesaver. It cut my (and my car's) driving by like 2/3, and to be honest, I would have hated driving around that whole DC region.

At any rate, things really went well, and I'm glad I didn't cancel. Bill is an old friend from when I was a GW Outrider, and we've run into each other for years at conventions and gaming events in OH & PA. We drove out Friday and visited another old friend who lives in Glen Burnie, and stopped by Games & Stuff (great store, huge, well stocked, big gaming room.)

We stayed at Jeff's and then drove out to Huzzah Hobbies for Oldhammer Day in the morning. The store was smaller, but still pretty large, organized and professional, an had a lot of gaming space (over half the store) with plenty of tables, terrain, etc. The staff were great all weekend, given that a mob of Oldhammerers had descended on their store and taken over the back half of the main part of the store.

My main interest was getting in some games of WFB3rd, though I had brought a Rogue Trader warband for Escape from Nu Ork. But first thing Friday, I jumped into one of Brian's RT "Battle at the Farm" games.

Bill & Sean's Orks surrounded Farmer Floyd's sheep farm, and I led the valiant Imperial defenders (and only slightly less valiant farm-hands and sheep.) It was a fight down to the last few defenders, but by the end, the orcs were all dead or wandering aimlessly with fried brains.

I enjoyed RT quite a bit, and it has only fueled my recent interest in getting back into some small sci-fi skirmish gaming (like I play more than a few games of anything a year?) Hindsight was telling me that RT was a bit clunky, but the game went pretty well and I may give RT another look.

Still, I was anxious to get into some WFB3. I've got a greater love for pushing formed units of troops around a battlefield than for any sort of skirmish gaming. So Sean offered to face my Marienburgers with his Orcs & Goblins.

Armies were 1500 points (sort of a weekend standard, for the most part.) It was a classic match-up and was pretty close fought. In the end, Marienburg's mercenaries pulled out a win.

There was a bit of stumbling through the old rules (vs. things confused from newer editions,) and I had no idea what to do with an Empire army in 3rd (I used to play Skaven & Dwarfs back in the day) but it went pretty well and was a lot of fun.


I finished the afternoon with another WFB game against airbornegrove26's (givemlead.blogspot.com) Black Vasken. With a twist. The Marienburger's sat this one out and I fielded nothing but giants of various sizes and abilities. Two (Bologs and Waltraud) had apparently been partying before the battle, and showed up drunk.

I think 'Grove does a better job with battle reports than I could, so I will leave the details and drama to him But I do have to admit that one of the highlights was Big Dick climbing up to some temple ruins and throwing everything in sight (pigs, cauldron, priestess (?), and vending machine) at some trolls down below.

(Nigel -- I think -- the troll after being hit by a pig, but the vending machine landed just a little bit to the outside. Later the vending machine would be wielded by Nigel as the tool of Barry the giant's demise. Vorpal Vending Machine?)

It was a bloodbath, to be sure. In the end.... well... keep an eye on givemlead.blogspot.com if you want to find out how it ends.


While some Oldhammerers left the store in search of various venues in which to play Hotelhammer, I was hungry and tired. A truely OLDhammerer. So dinner, hotel check-in, and sleep was all I could manage.

Sunday morning we had time for one quick game, and I picked up one more battle for Marienburg's mercenaries. This time it was against Chris' dwarfs.

Chris fielded a number of newfangled inventions, like a gyrocopter and swivel gun, which were cool to see in action. (Well, until the latter blew half a unit of halberdiers away in a single shot.) Another hard fought game that went back and forth a bit, but in the end the mercenaries couldn't overcome the traditional stubborn tenacity of the dwarfs.

As with most public gaming events, I came home with some loot.

I got the Ork Goffik Rocker for defending the farm from the Orks. The Ramshackle cultist and the \m/ twins \m/ I got as general swag. The chaos warrior I got (along with a modern GW paint set, not pictured -- because how interesting is a box of paint?) from the painting contest. I hadn't even planned on, nor wanted to enter. But I was peer pressured, and participation was apparently semi-mandatory. So I picked two figures (one large catagory, one small) I wasn't using at the time and Mad Marcus, my Marauder Giant ended up winning the large category.



So the whole weekend was really enjoyable and a nice break from reality. I got to visit some old friends, and even ran into someone who used to play with the local group before moving away. I also finally got to meet some people I've "known" through various online communities for a while. And I got to push around some roll some dice and "play pretend soldiers." 

Of course I'm already thinking about next year, as well as having a fire lit to try to do some local gaming again. I think small RT/40k warbands would be fun. As usual, all I need is an opponent... As far as WFB, 2017 is going to be the Year of the Fimir. That was already the plan. I'm also hoping to refine and playtest the multi-player Giant Rumble rules I've been working on.