New Year’s resolutions

Apologies for not posting recently, I have been busy with the holidays and such. Nothing too crazy, mainly friends are back in town and I have been meeting up with them most nights after work to get a drink and catch up. Dave and I played a game of Space Marine Exterminatus on Wednesday in lieu of getting together for some wargaming this week (both have been busy). As life returns to normal, I’m hoping we can get a game of something in next Tuesday, anything (Dreadfleet, AoBR, or WHFB) would be good as far as I’m concerned.

Anyways, this post is about resolutions and as we all know the New Year is almost here. Now, I normally don’t make any New Year’s resolutions, however, I thought it might be fun (and motivating) to make a few regarding the hobby and wargaming. So here it goes, my hobby/wargaming resolutions for 2012.

Paint more models than I buy!

Found this at Constantly Risking Obscurity

Painting is my least favorite thing about the hobby (well, besides the price). I don’t hate it, but I’d rather be playing games or thinking up cool lists then painting 40 Spearman. That being said, there is nothing quite like seeing two fully painted armies go at it on a board, this then unfortunately makes painting a must do. I’m not sure how I will accomplish this one, but I imagine the trick here will be to stop buying models, or at least, paint the ones I do buy in a timely fashion. Not to kid anyone, this goal will be difficult (especially if I’m going to start an IG army), but I know I can do it if I set my mind to it, just need some discipline.

Finish my Dark Elves!

So when I say finished I guess I mean to a level that I am happy with. For example, I am contemplating not painting any of my metal Blackguard or Executioners. If anything, they will be finished last. There are rumors (only rumors) floating around that they might be getting plastic kits. If this is the case, I will consider selling off my metal ones and picking up plastic kits as I go. I know some people love metal models so I’m sure I’d be able to eBay them without much trouble, might take a loss, but whatever plastic is king (in my mind). All that said, getting the main bulk of my Dark Elf army finished this year would be great (based and everything) and not that hard to achieve (most of it is painted already).

Develop the blog!


I’d like to expand the content on the blog even more, basically create some useful articles that could be a resource to readers. Ideally, we would have articles about strategy, hobby tips, and product reviews. I find when reading other blogs these are of the most interest to me. I’d also like to figure out Battle Chronicler so that I could do some detailed battle reports. I have read some amazing battle reports using that software and I’d like to achieve something at the same level.
Finally, it would be nice to get some outside authors from the FM wargaming community to write articles for the blog.  I’m not sure how to make that happen, would be nice to incentivize it in some way (maybe some kind of best submitted article prize at the end of the year). I guess we just need to keep building the content and trying to spread the word locally.

Play more 40k!

I think I’m in love with 40k, at least from what I have experienced and read so far. With 6th edition looming I was on the fence about how much I want to learn the system and invest in an army that could potentially be broken by the new rule set. All that changed when I started to put together my theme based IG list. It will be something based on the Army Rangers, highly mobile infantry all with transports, mainly by air. So I will be building an army, but have resolved to do it slowly at first. In the meantime, I’d like to meet up with some of the local 40K players (especially the guys with Imperial Guard) to get some experience. This one might be hard to accomplish, even with an army my schedule doesn’t always afford me a lot of play time down at the FLGS. Time will tell, there is always AoBR with Dave.

Paint Dreadfleet (and play)!

I haven’t even played a game yet! There will be no Dreadfleet played in 2011, but I think I can find time in 2012. I’d like to paint the box up this year. I might try to enlist Dave in this task, I offered the honor of painting the Dwarf Ironclad up and I think he was interested. Only seems right, as he is knowledgeable in Dwarf things. While he is at that, maybe I can try and talk him into painting some other ships or some of the terrain, I may have to resort to blackmail though. All this, however, will have to wait until I can get outside to prime, the weather just isn’t good enough (even though it has been awesome by North Dakota standards) and I don’t have a suitable indoor area for it.

Invest in an Airbrush (and learn to use it)!

I want one, I think it will make painting a lot more fun especially if I’m going to paint a bunch of IG vehicles in the future. Like all things, I will do my research first and make sure I’m getting the best one for my purposes. I’ll also have to save up for this one, they are not cheap.

Invest in a better work area and miniature storage!

This will be the last one on my list. Right now I paint at my computer desk, before that, I painted at my coffee table. I’d like to get a dedicated workstation separate from my computer desk. I also need to find a better way to store my miniatures. I’m not really looking at buying a bunch of foam for them to sit in when not in use, but would like something a bit different then what I do now. I think I might buy a cabinet with closing doors and shelves. The doors would hopefully keep a good deal of dust out and I could store them somewhere easily assessable, but not out in the open (it just looks too cluttered to have them always on display on a book shelf)  when not being used.

I think that’s a pretty good list for New Year’s Resolutions. Best to make it small and avoid setting myself up for failure (example: no way in hell my High Elf army is getting painted anytime soon). If I can accomplish this stuff in a year I think the hobby will be going strong into 2013, that is, if the world doesn’t end before then.

Oh, for some last bit of news, I just picked up an Imperial Guard Chimera and a Predator turret. My intention is to do a bit of a conversion and swap out the turrets to make the Chimera look a bit more like a Bradley Fighting Vehicle, something I saw on another blog. I’ll post some pics, and do a write up of what I would like to accomplish, along with a tribute to the IG army that inspired me. If this conversion goes well, it will set the stage for putting the whole thing together.

See you in 2012!

Imperial Guard: Redux

So as Dave had mentioned, I had the Plague last week. It was terrible, probably the worst I have ever felt and just short of giving myself over to Nurgle my fever broke and I started to feel better on Friday. Anyways, while I was lying on my couch (which is really just a futon that could just as well be a pile of bricks, comfort wise) I had some time to agonize over 40k.

Enough said!

I have been going back and forth. First it was whether I should start 40k or not (I got AoBR, problem solved). Then it progressed to what army I should play: Space Marines or Imperial Guard (I have both books). Finally it has boiled down to what Imperial Guard list to play: Mech or Air Cav. I know I posted my Air Cav list (I also know there is an error in it), but for a while I thought Mech would be better (Probably would be more forgiving for a noob).  Having run through every angle and studied a bunch of lists I am now I’m pretty much sold on Air Cav regardless of ease of play or what’s best.

I love the smell of plastic in the morning!

I put together two lists with the same basic Air Cav theme and similar to my last post. The first list is a pretty bare-bones, put as many boots and gunships on/in the ground/air as possible. The second list is a bit more of a “fluff” list with the inclusion of a Master of Ordinance to call in off-board “support”.

List A:

Company Command Squad
Plasma Pistol for the Commander
X4 meltas
Astropath

Veteran Squad
X3 meltas
Veteran Squad
X3 plasmas
Veteran Squad
X3 plasmas

Valkaries Squad (2 valkaries)
Each with MLRP
Vendetta
Heavy Bolters Sponsons
Vendetta
Heavy Bolter Sponsons

List B:

Company Command Squad
Plasma Pistol for the Commander
X3 meltas
Carapace Armor
Medic Pack
Krak Grenades (Not sure what else to do with 5 points)
Astropath
Master of Ordinance
Chimera, Turreted Heavy Bolter, Hull Mounted Flamer

Veteran Squad
X3 meltas
Veteran Squad
X3 plasmas
Veteran Squad
X3 plasmas

Valkyries
MRP
Vendetta
Heavy Bolters Sponsons
Vendetta
Heavy Bolter Sponsons

So there you have it. I think List A would be, everything in reserve coming on after the first turn and then picking targets. List B would probably have the CCS and Chimera deployed near the home objective or behind cover in the first turn and “calling” for the Air Cav in the following turns. I know the Master of Ordinance would need to get out of the transport to do his thing so I couldn’t just sit in the tin can, but again, part of the “fluff” of the list. Both are probably not very competitive lists, but I think they would be a lot of fun and have room for expansion (I could easily get enough models to run both).
 

Kinda like that...

As for possible changes, in list A I might consider putting the vendetta’s in a squadron and splitting up the Valkyries. As for List B, I may change things around to ditch the Master of Ordinance (and all the other junk on the command squad) and take a Primaris Psyker to make it more competitive, but we will see how things go. Only other thing I might change to List B is swapping the CCS meltas out for the Plasmas on one of the Veteran Squads.

Tonight, I’m going to try and finish my Christmas shopping. God, I dread the thought of fighting off the crowds at the local Mall and other stores in town. You think it wouldn’t be a big deal around Fargo, North Dakota, but I will tell you this: everyone here sucks at driving to begin with, add in the fact that they are all hopped up on coffee, thoughts of scoring the best gifts, and enough Yuletide cheer to kill a Reindeer and you get a recipe for Carmageddon! We will see how this all shakes out. If I survive, life, limb, and wallet, I will probably order some Valkyries.

Pics of the Battle for Black Reach

I just dug out some pictures from the game of Assault on Black Reach Liable and I played last week. Things didn't turn out too well for the Ultramarines. The Orcs took quite a bruising too! Damn it.

Nearly Silvered Out

No warhammer this week, not even 40K. Liable got himself infected with some sort of biblical plague. There's talk of vomiting, festering sores, and appendages dropping off. Maybe not. Probably just a cold or something.

In the meantime I had to do something productive, having been denied the pleasure of ripping Liable's army apart. I got to work on painting all the dwarfs I primed a couple months ago. I've been trying to keep the silver dark so I can put highlights on it later.

I don't use the Games Workshop paints because I want my guys to have a little more of a personal touch(plus I'm cheap) so I spend quite a bit of time mixing and experimenting with different colors and tones. I wouldn't recommend it for most people since the GW paints are really nice and immediately make the figures look awesome.

Liable's dudes, for example, look bad ass. Check over some of the earlier posts with his Dark Elves and Hydras. I love how vicious they look. It doesn't take much to imagine them tearing into my Dwarf warriors for some fresh meat.

I still have six more primed guys to put silver on. I keep being surprised at how long it takes to put the paint on each guy. I start out thinking it's only going to take me an hour to finish 16 guys and an hour later I only have, at best, half of them done. It's just silver!

Quite a ways to go on painting these guys but the silver is an improvement over the dull black  primer.

Painting is one of favorite parts of playing Warhammer. Even so, it's hard to get past how daunting it is to look over a table full of models. Getting them done will be worth it though. I can't wait to start putting pictures up here of my fully painted army battling it out.

- DK

Review - Gale Force Nine: Battlefield in a Box Large Pine Wood

I promised to do a review on the Gale Force Nine: Battlefield in a Box Large Pine Forest, so here it is. The first thing I noticed is the box was a lot bigger than I thought it would be and the packaging was more than sufficient to keep the contents secure and safe.

After unpacking and pulling everything out I was surprised to find out just how heavy and sturdy the base area of the woods are. The box includes two base areas and the materials seems to be resin which has a significant heft to it, they will not be moving around your gaming table, that's for sure. The detail on the bases are good enough by my standards. They appear to have put at least a two stage highlight on them which makes the textured surface really pop out.

In the box you also get five trees, two taller ones, one medium one, and than a smaller one. The tall ones are much larger than I thought they would. Together the trees really look nice and fill out the base well, completing the overall forest look. The box also comes with one sculpted stump. While I would probably rather have another small tree in the box, the stump looks really nice itself, and is highlighted to the same standards as the trunks of the trees.

The box also contains a small package of flock that you can use for the base. I have yet to decide if I will use the flock myself, to be honest, the woods look pretty nice without it. If I do end up flocking them I will probably just use the flock blend I used for my table. It was nice of them to leave it as an options and it lets you customize the woods to your liking.

The price was about $30 and while I could have probably built something similar for a lot cheaper I find the convenience of having this ready to play, right out of the box piece, worth the price. The materials are top quality and I think it would be hard for me to reproduce (not impossible). It was well worth the price in my book.

All and all, I am pretty please so far. I'll be looking to snag another one of these if I can find one in stock, perhaps I can find a better deal online too. I will also be looking at picking up the Elven Tower that is part of the Battlefield in a Box line. Seems appropriate being that all my WHFB armies are elves.

Pick one up if you want a relatively hassle-free woods.

Crushing Defeat

Liable, that SOB, came to the fight today without any wizards. Of course, I always come prepared to fend off all magic casting attempts with two well equipped Runelords. These Runelords are not equipped for fighting. Who would equip a Runelord for fighting? They were equipped for dispelling.

When my warriors got slammed by a massive cavalcade of spearmen loaded for bear with heros and two chariots they broke and ran for the hills. Sure they rallied and killed the two chariots but by that time the damage was done. My BSB and standard bearer were taken and they'd lost 4 ranks. They were a shadow of there former glory. My anvil had been split in twain, twain!

After that my hammerers were left with their flank exposed. Liable lost no time taking advantage. They fought valiantly to the last man. Their courage never waning even as the many spears of the Dark Elves pierced their breasts.

It was a harrowing defeat. I will not soon forget it. It shows how I've let my list get too magically defensive. It's time I start looking at how I can dish out some more damage on the battlefield.
I would like to stay away from gun line strategies. They are tempting but I really like to get my boys into the thick of things. I'm beginning to form a plan to add some more thanes or dwarf lords to the warrior unit.

I think if I can keep that unit together the hammerers should be safer to for about smashing Elf heads.
I'm also considering getting rid of my organ. It's just not pulling it's weight with only 24" of range. Compounding that it keeps blowing up on me and there's nothing I can do to reduce the chance of misfiring. I can't attach an engineer to it or give it ruins of any sort.

I'm far from scrapping my list but some revisions need to be made.

A Week of 40K

As you may have read Liable picked up the Warhammer 40K Assault on Black Reach box on Black Friday at Paradox. I also picked up Warhammer 40K: Space Marine last Saturday on Steam. I played through the demo and after cutting down a couple hordes of Orcs and ripping the heads off a few especially big ones realized I had to have it.

Thus far I'm pretty satisfied with Warhammer 40K: Space Marine. I think I'm about half-way through it, being only 4 hours into it suggests it might be a little short. Honestly though, I don't mind a short game as long as it keeps me interested all of the way through. I keep expecting to get bored with it. I think I've come across nearly all of the weapons and I think I've ripped the heads off of nearly all of the different types of Orcs available in the gaming. It hasn't gotten old yet. The scenery isn't even that particularly interesting. It lacks much of the detail most modern shooters have.

I don't mean graphical detail. There is loads of that. I mean the details other games integrate into the level design to make the story deeper. Perhaps if I knew more about the 40K universe there would be details I'd catch. The audio logs hidden through out the game tell a couple of different stories and it would have been awesome to see the details of these stories strewn about the environments. Ever since Myst it's been pretty common to do so and recent games like Bioshock and Metroid Prime have used it to great effect. The story is clearly not what keeps me coming back to the game.

My favorite part of this game is getting into hand-to-hand combat with the Orcs. There are 4 buttons used while fighting. The first, left click, shoots the equipped weapon. The second, right click, begins a weapon combo. The third, the "f" button, makes a stun attack. When an enemy is stunned you can use the fourth, the "e" button, to execute a stunned enemy. Also, as you fight a fury bar builds once it maxes out you hit the "t" button to enter ass-kicking mode. The most useful part about this mode is that you don't have to stun an enemy to execute them. The key thing to know about executing other than it's awesome to watch is that it restores your health while it happens.

With all this in mind hand-to-hand combat becomes a series of trade-offs as you try to figure out when to keep cutting, when to stun, and when to execute a dude to get health back. This decision making process gets me invested in the hand-to-hand combat like no other game I've played before like it. In a way it reminds of the satisfaction of catching a guy with the chain-saw in Gears of War but it takes it further and makes it a core part of the game play. A part that delivers and keeps me loading the game again and again. Relic, just like with their RTS games, has shown quite a bit of innovation can happen by just taking what other games have hinted at and running with it.

That's enough about video games lets talk about something more tangible. As mentioned earlier Liable picked up Assault on Black Reach. We finally got a go to it last Tuesday and I've got to say so far I'm not convinced. I thought I'd be more enamored with the sci-fi bits but I found myself missing the magic of WHFB. I guess that's even more ironic because I play dwarfs which don't even have magic but stay with me here. I'm not giving up on 40K yet. I've only played one game so clearly it wouldn't be fair. I think I just have to get my head in the right place to enjoy it more.

Liable and I have a game of WHFB queued for tomorrow afternoon. Time might be a little tight. I got my fingers crossed we'll be able to make it through 6 turns. I guess I'll just have to finish him off in 3.

Painting Progress

I should be taking a nap, but instead I thought I would snap some pictures of what I have been working on this week paint-wise. I haven’t setup a proper light box yet, nor am I using a great camera (just my phone camera), so you will have to forgive the quality. Recently I have been trying to knuckle down and get my DE army all painted up. I manage to finish all of my remaining repeater crossbowmen (or is it repeater crossbowelves) last week, so it was time to move on to something else.Again, sorry for the terrible pictures, I'll be putting together a proper setup soon.

Pain in the butt.

To start, I have been working on mass painting my remaining Cold One Chariots and Cold One Knights. I really wish I would have not assembled the chariots prior to painting them. Trying to hit all of the spots on the Cold One’s underside is a huge pain in the ass. With some maneuvering and straining, I think I have them properly covered now, just need to go in with red and touch up some rough spots. Once that’s done, the Chariots themselves are a breeze to paint up. 

An almost finished Chariot, just needs some final touches and a wash.

Another shot.

On a side note, if you are interested, I used Tomb King Chariots in my conversion, an idea I got from Nikephoros over at Bringer of Victory, here’s a link. I used to run a version of his Chariot/Hydra list, though now (since I don’t typically do tournaments) I just run a list of whatever strikes me as interesting at the moment.

Cold One Knight getting its first paint.

The Cold One Knights, thankfully, paint up pretty fast and are a lot more accessible than those charioted Cold Ones. If it wasn’t for the cluster f*** I created by gluing everything on my chariots down, I would say I enjoy painting Cold Ones, the models are fantastic.

Bad lighting, but a shot of my work on the dragon.

Hard to tell, but the tongue is purple!

Speaking of fantastic models, I have also started adding some paint to my Black Dragon. It’s happening in sort of a piece-meal fashion along with everything else, but I’ve decided to just paint what strikes me at a particular moment. It seems to be working well as I have a lot more focus (relatively speaking). Maybe jumping from model to model, painting one thing here and another thing there, is what is required to manage mass painting sessions with my undiagnosed ADD.

Progress on my last handlers.

Shot with an almost finished handler.

Next, I have started piece-meal painting of the last War Hydra handlers. These will have red skins to match their respective Hydra. My other Handlers all have skins that match the color I painted their Hydra up with, so this is just a continuation of that idea.

Corsair test model, hard to tell, but the green really stands out.

Another shot.

Finally, I think I have picked a color scheme for my first unit of Corsairs. I already know that the other unit will be wearing red sea dragon cloaks to match the theme of my army and that units standard (red sea dragon). I have a basic idea that I want the unit to be some form of green to go along with a Cthulhu type theme. So, Snot Green seemed like the best choice. I like the bright green color, but I don’t know if I’m 100% sold on these test models yet. Why? Well, originally I thought about going with black armor and gold trim instead of the bolter gun silver. After painting it up, I wasn’t too excited about it, it didn’t have enough color, so I went with silver. I’m also a bit weary the green pants and sleeves will look a bit Peter Pan-y, something that doesn’t quite strike me as terrifying. All that said, I have warmed up to the colors recently, but I’m not ready to commit. I will meditate on it a bit more before I finish the unit.

Now for some 40k!

That’s what I have been working on this week. It’s Tuesday, so tonight Dave is coming over to try out Assault on Black Reach with me. It should be a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to trying out some new rules. Who knows, maybe it will push me more towards looking into getting that Air Cav list.

Pondering Imperial Guard

I have been reading the 40K rulebook from the Assault on Black Reach set I picked up. I have to say the rules are very interesting. For one, you only get to use one save. This is different from WHFB’s Armor and Ward save system that lets you use both if you got them. Another interesting rule is how line of sight works. Further, from what I understand you cannot pre-measure in 40k. All this will add a bit more to the learning curve for sure.

So for a while I have been thinking about what army I would play in 40k. I now have it narrowed down to Vanilla Marines and Imperial guard (Eldar appeal to me too, but not as my first army). While I am in no position to purchase an army at this point, I have been building a few lists and have settled on one, in particular, that I like. Maybe after Christmas?

Anyways, I have always it would be cool to have an Air Cav style list and, of course, Imperial Guard are best at this, so this list is for a 1000 point Imperial Guard army if I ultimately decide to go that route.

Company Command Squad: Astropath, Carapace, Med kit, x3 Meltas, Chimera (extra armor and Pintle-mounted Storm Bolter).

Veteran Squad: Carapace, x3 Plasmas
Veteran Squad: Carapace, x3 Plasmas
Veteran Squad: Carapace, x3 Meltas


Vendetta: Bolter Sponsons
Valkyrie: Rocket Pods
Valkyrie: Rocket Pods

Exactly 1000 points.

Thoughts? Comments?

Woods!

I finally managed to find the GaleForce 9 Battlefield in a Box Large Pine Wood on eBay for a reasonable price so I picked one up. It’s a long story, but I had attempted to purchase this a couple of months back, from at least four different vendors, and each time, the order would go through only to be cancelled because the item was actually out of stock.


Anyways, once it arrives it will replace at least one of our “cutout” construction paper woods. The Battlefield in the Box terrain really appeals to me because it’s cheap and requires no painting or assembly. I am contemplating further purchases of the line, perhaps another woods and the Elf Tower, but we will see how this one looks first and if there are any more in stock.


With all that being said, man I have spent a lot of money on the hobby this month, but all is good, this one was budgeted for (even if my last splurge wasn’t) and it will be nice to have a proper woods terrain for my gaming table. If I find time, I’ll do a write up on it after it arrives.


Tonight, Dave is coming over for another 3000 point battle. I’ll be playing my DE for more experience. My list is pretty much what you saw in that battle report he did with just a couple surprises (need to keep him on his toes). Should be a lot of fun and we will be sure to post something about it soon.

Out for Blood

Last week Liable and I played his Dark Elves against my Dwarfs for 3000 points. I killed 2 of Liable's Hydras in the first turn and finished off the last one in turn 2. Then I focused them on his general but didn't have much luck because he has a reverse armor save.

The general closed ground pretty fast. Liable had him mounted on a pegasus. He tried to ride that damn thing into my left flank. Luckily, I managed to slow him down with my grudge thrower then finally finished him off with my quarllers. Too bad by that time I didn't have much of a flank to defend.

His spearmen, with the help of of the Cauldron of Blood, managed to break my dwarf warriors. It didn't help much they got hit in the right flank by some angry witch elves.

My hammerers managed to crush the witch elves aimed at my left flank. They got slowed so bad though they didn't have a chance to go after anything else.

In the end I just barely slipped past Liable in points. The three hydras, the general, witch elves, and a bolt thrower my miners managed to pull down gave me the points I needed. I lost my warriors, both grudge throwers, the organ gun, and both units of miners. A turn or two more and I probably would've been anhilated. The 6 turn limit allowed me to hold on by the skin of my teeth. In the end we couldn't quite tell who won it was so close it was likely just a draw.

Turn 1: You can get pretty good feel for how our battle lines are set out from this shot. 

Turn 2: Liable's starting his advance towards me. Being the dwarfs I hold my ground and fire at him with my war machines for as long as possible.

Turn 4: I missed turn 3 but basically Liable's spear-men charged my warriors  and his witch elves sought to draw blood from my hammerers. I also lost both of my grudge throwers. One to his general and the other to his witch elves.

Turn 5: My warriors have broken. My hammers took down his witch elves and are attempting to get back in the fight. At this point his general gets a little tangled up between my two cannons and my quarrelers. This gives me a chance to take him down with a blast of grapeshot.  

Turn 6: I attempt to close the ground between my hammerers and the Cauldron of Blood. No such luck  as my dwarfs are too slow. We call the game because not much else can happen this turn.

Thinking Inside a Vacuum

DON’T DO IT!

Well, we all do it to some extent, but it is something that should be done with caution.

What do I mean when I say thinking inside a vacuum? I mean when we look at something worth looking and make decisions based solely on those characteristics and not outside factors. A good example of this is discussing a unit in an army solely on its’ stat line.

I guess I see this kind of thinking a lot on the forums and blogs that discuss WHFB. Someone posts a comment about a unit and then the people start talking about said unit. This is all perfectly fine, but I would caution the WHFB initiate, or Wargaming initiate in general, that a unit alone is a relatively small piece of the puzzle and together you need to understand how that unit functions and its roll in your army (or what its role will be).

This is very rudimentary, of course, but this post is meant to setup some subsequent posts regarding units. It’s important to understand how a unit will function in the army just as much as its stat line and its special rules. So I want to make it a point that we will be going beyond what is written on paper and talk about tactics for each unit in your army. As an example of this thinking, the War Hydra is, on paper, probably one of the nastiest close combat monsters for its price. In practice (while it is seriously nasty) its nastiness is overshadowed by its psychological effect and proves to be best used supporting other combat units rather than fighting on its own, but more on that later.

The Arrival of a Grudge Thrower

My new dwarf grudge thrower

I finally got my hands on a Dwarf Grudge Thrower and this thing is, to borrow the parlance of a good friend, razmataz. The detail on the crew is amazing. Bringing out the detail in their beards is going to be so much easier than the warriors and quarrelers. The grudge thrower itself has detailed scroll work all around the base. Also, it's a cool little touch to have the bucket of the grudge thrower shaped like a hand.

Once I got it out of the box I noticed a there are some areas affected by air bubbles and some other issues. I decided to put off patching those issues with green stuff until after I assembled it. Mostly, because I wanted to get it out on the battlefield to use against Liable. It performed admirably, taking down a hydra with a single shot in the first turn, though I'll leave that story for another post.

Once I get the green stuff sorted I'll have to figure out how to paint it. I still need to figure out the colors for my dwarf army. It'll take me a bit longer but I'd really like to try to emphasize that the dwarfs are a citizen army and not give them strict uniforms. Of course the professional soldiers like Hammers and Iron Breakers will have a consistent look, for all the rest I'm thinking of varying them between four colors.

Of course, for the grudge thrower itself this doesn't really matter. It'll be a combination of gold, black, silver and grey. The crew is a different story. I suspect it's safe to say that each war machine is owned and crewed by a guild/clan so maybe I could try to incorporate that into the way I color them somehow. I'll have to review my army book.

Some pictures of the dwarf thrower below. I highlighted some of the deficiencies in the piece. All told I'm pretty happy with it.

This guy turned out pretty good. The rod with the hand on top is an awesome touch.

When I opened the package it took me a moment to figure out this guy is turning a crank to reset the  grudge thrower

The fraying at the bottom of his coat is the only defect I saw on the crew. I suspect an air bubble didn't get squeezed out before the material set.

Clearly, as his expression indicates, lifting rocks into the grudge thrower's bucket is tough work. Take a break guy, it'll be good for you.

Of course the grudge thrower itself. The two pieces I had to attach to the base will need some green stuff to fill in the gaps. There's a crease visible in the arm where it looks like the top and bottom didn't quite square with each other. Not sure if I can do much about that other than distract people with an awesome paint job.

Some of the same defects are visible on this side as well. It's also possible to see a bit of a bend in the base. Even so this piece looks fantastic and I'm psyched to get it painted up.

Bloodied but undead

Last week I played a game with Liable where I used my dwarfs as Vampire Counts. I spent the week before the big battle carefully planning my 2500 point army. Trying to ensure I had an anvil unit, some hammer units, and a few units just to keep my flanks secure. I thought my plan had a good chance of succeeding.

I was disastrously wrong. Liable's Dark elves rode right over my army. He neatly tenderized them with magic then sent in his troops to devour them. It was slaughter, massive whole sale slaughter.

Before now my dwarf rune lords had always protected me from magic so I never really thought much of the magic phase. I did all my damage in the shooting phase then mopped up in the close combat phase. Now here I was with my undead army, no ranged units and at a loss for what to do in the magic phase. I should have heeded the advice from the forums and committed my vampire lord to magic to pump him up for offense magic and dispelling. Especially against the Dark Elves who can have a near endless supply of magic dice.

One of the most painful mistakes I made was spending all of my magic dice to stop some of Liable's big hitting spells. I felt pretty good when I stopped Occum's Mind Razor, only to watch him parcel out the rest of his power dice on easy to case hex spells that made my army useless.

I know the vampire counts can be awesome. The image in my head of a noble, yet blood thirsty vampire leading a horde of undead won't let me believe otherwise. For now though, I'm heading back to lead my dwarf throng where good ol' fashion gun powder determines how a battle is one, not flimsy unreliable magic.

-David

Where are we going with this?

“If you build it, they will come”

I have never watched the whole movie, but I think I get the general idea. A bunch of old dead baseball player ghosts tell a guy to build a baseball field. He can’t because the world is covered in water, something about him being the last mailman on earth who delivers mail to a tribe of Native Americans, and then everyone, including some wolves, plays underwater baseball and all are happy. Who needs IMDB anyways?  I believe that quote fits well because I think this blog will be analogues to most Kevin Costner films, in that, it will be a clearing house for fellow gamers half-baked ideas and the epic stories that could only truly exist in the delusional mind of an institutionalize crazy person (you know what I mean, we have all seen the Untouchables…such fantasy).


So we will have battle reports, strategy articles, painting guides, progress reports, and crazy rants. All of the amazing things that make a Wargaming/General Nerdery blog great.  I know Dave will be contributing articles regularly; hopefully he will introduce himself soon. Having Dave on board is good because I know his posts will add a bunch of much needed credibility to this blog (and proper writing skill).


Along with the two of us writing articles, I will be reaching out to fellow wargamers and hobbyist in the area to contribute articles to the blog. Right now we associate with a small group that meets at one of the local hobby/comic shops, primarily to play WHFB. This group is incredibly dedicated to all varieties of wargaming and have years of experience beyond my own. They should be an incredible resource and I am looking forward to their contributions.


So what’s on the agenda for this week?


Continue to think of blog articles, I would like pump out at least two articles a week. Work will continue on my Dark Elves and I hope to post my main 3000 point list for the world to see (can’t stop tweaking it). Campaign reports! Our gaming group is running a WHFB Board Princes Campaign and I will be including updates on these activities as they happen (we just had a HUGE, approximately 10,000 points siege battle). Dave and I finished a small game last night at my place and I hope to have a battle reports of our games up as soon as possible (trying to find a good battle reporter). Finally, World of Tanks! I came late to this game and while it’s not table top wargaming, it is incredibly addicting (So close to getting my own Tiger tank!) To give you an idea, it is basically Counter-Strike with tanks! It will continue to be a huge time sink for me.


To tide you over until the next article, here are some pics of that siege battle!

The Setup

More Setup Shots

Demon Defenders

Empire Siege Towers

More Setup Shots

Demon Skirmishers Attack! (Notice the Dr. Pepper of DOOM!)

Empire Breaches the Wall!

More Empire Troops Pour In.

Giants Rounding the Corner to Get Into the Battle!

The battle ended with in turn 7 with the Demons holding the center. A good game to watch with plenty of action!