The Diceman Cometh

Grey Knight Strike Squad

2012-02-11T20:43:00.000-05:00

I am painting, really, i'm very nearly done with a huge chunk of Necrons and Vikings and beginning to dig into some Celts and Space Wolves... all that aside though I just traded these from my friend Grady...

Forgive the photo quality. This is with my new cell phone and frankly I neither have a good camera or the money for a good camera. Anyway, this sweet 150 points squad is painted quite well and I plan to use it in 'friendly' games along with my Ultramarines as a troop or elite according to how my opponent feels is fair. I've always liked mixed forces armies; such as space marines with imperial guard, grey knights with space marines, CSM and DOC... you get the idea.

Soon, hopefully next week, i'll have pictures of necron warriors, destroyers, my own C'tan (Tro'G'dor the Burner of Worlds) and some vikings on top of all that.

Good luck on the table!

World of Tanks Video Test

2012-02-01T16:39:00.000-05:00

Hey, so, love the game really. Also have a laptop with some new abilities for me. Since anyone who reads this is officially my guinea pig endure my poorly crafted work!! MUAHAHAHAHA! Well seriously though, I'm trying to figure this all out. If you're a video wiz feel free to comment.

Okay, another try, this time same vid saved in a different format....

World of Tanks

2012-01-28T15:24:00.002-05:00

Ugh, I am the worst tank commander in the world. But that doesn't stop me from getting back into the thing after I've welded all the armor plating back on does it? No.

Another battle outcome...

In getting a new laptop with the capacity to play some of the computer games I've been wanting to explore, as well as re-explore World of Warcraft, and so far I'm really enjoying it. I'm not engrossed, but I am engaged and I think that is a good thing. I am particularly engaged by World of Tanks. A 'freemium' game that centers around tank warfare based on the stats from historical tanks up through right after World War 2.

Waiting patiently...

It is a very nice set up. For a free account you get four tanks right off the get go (Russian, American, German, and French) and you can earn experience to research new equipment and new tanks then buy it with credits. You can buy gold with cash to get credits to buy tanks and better tanks crews.

Again, my normal result...

It has a learning curve though and be prepared to find yourself on the receiving end of destruction more than you are handing it out. But as my crew have gotten better and I've maxed out the research for a particular tank I'm finding myself scoring more. Like below.

Not a bad turn out.

HELL YEAH! THAT'S HOW ITS DONE!!!

The only thing I'd really ding it on is, not voice communication makes coordinating your team hard, and so far I have no one else I know playing so I can't really put together a clan or a platoon. This game is still relatively new I think so that should evolve... I hope.

Batrep: Dark Elves vs. Bretonnia

2012-01-23T12:28:00.000-05:00

An impromptu battle formed between myself and the club's resident elf lover, Ron. We agreed to a 1,500 point battle and neither of us knew which of our armies would be fighting. I decided to go with Bretonnians because really they are my home army. I don't have an effective way to cart them from combat to combat so with a fight at my home battlefield it seemed like a fair idea to field them. I build the following army list not knowing what I had coming my way...

Lord with questing vow, virtue of knightly temper, heavy armor, great weapon, shield, sword, and sirenne's locket
Paladin battle standard bearer with grail vow, virtue of duty, sword and heavy armor
Damsel with hand weapon and channeling staff; level 2 wizard, lore of beasts
8 knights of the realm
8 knights errant
5 grail knights
16 peasant bowmen
20 men-at-arms
grail reliquae with 12 battle pilgrims

Not heavy on magic items but I didn't think I'd be facing anything ethereal. I'm not sure exactly what Ron had in his army list but I know it consisted of...

A master with heavy armor and great weapon
A sorceress
30 spearmen
30 repeater crossbowmen
30 corsairs with two hand weapons
10 cold one knights

He had magic items but I cannot remember what. We rolled and got Blood and Glory and he had a fortitude of 6 to my 8. The first army reduced to 2 fortitude would be the loosing army that would flee the field. Here's how the fight went (keep in mind these are cell phone picture)...

This is deployment, we played a relatively sparse battlefield. The hill was a normal hill and the ruin was just a line of sight blocking piece of terrain. We decided the river was a raging river so that forces could move through it but it would be dangerous terrain. He won the dice roll to go first, and did go first, but he would have anyway as I needed to sacrifice first turn to get the blessing of the lady.

This is the end of turn one. He only edged forward with all his forces and flung some some magic that did not work and his repeater crossbows did one casualty to the peasant bowmen. My knights of the realm led by the lord took the charge on the cold one knights and smashed into them hard, they didn't loose any and in return slew enough that he broke and the knights ran them down. The knights errant engaged the corsairs and did some good harm taking none in return but they held their ground.

End of turn two. His repeater crossbowmen did significant casualties to the battle pilgrims and the corsairs continued to battle the knights errant. His sorceress was throwing both spells basically every turn with me dispelling on the magic missile. My knights errant would be fighting at WS 1 for a while. My pilgrims carried the grail reliquae into battle only to take yet more significant casualties from the stand and fire response of the crossbows. All the close combats proved indecisive, neither side would give ground.

End of turn three. He continued to wing spells which I was having trouble fighting against, my knights errant were still WS 1 thanks to his magic. My damsel had been throwing the amber spear at that sorceress since the beginning of the game and had never landed it yet. The knights move to set up a charge and my men-at-arms charged into the dark elf crossbowmen. My knights errant lost four of their number between the two combats and my men-at-arms and battle pilgrims took terrible beatings but neither combat was conclusive. No one ran, and it looked like no one was going to. At the end of this turn only a single standard had fallen, I had 8 fortitude and he had 5. The fight had been a brutal slug fest the entire time.

End of turn four. Things were very bloody this turn. He moved his general out of danger and moved the spear mean back so I could not charge their flanks. The charge from the grail knights, knights of the realm, lord, and battle standard bearer was just too much for them. 14 died in the combat while only 2 grail knights fell. The lord killed 7 on his own. They fled the table and I successfully kept my knights from following them. the other combats continued to beat on each other trading casualties and standing their ground.

End of turn five. Things had a sudden change. During Ron's turn he killed my knights errant standard reducing my fortitude there and my men-at-arms with reliquae broke the crossbows. The reliquae pursued and ran them down and the men-at-arms held their ground. During my turn the knights reformed to face some foes and the men-at-arms surprisingly successful charged and killed the dark elf general. Men-at-arms are no the best fighters (WS 2) but I got lucky and with five attacks scored two wound which he failed to save. The general was wielding a great weapon so was strapped with ASL and that led to his doom. That reduced the dark elves to a fortitude of 1 which resulted in a Bretonnian victory.

I think what hindered Ron's strategy beyond the wildly lucky dispatch of his cold one knights in the first turn was his threatening blocks hordes of infantry. They were solid combatants, but I think they all got in each others way and he couldn't really bring the spear men to bear. It was a really good game though and we both had a great time. I've not played my Bretonnians many times so it was nice to see them take the field. I look forward to a rematch with Ron, maybe next week at club night!

Periculosum Currus

2012-01-16T14:59:00.001-05:00

...or "Dangerous Chariot" according to what language you speak.

I play against a lot of Chaos Space Marines.... by "a lot" I mean all the time. I've not really been equipped to crack their armor but now that I've gotten some trades under my belt, done some assembly, and now some painting I think I'm a little better prepared to bring some fight. Observe...

Note the scroll and the title of the armor... thanks to my Faber-Castell XS fine point black marker ;)

Most siege shields are just metal, and since I wasn't going to do battle damage I figured this baby had just been refurbished for the battlefield and her shield is still painted.

I'm not sure how to do markings for tanks... so I just tried to make sure everyone knew it was Ultramarines that was beating them to death.

Overview, isn't she a beauty?

The demolisher cannon only has a 24" range, which is kinda short for such ordinance but I can move 6" first so really it has a 30 inch range. With a strength of 10 and AP of 2 i'm really hoping he does some harm. Having a solid armor for what I'd classify as a light tank for 40k. He'll not range the field alone though, I do believe my chaplain escorted terminator squad will take the roll of chariot runners for this sweet piece of blue death. Not something you want to assault then, and not something you want to get close to you.

Dwarf Army Started in 1996

2012-01-14T17:26:00.000-05:00

Maybe even a little earlier.Some preface if you don't mind, and if you do and want to get right to the pictures please skip to the "Anyway" below.

In 1996 I discovered Warhammer Fantasy Battles and basically the entire realm of miniatues war games. It was the fifth edition of the rules, brand new box set and all. It came packed with Lizardmen and Bretonnians and to this day I still have and use the saurus warriors and skinks that came in that box. Everyone it seemed was playing Bretonnians. The charge of a lance of Knights of the Realm seemed unstoppable and everyone wanted to be unstoppable... except me and my friend Greg. He had always been a fantasy Dwarf playing kind of man. Every role playing character was a dwarf and any time a computer game let you play a dwarf he played one. He is still this way to that day. He started building a dwarf army with the grand plan to build a nice big army and while he has certainly collected a nice HUGE collection of dwarf models he has not truly finished mustering them all. Part of what didn't help was sticking his hand in a lawnmower, but that is a different story and I should let him tell it. I will say he has his hand but it impacted his desire to paint figures if not his ability.

This past year he turned 40 and not knowing what to get the man who has everything I thought the best I could offer was to paint forty dwarfs for his 40th birthday! He seemed to really like the idea and carefully assembled partially finished units so that my meager gift would flesh out these units and he would have several finished ones in all. I was more than happy to do this and after finishing the first couple of units he liked my battlefield paint jobs well enough he traded me some Necrons to help him complete a body of soldiers.

Anyway...here's the pictures...

The heroes of the force: a thane/lord, battle standard bearer, and runesmith/lord. I painted the thane and standard bearer.

Bolt throwers, a unit of 2 with an engineer upgrade between them looking through a spyglass. I did not paint any of these guys but I did base them for him.

Long beards. I painted about half a dozen of these guys and based them for him. There are 19 here and no champion, he has a champion somewhere and I'm sure it will surface. All of these are very old models and there is a mix of those with flails and shield, great swords, cudgel flails, and sword and shield. I think it is a very characterful unit and with the combat abilities of dwarf long beards I am not looking forward to fighting them at all.

Miners. A mix of original metals and Battle for Skull Pass plastics. I painted the BFSP plastics and based the whole unit for him. There are two commands in a group of 14 but he has plenty more and frankly the look of the two different commands is kinda cool I think.

Quarrelers (they are always fighting among themselves), there are a couple old metals in the mix and mostly multi-part plastics. I did the majority of these models.

Rangers, looks like quarrelers but they aren't because they also carry HUGE axes. Bugman is in there if you know who he is. I painted just a few of these but went over all of them with some gray for their clothing... they had the most terrible purple clothes and it had to go!

Thunderers, mostly done by me but there are quite a few of the old metals in the group.

Warriors with hand weapons and shields. I painted the commadn crew for this unit and did a little touch up but nothing more. The two guys on the ends are dressed in gold, got to love that!

Warriors with great weapons. I did about half of these and touched up the uniforms of those I didn't mostly. They are in large part multi-part plastics but that guy on the right is fantastic. Barefoot, bright orange beard and hair, and a patch.

And here is a total picture. This army comes to over 1800 points with no magic in it. That is a solid body of infantry to work from.

This army reaching the table painted is quite an accomplishment. These models have trekked from household to garage to car trunk to some strange places. He has a lot more and I would wager something near a dozen different painters have all had a hand in their muster. I feel kinda honored to be part of such a diverse work.

You'll note, i'm sure, there are no banners. This is because I don't really do banners and neither does he. I think he's contemplating some kind of hanging shield motif, I dunno. What ever he goes with i'm sure the next craftsmen involved will add his or her unique aspect to the army.

Why?!

2012-01-13T11:33:00.000-05:00

Just an aside here, but while I am looking for good deals on Wargames Factory Celt Chariots to build into my Boudican revolt project I routinely look to ebay. This is typically what I find...

...what in the hell is wrong with people? As you can see the first entry is the Wargames Factory set I speak of (you can see it here) which retails from the company for $19.95... listed for more than retail!? What are they thinking? Do they think someone wants to pay more? Do they not think it is evident that wrapped that 'free shipping' into their list price?

The third listing down is the same set listed at retail... why would I not just buy it FROM WARGAMES FACTORY?! Seriously? I do not understand this thought process. I understand even less anyone who would buy this product from this seller at the same damn price they could buy it from the company.

There will also be listing where they have marked it down as much as it costs to ship them. I understand they are trying to offset their cost of shipping but ultimately I don't see where it is a better deal than buying it from the company itself, or, going to a seller like Miniature Market that is selling the chariots I want for six bucks below retail.

I am all about supporting the LGS. I will happily pay retail at my LGS (if I had one) instead of buy from an online retailer. I believe in the small business and I believe in entrepreneurship, but, i don't see listing something on ebay above retail as either of those. It seems like a bold attempt to gouge the unknowing and over all poor business.

On a side side note. I trade on Barter Town a lot and i'm seeing this trend where when people sell things and want paid through Paypal they want you to kick in an extra 3% for their Paypal fees. Correct me if I'm wrong but those are THEIR Paypal fees, not my fees, I have my own fees to pay.

Sorry for the rant... but that's just me I guess lol!

Necron Monolith and Testing Some Video

2012-01-05T23:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, so, it's like 11:30 at night here and I don't look my best. Doesn't matter, i'm not trying to impress you. My new laptop has a built in camera and recording function and I thought it would be cool at some point to do videos for my blog. This is basically a test video, I don't say anything and I don't have a way to edit it yet so this is raw footage.

Stabity! Elf with Spear

2012-01-02T11:46:00.001-05:00

Well, I feel like I am getting to gear back up into painting. The holiday's always put a stop to much of my productivity in that department and I feel like I can get it going again. I've got my Monolith on the table right now along with the last unit of Greg's Dwarfs for Warhammer. There is a score of viking huscarls almost done and a fistful of the 25mm Ral Partha's underway. I just finished a model for my friend John, his DnD4e character although I do not know it's name.

A four shot panel of the guy, not trying to be boastful I just felt there was things on each side worth looking at. I think over all he came out okay, I really like the hair as I don't paint blonde much and this seemed very much a classic elf with leaf work on his armor and flowing blonde hair. This is a slight rework of the Ilmarin Duskwander figure from Reaper Miniatures.

Painted by Anne Cooper, blatantly pilfered from the Reaper website at the above link.

You can see I carved the double bladed sword from his hands... which was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. That puppy was molded onto his front armor so I had to do some extraneous carving and careful drilling out of the hands. Then I slotted in the spear John gave me his character would be fighting with.

Next I hope to get either a battle report up, or Greg's finished Dwarfs, or the Monolith. I think it will most likely be the monolith as it is nearly done. Painting a big metal box shouldn't be this hard though...

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T13:31:00.001-05:00

To all my friends and those I know I wish you all a Merry Christmas and would share with you of my life...

...after the great Christmas wrap tear through. Not as messy as it used to be, with the youngest being the boys at 12 there just isn't as many large presents anymore.

Also...

...it was my birthday on the 20th. My wife made me a delicious funfetti cake, my favorite cake, and I ate the largest piece I could without looking like an idiot. :) The diet is tough after all lol!

Some Old 25's

2011-12-19T22:19:00.000-05:00

Well it has been a while since I've been able to blog. The Christmas season is always very busy for me both out of choice and out of fortune and it is a splendid season. I have several projects on the table right now;

A club member's dwarf army I am cleaning up for him
A piece of terrain for our club terrain contest
A couple special order character PC pieces
...and a fist full of old Ral Partha 25mm's.

First up is a dwarf figure of some form, he's wearing a cloak and he's got a great big hammer and something in his hand... by something I mean something. It looks like a stubby stick, certainly not like a scroll although it might supposed to be a holy symbol of some form. I painted it red... mostly because I like red!

A green robed wizard. He's doing something funky with his hand, he's kind of turning if thumb out like he's performing a hand motion for a spell. The picture didn't come out very good, my camera is not the best but I think you can get the general idea well enough.

A half-orc assassin, or maybe thief, he could be either. I do like he's got the classic snub nose of the old half-orc design rather than the bestial one of the current depictions. Classic black cloak with muted colors and barefoot for the best stealth, someone is either gonna dies or lose a fortune tonight I think.

A lizardman with a whip. Again, not the best picture, for some reason his mouth really shaddy and you can't really see his tongue hanging out. he's also got a tail wrapped around his left leg and I could have differentiated the color but I don't like to do that without good reason. In my fantasy book of presumptions lizardmen are generally in a uniform color with some distinguishing features...which is rarely if ever their tale.

A ninja, but seriously this guy is not human size imho although you can't tell that here. I'm really not sure of the manufacturers of these minis, I refer to them as all 'OLD RAL PARTHA' because those were my first exposure to fantasy miniatures. I really like the way this one came out, all black can be so ... well ... black and lacking definition but this one is good.

An earth elemental; there is one of each elemental in the stash I'm to refurbish for my friend. This one was bare metal when I got him, the others were not. I waffled between a gray stone and a brown stone and ultimately I like brown stone better because it could also be dirty... poop jokes be darned!

As I just said these were really refurbishments. All but the earth elemental were already painted... a long long time ago (in a galaxy far far away yadda yadda) and I either cleaned up the original color scheme or applied a new one over the old that would not be noticed. I did not do any stripping... I don't strip models unless it really needs done as this takes a lot of time to do right and I don't always have time to do it. I've got another 20 or so more and I'm going to do them in batches of 6 so you'll see the updates regularly. At the end of this post is a picture dump of other shots of these same figures from different angles.

On a WHFB note I finished a rough battlefield paint job on two cold one cavalry bringing the unit to the new standard of 10 and abolishing the old standard of 8. The guy on the right is partially a champion but he'll just hand out in the back since his spear is up and no one will complain. One of the guys from miniwargaming.com has a tomb kings army and one of the units has several standards in it. I don't know if they were there because he wanted multiples or because he was combining units but I think it looked very nice and I'm thinking about adding some extra odd standards into units just to add some flavor.

Now for the dump...

...well at least I got a solid post in this month. I don't know if I'll get another in. My wonderful wife got me a new computer and I am busy playing World of Tanks which may impact my miniature painting time, but i'll do my best... promise!

Love Child

2011-12-07T12:52:00.001-05:00

It has been a while since I've posted... I have been really busy. I'm still painting and modeling and soon i'll be able to post some pictures of the Dwarf army I'm helping a friend complete. A mix of my paint work and other peoples paint work from many years ago. It will be his first completed army and he and I are both pretty excited.

BUT... I am not there yet. Really I just wanted to let everyone know I'm alive and something is coming soon.

Also, last night, laying in bed with my wonderful wife we were discussing authors and if we knew each other's favorite authors. She has Amy Tan and Charles Dickens on her list among others and I have Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft...among others... ANYWAY... she also asked about Isaac Asimov. He is a fine writer and I like him well enough but I wouldn't classify him as a favorite.

But what she dropped next was hilarious to me. After I stated that Howard and Lovecraft had exchanged correspondence she postulated that Asimov was the love child of the two. Wildly impossible I know, but for some reason there is a strange (almost Lovecraftian) logic to that possibility.

Howard would have been awful young though...

A Chaplain, a Cleric and an Attack Bike Walk Into a Tavern

2011-11-02T17:57:00.000-04:00

I'm sure there's a joke there somewhere but i'll be darned if I know where. It does, however, effectively sum up what I've finished lately. Let us begin...

First up, Tim from Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog mailed this beauty to me for my birthday. I can't thank him enough, it's a gorgeous figure, I love his work. I have begun to study and will incoporate what I can glean into my own work... just like the Borg... except no cube.

Tim's a great guy, I really appreciate him doing this. I know every figure I paint is part of my time and I can't thank him enough. It is a honor to have her standing proudly in my display case.

Next up is the attack bike...

Look at those crisp Ultra symbols!

Oh my, what a fine hand painted Fast Attack icon!

Well... at least I was consistent.

I am not a particularly good free hand painter... I am a particularly bad free hand painter. I had put decals on their shoulders but they didn't hold right, they looked like poorly made decals instead of crisp paint. So I scratched them off and hand painted my own. Which is what you see here. I will get better over time, I hope, as the Ultra symbol isn't that hard.

As far as battle value as single attack bike with a heavy bolter only comes to 40 points. That isn't going to crimp me anywhere in my army lists and until I can get some regular bikes or other attack bikes to support him he's flying solo. This is fine in something like seize ground, but horrible in annihilation as he counts as a kill point.

Next we have my big happy...

I absolutely love this model!

Finally got a Crux Terminus right :)

Nothing like a blue shoulder pad to show your allegiance eh?

Bringing death to the enemies of the Emperor!

I love this model. When I saw it in the space marine army book I knew I had to have it. I got it in trade from someone on Bartertown and it came already pre-based, which wasn't so great and pre-primed black which I had to touch up. Well I tried to put some of what I gleaned from the cleric above and make careful use of my whites and I think he turned out pretty good. He'll come to a hefty 130 points, hefty since my captain in all his glory is only 155. He will be in a lot of armies though, probably supporting the terminators I have, but he can join any unit if I remember right. I love clerics (as you should know by now) and this guy is one kick ass cleric! I know some would say the Apothecary is, but really he's a medic because he has not religious back ground. The chaplains, though not healers, are the 'spiritual' leaders of their chapter and any leader with a skull for a helmet is something you should consider carefully before screwing with them.

On a related note this guy here...

Guess what I do with these!!!!

...will be giving a critique of my work. He's a friend and club member who is helping me get back into 40K. We've only had one match and while it was a tactical draw he truly beat me senseless. I plan to pay him back four fold. That aside I asked him to give me an honest opinion of the work on this model. He may do it here, I don't know, but anyone is welcome to provide critical feedback.

One final thing before you go...

...I am looking to start a historical project, specifically two armies using Neil Thomas Ancient and Medieval Wargames rules to replay battles between Queen Boudica's rebels and the Romans she was rebelling against. I have about half of what I need, pictured here, and need about this much again. Thomas' war game armies always consist of 8 units on each side, and each unit (usually) is four bases fielded together. There will be lots of legionaries and British war bands, but the real stickler is chariots. Thomas' list calls for at least 2 units of nobles, which are light chariots. If i'm reading the rules right that is four chariots per unit as only the scythed chariot is fielded as a single model. This may get messy, as that means 8 chariots minimum...and I'm thinking if i'm going to wind up with 9 of them from Wargames Factory... .why not buy one more box and have 12 fielding three units of nobles... I can field up to four after all.

I'll let you know how that turns out. :)

Walk Like a Zombie

2011-10-31T11:32:00.000-04:00

Happy Halloween you bunch of internet nut jobs! With the haunting night upon us and the little skulkers readying themselves for raiding the houses of neighbors like Vikings with manners I present for you some photos of a recent event in my home town. On this Friday past the city participated in a Zombie Walk to raise money/resources for the local Good Samaritan Food Pantry. There turned out to be something like 60 zombies with another 40 or so other walkers (like myself). They zombies walked from the local park to a historical theater where they could buys some hot chocolate or beer, according to their taste for brains. Over all I think it was a pretty solid event, but it would have been nice to have some food stuffs one could purchase at the ending spot. Here are some pictures...

My sister with my two zombie boys.

I look like a fresh zombie int he back ground!

Cool ride and chauffeur?

The horde making it's way through the streets of Chillicothe.

First place zombie winner...and his mom.

A victim about to be eaten.

Do You See This?

2011-10-19T12:09:00.000-04:00

Tim over at Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog has a post up that made me giddy with excitement! I've always thought highly of his paint work, something about it just sings with life. Well a while ago he hinted it was his birthday on this blog to lure his club buddies into getting gifts. I jumped at the chance to breach that Canadian border and sent him a bit of odds and ends. He didn't feel right just taking stuff from a guy he didn't know so I cleverly asked him to paint me up a figure that I would send him, which was Kyra, Iconic Female Cleric for the Pathfinder series made by Reaper. Yesterday he posted the finished work and I had no idea he was doing it!
You can see the finished work here, it is fabulous!

Lords and Ladys... and some "others"

2011-10-17T23:26:00.001-04:00

Finally got around to finishing some models and getting them up on this blog. I'd like to say a thing about the quality of the photos, my camera seems to be dying, so try squinting a bit would ya? I'd really appreciate it!

Sir Matthias

First up is my Bretonnian Battle Standard Bearer who represents my son Matthew on the table. This is probably the best picture out of what you will see here this post. He'll usually be fielded with the Virtue of Duty and a magic standard meaning he will have no other magic items per the rules for a Bretonnian battle standard bearer. Only having a 3 save seems a little soft, but he is a Grail Knight (he'll have the Grail Vow) and he'll be packed into a unit of 5 other Grail Knights so he might come through okay. So far he's been pretty much a bad ass in ever fight he gets stuck into. You wouldn't think so since he has only a sword and no magic but he is not a knight to be trifled with.

Sir Uther

This is my General and he represents me. He has the Questing Vow, the Virtue of Knightly Temper and Sierenne's Locket (I think I spelled that right). Since he has the Questing Vow he can't use a lance so instead he hacks his enemies into pieces with a great axe. He has done quite well as the virtue lets him get extra attacks on the charge (one extra for every wound) and since he is hitting at strength 5 all the time he hits pretty hard. The locket is the best magic item in the Bretonnia book imho, it prevents him taking more than 1 wound in any phase. So it takes some real work to finish him off. In close combat you can't do more than one a turn no matter how hoss you are. This makes him perfect for tying up the biggest bad guy on the table that he can chop chop on with that axe.

Lady Debrana

Representative of my wife is the Prophetess of the Lady. My lord points are tied to two lord choices and they neatly fit in 500 points. She is basically without any magic in a 2,000 point game but if I play larger she gains levels and magic items. A level 3 wizard is no slouch and she has caused her fair share of destruction with the lore of heavens. Lighting bolts are never fun.

Rawwwrrr!

To fatten my Lizardmen some more I finished two more Kroxigor. That will make a unit of six and I cannot tell you how bad six Kroxigor hurt when they hit someone. I have one more to do and that I think I'll do in orange to fit into some skinks.

Ummm... out of witty comments.

And finally another 16 red skinks to buddy up with the 20 or so others. This will actually add a musician to the unit too! So there is now a standard and a musician and I can throw in a skink chieftain with a bow for a champion if I need to. Although I rarely feel the need to add a champion to any skink unit. They just don't seem to make that much of a difference. Sometimes I'll add the Kroxigors though, they can really tear up an enemy and with a nice bank of skinks to soak hits for them they are even nastier.

Next up I am working on finishing some more ghouls... and a corpse cart... and I have a whole bunch of Orks... so I don't know what will make it on next. Guess it will be a surprise!

Oh, Well, Vikings I Guess

2011-10-13T13:32:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been a couple weeks. I've been very caught up in my sons' middle school soccer team so I've not had the chance to get a blog entry up. Well, i'm still not in the place where I've got something of quality to put up but dead space is bad space so I've decided to put up an update kind of entry.

I've been modeling pretty steadily really. I finished 1,000 points of my Ultramarines and as my last pose showed a 1,000 points of Necrons as well. I've got all the Orks I own primed and ready to go, but they only come to 900 points... and 60+ models. That has always been what put me off building an Ork army, so many models for so few points. Greater financial investment, greater time investment, etc. But the AOBR box was so sweet and the Warboss so hoss looking I was able to push through. I'm confident the paint work will be nothing stellar, they are going to be Goffs and they are going to be green, black, metal and white checkers... don't expect too much :)

On my board right now besides the 60+ Orks is 22 skinks with javelins and shields to flesh out my skink javelin unit more, 2 kroxogor to bring my unit to six, 15 mantic ghouls just to, a corpse cart, and three Bretonnian character's I'm finishing up. I'm really struggling with the Bretonnians. Anyone know how to paint some grails free hand?

THE VIKINGS! I published this post and didn't even explain the title. I just finished assembling 20 viking huscarls from wargames factory excellent line. I'm going to paint them, of course, but I don't know what game to use them in. I'm basing them individually on 1" round bases and they would be great for skirmishes but I'd like to get more, and some Saxons, and throw them against one another!

Necrons have Invaded

2011-09-28T22:36:00.000-04:00

Last month I obtained a Necron battalion box and Necron Lord with Destroyer body. Last week, I put them together, primed them and painted them in the passage of two nights... well the assembly took three or four but only because I've been distracted by Space Marine for the Xbox.

Necron Lord with Destroyer body, Resurrection orb, staff of light and phase shifter. This is a 200 point lord but with a toughness of 6 he can't be insta killed, with the orb he will get up from damn near anything (as will the guys around him) and the staff of light is a great assault 3/power weapon combo. Plus, he looks cool flying :)

Back view to show off his green shoulders and properly assembled staff of light. I was very happy to successfully assemble that puppy with its fiddly end.

Destroyers with the standard gauss cannon. I built one looking forward, one left and one right.

Scarab Swarms. 7 bases is only 84 points. Not particularly deadly but their loss doesn't contribute to the phase out rule.

Warriors, one of the units of 14.

Back view for some detail of the skeletal look.

All 28 ready to fight, this is obviously two units worth.

I went with a basic color scheme because I really didn't want to over do it. Necrons are basically terminators with an inferiority complex so a solid gun metal dry brushing with some green highlights to compliment the green plastic rods. I was careful in assembling them so that I wouldn't break any of the rods or the parts that hold the rods in. They are all 'clicked' in with no glue but very secure, except the lord who's staff has to be glued.

I haven't played them yet but it comes to just shy of 1,000 points, consists of 39 models of which 32 count towards the phase out. Which means if my opponent can reduce me to 8 models (after a "we'll be back" roll) then I just disappear. I hear tell they are going to do away with the phase out rule when they release a new army book, which is a good idea I think since my last game of 40K I got a tactical draw with 2 models.

Also forgot to mention that I updated the Ultramarines page.

I'm not dead... part two

2011-09-27T20:53:00.000-04:00

Hey loyal readers, I'm not dead.

But I am really busy.

I have painted a lot of things and made some HotT terrain I want to post. But that will have to wait. I will get to it though!

Nyss and Boomhowler

2011-09-13T17:23:00.000-04:00

If you've read this blog at all you know I play Mercenaries in Warmachine... the single least supported faction. The faction THAT ISN'T a faction.

Anyway....

A while ago I painted both the Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters unit AND the Boomhowler and Company unit. No wait, scratch that, I did not paint Boomhowler. I got him in a trade already painted (quite nicely) but not based. I based him and his nine buddies and they went to a friend in a trade. Which I regretted because I like everything about Boomhowler, his look, his attitude... his... proliferation of the trollkin race. He dipped them, then traded them back. The dip was okay (Minwax) but they kinda got set aside for a while. The basing was really only half done.

Anyway (number two)...

I finished the basing, cleaned up the basing on Cylena's crew and clear coated them. Then I took several pictures of them as seen below.

Boomhowler is a solid unit in my opinion. Kinda costly (9 points for a full team in Mk.II) but a lot of both screening material and serious combat ability combined with tough making them a real difficult unit to dispatch. Your opponent will have to commit some force to stop them, or be on the unhappy end of Boomhowler's bellow and some brutal CMAs.

The Nyss Hunters...well...let me say something there....

...as far as a combat unit they are nice. Good special abilities to keep them moving through difficult terrain. Weapon master, combined range attack... solid. Not as solid as in Mk.I though; they had a nice AOE range attack if they fired together giving you a nice splash down. The CMA is good and all, but almost necessary considering how weak they are individually.

<<>>

Rules aside though, I want to know what drugs the modeler was on when he developed this kit. Damn it is a terrible kit. Each model is seven pieces, that means six models are 42 and that is absurd. The models consist of a body (legs/torso), two arms (with weapon connections), head, quiver, scabbard AND THE HANDLE OF THE SWORD STICKING OUT OF THE SCABBARD...seriously? Why not just model the sword in the scabbard and if people want to cut it off let them. Much of each of these models could have easily been one piece, the head could have been molded on and one of the arms for most, if not both for the archers (it's a flat model ANYWAY after the assembly!). I hated putting them together, and they are not together very well. I make no excuses, I struggled with them.

The real sucky part? I have 8 (only 6 are pictured obviously) and need two more. In Mk.I you could field 6 to 10, not with Mk.II its EITHER 6 OR 10... so my two extra guys need to take a break till I find a couple in trade.

Also keep in mind the contest is still going on, till the voting on the company is done.

Thanks for reading and my YOUR run rolls always be sixes.

12K!

2011-09-10T19:44:00.000-04:00

Well, looking at what I needed to update on my blog I see it's gotten more than 12,000 views :) I feel very lucky there. I do my best to keep it interesting and put up honest work of my own and I think I do that well. I have 15 followers and I'm very proud of that, I think they are the best viewers in the UNIVERSE!

To celebrate so many views and such fantastic Knights I've decided to throw up a little contest. This is how it works; you send me an email at adeptgamerblogger@yahoo.com and tell me three things about yourself:

1. your name, obviously

2. your favorite miniatures; either that you own or that you would like to own

3. your greatest triumph on the table top

I will pick one of these at random and send them back an email letting them know they won. The winner gets a painted miniature from me :) Either I can send you one of my choice, or if you want, you can send me one and I'll paint it and send it back.

Also, the Ultramarine's page is updated; the Captain is finally ready. That completes the AOBR box set of marines and I am working on some to finish up 1,000 points: 5 scout bikers and 5 scouts with sniper rifles.

What Color?

2011-09-09T11:43:00.002-04:00

Okay, so, according to the Space Marines codex each company of the Ultramarines ten different companies has their own heraldry color. The yellow/gold that is most commonly seen is the 2nd compnay. I have, so far, painted my guys as 2nd company guys. I did this because to me yellow and blue = Ultramarines... but this isn't so is it? No.

I am thinking I might go 3rd company which is red. I've painted my boltgun plates red, and my captain (coming soon) has a nice red cape. So, would be repainted the tactical marines to red look nice? I dunno, maybe I should go 4th company and go with green. But green and red and blue might look dumb. I can always leave them like they are too. My 1,000 point goal has a lot of scouts in it and they don't get a heraldry color.

Well, you fifteen awesome nights of the round table plus anyone else who looks gets to vote for me. I'm going to put one of those widget poll thingy's up and if you would please, vote on the color you think is best.

PP: Alexia Ciannor

2011-09-03T20:12:00.000-04:00

Continuing with the posting of my various Privateer Press Warmachine units today we have Alexia Ciannor & the Risen. This is an important figure for Privateer Press as their first product was an adventure module for 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons was The Witchfire Trilogy staring none other than Alexia.

I have not played it but apparently it is something of note when it comes to adventure modules. I'm more old school myself; the Keep on the Borderlands being my favorite, and not much into steam punk (sans Warmachine obviously) so I probably never will. But I digress...

A couple different photos of the same unit. I have had Alexia for quite a while and have played her only a handful of times. In the original edition of the rules she was a solo who began with a group of risen (I believe only six) that could go off on their own. She's something kind of like an anti-magic necromancer with some solid fighting ability. The thrall is a fabulous combatant and she makes them, but, the set only comes with one model and I've not gotten around to getting another or other similar models. My Alexia is not much like THE Alexia, she is very tan and to my eyes look almost Native American which I think looks cool. The Risen were fun to paint and now that she starts with ten instead of six I need to get more of them to raise as well.

Funny story, went to take this unit to game night last month and DROPPED THEM OUT OF THEIR CASE... I stood still for something like two full minutes resisting the urge not to flip my modeling table... sigh... this is reconstructed bases and all you're looking at. I am happy to have them polished up though!

Do me a favor though and tell me which picture has better lighting and color in your humble opinion, which I would value greatly. Also, the terminators are now on the Ultramarines page!

And Now For Something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

2011-08-28T21:14:00.001-04:00

I like historical war fare but my group will not get into it for the most part. I am slowly working on some ancients though and while I took the time to really study DBA I think instead I will use the HotT rules as they seem a little easier to build armies with. With that in minds I've finished some of my IV cen. Indians...

Using Coates & Shine models I built three stands of shooters, or long bow men. This is 6 AP of army and I have nothing for them to fight yet, LOL, as I have no other 25mm forces prepared so they are very much safe right now.

Not the best paint job, but, not the best mold job either!

From the same box I built three war bands. I know they have spears but I just don't see them fighting in a formation that would be like spears, more likely it seems to me they would fight... well... like a war band lol.Another 6 AP, half way done.

I know, I got flock on that dude's shield. I did not see it until the preview of this post.

I have three Coastes & Shine elephants on my point board and when they are done that is another 12 AP and a finished army. I will probably use one of the elephants as a general. This is a pretty basic army I know but I think it will be solid. Three behemoths to smash my enemy with support from flanking war bands a rains of missilery shouldn't be too hard to command effectively.

As for enemies I'm going to do up a Greek army...

I will enjoy adding some more to this force.

...you can see the first stand of blades I have done. The cyclops are from Eagle Games Age of Mythology. I based them as behemoths, if you're astute you'll be saying "Hey Diceman one of those bases are WROOOONG!" and you'd be right. The cyclopes on the left is based for 15mm, the right for 25mm. If you'll recall I have a 15mm goblin army and 15mm elf army and though he would be good in either of those as an optional behemoth.

All of these models are based on peel and stick floor tile, which I have been warned will warp and twist and do all kinds of nasty nasty things. But, I based my Bretonnian bowmen on them months ago and nothing has changed with them. Maybe its the brand, maybe its the weather, maybe I'm in for a lot of sad disappointment.

I am hoping to have my Bretonnian battle standard bearer, general and prophetess on foot done soon. Also, I had club night last night and this week I'll be putting that up on the OTHER blog about them.

Kill Team: Game Review

2011-08-26T10:55:00.000-04:00

I don't often review things, and I don't often review video games although I do play a lot of them... okay I play COD: Black Ops Zombies a lot.

Anyway, last week I downloaded the game Kill Team (officially Warhammer 40,0000: Kill Team ) on a whim as I've recently been exploring 40k again. I was really surprised by how solid a game it is. I played through the first mission twice in a row with two different characters and didn't get bored. There are only 5 mission which is the big flaw in the game I think. I know it's only an Xbox arcade game but I really could have used another 5 or even 10 missions.

The premise is pretty familiar to anyone who plays/reads 40k and the selection of characters is solid (librarian, assault vanguard veteran, techmarine, devastator vanguard veteran) and they have a good blend of ranged combat / melee combat. The upgrades are unlocked pretty smoothly, although I will be honest and say I'm not sure how.

The controls play easy; left stick moves, right stick shoot and four more buttons to melee, throw grenades, use a special ability unique to each character and do some sprinting. The co-op was solid as well, a friend came over and he and I spent an evening blasting our way through the game and had a good time doing it.

The game tracks stats such as how many kills you had and how many times you die, common stuff, but it also tracks how many BULLETS YOU SHOT which just sells it as a solid game in my book. So I guess i'm saying if you like mindless shooters, lots of carnage, science fiction and/or solid graphics you should give this game a go.

Ultramarines vs. Orks (bat rep)

2011-08-24T08:30:00.000-04:00

I have not played Warhammer 40,000 for years! I did miss it but my group fell out of it and my financial needs resulted in me selling my two armies. Well, as my posts have shown I've returned to the game and this weekend I got to play my first game in years, with my son Matthew no less! We player with the contents of the AOBR box only and I set up the table and he won the deployment rule then had be deploy first. As you can see below I did a pretty standard spread expecting him to deploy opposite but instead he deployed entirely on the far side of the toxic river! The little bugger was going to force me to slog it across the table to him.

Deployment... sneaky bugger across the bridge

Turn 1: He won the roll for first turn and had me go first, I slogged my way across the battle field and rolled terrible for my Run run roll, nothing better than a 3. I did not turbo my deff koptas as I didn't want to rush in on Matt, he had never played before so it seemed a good idea to give him some space to plan. I did not expect him to camp on his turn though, LOL, he pitched a tent and didn't move a single model. His fire was able to kill a handful of boyz, not something I needed with two or three more turns of movement in my future.

Turn 1... Orks are hoofing it as hard as they can

Turn 2: Again I ran and ran poorly, my boyz actually rolled a 1, sigh. My deff koptas did turbo this time placing them around his back and I planned to roll them in for some rokkit shooty fun next turn. He fired some more and did a wound to the koptas and killed some more boyz.

Turn 2... still hoofing it, getting tired

Turn 3: more running on the part of my boyz and nobz mobs. The warboss needed to get into close combat and I was going to run them right across the toxic river to accomplish this. My deff koptas wounded two terminators, which is pretty good since i'm only rolling three attacks but they made their saves so nothing came of that. In Matt's turn he blasted more boyz and shot two of three koptas out of the sky, they then promptly fled nine inches away from the scary terminators. So by the end of turn three I had lost 2 koptas and 16 boyz and he had taken not a single loss.

Turn 3... almost there!

Turns 4, 5 and 6: well, things change when the orks get into assault range. I had rolled terrible run dice and it took me forever to get to the space marine line but I did, and when I did the nobz with warboss successfully defeated and ran down the terminators. The boyz engaged the tactical squad and killed two to their lost one but the marines held their ground (go figure). One of the highlights occurred in turn 5 when my warboss assaulted the dreadnought, I had nothing else with a chance to hurt it. The combat went in his favor since Matt missed with his attacks and the warboss hit twice, then rolled a 6 on a penetrating hit and blew it up taking a wound in the process.

Last assault of turn 6

The finale came down to my warboss charging the remaining space marines and captain. I figured he would be dead but poor Matt rolled all misses, 11 dice and he missed with them all (3 for the captain, 8 for the tactical squad) and I couldn't believe it. My warboss directed all his attacks at the captain and hit with two of three, wounded with both and killed the captain. The game was over and I had won 3kp to 2kp.

It was a very enjoyable game and I forgot how solid 40k is as a war game. Since we played with only the AOBR box stuff and the reference sheet provided there were some things that didn't get included. Like Waaagh! and the Iron Halo for the captain, so on and so forth. I'm going to type up a more detailed reference sheet so that we can play with more rules next time.

The best part was getting to play a war game with my son though. They don't seem sold on the idea of war gaming and it would be nice to have that connection with them.

Because I Could Not Stop for Death...

2011-08-20T18:26:00.000-04:00

...he rode up in a black coach and threw my argumentative butt in the back all the while screaming like only a wight on an errand can do.

All due respect to Emily Dickinson and her fine poetry of course.

The carriage held but ourselves / And immortality

I received this fine WFB model from my friend Greg on my birthday last year. I have been slow to finish its assembly and get it painted but it easily fell under my 'get them done' parameters for the moment and thus it was got done.

We passed fields of gazing grain / We passed the setting sun

I had some trouble with the curtains. When I was finished the first time I was unhappy with it some how but wasn't sure how. So I asked my finest reviewer, my wife, and she easily said "Those curtains are wrong, you need to put a black wash on them. This is a funeral coach, not a happy coach." The black washed worked wonderfully.

We passed before a house that seemed / A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible, The cornice but a mound

I also struggled with the vampire that lays in his coffin in the back... and by struggled I mean "didn't do the darn thing at all". When I primed up this puppy I completely forgot about the sleeping vampire and he is sitting in my big brown box. So, next time I do a round of priming I'll get him in.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet / Feel shorter than a day

I don't know how it will perform on the table and frankly that is going to completely revolve around how many power dice I roll and how many of them I re-roll into a six. So, that's pressing some odds I think. I do promise you all though that the next time the Vampires take the field he will be in their muster.

As an aside, recently my sons made the middle-school soccer team as they go into 7th grade. I'm really excited, they've been playing in the youth soccer league for years and it's really cool to see them in a school jersey...

On the left is Christian (16) and on the right is Matthew (15)

PP: Sam MacHorn

2011-08-17T10:35:00.000-04:00

Painted a few years ago Sam MacHorn and her crew have been fielded pretty regularly. I am woefully short on warjacks for mercenaries even though I have two heavies and five lights, the dwarf/human dichotomy prevents mutual use. Which is dumb I think, but what ever. Sam is nice because she is a jack marshal and I can field Gorton, take the Devil Dogs and attach my Talon to her and that is a little more warjack presence for my points. Plus they are just a solid unit really capable of tearing an enemy warjack to pieces if they let you get there.

Front on view

Griffon rider's view.

I think they are a nice set of models, especially the guy flinging the GIGANTIC steel chain net! That guy is screaming for a gladiator conversion. I will say I think I got a few to many of the dorky looking gunners, but there is only one variant and he is just wearing a night cap. The pick-axe looking thing horrifying though, I can't imagine what kind of wound it would do to a person.

I do have one gripe, Sam herself. Seriously, do Privateer Presses modelers only look at Playboy to design their ladies? No woman on the battlefield, for any reason at all, is going to strike a "come hither" pose like that. What, is she shooting a trick shot over her shoulder off a bird into the warjack's eye? Seriously, if you Google "come hither" you get Sam MacHorn's pose on a dozen models dating back to the 1950's... by this point modelers should really be trying to move beyond that.

Well, I guess I shouldn't gripe, at least she isnt' in a chain mail bikini eh?

PP: Ogrun Bokur

2011-08-16T10:12:00.000-04:00

I have been steadily working to move models off my hobby table and either into my display case or into a storage box. I think I said before I started with large and the Bokur definitely classifies as large, larger than some light warjacks and almost as large as heavies. I've never used a Bokur and now that I have one I probably will just to see how it works. I'm not sold on his abilities but I'm shaky on Privateer Presses current incarnation of Warmachine.

Comin' at ya!

He was primed white when I got him in trade so I brush primed him in black, then decided on a red armor scheme. The PP version has a lot of green and iron but I decided to make mine look a little different and went with red armor (obviously) to make him stand out. It just seemed logical to me a mercenary who's entire job involves TANKING (i.e. redirecting aggression towards himself over his employer) he should probably stand out some. Plus red is a color of war, probably make him a little more threatening I think.

Is he compensating with that spear?

I tried to paint him as quickly as possible. I really have so much on my board right now I just need to move things off. If you look at my Ultra marines tactical squad you'll see i'm going towards battlefield paint jobs. A painted model, no matter how poorly, can still kill the enemy :)

There goes the Hulk...

Also I re-based my Gorman di Wulfe (Rogue Alchemist by trade) and clear coated him. He is about 3 years old, maybe a little older. I was trying to rip through some mercenaries and my paint work was focused on one color with some details then dipping. I think he is more than serviceable in his role as mercenary solo annoyance. He typically dies very quickly as my opponents are threatened by him greatly, probably a lot more so than they should be. In a single game he successfully assisted in the destruction of a Khador heavy and since then he's had a great big target painted on his shirt. /shrug.

Look what I have in my pocket...

Soon I'll put up pictures of my Sam MacHorn crew, till then may your charges always roll box cars.

Blood and Glory! (batrep)

2011-08-14T00:23:00.001-04:00

Last week my friend Darrell brought over his WoC army and fielded them for the first time. I took some photos and thought it would be nice to put a batrep up. My batreps are never that detailed but they are liberally peppered with idiosyncrasies that I think makes them good reads.

We played a basic pitched battle of 2,500 points and I set up the battlefield. A mysterious river, two mysterious woods, a stone watch tower, a couple 'fences' in the form of stone walls and a ruin that was an idol of Gork (or possibly Mork) and we were set to go. We rolled off and I got to pick deployment and went with the opposite side of the river knowing his deployment would be "split" but not really. Rivers mostly do not impede movement but the mysterious nature made him nervous.

We began deployment and I will combine that with army build...

ON MY SIDE: I placed saurus warrior cohort of 40 with command dead center of my zone. To their left went a skink and kroxigor cohort that was 32 and 4 strong. To the far left flank went a troop of 5 terradon riders, their premier on the battlefield even! To the right of the saurus center was the stegadon (a true staple of my army) and to its right was a salamander hunting pack of 2 with 8 handlers. Far on my right flank stood ready a cohort of 10 cold one cavalry. Behind my line stood my slann (Quetxapopalotl) with a loyal skink priest. Quetxapopalotl carried the plaque of dominion and the cupped hands of the old ones while his priestly retainer carried the cube of darkness. The priest could only take the lore of heavens and he was a level one and took the signature spell, the slann took the lore of metal which seemed like a good idea against the WoC and his discipline allowed him all seven spells.

ON HIS SIDE: His center consisted of 10 chosen ready to rip some heads off. To their right stood a unit of 10 knights of chaos looking terrible, to their right was a hungry hellcannon and nearby was a nice regiment of marauders. To the chosen's left stood a chaos sorcerer on a chaos dragon (the general) and behind him a warshrine. Further right stood two regiments of 12 chaos warriors; one with pole arms and the other with dual hand weapons. Deployed opposite my cold one cavalry was a unit of 10 marauder horsemen.

Deployment...

I don't know about his tactics but mine had three aspects; flank the enemy with my terradons to drop rocks on the hellcannon, flank his line with my cold one cavalry, and hold my ground using what little missilery I had to reduce his numbers. I was unsure how much damage the terradons could really do and I know a hellcannon is a tough nut to crack but I was hopeful that it would break loose if I killed the crew and go crazy on his side. I knew the cold one cavalry could really do some hurt but I just needed to be patient and not let them go nuts, I had given them the skavenpelt banner so they would have frenzy but that meant keeping them out of charge range. Over all I was really counting on my magic, giant bow and salamanders to do some hurt.

Turn 1: I won initiative and did very little, I "marched" my terradons on a wide flanking route and I moved the salamanders forward hoping for a successful fire spout. Magic turned out to be out of range but I dropped a couple augment spells on my units. I did not think they would do any good that turn but better safe when you roll eleven power dice. The salamanders proved to be out of range but the giant bow slung a good shot and hit the dragon successfully inflicting 2 wound on it... I was OVERJOYED at the least.

His turn he moved everything forward everything except the horsemen and the cannon. His magic was not too threatening with my dispels being successful and his cannon did a few casualties to the saurus. I was not too worried as I knew that just 20 saurus could stick it in there for a long time and 40 would be brutal to break. He rolled for the eye of chaos for his chosen but they just got a Ld boost, nice but not threatening to me. I didn't expect to break anything anyway /shrug. He did have to roll on the mysterious river and it turned out to be something that would be dangerous terrain if he did anything BUT a normal move; being the smart guy he is he did only a normal move going into it so had no concerns; it also granted units in it the poison rule.

Turn 1 end...

Turn 2: I shifted a little, moving the saurus up to seem more threatening and the cold one cavalry began their maneuvering toward the flank. If he was going to charge anything with the chaos dragon I wanted it to be the saurus warriors who had the best chance to hold their ground. The salamanders shifted foward again, I needed that fire to do some hurt. My magic phase was okay, I blasted the chosen but did only 1 wound and hexed the knights. I knew there was hurt coming and I dropped an augment on the salamanders that would give their ranged attacks magic and armor piercing. They did successfully hit the closest warriors unit with flame and did a few kills. My giant bow hit the dragon dead center again BUT did not wound him.

On his turn he reformed his marauders to face the terradons and blew a charge with the knights. His horsemen successful charged my cold one cavalry in the flank but the rest of his units just moved forward still out of range. During their charge the marauders discovered the wood was a blood wood, but that amounted to nothing the entire game. His cannon did more hits, but this time on the skink/kroxigor cohort and his sorcerer threw more magic but I dispelled most except an irrepressible spell did a couple kills on the saurus... which was better than them getting sucked into the realm of chaos. There was one close combat and the horsemen surprisingly drove off the cold one cavalry! They failed their leadership roll of 8 on a 6/6/5 and fled towards the edge of the table; he was crushed when his pursuit roll was only a 3 though!

Turn 2 end....

Turn 3: I promptly started my turn by failing the rally roll for my cold one cavalry on a 6/6/4... this was looking bad for a four-hundred some point unit. The saurus called a charge on the sorcerer and dragon which they did successfully and the skinks counter charged the knights since they failed their chance and smashed into them. My terradons flew over the cannon raining down stones. It is worth nothing here his dragon was far enough ahead that the saurus impacted only them... the large unit of chosen was not close enough to be engaged... thank goodness. Magic went very well and I blasted his chosen killed all but one (very very happy with that) and did nothing else as I had few power dice (only 3) and failed with my last spell. Of note here is that my two dice (three with discipline) was cast with irresistible force resulted in a nasty miscast that I used the cupped hands of the old ones to put on his sorcerer instead. The blast killed a couple of my saurus but his sorcerer and dragon both took a wound, well worth it. My missilery did little as the salamanders over shot then ate some skinks and the giant bow did two kills on the warriors of chaos. My falling stones, of which there were 14 of a possible 15, inflicted two wounds on the cannon and killed two of three crew. Close combat was sweet even though is dragon and sorcerer tore up several saurus they successfully killed the wizard and stood their ground, the dragon did not run off though and I had a fight on my hands. The skink and krox cohort took a terrible beating from the knights, but they gave even better back and drove away the knights; KROXIGOR + GREAT WEAPON = KNIGHT KILLER... and couching them in 32 meat shields surely does not hurt.

In his turn Darrell smashed his line into mine where ever he could. A warshrine, a single chosen and a block of warriors of chaos into the saurus; the salamanders welcomed their own close combat with the other block of warriors. His horsemen tried to charge the fleeing cold one cavalry but they failed their charge and even though the cavalry fled they did not flee off the table, it was very close though. His cannon tried to nail my slann but he scattered into no mans land. Close combat was a TERRIBLE MESS and he beat the ever loving crap out of my saurus. Below you can see the before and after shots and see how few are left but they held their ground. His warriors did well against the salamander hunting pack and killed most of the skinks and wounded the salamanders.

Turn 3 center during the close combat...

Turn 3 my right...

Turn 3 my left...

Turn 4: Well at this point it was all in if in at all... The cold one cavalry rallied and turned around to face the oncoming charge. The skink/krox unit charged the marauders rather than be charged and the terradons and stegadon did a pincer on the warriors on the end of the saurus. Magic was weak with some augments and failed spells on few power dice, oh well last turn and all. No missilery at all. Close combat was a psychotic mess, but when the dust cleared his dragon was dead, his war shrine had stood ground and the warriors on the end were no more. He had a miserable go of dice and didn't do the hurt he needed to. My salamanders went down in blood and the marauders killed all but two skinks... four kroxigor were still standing though which was bad for them and they took some fair loss but did not run.

On his turn, game turn by the way, we discussed together options he had. Darrell is new to the game and I didn't want him to miss out on those last turn plans we all do. We did some quick math and realized to pull off a draw he needed to make something run. He tried nailing the terradons first with the canon but we realized it couldn't kill enough so we tried the saurus... again not so much. It really came down to the horsemen and cold one cavalry, but now that they were on their game he couldn't do enough and they struck back hard. The game ended in a victory for me but it was a solidly fought game. He made some common mistakes we all do early on and he won't make them again. I know, I AM SURE, I got lucky this time. My cold ones should have run off the table and my slann was spared attention for the most part.... he won't make those mistakes again.

Turn 4 close combat birds eye...

Turn 4...

I just finished a scad of models that i'll post in the next couple of days... and its late so I'll probably modify this post tomorrow, but I had to get this out before I forgot it all...

NOTE: on the Ultramarines page is an update; tactical squad has been finished and posted.

Trollbloods and RAFM

2011-08-06T18:15:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to plough through some models on my paint board. It's crazy how messy my area is and I need to get it taken care of. I'm going to box some stuff up and I'm going to get stuff painted and off the table into the case. When I looked around on what to dig into I decided it was logical to start with things already primed or large that wouldn't go into a box easy, which is why the Dreadnought got done. I'm almost finished with the tactical squad (coming soon) but I DID get finished with these guys...

Not Smurfs, much tougher than they!

...a full unit of Kriel Stone Bearer and Stone Scribes for my slowly growing Trollbloods. This unit came in with a packaged trade and they were already assembled, and they are larger models, so I primed and and slopped them up! I'm honestly not sure how good they will be in combat. The stone can be charged with fury just like a battery, but limited to the number of figures in the unit. That fury can be pulled back out to be used by the warlock... soooo.... I guess that will come in handy. I do think it is possible that it will let my warlock leech off more fury from the warbeasts and let me be more aggressive with them. We shall see.

Here are some other pictures...

Front view of the stone bearer.

Helicopter view...wuppawuppawuppa...

Head on view of the unit.

I will say that a unit of six models maximum it wouldn't have hurt to add at least one more pose. These will be accompanied by the Trollbloods box, which I did not paint, but is still painted quite nicely.

Not my paint work.

I got them in a trade as well and they came painted. I did paint brown on the bases and I need to add something to the basing to make it closer to what I have. I think they are quite nice and I really like how the two Trollblood Impalers are painted two shades of blue.

Finally, I was down in Portsmouth, Ohio some weeks ago and I stopped by an old gaming store haunt; Castle Comics. I have been there in years but when I was a teenager it was my go-to place for game materials. Which actually had some pretty thin pickings looking back, to me then though it was a veritable cornucopia of possibilities. ANYWAY, when I was back by I was surprised to see it had not changed much except to degrade, which was sad. Much of the game material were the exact some ones, with very little new. I was looking through several blisters of miniatures when I came by this...

Old School at its finest.

Specters of Darkness by RAFM Fantasy, so old that he plastic blister is yellowing and cracking. I love finding old miniatures like this and these are just wonderful. I don't know if i'll ever open the blister or paint them. I like having things in the package for some reason. I got them for the price listed, five bucks was a great deal and I'd bet that is the same picture from oooooo 1989.

Why Can't I Use a Short Bow?

2011-08-03T10:28:00.000-04:00

So I started warhammer with the wonderful 5th edition box set (feel free to skip to the "I WANT TO KNOW WHY?") with it's wonderful packaging of scads of plastic saurus, skinks, archers, and knights... just such a good box. Since then they have only gotten better imho. Those skinks were all armed with short bows, a wonderful little 16" ranged weapon of death. In the hands of the capable skirmishing skinks who dipped the stone arrow heads (or maybe tooth arrow heads) in poison these were great troops. Low on toughness sure, and no armor to speak of (although then I think they had 6+ scaly skin) they were still a solid missilery support unit. Then 6th edition came out and we lost our short bows.

I WANT TO KNOW WHY?

Source

Short bows are not so over powered that they need to be removed, in fact they are not over powered at all. I'm not saying that GW should undo the addition of blowpipes, I think this is a great addition but it seems completely illogical to have produced so many models with short bows and not at least write it as a single line option in the skink skirmisher entry for the 7th edition book. I'm hoping they fix this with the 8th edition army book, just a single line is all it takes, watch:

Exchange blowpipe for short bows.......... 1 pt per model.

Easy enough. As you can imagine I've done this as a house rule. To me, 1 point is sufficient as the blowpipe/short bow dichotomy is pretty level. One may have a longer range but the other gets more shots and doesn't suffer from range modifiers. I do like the short bow better because a 16 inches of range can really make a difference over 12 inches. Plus, my skinks HAVE SHORT BOWS! I remember the 6th edition book did have a list int he back for Southlands army lists that allowed skinks with short bows and skinks on cold ones.

Well, rant over, I just was compiling an army list and become characteristically irritated by the lack of this unit option, thought I'd share ;)

Ultra Update

2011-07-28T21:46:00.000-04:00

Finally got a model of my own finished! Between being a father, taking care of the home, getting my job done and just surviving I finally got something done!

Behold!

My completed Dreadnought in all his horrible photograph glory! The first unit of my NEW Ultra Marines army. I'm so pumped its not even funny!

I am pleased with how he turned out in the idea that he is, in fact, done. Maybe not a museum quality paint job but more than good enough for the battlefield. I had some trouble with the skulls, something I don't normally have trouble with, but I painted them all wrong. But, the next ones won't suffer that fate... I hope.

Either way this will go onto the Ultra Marines page as well as an update.

E. Gary Gygax

2011-07-27T22:18:00.000-04:00

Well, I haven't been able to blog much but this one is worth taking the time out. Everyone knows Gygax, hell his name has been converted to a term to describe the kind of fantasy he had a hand in making, "Gygaxian". Today that word means death in a myriad of creative ways. It can send shivers down the spines of players.

Anyway... it's his birthday today, and although he's dead (he died on my anniversary sadly enough) it is still a good reason to celebrate.

GenCon 2007

I wasn't there for this picture, but I wish I was. I would have loved to play in a game with him as either a player or a Dungeon Master.

Happy Birthday Gary :)

Women's World Cup

2011-07-17T17:42:00.000-04:00

If you know me you know loosing is not a bad thing in my point of view so long as sportsmanship is present and one does their best.

Today's game of USA vs. Japan was a beautiful thing to behold. Both teams played hard and did amazingly well on the field.

That is until the extra time play when Japan abandoned their sense of sportsmanship to gain a yellow card, then to blatantly throw themselves down in front of a USA player to prevent her taking a shot. Sure, the Japan player got a red card but that seriously doesn't amount to a hill of beans considering the blatant disregard for the game. I have rarely been more offended than seeing the Japanese player rewarded for such disreputable behavior by the smiles and affectionate touches from her team.

The shoot out not with standing, I feel that Japan lost the WWC there. If that had been a USA player doing that I would have been ashamed.

Temple of Chac

2011-07-14T10:05:00.000-04:00

Is a remarkably dangerous place. Let me tell you. I got this in a trade through Bartertown (which appears to be down for about five days now) and I got it with a mind towards my family, especially my 12 year old sons. They are not the gamer their father is, which is fine, but I was really hoping to be raising a couple fellow war gamers so we could throw down some truly epic battles. We do get along with board games though and at the recent game fair they picked up Zombie Survival by Twilight Creations Inc. after playing a demo of it. Odd as it may be I found it very heartening to see them demo a game and purchase it based off its merits in the demo.

ANYWAY... I digress... The Adventurers: Temple of Chac is a very good game. We've played it twice and the first game only Matthew made it out of the temple, Chris and myself lost both of our adventurers to fire and water. The second game, last night, proved very lethal and no one made it out alive. I was closest, only two spaces from escape with 9 points of treasure when the boulder rolled over me with a five space dice casting. We have had quite a bit of fun with this game and I can see us playing it several more times before we'd be bored and I'm not sure even then. There is a lot of talk on forums that this game lacks re-play-ability and I just do not see it. I know it is the same series of encounters and how they play out but there is a definite fun in knowing how to get something done but having no guarantee of getting it done.

Also, the Zombie Survival is a solid game as well. Not the typical zombie game imho it is really a resource management game with a dexterity based combat system. You roll dice in the box lid that has a zombie pictured inside. you're trying to hit the body with a total of 6 pips or get any dice into the head shot zone. This is not as easy as it seems with even five dice. I own Zombies!!! but that needs some modification I think. We play it with rolling both the red and the blue dice; blue is number of zombies moving, red is the total spaces moved. So you can get a single really fast zombies or a bunch of slow ones, either way it is a little more pressure.

By way of a hobby update I've gotten nothing done for weeks now. I'm trying to finish up Darrell's chaos models (20 marauders and a sorcerer riding a dragon) and they are nearly done but work has been busy, life has been busy, and my wife started redoing the upstairs bathroom. So I've just not gotten to paint or model. I've got lined up some knights, some space marines and i'd like to get to both of those to keep my painted collection growing.

We shall see.

Also I've not really gotten to blog (obviously), photograph anything or write any more. But, I will, I've not given ground and I will continue the fight against real life to embrace my hobbies!

Wish me luck!

Origins After Action Report

2011-07-01T10:37:00.000-04:00

Okay so, I wanted to blog FROM the convention but I was bushed every night and didn't get to. Which is fine because I also forgot my camera. Now that its over a few days and my life is slowing down I can say I had a great time even though I only played two games from Tuesday night to Sunday night.

In general I felt the con was pretty decently stocked; the vendor room was sold out and there were scads of events. There were less LARP than before but I'm not a LARPer so it didn't bother me. One game I got to dig into was the Dungeons and Dragons Monster Mash by Red Shirt Games which was pretty good. I got Drizz't and his panther as one 'monster' and a mounted paladin as the other. I died but my daughter played (centaur and beholder) and she won with the centaur.

I came home with scads of loot of course but some of it stands out more than others. First of all I want to give a special blog thank you to man named William. He gifted me a wood dice tower that is awesome and I cannot wait to use it. Next up is...

camera phone picture, sorry

again, more camera phone

...the new Conan movie is coming out in August and I am very excited. I am a Conan fan big time and it is good to see something come to a screen. I didn't like the TV series (oh it was so bad) but the xbox game kicked much ass. Michael Stackpole is connected to GAMA (I think he is a board member if I remember right) and he also wrote the novelization of the new Conan move AND AREA MANAGER VOLUNTEERS GOT A FREE COPY WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

On top of that awesomeness he autographed it, which made my day. I have spoken to him in passing a few times and he is a fantastic person so I feel very lucky to get to encounter him and to get his signature. I'm not an autograph hound but I have gotten a few (cough Stan Lee) and I value his words because he is a nice guy, not because he wrote the new Conan novel (that just makes him awesome).

dice yummmmmm

Also I was given a set of the collectors edition of Crystal Caste special edition dice. I have last years as well and I didn't like them as much (they are below) but this years gray with a hint of purple is very nice.

2010 dice

I also brought home a bunch of boxes...

Earth Reborn by Z-Man games. Something like a board based miniatures skirmish game in a sci-fi post apocalyptic world... well not something like it but just like it. This game has a TON of counters and a very neat multi-part board to build different environments.
Gamma World by WotC. I've read a couple reviews and looked through it and really this is just a complex board game rather than an RPG but meh, it still looks cool.
Rush-N-Crush of AEG (formerly of Rackham) which looks to be an okay sci-fi racing game.
Resident Evil Deck Building Game by Bandai. I know nothing about this and it was part of my reward swag which I was very pleased to get. I have heard it is a good game, we shall see!
Tannhauser well, not the game I have that, but several of the character packs thanks to Ravenstone Games in Columbus Ohio. I got: Hoss, Asteros, Hoax, Wolf and Oksana. This puts me shy of only the Daedalus map pack woo!
The MERCS rule book. This looks like a fun miniatures game but I'm not so sure I want to dump so much into figures right now. If there was a couple players in my group then maybe.
Naruto cards; bunches of these. Something like 52 boosters, a tin and a starter deck. I'm going to share them with my sons and we will see if its any good.

Well I think that was all the loot I scored. I spent around 110 dollars, which is really good for so much. Volunteers are given some good rewards but we work hard, hard hard. I am looking forward to playing these when I get around to it. The first I'll probably get to experiment with is Rush N Crush b/c my boys like racing games.

That's all for now. I did add another page to my blog, a short story I wrote so if you have time to read it please do.

Be back later, until then, may your dice always roll 20...

I'M OFF TO THE CONVENTION

2011-06-21T12:40:00.000-04:00

Well, in something like 3 hours I will be going to Origins to begin my indentured servitude as security. So, if you are coming by be sure to break a rule and we'll meet as I throw you out :)

I am looking forward to the convention though. I don't usually have much time for events but it looks like I might slip into a 750 warband tournament for Warhammer Fantasy Battles and I might dig into something called "monster mash", we shall see.

I will try to take pictures and post a blog, but no promises.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons

2011-06-08T14:24:00.000-04:00

Ah, I can still remember the early days of my role playing experience(s). It was a wonder to discover such an imaginative game and it fit my nature very well. Today I still make strong daily use of my imagination and my vocabulary and reading skills are strong and while I'm not so geeky as to attribute it all to AD&D I do feel it was a strong contributor. There are several aspects of that game that caught my mind and I felt like blogging a little about that.

I still wonder how much that gem stone eye is worth...

I first played with the "Red Box" and I could have easily put up a picture of it but it's elsewhere on the blog. This player's handbook though is really where I took off. I started refereeing my own games as Dungeon Master (giggle snort) and my group grew from two (including me) to nine (including me again) and we had such amazing adventures! I wish now that I had kept a journal of the sessions more for short story material than anything else. I still have a manila folder with character sketches of the player's characters one of the players had made. They are wonderful to dig out every now and then, sure they are totally and COMPLETELY geeky but the essence of role playing is just geeky and to see the vague references within those drawings of the people who played those characters is a sweet bit of history.

Another aspect of those early days was the art. Today's fantasy art is, well, fantastic stuff. Wayne Reynolds is one of my favorites, his work is just full of action although it is wildly unreal (which is wildly awesome imho) but it and the others lack the simple evocation of artist like Jeff Easily and Larry Elmore. Hell, Larry Elmore basically defined what a beautiful woman looks like and I married a woman who is such an Elmorian beauty you wouldn't believe it. Work's like the cover of the AD&D game cartridge for the Intellivision (right) has something in it. Something that captures the sense of exploration and adventure and I think this is because it was such a new field for many people and there is a quality to it that makes it possible to believe the giant snake could be real even though logic tells you it isn't. When playing the game artwork like this makes it easy to craft what a beholder would 'really' look like in your imagination. I wish I was rich so I could obtain some of these originals and build a museum to them, HA!

The toys was another large part of the over all experience. I didn't have many, I didn't have much money and I grew out of toy age kind of fast but even now I've collected a few (including a Dragonne unopened in box) but the toys have that same quality the earlier art work did. They were crude, rough hewn, natural in their own way. The minotaur looked feral and brutal, the orcs weasily and threatening and the heroes like those who had risen to the challenge when they could have been a black smith or farmer. Miniatures are prominent in my life now and though I no longer play RPGs I still look at these toy soldiers in a similar light I looked at those old toys. The pre-painted plastics that have grown up through the years are weak next to these old toys even though they are better made and better looking, they look manufactured in a way the old AD&D toys didn't.

14 and 40K

2011-06-02T13:36:00.000-04:00

I see a 14th follower has slipped into a seat at the round table, which pleases me greatly! My power grows daily MUAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anyway, recently I obtained the most excellent Assault on Black Reach box set which is the introduction to Warhammer 40K.

Shameless Picture Theft HUZZAH!

Which is just packed full of good models, a nice rule book a great introductory book and everything yummy you need to play. The "task force" and "war band" are unbalanced to be sure but I'm just as interested in asymmetric battle as well as balance combats so it seems fine to me. There's been dozens of reviews on this product from others so I'm not going to drop one.

I have played 40K before, actually started playing it during 2nd edition (oh that was a hard edition) and really dug in during 3rd edition where I played Dark Eldar and really tore up the battle field. At one point I had an Ultramarines army that I STUPIDLY parted with and to this day regret. My group fell out of love with 40K because a lot was going on in their lives and I didn't have a 40K army. I'm back though and see the AOBR box as my official re-entry. We did not play 4th edition so there appears to me to be many changes from 3rd to 5th but others will probably see more of an evolution than I do. The 5th edition rules are nice, but I digress. the real reason for this post is to announce my plan for constructing a space marine army. I'd added a page to this blog and it should have the army list plan. I'll post pictures of each unit as it gets done and comments about how I painted it.

Also, I've not forgotten the Magic & Monsters list, I've just been to busy to finish compiling it.

Warbands Collide

2011-06-02T00:07:00.000-04:00

My friend Ron came over on Tuesday night to pit his High Elf war band against my Lizardmen war band. There is a 750 point tournament this year at Origins and I'm pretty excited about playing in it. So far no one BUT me has signed up but I'm hoping that changes in the next few weeks.

Sigh...

ANYWAY I wanted to get some practice with such a small force so I invited/challenged Ron's elves. I brought to bear the army list given last post, but the skink priest is now carrying the Ironcurse Icon, seems like a more likely to be used item for a tournament. Ron fielded Caradryan, 10 phoenix guard, a reaper bolt thrower and 23 sea guard. Quite a dangerous 750 points. Caradryan's magic resistance of 3 completely screwed my skink priest if he got any magic missile spells, which he did; both Uranon's Thunderbolts and Chainlightning. I elected to drop chain lightning for Iceshard Blizzard, two casting costs of 10 or higher may be a little much for a level 2 wizard.

We lined up our forces and rolled for first turn, which he won. Not knowing what scenario will be played at the tournament (if it happens) we went for a straight forward pitched battle of 4 turns.

Deployment at the beginning of the game.

Turn 1: The phoenix guard marched towards my stegadon, the sea guard moved (and fired) and the bolt thrower predictably just waited to fire. The elf shooting was only so so with the skink unit suffering a total of 3 losses. As he had no wizard and no remains in play spells were in play we skipped the magic phase. I marched my saurus, moved my skinks and held back the stegadon since it was a roll of 8 to charge and I wanted to try the great bow which is something I don't use very often. I was hoping his phoenix guard would try a failed charge next turn or just march forward. My magic phase was... interesting... as I had 10 power dice and threw six to cast thunderbolt on his bolt thrower and even threw the total power/miscast so he couldn't dispel it. I nailed the unit with five hits out of a possible six, all of which hit the war machine and all failed to wound it. Then I rolled on miscast and BLASTED my own unit with a large template wounding my priest, killing several skinks and almost killing a kroxigor. What a mess, but I did get to throw blizzard on his guard giving me some advantage if I get the charge next turn.

End of Turn One

Turn 2: He held ground with all units, which is not what I wanted at all. His missile fire was pretty solid and reduced the skink unit to only a single kroxigor and a handful of skinks. On my turn I charged his sea guard successfully and his phoenix guard (a roll of 7 and 8 respectively to be successful). My magic was a failure as he dispelled my thunderbolt but again cast blizzard on his guard which he failed to dispel. Close combat was brutal, my saurus warriors chopped up some of his sea guard and they fled but I failed to catch them by 1 inch (ugh). The stegadon smashed into his phoenix guard, they slew all the skinks in the howdah when I failed a ton of saving throws, and I won the fight by one but he did not flee. As an aside, his bolt thrower made their panic roll so they didn't run either!

End of Turn Two

Turn 3: The sea guard rallied, the bolt thrower blasted my skink unit again but didn't do much damage (he rolled badly). His close combat phase was bad for me, the stegadon was beaten only because he had a standard and I failed my leadership roll causing it to flee which he ran down. They ran right by the skink priest that made his panic roll. My turn saw a charge on the sea guard again and the bolt thrower with my skink spinning on the spot to look at the backs of the remaining phoenix guard with magic in his mind. The thunderbolt did successfully slay two of the remaining four models, which was quite an accomplishment considering Caradryan's magic resistance but they didn't flee either which sucked. close combat saw the sea guard beaten and flee off the table and only one of the two bolt thrower crew being slain, as well as me loosing a skink! Neither ran though.

End of Turn Three

Turn 4: Not much happened so to sum it up: I killed the last crew man and he spun his last phoenix guard around with Caradryan leaving the unit (of one). This was so he could align the two getting a better aim on the wizard for a charge, which was pretty solid tactics if there was another turn. I ran by them of course, didn't really want to get him charged.

End of Turn Four

At the end of the game I had scored 305 points from the sea guard and he had scored 235 from the stegadon so it was a near victory for me. Another couple of turns I'm fairly confident I could have killed the last phoenix guard... and PROBABLY Caradryan but I can't guarantee that he is a tough bugger. Ron played really well except he forgot his re-rolls with ASF. I really shouldn't have threw the stegadon into the hero led heavy infantry with a ward save, but I was really just wanting to test its power. I've not lost my stegadon often and I didn't mind loosing it this time.

"We shall fight in the shade!"

2011-05-31T09:14:00.000-04:00

Then let me help you with that.

I've been away for a bit, according to my last real post (not the I'll be back post) it's been about 25 days. Between soccer (a 4 - 5 record) and home renovation/spring cleaning I've not really even had time to paint. Today's post is th promised picture of my finished Bretonnian Peasant Bowmen.

This is my first Warhammer regiment that is multi-based. It is (obviously) 20 strong and I need to do the defensive stakes. With the 8th edition of the rules allowing for volley fire and shooting in two ranks peasant bowmen no longer have to spread wide to get a full unit to fire and leaves more room for deployment of knights and infantry... thank goodness. These guys will be 8 wide with four left over on the back rank. Not a terribly powerful unit, but, not a terribly costly one either. I imagine these guys with their brothers (a unit of 16 others) will be able to do some harm but I'm finding the bowmen are having difficulty killing my foes.

Anyway, I will be helping with Origin's security team again this year so if you're going to be there look me up. Also, there is a 750 point Warhammer warbands tournament which seems pretty exciting. This is my planned army list:

skink priest with hand weapon and dispel scroll; level 2 wizard
15 suarus warriors with hand weapons and shields; includes full command
16 skinks with hand weapons, javelins and shields; includes 2 kroxigor with great weapons
stegadon

This comes to 745 points and I think it will hold up solidly. The only weakness I see is that I lack a good general leadership but with only 187 points for heroes (or lords) I can't afford both a wizard and a scar veteran and I don't want to be at the mercy of all the chaos sorcerers that are sure to be out there.

I Shall Return

2011-05-17T07:54:00.002-04:00

Soccer is almost over...

Friend's Warriors of Chaos are almost done...

I...

Will...

Be....

BACK!

An Argument About Skeletons and Ghouls

2011-05-05T08:09:00.000-04:00

Immagonna post this over at the geek also, but, me and my friend are in an argument that can be summarized as follows:

He is of the opinion that crypt ghouls are of superior combat ability in all ways shapes and forms to that of skeletons, while I am unsure of such and see that the skeletons have equal potential to the crypt ghouls.

I'm basing my stance off from experience; namely neither seems to do crap on my battlefield. He is basing his off the fact that Google provided him information that the ghoul's toughness of 4 is superior to an armor save of 5+ with parry save.

So I did some math and came out with this...

Scenario 1: both vs. 20 empire swordsmen.
>The swordsmen will do 7 hits on the skeletons, which becomes 4 wounds of which armor saves 1 and parry saves1 resulting in 2 lost skeletons.
>The same swordsmen will do 6 hits on the ghouls, which becomes 2 wounds which go unsaved and 2 ghouls are lost.

Scenario 2: both vs. 20 empire greatswords
>The greatswords will do 7 hits on the skeletons, which becomes 6 wounds of which no armor saves but parry save grants the skeletons 1 success resulting in 5 lost skeletons.
>The same greatswords will do 7 hits to the ghouls, of which 5 wound none of which will be saved resulting in 5 lost ghouls.

As far as I can tell these are identical, the toughness of 4 is pretty much a parry save when it comes down to it. Now obviously against missile fire or magic this might be different but I'm considering close combat. But I would wager with the others it will be the same if not exact than pretty damn close.

I would like feedback if any of you have an opinion or if you have a good example to throw out. I should say I made the assumptions that these blocks would be 20 vs. 20 in four ranks of five models.

The Hordes Are Coming!

2011-05-03T23:52:00.000-04:00

Mmmmkay I've been busy for once. I've had a moment of hobby lucidity and completed a whole host of models.

Here we have my Tomb Banshee. A fairly recognizable figure, and one I like a lot. Typically I make any female in my army have red hair as a tribute to my wife, but, I didn't think she'd want to be tributed as the dead.

I got to use the tomb banshee in its first game but it didn't really do anything impressive. I was fighting dwarfs and needing to roll a 9 or better to squeeze off one wound proved difficult. But I am excited to use her again and see what she can do.

Saurus Warrior horde, a very expensive unit and hopefully brutal in battle.

These are all from the 5th edition release of the game when I started and the front half of the regiment are the originals I began my war gaming career with! I've always fielded them and now I can throw a horde at my foe. I'm not sure if it will be worth the nearly 500 points but I guess if it bases another horde you're looking at 40 strength 4 attacks, not too shabby.

Ah yes, even more skeletons to fall to the unbalanced instability rule.

I have been trying to do something with skeletons, and I have been failing. So applying Murphy's Law of "Throw More S**t at it." I am doing just that. Mebbe a horde will bring on some pain, should be hard to beat down just by numbers and a good magic banner may help. You'll note the extras, well, I meant to paint 20 and seem to lack the ability to count to 20 as I did 24. Meh, good for Lord of the Dead.

Cairn Wraiths are fun!

These and the tomb banshee painted up pretty easily, and as her escorts to the battle field they did a good job. They did mop up a rune lord and a unit of hand gunners but were defeated by a block of warriors because of ranks... which annoys the buggers out of me.

I ALSO finished a body of 20 Bretonnian peasant bowmen and forgot to photograph them. I'll do that in the next couple of days and get them up for you. I'm hoping to paint up the men-at-arms next and finish my friend's chaos. So, see you in a couple days.

Warhammer Plus Math Equals FUN!

2011-04-28T10:25:00.000-04:00

My friend came over last night and played his first game of 8th edition. He has played dwarfs since fourth when we both started and he has many older models... unpainted but that is another story. I played Vampire Counts both because I felt it would give him and advantage and because I wanted to try out a couple new units: cairn wraiths and a necromancer on a corpse cart. This isn't a battle report, this is an expose on the insanity of playing the undead right now.

Amongst my units was my nice chunky block of 20 crypt ghouls, which, theoretically should be solid infantry. Not overpowering infantry but 20 models with 2 poison attacks each is something worth throwing at the enemy. By the current rules these puppies (undead, filth-encrusted puppies) throw out 15 attacks with weapon skill 3 and strength 3.

Grrrrrrrrr....

So I threw these guys at a unit of longbeards, a big unit, actually 30 of them with heavy armor and great weapons along with the dwarf lord in the mix. Let me say I did not expect them to win the fight or overcome the foe in melee, but what did happen is what irks me about the current flow of Vampire Counts games for me. Allow me to enumerate...

Crypt Ghouls attack: 15 attacks: 3 are poisonous automatic wounds, another 3 are rolled for wounds (so out of 15 attacks I got 6 wounds on the enemy, not bad, a solid solid hit considering the toughness of the dwarfs)
Dwarfs make three of six saves... so again, solid. If you look at the math out of 15 attacks 7.5 should hit (4+ to hit) and then strength 3 vs toughness 4 means 2.5 should wound. Also, since poisonous attacks wound on a 6 to hit automatically there should have been 2.5 automatic wounds out of the fifteen dice. So getting 6 wounds was solid, and he should make only 2 out of those (5+ heavy armor) which he made 3 making it really just about dead on average.
Dwarfs attack back, including the lord. Now, he had to take a Fear roll first which he of course passed (leadership 10 and all that). His lord does only 1 wound (odd bad luck) and then his long beards do 8 (really good luck, since there were only 12 attacking). I'm fine with this, after all this is longbeards and a dwarf lord. I expected to take a solid six to ten casualties.
I have no saves (oh you silly naked crypt ghouls) so nine guys go back to the ground.
THEN HE COMPLETELY ELIMINATES THE REMAINDER OF THE UNIT WITH THE COMBAT RESOLUTION.

Seriously!? This needs tempered some. He had the fight, next round they would have died to a man (undead man admittedly) BUT ELEVEN CASUALTIES FROM COMBAT RESOLUTION IS COMPLETELY UNBALANCED. There is not even opportunity to raise more from the dead, the entire unit is gone! That was a solid combat for the ghouls, they did some hurt and stood their ground. But how can one play with undead when they are wiped out before you can raise more to support them?

This is a huge flaw in the game currently. There is no undead unit I can throw against the majority of my foes that can stand a full turn. I used 30 skeletons this game and they fought 30 dwarf warriors, the two battled six times and at the end of the game 2 skeletons still stood and they had killed only 6 dwarfs in return. This is after the unit had 14 models raised back into it, so really it was 44 vs 30.

I'm on a bit of a soap box I know...

Pleasantly fragrant.

...but come on! I am hoping the tromb king's army book shows me some hope. As it stands they VC have won a single match, and mostly get pounded into nothingness very quickly.

Obviously as I've posted this if you want to correct me, please do so, and if you have an answer, give me that as well.

You can use my soap box even.

HiJaCKed!

2011-04-26T18:04:00.000-04:00

Can you imagine stuffing your face with chocolate cake and sitting down in front of your partner's PC only to find his blog completely open and waiting for a new post? Well, neither could I until this moment . . . chocolate cake has never been sweeter!

So he's behind our house coaching 10-12 year olds (soccer) in the wet grass and I am snatching a few lines here on his blog. Tomorrow I head for Chicago for an educational conference I am not quite prepared for--with that in mind, it's not like I should be doing anything else at the moment. Did I mention the chocolate cake?

You are really lucky to be acquainted with such a great guy. Someday, you will tell others that you knew him when. Until then, be good to the big guy. Marvel at his work.

Magnus is a traitor, goblins ride spiders and Death Angel is a challenge indeed!

2011-04-25T20:42:00.000-04:00

Well, lots to share today. I had a wonderful easter and broke half my temporary crown. At this point I'm ready to be fed chicken soup for the rest of my life.

AAAANYWAY...

Magnus and his battle group.

A more "atmospheric" photo with the tower.

Magnus and his battle group is part of what made Warmachine for me. I started the game WHEN IT LAUNCHED and was the first person to have it in my town. I ordered a Cryx box and a Menoth box and wanted to play Menoth. My friend immediately wanted Menoth and wouldn't play unless he had them (the bastard) and so I went with Cryx. I kicked a lot of @$$ with Cryx, and probably still would but financial pressures caused me to part with them. Later I obtained Magnus and fell in love with him because, really, he's Bruce Campbell from Army of Darkness. He is a hard warcaster to play though as he has trouble closing the deal when I'm playing him. In the original rules I did mucho mui grande pain to my foes with him and his war jacks but he just couldn't bring down the finishing blow.

Also we have...

What sound do these guys make?

...some Forest Goblin Spider Riders. These are from the BFSP box set and originally I was going to paint up all the box but parted with many of them. I saved these guys and the miners I had painted up. Technically I could field them as an allied unit with my Vampire Counts and I might as I have no cavalry for them yet. But I am also thinking about selling them. The picture isn't so good (the best its going to get though) but I feel they are a solid high quality battle field paint work. It is a solid unit for any army though, poison attacks and spears and all that jazz.

And finally me and my son Matthew played Death Angel by FFG yesterday. WOW that is a hard game to play. We made it to the last room but it destroyed us, which wasn't a surprise since we lost four of eight marines getting there. Great game though, easy to learn and nice flow to it. We played through the entire game in about 45 mins including time for him to learn the rules.

Well, hopefully I will finish the 20 skeletons, 20 saurus warriors, 5 cairn wraiths and 1 tomb banshee on my table tonight so I can show you all. Wish me luck!

HAPPY EASTER!

2011-04-23T19:38:00.000-04:00

To all my fellow bloggers I wish a Happy Easter! This is an important holiday for me religiously and spiritually and I am glad to share it with all of you. :)

I have many blogs to catch up on, you've all been very busy but I won't be doing that until Monday. Also, I've got some interesting pictures and other comments to put on my own.

See you all soon :D

Minecraft is Changing Our World

2011-04-21T10:28:00.000-04:00

Mark my geeky words! Notch's invention is going to change our world dynamically. Many will look at this and either..

Not know what Minecraft is so not really understand what I'm saying or...
Think I'm a nut job (which may or may not be true) which is irrelevant to my point.

Basically this guy is building a computer inside a virtual space which has big implications if you sit down and think about it for a little bit. I'm no genius, okay, but I can do some competent home computer repair and have been known to swap out hardware. I'm not so skilled that I can build one from scratch and I can't program (well I did some in BASIC woo hoo!) but I understand what programming is and can recognize html even if I don't know what it is saying. There are two impacts Minecraft is going to have I believe, Penny Arcade sums up one nicely...

Pardon the French, all credits to those guys.

If you need more evidence of the impact this potential has reference Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw on the The Escapist. He tears everything a new butthole and even in tearing Minecraft a new butthole he saw the implications I'm... implying?

Anyway....

Beyond the fact that creativity is on like Donkey Kong if you allow yourself the time to explore what can be done in a virtual 3D environment that only partially takes physics into account you have to understand that the ability for more people to expand their creative nature in something that has been mostly limited to those with either money or ability can result in some very exciting results. What I'm saying is; if my 12 year old sons can RIGHT NOW spend hours working with a 3D environment, then the 6 year olds that are doing it right now will find it second nature as they move forward. My parents have trouble using their cell phone's many features and it is not a smart phone. My sons are actively working to build insanely impossible structures which, with sufficient time, will seem possible to them. If the architects of the future are playing Minecraft right now, then you can expect some really amazing structures in thirty years... maybe even skulls with lava flowing from their eyes.

THE SECOND MORE IMPORTANT IMPACT IS THE ABILITY TO CREATE WORKING TECHNOLOGY WITHIN A VIRTUAL SPACE. We are fundamentally limited in our own world due to resources, physics, and basic ole' reality. Should we be able to create a greater space within a limited space to expand our abilities to accomplish things this can lead to some really wild possibilities. I understand that sentence was wildly vague but that is because we are looking at the beginning of a new stage in civilizational development and you can't tie that s*$t up in a nice tidy bow!

Right now they're building fairly simple machines but with time and others taking control it is only a matter of time before you see a combination of some equipment that exists today. Add a Kinect, some open source software, mix in something like Minecraft if not Minecraft itself, a little holographic technology and you've got a team of people manipulating virtual materials to produce virtual results with real world applications.

I'm not saying we are gonna build a machine to make food come out of nothing...

Like this...

...but really there is some technological wizardry being developed and it is only a matter of time before it really changes things.

I could go on and on but I'm going to show some self control and stop there. But, if you haven't played Minecraft yet for the love of mercy do so as soon as you can... and make a huge statue of a warrior holding up the head of medusa with water falling form her eyes over and over.

Game Night and Dwarfs VS Vampires

2011-04-19T13:30:00.000-04:00

A couple Saturdays ago was club night and I got a chance to play Darrell and his new dwarfs. I also watched his dwarfs pound Ron's high elves (ouch) and we played some game from Wizkids that was about laying tiles with strings which was pretty good. I've only got a couple cell phone pictures from the night. After those is a nice big AAR for the battle.

This was the Wizkids game. I lost both games but it was still very cool.

Ron and Darrell pitting their armies against one another. They elected to play on an open field, which was a horrible mistake for Ron. Darrell had A LOT of guns.

The AAR between me and Darrell...

The Dwarfs: Darrell fielded a classic gun line dwarf army with a block of thunderers, a block of quarrelers, and 3 cannons. Accompanying them was a thane and a block of 25 warriors with great weapons.

The Vampire Counts: I fielded only my painted units and this made it pretty normal for me with one exception. There was a vampire lord as a level 3 wizard on nightmare, a vampire, a block of skeletons and ghouls, a block of dire wolves, my 3 spirit hosts and 2 varghulfs instead of only one.

The scenario we rolled was meeting engagement which was great for me as it drastically shortened the distance between us. When he chose his deployment side there was plenty of terrain to crouch behind but when we rolled for reserves I lost my ghouls, my wolves and one of my varghulfs to the reserves. I crouched all of the other units behind a ‘building’ on my left flank and completely denied him my right flank. As he had deployed first he was spread over his entire deployment zone. When rolling for first turn I fortunately rolled a 6 and got the firs turn as well.

The opening of the game I immediately called in my reserves and placed them on my far right. They were to be a sacrificial force and I hoped they would draw sufficient fire to allow my greater force to roll up his flank. I marched everything around the corner towards a cannon on a hill. A successful casting of VDM allowed my spirit hosts to base the cannon before close combat but the battle resulted in only 2 of the cannon crew being slain. He swung around a unit of thunderers to have line of site to my skeletons, vampire and varghulf coming up his flank and threw crossbow bolts and cannon balls at the right flank army which was a great distraction. The close combat saw me do away with his last cannon crew in his close combat phase.

The second turn I used more VDM to move my skeleton block with the vampire into close combat with his thunderers. The spirit hosts and varghulf began to make their way towards the next cannon and the thane. My magic so far had done little, and continued to do little either because I used up my dice with VDM or because my vampire lord was out of range. I was keeping him behind my line and the line was moving so quickly between march and VDM from the vampire on foot that he couldn’t keep up if I wanted spell casting even though it was only the second turn. In close combat the thunderers took heavy casualties as did my skeletons and they fled from the undead which ran them down. In his second turn he did even more grievous casualties to my direwolves and varghulf but both were still in the game. He also blasted the ghouls with a cannon again but they were so far back and out of vampire range they could only slog forward. So long as he kept firing into them I was fine with that. He did blast both the varghulfs with cannon but they survived.

The third turn my skeleton block engaged his thane and my spirit hosts continued around his rear along with the varghulf. A successful casting of summon undead horde replenished the skeleton unit to its starting number. I also threw a magic missile spell at the warriors but they were not affected any. On the right my varghulf and a single wolf charged the quarrelers while the ghouls shambled forward stoically. Close combat saw the thane take a single wound and kill my vampire on foot in return though he fled and when I pursued it put the skeletons into close combat with another cannon crew but the thane ran far enough he didn’t get caught. The quarrelers killed the wolf but took enough damage from the varghulf which they failed to wound that they fled and the varghulf followed them off the table. Darrell decided to pass on his turn and call the game. It was late but he was also demoralized a bit.

Darrell is a good player but he is new to the game and I played the VC because they would be punished by the dwarfs if I messed up my tactics or took them on toe to toe. The game really wasn’t over. There was still a huge block of warriors with great weapons and the thane as well as another cannon. Both my varghulfs were badly wounded and the ghouls were very far away without a vampire to support them so I’m in no way confident I had him. Those warriors would have taken a lot to crack and a good cannon shot would have smashed either varghulf or my vampire lord, which when dead would cause my army to crumble.

It was over all a good match and it was an honor to fight Darrell and I look forward to bringing it on to him again soon!

Also, there should be anew page added to this blog as soon as I can figure it out. I'm going to try to collate the data from Martin Hackett's book into a more usable army book like format. Wish me luck!

IT'S JUST A FLESH WOUND!

2011-04-14T08:09:00.000-04:00

I'm not dead but wow has my life been craaaaazy!

I had a dental surgery and now have a hole running from where a molar was into one of my sinus cavities. I can blow air through it! I shouldn't says the doctor so I do not do such and in time it will heal I am told. But, until then, IT IS FREAKING ME OUT!

I have been finishing up my friends WoC stuff for him and haven't done much painting myself. I am working on a batch of 20 peasant bowmen, the old plastic one pieces, and when they are done I am going to steal two of the four defensive stakes stands from my new peasant bowmen. I realized that missile troops now fire into two ranks (and long bows have volley even) so I only need 8 models wide in a sixteen model unit. This means my two units of peasant bowmen will be more compact and more effective at the same time. I might ditch 4 of the old bowmen unit (a mere 24 points) to enable another magic item in the army. It is pretty character heavy with two lords and three heroes and they don't have a lot of magic items and virtues between them. I got a box of grail knights in trade so this brings the army to a juicy 23 cavalry, 68 infantry and a guy on a flying horse.

I will get some pictures up of my warmachine soon, I'm touching up the bases and mean to photograph them by unit and put them up. So, hopefully before this day is out even!

"Oooh, that's a Bingo. Is that the way you say it, That's a bingo?"

2011-03-30T12:21:00.000-04:00

"You just say bingo."

And I've got a bingo! I spend a lot of time reading books of all kinds; history books, fiction, fantasy, rule books and so forth. I read a lot of RPG books because I'm always looking for that one that has the right mix of complex and easy to be a good RPG as I see and RPG. I know I don't play any more but this is something that has been going on since Dungeons & Dragons for me and I don't see a reason to stop now.

ANYWAY I recently ran across a game called Dragon Warriors which was originally published in 1985 by Corgi Books in a unusual six paper back book format. Considering the game has existed for 26 years and I never heard of it till three days ago this does my heart good. It is nice to have a hobby that can stills surprise you so many years later.... or I'm that out of the loop.

Original cover of book 1

This was republished by Magnum Opus Press in 2008 and this is the copy I have been reading through. I LOVE IT! I've got a few bones to pick about modern RPGs and one of those is ability scores. I always feel like they become superfluous after character generation as that 18 typically holds no value beyond its modifier. There are some games that make active use of ability scores (cough cough Rolemaster cough cough) but I'm of a mind if you have the score you should use it as such. Learning D&D I was taught to roll on a D20 vs a score to determine some successes, so a stronger fighter could open a door easier. Now I know AD&D has the OD/LG but I learned on red book and that did not have such a score. Dragon Warriors seems to make active use of such scores and I like the simplicity of the combat as well. I could go on and on and on but I won't. I just wanted to encourage everyone to take a look at it, Mongoose Publishing has it on sale for a relative good price so if you are looking for an RPG to try I would recommend it.

Cthulhu Tech and Other Stuff

2011-03-29T14:49:00.000-04:00

I found the pictures of the Cthulhu Tech miniature given out at the GTS. Only the retailers got this goody and there was a limited number so I don't think all of them got it even. The pictures aren't the best because I had to take them with my cell phone.

The model was plastic and its arms swung freely kinda like an old action figure. You can't tell it here but it stood like one and a half inches tall.

Another picture. The gun was at an odd angle, kind of like he's just standing around waiting to re-spawn onto the table.

In other blog news I don't know how much painting or gaming I'll get done. I've started coaching my sons' U13 soccer team and that combined with my normal life and several social responsibilities that have emerged are placing what free time I have in a bind. I am block painting a bunch of chaos for a friend of mine so that will be where my painting is focused until completed, but FEAR NOT MY KNIGHTS, for I do have shloads of figures I have not photoed and blogged about. I'll try to polish up some of my Warmachine bases and get them up on the blog so you can see how I did there. I'm growing a greater interest in Warmachine and hope to teach it to one of my sons soon.

We shall see pig, we shall see.

GAMA Trade Show

2011-03-22T21:41:00.000-04:00

Well, last week I spent my time in Las Vegas Nevada enjoying the GAMA Trade Show, the same guys who run Origins. I volunteered and worked as show security as well as a variety of other responsibilities. The following are some pictures from the show, I was pretty busy and some of the stuff I wasn't allowed to photograph which is fine. Hope you enjoy...

This was a racing game via Pitch Car but with marbles and made out of plastic instead of wood. I'm hoping this is more affordable as Pitch Car costs at the butt!

This was a new game called Chaostle that was I got to play at the open game night, see more about that below.

This was a demo of Cthulhu Tech. I really don't know what to expect from this and I did not get to demo it. There were a hand full of miniatures on display but I'm not even sure if they were official releases. I know in the visitor swag bag was a Cthulhu Tech miniature and I had a picture but I can't find it now.

Cryptozoic's huge backdrop for their demonstration area.

Super Dungeon Explore was on display and it looks very very fun. The kobolds are the best I've seen; while not "realistic" they were very evocative and I could almost hear the little bastards giggling.

Mercs figures, don't know much about this.

More Mercs.

MOOOORE Mercs.

And another Super Dungeon Explore. I tried to get the kobolds a little closer.

At the open game night I got to play Arena Assault with the designer and he was pretty cool and the game is really nice. I got a free demo to take home which was even cooler of him. With just two players it doesn't play all that exciting but we played with five and it rocked pretty hard. A match was done in like 20 minutes and we could have played through three or four more in no time. Brutally fast, if you like that kind of game it is fairly worth it. Not the best art work but playability makes up for it.

I also got to play in Chaostle which was nothing like I expected. I was expecting some kind of skirmish fantasy game and it was not that at all. I would best describe it as a fantasy race game with combat and a random events table thrown in. One of the nice mechanics was the plain old movement dice roll. Each number meant something, such as a 3 meaning you could take another turn and a 4 meaning you could decide not to move which was something you normally had to do. If you rolled a 5 you had to roll 3d6 on a random table that gave a good or bad result and either struck you (or the whole board) or granted you an advantage. Poor guy playing with us rolled a 5 first turn followed by the Death roll and his first piece died first turn, ironically he came back with that same piece and won the game. The components were nice but there was two hand outs for the approximately 65 random results. Also, the pieces were leveled one to three and a level three really did out class a level one. Also, final hint, PLAY THE UNICORN FOR GOODNESS SAKES!

This is some of the cards that came with the game. A lot of information on there but it could be assimilated pretty quick.

Well, hope you enjoyed my GTS debriefing. Next I hope to get some archers on the table and into the blog. No pledge yet though as I still have not got to play COD with my friends and if my daughter doesn't eventually start dating someplace besides my xbox I'm going to move the damn thing.

GRAIL RELIQUAE!

2011-03-21T19:17:00.000-04:00

I kept my pledge, I just didn't get to photograph my pledge and put it up here before heading off to Las Vegas for GTS. Well I've done so now that I've had a few days to catch up. So without further ado....

The Grail Reliquae as a whole unit. Six wide and three deep makes it a fairly solid unit that only four of the twelve pilgrims cannot fight from the front rank. I went with a white and red them but wanted them to look like they wash their clothes because they are holy to him but not their bodies. I also wanted a relatively simply color scheme as honestly this unit is as busy as they come.

Skewed view of the unit trying to show off the pilgrims.

Just the reliquae with it's four carrying pilgrims. I painted each piece separately then assembled them because it seemed easiest; normally I just put it together and paint it as I can.

Another view of the reliquae. I just love this model.

One of my favorite battle pilgrims. I have two with the mask and I painted the other red just to break uniformity.

Bearded hooded sword wielder. He looks like he wants some action!

Chubby guy with a stitched up wound on his big round belly. Looking at it makes my big round belly hurt!

Next up will be some of the first edition plastic Bretonnian peasant archers. I've got 20 primed and I don't plan to make it all that complex of a paint job. I want to get this army painted up and fielded more!

Also I've got a tons of stuff to share from GTS I just did not want to cram it all into one post. So, probably tomorrow you'll see more!

Las Vegas... I am so tired!

2011-03-14T02:27:00.000-04:00

So a four and a half hour flight followed by a three hour meeting, eight hours of harsh sleep with a four hour shift in time (three one way, one the other)... another eight hour meeting and here I am after two dinners and lots of talking including a chance to play the game Atlantis Rising before it is released.... WOW!

I have no pictures because I have been lazy. I will also have some major internet limit as it is 13.99 a day for the net here, kinda pricey. You figure it should come with the room or at least a more realistic price but what ever. So you might not hear from me again till I get back. I will try to take some pictures.

Pledge Update Four

2011-03-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

Well, I did get them done and based and did get to squeeze in a game of COD with my buddies on line but I did NOT get to photograph the finished grail reliquae and accompanying battle pilgrims. I now sit at Columbus Airport waiting for GAMA staff and my plane so I won't be able to do this until I get back from Las Vegas and GTS. I hope to blog a little while at GTS and bring my eleven awesome followers some secret updates... we shall see!

Pledge Update Three

2011-03-09T21:43:00.002-05:00

Well, they are done but based, which I will do tomorrow night and you will see tomorrow night! I just might get a game in of COD before going to Vegas! Huzzah!

Pledge Update Two

2011-03-09T08:17:00.000-05:00

Okay, last night went well. I worked through almost all the colors. I need to do a little touch up tonight and paint the bases, if I'm lucky I'll even get to base them. If I do get that far into it I will be sure to take a photo, either way I think you'll see them on here by Friday!

Pedge Update One

2011-03-08T13:59:00.000-05:00

Well, I successfully avoided the lure of COD: Black Ops even with seven of my friends on playing. I got another base color on the pilgrims leaving only snakebite leather, chain mail and some washing/dry brushing to do as well as the bases. I'm pretty sure I can have the rest of the color on tonight, leaving the washing/dry brushing with finishing the bases for tomorrow. I want to be done by Friday to put a picture up for you all to see them. Wish me luck!

A Pledge!

2011-03-07T14:55:00.000-05:00

I see some blog gamers pledge to paint a certain number of pieces each month, I'm not going to do that as my life is far to complex to make an effective pledge. But I will pledge this: I will not play another game of COD, or any xbox game, until I have finished my Grail Reliquae and Battle Pilgrims. This is not that brutal a pledge as The reliquae itself is all but done and the pilgrims aren't far behind but I am taking way too long to finish these guys. My wife bought me a wonderful stand up magnifier light so I have no good reason not to apply some effort to finishing them. The tight part is that I am going to the GAMA trade show next week so I need to finish them this week or it will look totally lame that it took two plus weeks to finish this pledge!

Fifteen Years of Awesome!

2011-03-04T08:36:00.000-05:00

March 2nd was my anniversary, 15 years of exciting and fulfilling marriage to a woman who I cannot thank my God enough for. Fifteen years seemed important enough to me to get something nice, not that I get her bad things mind you. I wanted to get her a piece of fine jewelry that she would be able to wear daily but fit her taste in jewelry which is very specific. I found a nice Gabriel & Co. silver necklace with a smokey amethyst stone in it, very beautiful and she liked it, BUT, that is not what this post is about. It's about these guys:

AWAAAAYYYYY!

MG028, "The Big Jump" from King and Country British Paratrooeprs. Oh my I was so excited I did not know what to say when I opened these. I love King and County and W. Brittains and all the 1/35th scale figures but they are all so costly that I do not buy them for myself. I have a small collection that I've built from gifts. Its very eclectic admittedly but I am eclectic so that fits well. These guys went up almost immediately and are now dropping in from the ceiling in my basement family room right by the hutch with a horde of my painted work.

I do not know how to treat my wife! First she surprises me in December with the Bretonnian army I was dying for and now she bring Paratroopers into my collection. I just cannot think of a way to show my gratitude, so if you guys have any ideas out there please throw them out. Till them, I think I'm going to go down stairs and make machine gun noises while I play with my new troopers.

Club Night and Two Fights

2011-02-28T14:16:00.000-05:00

Last weekend's club night was not as good a turn out as I had hoped, there were only three of us. I got to play a game of warmachine mk2 which I haven't played before (even though I have plenty of army) and I got to fight Ron's High Elves again. Here are some pictures, forgive their quality I had only my camera phone to work with, I thought something is better than nothing.

This is the set up for warmachine; I played mercenaries (Gorten) and he played Khador (the Butcher). The scenario was to either take the two towers or destroy the enemy war caster.

At this point his Kodiak (i think) had taken the left tower and Boomhowler and Co. had take the right tower.

This was after his Kodiak charged out of the tower into a driller, tore the hell out of it and threw it through Gorten (doing 9 damage) and into the other driller. Sam and the Devil Dogs were making their way to assist.

And last turn (third turn); Butcher charged from the tower into Gorten and slew him with a single hit... game over.

I am not liking warmachine much anymore. I've got a lot of mercenaries but I'm having trouble getting mark 2 cards (I refuse to pay 20 dollars for the cards I don't need) and .50 cents each is fair I think but the ten dollars shipping is an insult. Also, unbalance in the game makes it unfun to play in my humble opinion. I used to be a HUGE warmachine fan, but I find it frustrating that Gorten (or Magnus) with maximum focus can be killed out right by the Butcher with a single hit. Really defeats the point of playing I think. I didn't do anything wrong and though I was safely out of charge range but even then, I don't think it's right that I have to cower from Khador... just doesn't seem to play well.

The following are from the High Elves vs Bretonnia, not in chronological order.

This was after his 8 swordmasters and noble charged my 20 men-at-arms... just a horrible slaughter of 18 dead on the charge. I didn't expect them to hold up too well but such a massive beating was sad to see. The two remaining guys did kill one swordmaster though, I was proud of them. They ran of course and got run down.

This was deployment: High Elves (l to r)- 10 pheonix guard / 15 swordmasters with noble / 25 sea guard with mage / 10 dragon knights. Bretonnia - 8 kotr with lord (unseen) / damsel on foot / 20 men-at-arms / damsel on warhorse / reliquae with 12 pilgrims / 16 bowmen / 8 errants with BSB

This was the approach of the reliquae towards the sea guard... he intelligently pulled the mage out to stand behind the unit and sling light magic from there.

They are engaged after loosing four models to stand an shoot, ugh!

After the swordmasters had run down the men-at-arms they took aim at my damsel on foot. She had the lore of beasts and the TRANSFORMATION OF KADON... which I failed twice and the slew her. So sad!

The knights errant and paladin had charged, slew two, and RUN DOWN the 10 dragon princes without taking a loss themselves. Just a horrible result for Ron, he rolled terrible. They then swung around to flank charge the sea guard which caused them to flee, the reliquae failed to runt hem down though!

This was after the sea guard fled, the mage cleverly moved out of both the charge of the reliquae and the knights but stayed nice and close.

Unseen here but the swordmasters were swinging around to get the bowmen; both the knights units were moving to engage but I had pulled out the paladin and lord, the lord was pursuing the swordmasters from another direction and the BSB was going to get the mage. My bowmen fired on the mage firs though and three good arrows later he was dead.

My lord charged the flank of the swordmasters after they charged the bowmen who fled from them. He took only one wound and killed three, they failed their leadership test and fled off my deployment edge.

Ron wanted to call the game at that point. He felt he had lost and I stated it was a draw which he thought I was being nice about. This very much wasn't so. He still had 3 fortitude and I had only 5, we needed to get the other down to two. Sounds good except he had around 15 sea guard left and 5 pheonix guard while I had only 8 kotr, 8 knights errant, a lord and a paladin bsb. That sounds like I have advantage but not really. I couldn't afford to loose much and neither of his units were safe for my knights to charge since he had ASF. Those pheonix guard are hard to beat down and fifteen spears can really mess you up. I think I could have beaten him but he could have beaten me too.

Both games were fun, well the warmachine not do much but I probably just need to get back into the saddle. I'm going to dust off some undone Cygnar and see if they hold up better against the clearly over powered Khador. I'll let you know how that turns out.

When "Elf" was a class...

2011-02-25T11:34:00.000-05:00

I cut my RPG teeth on the red box, you know the one, damn near every gamer with thirty years under his (or her) belt knows this box.

I can still remember the feel of those polyhedrals and the look of the dark wax shoved lovingly into those numbers. Ah... brings back memories. My first character was a Magic-user with his feeble single casting of Magic Missile and 1d4 hit points. I named him Thife because I meant to make a thief and misspelled the word so made him a Magic-user instead.

I've talked about my golden days of role playing in the past so I won't go on and on about it, I've got another reason for this post.

I no longer role play but I do still read role playing games because I'm a freak who enjoys rules and rules sets. I've read through thousands of pages and sometimes they blur together but I am aware that they are always compared to my beginnings which would be a standard set; the Red Box, Hero Quest, Risk, and later Warhammer Fantasy Battles (5th edition if you're interested). I'd like to think I'm not biased for the most part but I am very biased when it comes to RPG rules. I am of the mind that rules should be open enough to allow exploration of the character and the fantasy environment while maintaining some boundaries of "reality" within the context of the game world. The basic D&D rules really allow this nicely in my most humble opinion. Sure there were things that could be changed and fleshed out by the basic need was met with a quality that isn't easily reproduced. I've got all kinds of theories about why this is so but that isn't the purpose of this blog post either, it's these guys.

Labyrinth Lord is probably one of the best old schools I've read. The art work is fabulous and the writing is excellent. If I still role played this would be my tool of choice, and not the advanced compendium either! I like the seven classes, I like that there are only 10 levels of elf, and I like that human's great ability was they had four natures.

So, I guess I'm plugging this product for no particular reason than its good. I'm going to try to put together a war games battle using the rules as they are perfectly good skirmish combat rules. When (if) I get to do that I'll try not to forget to photo it and batrep it.

ALSO! My sons and I sat down to play the new Risk game last night...

...and it was brutal. Risk is a notoriously long game in my experience and it always comes down to the huge trade in that leads to one meanie (usually my wife) running through the world in a single turn of glorious blood shed. That is the essence of what I don't like. Now, if you read the original rules there was a 12 army per territory limit which is logistical in nature and when imposed makes the game better but requires a points system with either turn limits or time limit to play. The current version gives you objects to aim for with three being the game winning combination. Each objective gives you a randomly assigned benefit and all of them are nice. ANYWAY I DIGRESS because really I wanted to say that Christian won the game by turning in a large trade in and stomping through the map going from one objective to three in a single turn.

Well, I guess you can change the rules but not the victory huh?

Oh, sometimes I get so busy...

2011-02-23T08:42:00.000-05:00

...that I don't really get time to take some pictures of what I'm doing and get a blog going. Sorry about that. But I am still alive and this weekend is club night SO I should have at least one batrep for next week and maybe two or three.

As an aside I highly recommend this website. We all need some good instructions and this guy seems to have the answers in my humble opinion.

Also, we bought a new hutch so I got the old one, I'll photo that as soon as possible along with the displays and give you a peek.

Happy gaming!

High Elves vs Bretonnia...

2011-02-10T20:45:00.000-05:00

Ron is a new inductee into the world of Warhammer and he is passionate about his High Elves. He has a growing army that he is learning to use with some serious threat even though he has less than a dozen games under his command. I invited him over last night to duel on the board and we agreed to 1,500 points. I have a four foot square battle board so that many points will fill it up pretty well. The following pictures show his deployment and my deployment. I built the battlefield and gave him choice of deployment zones. We then deployed one unit at a time with the first to complete deployment benefiting from a +1 to the roll for first turn... which was immaterial as a Brettonian player I would be stupid not to pray first for the blessing giving him choice.

From left to right: knights errant with paladin battle standard; peasant bowmen in defensive stakes (back); men-at-arms; damsel; grail reliquae; peasant bowmen skirmishers; knights of the realm with general

From left to right: reavers with mage; seaguard with noble; dragon princes; swordmasters with noble (general); pheonix guard; white lions

We had agreed to four turns then random determination from that point on; a d6 roll of 4+ would mean we play another turn other wise the game would come to an end.

I've arranged one photo per game round with the photo taken at the end of the round and all casualties remaining on the table except units completely eliminated.

The first turn was pretty predictable in that his army approached mine, missile fire was exchanged and few casualties were lost to it (I lost one he lost one) but the surprise was on my right flank where my knights errant with paladin battle standard bearer charged his white lions on my first turn. He marched them forward which put only 14 inches between us and my swift stride charge slammed into them. He had successfully cast shield of saphery on the dragon knights which had to be undone when my magic phase rolled around and I tried to blast them with chain lighting when he announced they carried the banner of the world dragon and I could not strike them with magic. I did throw the lighting into the swordmasters, then the pheonix guard and finally it bounced to the white lions in total doing around ten casualties across the three units but it took the damsel throwing a total power/miscast and doing 1 damage to herself, luckily no friendly units were close enough to be hit by the small blast template. In retrospect I may not have been able to bounce it to the white lions since they had been engaged in close combat by the knights errant. I read the spell but wasn't sure and to me it would be able to but I'll have to look for an FAQ on it. The white lions / knights errant fight was brutal for a first turn fight with my paladin challenging the champion who refused and did not participate in the fight. His ASF GREAT WEAPON BADASSERY killed four of my eight knights and when I replied I did five in return, won the fight but they held their ground thanks to stubborn.

Turn 2

Turn two was a little gritty, if that term can be applied to a game of warhammer. In Ron's turn he moved the reavers with mage directly in front of the men-at-arms firing into them and doing only 1 casualty, he also maneuvered his pheonix guard to set up a charge on the knights errant next turn and rallied his swordmasters which fled from massive casualties (chain lighting) last turn. His dragon princes charged my grail relique as well. My movement had me maneuver the knights errant out of danger and towards the swordmasters as well as charging the reavers with both knights of the realm and men-at-arms. Magic was ineffective for both of us really as Ron's spells were dispelled and although I got chain lightning off on his pheonix guard their ward save allowed me only one or two casualties. The melee with the reavers was brutal, I eliminated them to a model but his assault on the grail reliquae was no less brutal with six casualties even through a 5+ ward save from the blessing; they held their ground though thanks to stubborn. I forgot to mention but our missile fire was also useless, not a single injury caused.


Turn 3

Turn three was really more preparation for turn four than anything but we didn't get there. His movement showed the pheonix guard turning again and the swordmasters turning, both aiming for the kngihts errant. I was basically running them around with my superior movement and staying out of their charge arc I had no intention of charging those swordmasters who would, although only five plus a noble, scissor up my four knights errant and standard bearer I knew that very well so I rode around them aiming for the seaguard. I did charge the pheonix guard with my knights of the realm and general though. Magic was all me and a chain lighting spells ripped into the seaguard killing almost half. Missile fire from both of us went nowhere again and close combat was only the dragon princes and grail reliquae. He killed only four of the remaining six battle pilgrims and they in turn actually killed one prince.The pheonix guard, having been charged in the flank failed to kill any knights and they in turn killed three; they failed their break test and were run down.

By this point it was late, nearly 11:00 p.m. and we both had work in the morning so he decided to call it. At that point it was a victory for me, but, I don't necessarily feel it would have continued to be so. I had held up nicely and my peasant units hadn't really been tried yet. I believe that my knights would have gotten his seaguard but the swordmasters could have charged the knights of the realm the next turn and I do not think they would have weathered a rear charge from them so well. Also, those three dragon princes were about done with the reliquae and while the men-at-arms were ready to charge them I'm not confident they wouldn't have been sent packing and the princes wouldn't have rolled up both units of archers and the damsel since she couldn't spell them to death.

It was a fun game, and though Ron saw his defeat I saw only and advantage that would not last if he had some so so luck and a good battle plan. As a last bit of photographic I present this...

The peasant's aimed down their bows, ready to skewer the high elves should they have the shot... now if the damsel would just move.

If You Give a Mouse a Camera...

2011-02-08T16:58:00.000-05:00

...you'd think he would take some damn pictures of the two battles he fought this weekend at club night!

But NO, why would I do that. So without pictures and without a record of my fights I am going to have to just present synopsis. Sorry there isn't more... I promise to take pictures and write some notes NEXT time.

/sigh...

Anyway, club night and I had two challengers to my brand new Bretonnians. They are in production so while all units were used, only one was painted and the Reliquae itself was absent although the decorative base made a showing.

My first fight was against a healthy 1,000 points of Ron's High Elves. He is a relatively new player of Warhammer and this is his first army based on the models from the Island of Blood box (such a good box!). He recently went nuts and bought several more boxes of models but hasn't had much chance to assemble so his army hasn't grown too much. He fielded...

5 elyrian reavers with a champion
5 dragon princes with full command accompanied by a level 2 wizard
10 swordmasters with full command and a noble armed in kind
10 sea guard with full command and a noble armed in kind

... he had no magic items but three characters and what I would say are solid units if lacking attrition. I hate facing swordmasters, I'm not one to cry out a unit's rules are broken but I would slap anyone who said shooting and spelling any unit of swordmasters into oblivion was Beardy. I took...

8 knights of the realm with a prophetess of the lady at level 3
8 knights errant with a paladin as battle standard bearer and sword of might
20 men at arms with command
16 peasant bowmen with defensive stakes and full command

...pretty standard really. I was looking to exercise the prophetesses magic and took lore of heavens as my lore.. he took high elf lore and clearly planned to make use of drain magic.

The opening pitted my missilery against his swordmasters doing too little casualties for when my knights errant with battle standard charged them. Normally I would not do that but as I've stated he is a new player and it seemed inappropriate to use 10 years of warhammer tactics on him. The knights errant are a solid unit and with a hero in it I figured they could at least, coupled with their high armor save, give them a fair fight... WRONG. Those buggers chopped them up good and when the knights failed their break test they ran too little and were run down. On my left flank the prophetess' magic had smashed the dragon princes to 50% and a charge on the reavers drove them off the table, they fled but weren't caught then fled after failing their rally roll next turn. During the end game the swordmasters charged the men at arms which promptly fled. The prophetess blasted them down to only four models, the archers down to three and when they charged again the men at arms I stood my ground (haha!) and he still killed a third of the unit with three swordmasters and a noble. I killed the four models remaining though and that brought the game to a close. Some mistakes were made, he isn't very good with magic yet.

The second game was against my friend Darrell's Ogre Kingdoms and he is relatively new to warhammer also. He brought a numbers heavy army and decided not to field any wizards and only a single magic item. I do not remember all the specifics but there were two units of 8 bulls, two units of 5 with great weapons, a hunter, a tyrant, a giant... hmmm some others including two lead belchers... like I said I don't truly recall. I took my entire Bretonnian contingent including a level 3 prophetess and a level 1 damsel; several magic items including the silver mirror which turned out to be useless since he had no magic.

As we lined up I decided my best odds against the monstrous infantry that are ogres was to throw both lances at the same unit and hope to smash them and push into his rear forcing him to either let me maneuver around to charge him in the behind or split his focus. Darrell is no idiot and immediately recognized the danger there so we began a hero placing contest to try to gain strategic advantage. I won that part of the fight and on my turn one after he marched forward with his entire line I charged my kotr and knight errant with general and battle standard bearer into the same block of bulls, killing four on the charge and suffering only 1 wound on each in return; he promptly fled and I ran them down putting me behind their line. That will probably never work again so long as I live but it was cool to see it happen once. The rest of the battle involved him charging into my peasants and men-at-arms and battle pilgrims. The pilgrims and men-at-arms held their own pretty well and I was proud to see them see off a unit of ogres bulls. Of course it was 8 bulls vs 20 men-at-arms and 12 pilgrims with the reliquae but a victory is a victory! His giant fell to the knights of the realm and his tyrant fell to the knights errant so he called it after that. He had suffered some pretty heavy casualties but we did alot wrong with the ogre kingdom rules so the same thing might not happen again!

Knights of the Realm!

2011-01-25T11:22:00.000-05:00

Well, they took me longer than I would normally take to paint only 8 models but my first unit of Knights of the Realm are completed (mostly, gotta polish up the bases). I've got a picture of them together and then each knight separately because, well, each is different as per normal application of paint to Knights of the Realm.

The total unit.. only 8 but there will be a Damsel in their midst at the least.

Champion obviously. The photography isn't so good so I'll tell you he's red.

Musician, again, obviously. The only non-helmet knight in the unit.

The standard he carries is that of the Bretonnian Lord the unit is fighting under. My general's colors will be black with a white field and a black battle axe for his symbol. This is mostly because my general figure has a battle axe modeled on the shield on his back and it is a perfectly acceptable decal.

He is ORANGE.

He is BONE.

He is GOBLIN GREEN

He is SHADOW GRAY

He is BLAZING YELLOW to the front and ROTTING FLESH to the back.

My next unit will be the Grail Reliquae which I'm pretty excited about. The lighting didn't let the bone color come through very well here and I like bone as a general color so you'll see more of it. I think the colors for the Reliquae will be white and red... or white and shadow gray... probably red.

Also I'm working on some warmachine for my friend and more WoC... lots of Marauders to do.

I need to get a battle in as well.. really two we are in the fourth week of the year and I've only got 2 battles in so I need to catch up. Club night is this weekend and I have to official challenges one from High Elves and one from Ogres so my new Bretonnians will be put through their paces I'm sure!

Converted Skaven

2011-01-20T17:41:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine went Skaven crazy for about a month, bought a shload of models brand new (including 3 IOB sets) and promptly played 2 turns of a single game then traded them all off for something else. He does this regularly, like, he's had dozens of armies and has played only a small fraction of that which he has possessed.

ANYWAY...

He asked if I could take a couple of the IOB pieces and convert him a Skaven warlord riding a rat ogre bonebreaker... I do so and this is the result..

... this is not a terrible complex conversion. I simply pinned the warlord's stone base to the back of the rat ogre then threw on a whole buncha burnt up pipe cleaners as various straps and ropes like it was lashed to him. I also threw on some shields to mask the simpleness of the conversion. I'm going to paint it up then put it for sale to see what I can get for it.

Under Construction: Bretonnia

2011-01-14T10:50:00.000-05:00

On my work space right now is a bunch of stuff...

WoC War Altar scratch built by my friend Darrell.
WoC characters on foot; one with hw/shld one with hw/hw
WoC mounted wizards
8 knights of the realm
5 terradons

...and all of them are nearly done. I don't know why I haul out so much at one time. I wish I could get a grip.

Roman Dice... they knew how to game didn't they?

But anyway, here is my proposed Bretonnian army list I'd like to put forth for advice from my peers...

Bretonnian Lord on barded warhorse … 247 points

War gear: hand weapon, great weapon, heavy armor, shield and Sirienne’s Locket

Special: Questing Vow; Virtue of Knightly Temper

Saving throw: 2+ or 3+ when using the great weapon

Prophetess of the Lady on warhorse … 245 points

War gear: hand weapon, Channeling Staff, The Terrifying Mask of EEE!

Special: Aura of the Lady (2); Level 3 Wizard

Saving throw: 6+

Damsel of the Lady … 110 points

War gear: hand weapon and The Silver Mirror

Special: Aura of the Lady (1); Level 1 Wizard

Saving throw: none

Paladin on Royal Pegasus … 164 points

War gear: hand weapon, lance, heavy armor and Enchanted Shield

Special: The Knight’s Vow; Virtue of Ideal

Saving throw: 3+ / none for the royal pegasus

Paladin on barded warhorse … 204 points

War gear: hand weapon, heavy armor and Banner of the Lady as battle standard

Special: Grail Vow; Virtue of Duty

Saving throw: 3+

Knights of the Realm … 226 points

~8 knights led by a Gallant, musician and standard bearer carrying the Banner of Chalons

Special: The Knight’s Vow; Purebred Warhorses

Saving throw: 2+

Knights Errant … 210 points

~8 knights errant led by a Cavalier, musician and standard bearer carrying the Errantry Banner

Special: Impetuous; The Knight’s Vow; Purebred Warhorses

Saving throw: 2+

Men-At-Arms … 127 points

~20 soldiers with hand weapons, light armor, shields and pole-arms led by a Yeoman Warden, musician and standard bearer

Special: The Peasant’s Duty

Saving throw: 5+; or 6+ when using the pole-arm

Peasant Bowmen … 137 points

~16 bowmen with hand weapons, light armor and long bows led by a Villein, musician and standard bearer; the bowmen have defensive stakes and braziers.

Special: The Peasant’s Duty

Saving throw: 6+

Peasant Bowmen … 140 points

~20 bowmen with hand weapons and long bows upgraded to skirmishers

Special: The Peasant’s Duty; Skirmish

Saving throw: none

Grail Reliquae … 172 points

~accompanied by 12 battle pilgrims armed with hand weapons, light armor and shields

Special: The Peasant’s Duty; Hatred; Stubborn

Saving throw: 5+

...this list encompasses my family, there is myself as the lord character, my wife as the prophetess, my daughter as a damsel and my sons as paladins. I think it might be a little character heavy to be reliable but I'm hoping those characters can bring about quite a bit of destruction themselves. The royal pegasus paladin should do well in hunting down war machine crews or other such threats like weapon teams. The two lances will each have substantial support, one with the battle standard bearer and the other with the general. The foot infantry, though mostly bowmen, should be able to hold the middle or where ever I put them. I play to use the bowmen to long term effect, raining as many arrows as I can while my damsels bring magical hurt. The reliquae will advance with the knights, though not as fast obviously.

I would like to say it annoys me that the battle standard, if taking a magic banner can take no other equipment even stuff listed normally with the entry. So my paladin cannot take a shield, or lance or any such option because his standard is magical. If it was a normal standard he could equip all the magic items he could afford and normal gear. I am fine with the idea he can have no other magic if bearing a magic standard, but no other gear? Not logical imho.

Any thoughts?

Battle 2: Battle Cry

2011-01-13T10:42:00.000-05:00

I own a considerable number of board games of all varieties and I am the father of three children, my lovely 18 year old daughter and my handsome twin 11 year old sons. I am always trying to engage my sons in my hobby and its mostly hit or miss. But Christian has kind of grown fond of the game Battle Cry from Avalon Hill/WotC. We played it once before and he's asked several times since then and I do not know why I put it off so much. I like the C&C game design and I like ACW and I like playing games with my sons... so why did I put it off?

Stolen from Wikipedia by Kurtz and Allison

Questions of fatherly oddities aside, we sat down last night to engage this game again. This is my number 2 battle of the 52 I'm aiming for this year and I think it is a good battle to add. Battle Cry is a really good game, and pretty easy to grasp but not always easy to do well in. Christian and I played scenario number two, Pea Ridge where a larger force of Confederates engage a smaller force of the Union. Historically the Union defeated the Confederates so we were going to see if we could replicate that. Christian played the Union and I played the CSA.

The opening was a pretty equal exchange of fire as we both played several 'probe' cards and the center and my left (his right) flank saw several maneuvers towards each other and exchange of casualties. There was no defining moment and the numerous woods spaces were used for good cover.

The middle of the battle was fairly bloody for the Union. I drew several good command cards and pressed my forces in the center and eventually eliminated all the union there except an infantry regiment that held up in a farm. Christian should have moved his left flank (my right) forces to support the farm and kept them in there as reducing the number of dice you roll by 2 to attack them requires you to get pretty close, but instead he moved them out in the late game. By the end of the mid game saw his forces separated from one another on the flanks with two Union cavalry units in between and two bodies of infantry each with an artillery unit in support to face each flank. he was out numbered at this point about 3 to 1.

The end game was brutal and fast but Christian didn't get upset and he fought to the end. I again drew several really good cards and used my cavalry to move around to the rear of his forces. The last unit he had standing was on my right flank and it was a single model artillery unit which was eventually defeated by my cavalry.

We did not recreate the historical outcome but I would put that mostly to the fact I have twenty years of generalship on my son. I did not play to beat him but I did play to challenge him and not treat him like an inferior opponent. When he asked advice I gave it but there were several instances where I wanted to say something but held back. I believe we learn though our mistakes and rather than bother him with unsolicited advice I let him play his game. He never got upset even when his brother was trying to chide him and we shook hands like good gamers afterward. I've got to say it was one of the best war gaming experiences I've had in years.

Hopefully next up will be some Uncharted Seas. I've got FIVE painted fleets and I've been trying to get the boys interested. also, I'll try to take some picture of that battle!

52 Weeks of War ... Battle #1: Defend the Towers

2011-01-05T10:10:00.000-05:00

I'm not much for new year's resolutions as they just seem insurmountable to me but I do like to try to make plans for the upcoming year and these tend to repeat themselves;

Loose a little weight
Eat less sweets
Eat healthier
Do something fantastic in my career
Be a better husband and father

...you get the idea. Well, one of my plans this year involves my hobby, not something common for me. A lot of bloggers plan to paint a certain number of figures and keep records of this but I am neither that dedicated nor that organized. But my real grip with my hobby is that I don't get to use it that much in my opinion. I paint figures, dozens of them, and they don't get used for months... or years in some cases. So, I've decided to to aim to fight 52 battles over the year 2011. I'd like to play at least one per week an this may mean I need to play some solo war games as I might not always have an opponent. Also, I would like to photojournal the battles but I've already screwed that up so I make no promises.

The first battle took place with my son Christian and myself playing Hordes of the Things. I've not really played this game and he has not either so it was also a learning experience for us both. I have two 15mm HOTT armies though as you might know at this point so we built from those and went to it. I played the goblin horde and he played the high elves. We rolled off and I won making him the defender.

The high elves consisted of 1x hero general; 1x magician; 3x knights; 3x spears; 1x behemoth (griffin).

The goblin horde consisted of 1x warband general; 5x warband; 2x riders; 2x shooters; 1x behemoth.

His home base was a couple paint pots to represent a pair of high elf towers as I have not built bases for the armies yet. We played on an old ceiling tile that was not standard size battle field although I'm not sure how small and we drew just a couple of forrest on it as bad going. Deploying our forces I blocked up the six warband elements (three in front and three in support) and the behemoth to their left. On the left flank I placed the two riders and to the right flank the two shooters. Christian placed three knights, behemoth and magician in the middle as a single black with the magician behind an element of knights. On his left flank in front of the towers he placed the three spears with the hero general in a two by two formation.

I can't give a play by play but there were three significant points of the battle. In the second or third bound my his knights/behemoth/magician block crashed into my warbands/behemoth block and he had a rough go. Two of the knights were destroyed and the third forced to recoil while I lost nothing. For the next several turns the knight and behemoth continued to fight back and forth until he was able to destroy four of the six warbands (not the general thankfully). On the left the riders engaged the magician several times but failed to eliminate him and he failed to either destroy them through magic or through battle. Eventually I split the two elements up and this allowed him to eliminate them in the long term. On the right my remaining forces engaged the spears and hero general and surprisingly held their own even tot he point of destroying all the spears. As the end game drew near it came down to my general warband and behemoth vs. his magician and hero general near the towers. I pushed forward several times and tried to reach the towers but were rebuffed each time with by the hero general. The magician attempted magic but failed, eventually we called it a draw.

I feel the battle went very well, high casualties on both sides but neither of us dominated at any point and fought to a draw. Christian did not feel so though and was frustrated by his low rolls and the inability of the magician to destroy with magic. I hope he plays again, I really enjoy playing war games with my sons but they are not very interested.

Well, that is battle one of fifty-two done, lets see how the others go eh?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2010-12-25T20:31:00.000-05:00

To you all, whomever may see this, I wish a Merry Christmas and pray God bless you and yours with peace, prosperity and good health!

This is a phenomenally important time of the year for me being of Christian beliefs. The holiday is well known to be in celebration of the birth of the Christ child but not so commonly explored is the idea that this person is someone I seek to have a personal relationship with daily. I hold Jesus in the highest thoughts in my mind and though I fall short of the glory of God I do believe that through his grace I can be redeemed and reach his audience.

Here, if you will allow me, is my Christmas tree...

Nearly every ornament on this tree has some meaning, obviously, but a few that are of interest would be the two Mage Knight ornaments I was given by Wizkids as a volunteer and the trio of paper mache dragons that were added this year to represent my three children purchased by my wife for them.

Speaking of my wife, she did something amazing. She is always doing something amazing and this is this years something amazing. My birthday was the 20th (hers is the 24th, so this holiday is packed for me eh?) and she read this blog in seeking gifts. On the day before my birthday, the day after I invited all my friends to come and have fun of which many did come (something like 11 total) she and my sons gave me two big boxes. And most of what is in the picture below was within those boxes...


The box of KOTR are from a friend, Ron, who battle me in ACW that you can read in an earlier post.

(There is a battalion box, a grail reliquae box, two blisters of battle pilgrims, a general and a box of KOTR)

I was overwhelmed. I have been enchanted with the Grail Reliquae model for some time now and had fully intended in devoting a selling of portion of models, some painted with the intent to raise funds, to build an army including the Reliquae. If you look back to this post you will see how I have been considering this model. The aesthetic and story implications of the model really captured my imagination and conjured a bit of history to my beginnings in Warhammer. I feel I've come full circle now, and will close it tightly much like the Ouroboros eats its own tail and soon the valiant Bretonnian general Uther Le Courageux will lead his family and retainers into battle against Quetzapopalotl in a battle a long time come.

If you'll forgive my diatribe I plan to build one unit of knights of the realm and one of knights errant. I will need to obtain a battle standard bearer, and a blister of damsels to fill out my family. There will be myself as a questing Bretonnian lord, my wife as a prophetess of the lady, my daughter as a damsel, one son as a paladin on royal pegasus and the other as the army's (the family's) battle standard bearer. The army will obviously be character heavy but when I started the game the Bretonnians were allowed to have 75% of their army in characters so I'm okay with that.

I promise to post pictures as soon as I can get some painted, and again...

Merry Christmas!

I have been MINING and I love it!

2010-12-06T12:19:00.000-05:00

If you haven't had a chance to purchase and play Notch's Minecraft then you should do so before I come find you and beat you up. This is a wonderful game and for being in only alpha state it is amazingly playable. I have really been enjoying the combination of survival and resources gathering/building it provides. It is like this dude is in my head!

Please allow me to share some snap shots of my activity...

This is a view of my keep, it isn't the best view but the keep is built in a small valley. There are mountains all around and a water barrier on the north side. In the distance you can see my dirt tower of waterfalls... no real purpose than to double as a water park. I will expand on it soon!

This is the inside of the hanging garden you will see below. There is limited flora in minecraft right now but i've tried to get it al. I am trying to get a couple trees to grow inside it as well.

This is a view of the hanging garden I built with meticulous patience. The entire structure houses a small garden and is built from glass (lots of glass) and cobblestone. A waterfall comes out of it to a magically suspended pool, into a reflecting pool and back into the earth.

This game truly is incredible and I cannot encourage you enough to give it a try. If you a gamer and a world building this is just like software crack. I played a fair share of World of Warcraft and will likely play it again some time but it was nothing like this. If only I could have a couple dozen people in the same world to befriend... or do battle with.

GASP Vampire Lord and Goblin HotT

2010-11-16T21:24:00.000-05:00

Well, it has been weeks since I posted, minus the "i'mnotdead" post. But, I haven't been sitting on my bum... well I HAVE but I haven't been in actively sitting on my bum. If you would, please enjoy the presentations below...

Doomwheels, my friends, I assembled and painted these on commission. Scored a nice buncha Uncharted Seas for the work on these. I think they turned out well since I had never painted EITHER Skaven or Doomwheels.

Double side view. I left the banners blank so he could do as he wished with them. I also didn't base them as he is an excellent base modeler and may not even put them on a base.

My completed Vampire Lord. I am hoping he will add 4 levels of magic whipass to my Vampire Counts army. They are wildly not deadly but using him as a cavalry fighting wizard lord should help.

In an effort to maintain the theme of the army I used the blood red, like everyone else does, and named him. He is Count Hubris Kriegpieler, older brother to Kestrel and Matthias.

The vampire lord will range in at 445 points as a level 4 wizard that gets to extra power dice every turn, causes terror due to a magic sword and has a 3+ armor save / 5+ ward save. I don't think he will ever get into the THICK fighting but I believe he will be able to hold his own and not have to cower, only be tactically careful as to his maneuvering.

This concludes the Warhammer part of our show, now on to something completely different... or not...

The below images are my completed Hordes of the Things 15mm Goblins. These were from the line of Alternative Armies 24 AP 15mm HotT armies. The Elves I showed posts ago were from the same line. The army (as shown here ) was designated to have 2 riders and 4 blades. But, frankly, the models did not say "blades" to me. They were a mix of goblins armed with short spears, some had armor, some just helmets but all shields. The short spears did not seem effective enough to warrant spears and while the 1st edition of HotT calls for hordes I would only be able to produce four or five hordes and that didn't set right either. So, warband seemed like a good idea. When all was said and done I was able to do 7 warbands (1 of which is the general), 3 riders, 2 shooters and a behemoth.

The six regular warband elements.

Two shooter elements.

Three rider elements.

The warband general.

A manticore behemoth.

This gives me 28 points of Goblin army so I can fidget around with my tactics but it WILL be mostly warband won't it? Now I have to find someone to play me, they can use one of the armies (Elves or Goblins) and we can learn the rules together.

Well, I have some other stuff to post later. Some old models I got at a toy soldier show and I am working on a unit of five Terradons and the last 20 of my Saurus Warrior Horde unit are almost done. I promise I will do my best not to lag so far between posts, but it is the holidays...

Ubiquitous "I'm Not Dead" Post...

2010-11-02T08:35:00.000-04:00

... as stated.

I have been really busy. I will be getting something up soon and it will be one of these (or more if I'm lucky).

My finished 15mm Goblin HotT army
My terrain set
My finished Vampire Lord

We shall see.

I like building army lists!

2010-10-08T11:32:00.000-04:00

I am one who has all the army books and am constantly building army lists for all the armies. I like building lists off from what comes in the box and what I would buy. With that in mind I put together a Brettonian army list because that is the next army I will collect, way down the road. It's based around two things...

This guy is bad ass!

Second appearance.

...the Grail Reliquae is really the center to my interest as a previous post discusses but this Brettonian Lord model is just killer. I love the look of him and his pose and the huge axe he's tooling around with. So, if you throw in...

I stole this from here. Guy's army is looking good, great grail knights!

Booooox seeeet!

...you get a full-ish army. I have 20 bare plastic of the classic bowmen I got in trade and I was gonna make them into five stands of shooters for Hordes of the Things but have decided to hold on to them to put them into this army. The army list looks like this right now...

Brettonian Lord on warhorse with heavy armor, great weapon, virtue of knightly temper adn sirienne's locket.
paladin on royal pegasus with heavy armor, enchanted shield, sword, lance and virtue of heroism.
8 knights of the realm with the banner of chalons
20 men-at-arms
16 peasant bowmen skirmishers upgraded with light armor
20 peasant bowmen with defensive stakes and braziers
Grail reliquae with 18 pilgrims.

this comes to slightly below 1,300 points which is not a lot considering the monetary cost of this force. It is also not likely a strong army with only 8 knights which is the life blood of the Brettonian force. But, it is built from the models I want plus the cost efficient battalion box. Also, there is no wizard which leaves it very much as the mercy of enemy magic. To make it competent it would need at least another unit of knights, although two would be better and at least a level 2 damsel. BUT, I'm not competent! I'd likely add the Green Knight because he looks cool and a damsel then try to add a few more knights to the one unit.

The strategy would clearly revolve around a good charge with the general leading the knights and the archers doing sufficient damage to warrant victory. Both of which would be unlikely against an experienced opponent. The knights would be subject to an absurd amount of fire power and magic power while the archers would fall pray to the enemy cavalry. Oh well, I wouldn't be playing to win with this army I'd be playing to play the Grail Reliquae which would proudly march down the center to engage the enemy!

Ah, to dream.

As an aside...

2010-10-07T08:28:00.002-04:00

... I've got the Mantic Elves Warhost and a Spearmen Regiment that I'm looking to trade for some Mantic Undead. So, if you are interested send me an email at artnickles@gmail.com and we'll work something out. I've posted them on Bartertown but they just aren't getting any hits.

And now for something completely different!

2010-10-05T08:22:00.000-04:00

Or not, more pictures of minis I painted AND something I didn't paint!

First my 15mm Hordes of the Things Elves (and extra)...

Elfses yesss my presciousssss....

I traded for a couple of Alternative Armies Hordes of the Things armies; the Elves and the Goblins. I've got the Elves done as you can see up above and I made a few changes. Firstly I didn't use the plasticard bases provided, they were cut wrong and kinda thin for my taste so I made new ones from balsa wood. Secondly when I glued all three knights to each stand they couldn't base up side by side, which irritated the hell outta me. I've not gotten to play this game yet but I've seen enough to know I'll be moving those buggers together and I don't like having to have a gap between them. So I pulled them off, rebased them and made 3 knights instead of two. I also have Eagle game's Age of Mythology and stole some of the Wadjet to make a flying stand. In all there is a hero (most likely general); a magician; a behemoth; a flyer; 3 knights and 4 spears which is 28 points of units so there is some build variety. These are my first 15mm and they are kinda flimsy in a few places, like the spears, but I still like them.

Also we have these...

Grrrrrr!

What sound does a skink make???

These are from a new department on my blog that we shall call, "paint jobs I stole" but not meaning the style of the paint but the fact that I did not paint them! I got both these units in trade/sale through Bartertown and they came to me painted and sortakinda based. The skinks were very dusty so I washed them and in the process washed off the old basing. I rebased them and the dire wolves and WALA! I had two more units to field. The skinks have only a standard to lead them but I have an unpainted musician I'll get done but I won't likely add a brave, I just don't have any. One of the dire wolves was broken off at the ankle and as they are all on only one foot this was tricky to fix but I did it. There isn't many points here (less than 300 cumulative in both units) but I didn't have either and new models to field is always good in my book. You'll note the skinks are shiny, this is because I am dumb and sprayed them with my gloss clear coat instead of my flat clear coat. Sigh, well, we've all been there and done that.