A New Game And Another Victory

Some years ago, when the Warcry boxed set with the Darkoath Marauders in came out, I asked for it for a present (I think it might have been my birthday). At any rate, I assembled it, flicked through the rulebook, painted a couple of the Darkoath, and then... didn't do anything else with it. I have never actually played a game of Warcry. Then, tonight, at the Llangefni Wargamers, I spoke to K and got him to teach me.

I won, although I did accidentally cheat a little because I was using Strength rather than Damage to cause Damage... oops. Anyway, here are some photos to explain what happened in a bit more detail:

To play a Warcry scenario, first of all you roll to randomly create a deployment map. The six little symbols correspond to where the three groups you split your warband into deploy - in this instance one starts on the board, and the other two groups come on at the start of the second Round

Then you roll to randomly generate a victory condition! This is what we ended up with

This was the warband I used - the Untamed Beasts - painted by K, and incredibly badly photographed by me

The Cursed Relic! Otherwise known as a little token. All the scenery was provided by K; he is a Warcry fiend in much the same way as I am for stuff

A really nicely painted statue of Sigmar. I love the way the verdigris and moss have been done - top notch stuff from K here

Deployment - K's Lizardmen (which included THREE Kroxigors) have the top and right hand sides and their on-board group have deployed on the wrong side of the wall from the objective. My Untamed Beasts have sent in their most rubbish fighters to go and grab the objective as quickly as possible, with the heavy hitters standing back to come in and do mischief later

End of Round 1 - my bunch of Plains Runners have surrounded the objective, while the Kroxigor and the Saurus Champion leading the Lizardamn warband swing round opposite ends of the central wall to try to threaten the obective

End of Round 2 - the Lizardman champion ran up and obliterated one of my Plains Runners with a single hit, while the Kroxigors in reserve wandered on to be met with excessive violence from my warband's Heart-Eater and a Preytaker. Meanwhile my own left flank reinforcements swamped the Lizardman champion and killed him with a huge number of attacks from three models. Although actually, in retrospect, I probably shouldn't've done because I wasn't using the right stats for the damage...

End of Round 3 - it was midway through this Round that we realised I'd been doing damage wrong. The main difference this would make is the number of wounds I did to the Kroxigors; as I killed one and put a lot of hurt onto another. In return a Kroxigor hurt one of my surviving Plains-Runners, and injured the Rocktusk Prowler quite badly. I did however manage to despatch one of the Saurus that had come on as reserve from the top edge last Round

End Round 4, End Game - I managed to finish off the second of the Kroxigors, and reduced K's warband to just two models - an injured Saurus and a Kroxigor. Meanwhile I had almost my entire warband within 3" of the Cursed Relic, so I won!

It was a really fast, fun game, easy to pick up (once you recognised what the symbols meant) and flowed nicely. Lovely crisp mechanics. I think I'll play some more of this, using my Daughters of Khaine, and see how they fare. As A said however I think the campaign is where my real interest will lie. We'll see how that goes in the future, maybe.

 

Speaking of campaigns, I got my second game of the first round of the Mordheim campaign in tonight as well - my Cult of the Possessed against M(i)'s Orcs, Uzgak's Maggoty Brute Boyz. We rolled up Defend the Find as the scenario, and as I had a lot less models than M(i) did, I was the defender...

 

Deployment - the Cult are in the tower in the middle of the board, ready to defend their gains from the yelling and raucous orcs, who are approaching from just two sides

 

End Orc Turn 1 - M(i) went first as the attacker, and as there was no Animosity to worry about this turn, moved up everyone except his Big 'Un with bow and the hench-orcs with bows, who fired (ineffectively) at the Magistrix in the tower's first floor

End Cult Turn 1 - I rearranged everyone to avoid being shot at as easily, getting the Magistrix, Karina and The Lover into cover in the tower, while The Blessed and Elizabet moved around the rear to guard that angle and cut line of sight to the bow-armed orcs

End Orc Turn 2 - the Boss and his ladz moved up on the left of the ruin next to the tower, while the two hench-Orcs under Big 'Un Auzbosh Wukgukk took the right. None of the Orcs suffered from any animosity (again), while one of the hench-Orcs with a bow critically hit my Magistrix, who - luckily! - was only stunned. Yikes - what a shot!

End Cult Turn 2 - the Magistrix rolled over and became knocked down, groaning a bit and thanking the Dark Powers for the extra eye in her side that the arrow had hit, while Elizabet charged the oncoming Orcs on the left of the ruins... and promptly completely failed to hit or wound. As did the Orc she'd charged!

End Orc Turn 3 - at last, Animosity happened! Both the Boss and one of his arrer Boyz decided they needed to leg it towards the Cult, and did so. The Boss then promptly failed a Fear test to charge The Lover, and instead waved on his ladz and pretended he'd not really intended to try and charge in anyway, and if you said different he'd smack you one, so that was that. Over on the other side of the ruins, the Big 'Un and accompanying Orc Boy piled into Elizabet. In the ensuing slap-fight no-one managed to hit, or, if they did, then failed to wound...! The arrer Boyz and Big 'Un with bow didn't shoot at anyone as they had no targets

 

End Cult Turn 3 - while the Magistrix stood up, dusting herself off, The Lover and Karina sprinted out and charged the two Boyz on either side of the Boss. On the other side of the ruin, The Blessed charged into the Orc with a spear, who failed his Fear check and missed before being crushed into the ground by The Blessed's claws - so long Kezbigh! While this was going on, the Magistrix tried (and failed) to cast Visions of Torment on the Orc Boss. Elizabet, the Big 'Un, and the remaining Orc Boy all continued to flail around, unable to do anybody any damage. Karina, meanwhile, missed both her attacks and was then promptly skewered by her opponent's sword, becoming stunned. Uh oh. The Lover and the Orc it was fighting exchanged blows, but failed to wound each other

 

End Orc Turn 4 - Animosity struck, paralysing the Boss as he stood his ground, grumbling angrily about Ladz These Dayz and similar things (too much Dwarf in his diet no doubt). A sneaky Boy managed to get righ up to the base of the tower, threatening the Magistrix, and potentially starting to meet the victory conditions of the scenario. The Boy on the Boss's left handily despatched Karina, while the Arrer Boyz and bow-armed Big 'Un continued to fire at the Magistrix. No expertly aimed arrows this time, however, and she weathered the arrows with ease. The Lover finally landed a blow on its opponent, knocking down the Orc. The ridiculous pantomime fighting between the Big 'Un, Orc, and Elizabet continued as yet again no damage was inflicted to anyone. I have no idea what they were doing, but either it was a really expert display of skill, or a comedic scene of bumbling worthy of Laurel and Hardy (probably the latter, frankly)

End Cult Turn 4, End Game - the Magistrix charged down from her first floor perch and into the hapless Orc who'd tried to sneak round the back, but she continued to fail to be able to harness the fickle winds of Magic and couldn't summon the power to cast Visions of Torment on him. Meanwhile, The Lover charged the Orc Boss, and The Blessed charged the Big 'Un next to Elizabet. The Magistrix may not have been able to cast, but did, however, manage to whack her opponent with her huge magic staff, causing him to become knocked down. The Blessed's flurry of attacks on Auzbosh Wukgukk the Big 'Un overwhelmed him, and he was taken Out of Action. Inspired by this, the fight between Elizabet and the Orc in front of her finally went her way, and Agoc was also taken Out of Action. On the other hand, in a recurring theme, neither The Lover nor the Boss could really hurt each other, despite a couple of hits each. With that, M(i) decided at the start of his turn to voluntarily rout. His Orcs had lost three models and he doubted his ability to overpower my surviving heroes and take the centre tower. The day belonged to the Cult again!

Obviously the most important part of any Mordheim game is the Post Battle Sequence, during which the Ninefold Path of Eight Ways uncovered a total of 5 shards of Wyrdstone (promptly sold to various buyers for 100 gold crowns), and found a vaguely intact fletcher's shop with two Short Bows remaining in it. Karina survived but lost her right eye (-1 BS - not that she needs it), while Elizabet increased her Strength to 4. The Blessed developed a new skill, Mighty Blow, making all its attacks in combat more potent (S6 for its normal attacks and S7 with its Great Claw!). The Lover, on the other hand, became faster, gaining Sprint. One of the two short bows was sold, making just enough money to afford to hire and equip three Brethren with bows and clubs. The remaining short bow has been picked up by the Magister, to give her something a little more dangerous at range than her spell...

 

The Ninefold Path of Eight Ways now has a Warband Rating of 98, two victories under its belt, 8 members (praise be to the Dark Powers!) and a totally empty treasury. Time to see what Campaign Round Two will bring in a few weeks. 

Just A Little Distraction

Well, I've had a bit of a quiet day apart from work, and the end result of all of that is that rather than do any painting, I've put the 3D printer to work. I've promised to send a bunch of very old style monopose Skaven command, as well as 32 shields for the same sort of model, to a friend in the Antipodes. Then I've also offered to send some Iron Sultanate troops to another friend in Sheffield, and, of course, I have to print the My Little Pony Marauder IIC for C's comedy purposes.

A 3D print file! This is a monopose Skaven musician

So I've been setting up various 3D print files, and eyeing up the commission miniatures, and organising a game of Mordheim for tomorrow night with B, who has Orcs and Goblins... and a troll. So that'll be interesting for my tiny little band of cultists to deal with! Anyway, I'm off to press "print" on a plate full of rats and other random figures.

Uh Oh

Well, I got the commission pieces out, and I put paint to model... then I ran out of brain to paint. This has happened before and it's usually a sign of burnout or of lacking the desire to work on something. Which is fine when it isn't a commission! This, of course, is a commission, and I really need to crack on with it. Being able to work on it for about ten minutes before going "URGH" and stopping is not, shall we say, ideal. My brain is full of ideas of things to print - another Battletech mini for C, the Level 2 Wizard for my Maiden Guard (as well as more Maiden Guard and a Bolt Thrower!), some Skaven and shields I promised a friend I'd print and post to her last year, and some other bits and pieces.

And then there's that church, which I really want to paint up, glue together, and fix to a board so that it can be used for basically any 28mm gaming from fantasy to historicals and even some SF if you squint at it right.

But I really have to do the commission, so here are some photos of the "progress" I made today to try and chivvy myself on:

The commission pieces - 11 in total, one yet to be undercoated; three completed

I highlighted the red and did a bit more of the white. Great success!

 I'm also in the process of arranging to run a D&D campaign with some new friends from LUNAR, which will be good fun. On Tuesday I'm not entirely sure if I have a game lined up for the Llangefni Wargamers meeting, so I should organise that, too.

And then I really need to get painting on this commission...

 

Hang On, That's Not A Spaceship

So today I was intending to get some commission painting done. What actually happened was I did a whole bunch of admin stuff relating to our finances, went to the local RPG group to play some D&D as my wood elf Circle of the Moon druid, came home, and realised I needed to make a blog post and go to bed. Oops.

Anyway, here's a church my friend A gave me the other day, and which I have only just worked out the footprint of and how it goes together:

 

It's a 3D printed job, using FDM technology, unlike my resin printer. These are the component parts...

...and this is what it looks like put together. It's 19" long, 11" wide and 11" tall! 

Lots of room inside for models, too, and the rubble is a really nice mix between looking great and being practical for gaming with

Anyway at some point I'll get a load of cheap acrylics and get this finished. I'll definitely put it on a base, though.

A Very Small Update

I have had a remarkably busy evening today, or so it seemed, so my hobbying today consisted of writing names on the bases of my Cult of the Possessed and making sure I had the commission painting stuff lined up to start tomorrow. I have a day off work so hopefully I can actually make some progress on that and can get it posted off to the commissioner as soon as possible.

L-R: Mutant with extra arm-tentacle, axe and sword; Possessed with tentacle; Magestrix with double-handed weapon; Possessed with great claw; Mutant with great claw and axe - together they are the Ninefold Path of Eight Ways

It's funny how doing social things with one's time reduces the amount of time one has to paint... very odd!

LUNAR Landing

Tonight I ran the first ever meeting of the Llangefni United Nerds And Roleplayers Club. It went really well! We had games of Mordheim, Warcry, Combat Patrol, the boardgame Jaws, and discussions about future games of Dungeons and Dragons, Inquisitor 28, Sunrot, and other systems. For my part, I played a game of Mordheim against A's Undead with my Cult of the Possessed, and despite only having five models on the board, not only won the game but made out like an absolute bandit. Photos follow!

 

A game of Mordheim between Undead and Orcs - scenery is the old cardboard Games Workshop terrain that I built a couple of years ago and still haven't quite finished off - I'll need to do the bases and touch up the white lines!

A learning game of Combat Patrol, between Imperial Guard (l) and Space Marines (r)

A game of Jaws in full swing - this is the start of Act 2, where the shark tries to sink the boat!

A game of Warcry - needs more terrain if you ask me, but they were having fun!

And, of course, there was the game of Mordheim that A and I played between A's Undead and my Cult of the Possessed, as part of the campaign I'm running. The scenario we rolled was Wyrdstone Hunt, and a series of disjointed photographs mostly tell the story of the game. I forgot to take them consistently, so you'll have to put up with the slightly strange sequence of events!

Deployment - there are four pieces of Wyrdstone on the board, marked by green and yellow dice (I need to make Wyrdstone counters!): one is in the ruined tower, one is in the ground floor of the top-most building connected by a bridge, and the other two are visible. My cultists are in cover in case of shenanigans; A's Undead (and Imperial Assassin!) are spread out to try to pincer me

 

This is the end of my Turn 2 - I'd won the roll off to go first - and my Possessed had split off from the Magestrix and her Mutants to go wyrdstone hunting. One, known as The Blessed, had climbed up the tower and then had some minor problems with falling off things and failing to climb things for a bit. The other, The Lover, had easily grabbed the closest bit of Wyrdstone then (because I'd misunderstood the scenario) moved the wrong way for a bit... meanwhile A's Undead were moving up towards their own Wyrdstone targets

 

End of the Undead's Turn 2. Here, the Vampire is positioned to grab the closest Wyrdstone while being supported by Dregs and the Assassin, and the various zombies, the dire wolf, the necromancer, and one of the two ghouls are lurking under the bridge with the wolf having grabbed a piece of Wyrdstone

End of the Cult's Turn 3 - the Magestrix and her Mutants have (wisely) cleared off at top speed from the threatening Vampire, while The Lover has realised its/hers/their mistake and turned round, running to join up with the rest. The Blessed on the other hand has managed to grab the Wyrdstone in the tower and then immediately fell off the top floor onto the middle floor, although luckily not taking any damage

End of the Undead's Turn 3. The Dire Wolf, with Wyrdstone in its stomach, has moved behind a screen of zombies accompanied by the Necromancer and a Ghoul. Meanwhile the Vampire, second Ghoul, Dregs, and the Assassin have joined up with their own piece of Wyrdstone in the possession of the Vampire. The Necromancer attempts to cast Lifestealer on the closest Mutant, but fails

End of my Turn 4 - the Magestrix moves up while the Mutants have charged a variety of things - one Mutant, Johannes, charges the Necromancer, while the other, Elizabet, attacks a Zombie. The Blessed continues to fail to work out how to use a ladder, while The Lover continues moving away from the Vampire, trying to link up with The Blessed. Felicitas the Magestrix moves round the melee to try to get a bead on the Dire Wolf. Her attempt to cast Visions of Torment fails miserably (the total inability of either of us to cast a spell all game was quite amusing). In the combats, neither side manages to land a hit at all!

At this point I basically forgot to take photos until the end, but I do have a couple of good photos of some specific moments. 

The combat in Turn 5 under the bridge - the Magestrix has despatched the Dire Wolf, while The Blessed has knocked down a Ghoul. Meanwhile the Mutants are surrounded by Zombies and the Necromancer, with both sides continuing to be unable to hit each other, never mind cause wounds. Again, both Necromancer and Magestrix prove unable to cast their spells

The Imperial Assassin managed to knock a wound off The Lover with a poisoned throwing knife! This is one of the best photos of a model I've ever taken. A's painting is exquisite, honestly

End of my Turn 7 - while Johannes the Mutant has been dragged down by Zombies, the Possessed and Magestrix between them have taken a Ghoul, the Dire Wolf, and three Zombies out of action. The rout test made by A at the start of his turn 6 was passed, handily, but after considering the position of things at the start of turn 7, he decided to voluntarily rout and see what the exploration phase brought him...

 

The final board end state at the beginning of A's Turn 7. Time to see what the grim streets of Mordheim brought us!

After the game, we first checked to see what had happened to our various Out of Action models. Johannes, my Mutant, died. I rolled snake eyes! Alas and woe; his elephantine tentacles did not save him from the gnashing teeth of zombies. However all of A's Zombies and his Dire Wolf also died! Only the Ghoul survived the bloodbath under the bridge, it turned out.

I encountered a corpse with a free sword in it (honestly it was probably Johannes's corpse - he had a sword) and an overturned cart with a purse full of 11 gold crowns, which was pretty handy. My Wyrdstone haul was 3 from the game, plus an extra one thanks to this rounds' special rule (+1d3 Wyrdstone shards for all warbands in the Exploration Phase), and another 4 from the Exploration roll, for a total of 8! Very shiny. I elected to sell all of them in order to raise the funds to recruit another Mutant, Karina. Karina has an extra arm that is a tentacle, which is an expensive mutation but it does mean she can make two attacks with her sword and axe, as well as reducing the number of attacks an opponent can make by one. 

Additionally, thanks to hacking apart a bunch of zombies, most of the cult got to level up. Felicitas increased her Initiative to 4, The Blessed got +1 Strength (making him really quite nasty, with two S5 and one S6 attacks!), and Elizabet increased her Weapon Skill to 4.

The warband's treasury now consists of 11 gold crowns (still, I suspect, in the purse), and the Rating increased from 61 to 74. I'm going to play a game against B's Orcs next, I think, which will be the second and last game I'm allowed to play in this round.

Moving The Maidens

After finishing a bunch of Maiden Guard yesterday, I needed to make new movement trays for the Heart of Isha and the Tears of Isha regiments. The existing ones work fine for 5x2 25mm bases, but now with an extra rank I need to, well, add an extra rank. So I broke out the thick cardboard, pencil, ruler, knife, and glue:

When measuring the footprint, it's not just the footprint of the bases - 12.5cm by 7.5cm - but you need to make sure there's space for the rim, to hold the figures on the tray. I use 5mm rims here, so the base section is 13.5cm by 8cm. The upper lip is 5mm wide all the way around

Then I painted the edges in Rhinox Hide, and the surface in Castellan Green to match the colours I used on the bases of the Maiden Guard

THEN once the paint was dry I used a glue stick to rub glue over the lip, and dunked it in my Woodland Scenics Blended Turf (T50 Earth Scene) scatter

And the end result! Some card, glue, and a bit of time (as well as the pencil and ruler and knife) and I have some handy-dandy movement trays for the next game!

Tomorrow it's off to the spaceship yards to get cracking on that commission. But for now, I'm going to bask in this finished 750 point Maiden Guard force.

250 Points Of Elves

I spent much of today painting, and at the end of it all I had 250 points of High Elves done for my Maiden Guard! Of course, this means I need new movement trays for the Heart of Isha and Tears of Isha regiments, but that's a tomorrow problem. It'll be something I can do while playing Dungeons and Dragons (with my Tabaxi cleric of the Cat Lord, as opposed to my Goliath barbarian who is the Friday D&D character). Looking at them all arrayed in their finery, it seems quite a formidable 750 point force, what with the Battle Standard, the Noble, and lots of spears and bows and shields. 

Then there's the other players in the league, bringing things like cannons and Kroxigor at 500 points, so I have no doubt fairly soon my poor Elves will be quite significantly outclassed in the combat power department. However, until then, I can enjoy the fruits of my 3D printing and painting labour:

The banner is slightly different to the one in the Uniforms and Heraldry of the High Elves book, not just because Isha here is dark-skinned and black haired, but she's a little smaller and there's an extra rune - not just quyl-isha (left) but also daroir (right). Roughly this means the sorrow of memory, or remembrance of mourning, or similar, in Eltharin

Lots of gems, because these are High Elves, and a nice shot of the cloth hanging down with gravity

You get a good idea of the parts that went into the banner in this photo - the lance tip from the High Elf Noble kit, the crossbar and flag from the High Elf Spear kit, the wire pole

Lots of gold, too, on Finelle herself, as well as on the banner pole - the golden crescent moons on her leather gloves, the gold on her shoulder armour

Of course it's not all about the character - although she does, by herself, represent 103 of the 250 points in this stage of the army's growth!

These may look like original 5th Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle Maiden Guard, but they are - in fact - 3D printed versions! The shields are also 3D prints

The dark skin goes really nicely with the white and green and gold, I think

White is a pain to paint, often because it can be hard to find good quality white. I miss the old GW Skull White, which (I seem to remember) was pretty good

I love the ridiculously huge heart-shaped rubies on the shields

 And then, because I spent the money on the STLs, I also have a differently attired Maiden Guard unit:

These ones are much more heavily armoured than the originals, but in their own unit they look great

The high ponytails give them the appearance of wearing plumed helmets

The quivers are a lot less decorated than the official versions, but are still Elven in nature

This lot are the second rank of the Heart of Isha, so have their spears braced to receive a charge, rather than their bows out to shoot (like the third and, eventually, fourth ranks do)

But all these Maiden Guard lack magic bows, so it's time for some skirmishing scouts:

In comparison to the official Games Workshop plastics, these 3D printed Sisters of Avelorn stand-ins are positively restrained in terms of detail

That said, I do love the ithilmar corselets and the ruby brooches that fasten their green cloaks 

One day I will take a good photo with the correct lighting; today is not that day

Those swords are not just for decoration! They can use them reasonably well... but the bows are the main damage dealer, with their 30" range and reducing armour saves by 1 on a 6 to wound

 All together then the 13 "Maiden Guard" that I've finished today look like this:

I'm really pleased with how they've turned out - they're not the most carefully detailed models I've ever painted, but I am enjoying painting them (in batches smaller than 27) and I'm very much looking forwards to the next round of the Escalation League and seeing what nonsense other people bring in 750 points

With these done, tomorrow's job is making movement trays, and then from Monday on I'll be painting those commissioned board game pieces from last year. Oops. Luckily the commissioner is both understanding and not bothered by the delay; but I do feel very guilty about it all!

Painting Points:
Today: 13
This Week: 13
2026: 40