A Narrow Victory

Gosh, it's been nearly a month since I properly painted anything and a fortnight since I last posted. The burnout is real.

Anyway, tonight I went to LUNAR's fourth session and played B's Orcs and Goblins in a 1,000 point game for the Escalation League. It was a fun game and although my Elves dealt out a lot of hurt, I only got a Victory and not a Crushing Victory because on the last turn with the last bit of shooting I had I elected to shoot some Trolls rather than the lone Night Goblin Boss with Battle Standard. Ah well! I am still - just - in the lead in the Escalation League, with 15 points out of a possible maximum of 16 so far.

Now I need to finish off these High Elves and get printing some Shadow Warriors... 

Return To The Damned City (And The Blog)

I've been AWOL for a while - painting burnout, mostly. Last week the Llangefni Wargamers didn't meet, but tonight LUNAR's fourth session took place and I had a couple of games of Mordheim, including a very fun (if sadly cut short) 6 player game!

 

Glorious Victories Of The High Elves

Tonight was the second ever session of the LUNAR club, and it went really well. Lots of people, lots of games, lots of fun! There were games of Mordheim, The Old World, Combat Patrol, Magic: The Gathering, Unstable Unicorns, Hanabi, and quite possibly other ones that I didn't see or wasn't aware of. 

I had a game of Mordheim against B's goblins (with Troll!) and then a 750 point Escalation League game with my Maiden Guard against K's terrifying Chaos Warrior army. I lost the first and won the second, which was cheering! Then after that myself, P, T, E, and A played (and lost) a game of Hanabi.

Anyway, here's the relevant After Action Reports...

Mordheim - Wyrdstone Hunt - Goblins versus Cult of the Possessed. This was B's second game in the campaign round, and I - having already played both mine - put up my Cult as an NPC gang, meaning they didn't gain any experience or do any post-game things. 

Deployment - the goblins spread out, with a group of sword and shield armed hench-gobbos led by a Boss on the left, the troll and Big Boss in the middle, and two hench-gobbos with bows led by a Boss with bow on the right. The cultists, on the other hand, clumped together in the middle. The two chunks of wyrdstone (represented - still - by dice) were fairly central

End Goblin Turn 1 - with no targets in range and nothing to charge, the whole warband ran forwards. The Troll passed its stupidity test, because the Big Boss was yelling sufficiently loudly to penetrate its hugely thick skull and sink into the handful of brain cells long enough to get it moving

End Cult Turn 1 - the cultists split up, with a Magister, Possessed, and Mutant moving to the left and the remaining Possessed and Mutant heading towards the closer Wyrdstone shard on the hanging platform

End Goblin Turn 2 - disaster strikes! The Troll looked blankly in front of it, unable to quite comprehend the increasingly frantic yelling of "GET IT YA ZOGGIN' FICKO" from the Big Boss. The long-range charge into the Possessed, it seems, was not on the cards. The goblins with swords kept moving up, the Big Boss hid behind the Troll's enormous bulk, and the goblins with bows picked a wound off the Possessed at range!

End Cult Turn 2 - the stupid Troll's ambling forwards in the previous turn had brought it into charge range of the Possessed, who promptly ran screaming and gibbering into it at full pelt. The other Possessed ran forwards while the Mutant on the right moved to climb the stairs towards the Wyrdstone. On the left, the Mutant moved to head off the sword-goblins, and the Magister hung back a little. In combat, the Possessed didn't do much to the Troll, but the Troll vomited on the Possessed, knocking a wound off (and critically hitting)!

End Goblin Turn 3 - animosity meant that the Big Boss stood back from the combat, yelling insults at the Troll for failing to kill the Possessed quickly enough. The sword-goblins and their accompanying Boss all charged the Mutant by the corner of the steps, while the bow-goblins and their Boss fired ineffectually at the injured Possessed barrelling towards them at speed... The combat did not go the Troll's way, and the Possessed dispatched the hulking monster with a flurry of blows from its claw and various appendages. In return, however, the goblin Boss stunned the Mutant with a critical hit, enabling one of the sword-goblins to step in and take her Out Of Action. Champagne and medals all round!

End Cult Turn 3 - the Possessed on the left leapt into the Big Boss, whilst the Possessed on the right sprinted screaming into the Boss with bow. The Magister moved up a little to try to get off a spell, while the surviving Mutant ran over to the Wyrdstone and grabbed it. The Possessed handily dealt with their opponents, knocking down the Big Boss and taking the Boss Out Of Action before either could fight back

End Goblin Turn 4, End Game - the sword-goblins charged into the Magister, and the bow-goblins, passing their Fear test, charged into the Possessed. The Big Boss shook his head, and stood back up, ready to 'ave anuvver go (maybe he should have stayed on the ground)! The Possessed promptly did him in again, taking him Out Of Action with another critical hit... but that wasn't the last critical hit! One of the bow-goblins, armed with a dagger, rolled a 6 to hit, a 6 to wound, a 5 on the Critical Hit chart, and the Possessed gurgled wetly and was taken Out Of Action! By a WS2 S3 goblin! The shame! As for the Magister, well, she didn't last long either - the Big Boss took her Out Of Action without breaking a sweat. After that, I voluntarily routed, leaving the field and one Wyrdstone to B and her goblins

The most amusing part of the post-game sequence was B's Big Boss rolling a 16 (Multiple Wounds), followed by 43 (Full Recovery) and 46 (Fill Recovery)! Happy that I could hand B's goblins a victory, and glad that I didn't have to suffer any terrible consequences from having three out of five Heroes go Out Of Action, I moved on to my 750 point The Old World game against K and his Chaos Warriors.

We played War In The Shadowlands from the Arcane Journal: Razing of Westerland  with a fixed length of five turns. I brought my experienced army - now bolstered with a Battle Standard Bearer and some more troops in each regiment - and K brought his scarily large Chaos Marauder army, which boasted a Level 2 Wizard, a Marauder Chieftan, a big block of T5 Marauders with great axes and full command, a big block of normal Marauders, and a blender - I mean a block - of Bezerkers with two hand weapons each.

Deployment - the two blue dice are objectives, which we promptly ignored for the whole game. The Maiden Guard are laid out in a firing line (or will be, once the Tears of Isha move up onto the hill), while the Marauders are mostly hiding behind the T5 Marauders! The Berserkers are in reserve, in Ambush

In order to decide who gets to go first in this scenario, each player nominates a 1-wound Champion from one of their Infantry or Cavalry units, and the two Champions then fight to the death. Winner's army goes first, loser's army goes second and has a dead Champion! Raliemne, champion of the Tears of Isha, stepped forwards to challenge the brutal, fur-covered Norscan...

...and slew him in the second round of combat! Elven skill and Ithilmar blades proved too much for the foul champion of the Dark Gods, and Isha smiled on the Maiden Guard

End Elf Turn 1 - having won the fight to go first, the Tears of Isha along with Commander Aeilliniarie and Finelle the Herald moved up onto the hill while the Eyes of Isha shifted forwards to get a better firing angle. All three regiments loosed their bows, firing into the 20 Marauders with great axes at the front of the enemy army. Seven fell, in all, their bulky bodies collapsing to the ground transfixed by shimmering red-fletched arrows

End Chaos Turn 1 - unable to act with any subtlety, the Chaos force marched forwards. Their wizard unleashed The Summoning, causing seven S4 AP1 hits on the Eyes of Isha, immediately reducing them to just three Sisters of Avelorn! That was a shock, and underlined how important it is to have a wizard of one's own to provide magical defence; the Fated Dispel just doesn't cut it... In retrospect however this was incorrect, as the wizard, tucked safely behind the Marauders, had no Line of Sight to my Sisters of Avelorn, and should not have been able to cast the spell. No matter! A learning point

End Elf Turn 2 - enraged by the slaughter, the Maiden Guard raised their bows and loosed again, reducing the T5 Marauders to just five!

End Chaos Turn 2 - the Marauders facing off against the much-depleted Sisters of Avelorn tried to charge but failed - the Stand and Shoot reaction however did kill two of their number, leaving just the command group. The Berserkers arrived, much to my consternation - that was a very close and very scary unit - while the other Marauder unit advanced behind the wood, hoping to hide from any incoming arrows. The wizard tried to cast The Summoning again, but failed

End Elf Turn 3 - the Heart of Isha shuffled around, presenting their front to the threat on their flank and retaining sight of the Marauders behind the wood. Both they and the Tears fired into the larger unit of Marauders in front of them, reducing them to just six - 11 dead in a single round of shooting! Meanwhile the Eyes of Isha killed the musician from the T5 Marauders and braced themselves for the inevitable charge...

End Chaos Turn 3 - the turn of charges. The Berserkers lunged into the Heart of Isha, which stood, shot, and reformed, killing two before the foaming barechested Khornate worshippers slammed into their shield wall; while over on the right flank the champion and standard bearer charged into the Eyes of Isha. Just before combat began, the wizard managed to cast The Summoning again, on the Tears of Isha - how many hits? 12 S4 hits please. 10 of the Maiden Guard fell to the terrible creatures, but the survivors simply recited the lament for the dead and stood, steadfast, on the hill. The Sisters of Avelorn were unable to kill either of the Marauders as they came forwards, but in the ensuing combat the standard bearer was slain along with almost all the Sisters except the champion, who merely Gave Ground. Over on the left flank, the Berserkers rolled badly and killed just two Maiden Guard after losing two of their own to the Elven spears - a drawn combat!

End Chaos Turn 4 (I forgot to take a photo at the end of my own Turn 4, so a quick recap of that - Commander Aeilliniarie charged out of the Tears of Isha into the T5 Marauder Champion, while the  Tears of Isha as well as the Herald fired at the wizard, but only managed to cause one wound; the Heart lost their combat against the Berserkers and were pushed back; the two champions and the Commander on the right flank fought hard but failed to wound each other) - the remains of the Marauders in the centre charged the Tears of Isha, whose shooting as they came up the hill reduced them to the Marauder Chieftan, the Standard Bearer, and the Musician. The wizard cast The Summoning again, but this time a Fated Dispel saw the dark incantation fail. In combat, the Berserkers pushed the disciplined Maiden Guard back and back, but they held on, just remaining on the table and frustrating the enemy. The Tears of Isha, striking first, slew all except for the Marauder Chieftan, who fled 12" right past the stunned wizard, who looked up to see, in front of her, some very angry Elves - the Commander had finally managed to kill the Marauder Champion, and the Sister of Avelorn champion had run forwards, eager to kill the foe and revenge her warriors

End Elf Turn 5 - the Commander climbed back up the hill to get a better line of sight, while the Tears and the champion of the Eyes stood still to make their shots count. They calmly and methodically dispatched both the Marauder Chieftan and the wizard, avenging their fallen sisters as they did so. Meanwhile the Heart of Isha eked out a drawn combat, with the champion challenging, and then killing, the Berserker champion in single combat - the last turn was about to come, and it felt like the game was in the balance

End Chaos Turn 5, End Game - the Berserkers, Frenzied to a man, slew the last of the Heart of Isha who had slowed them down and bled them for the last six rounds of combat, and then promptly pursued 2"... which was just enough to leave the board, as the base of the rightmost front ranker slid over the board edge and pulled the whole unit off the table! The day belonged to the Maiden Guard, but it had been a bloody toll indeed

In the end, I won 674 to 385 VP, and even though neither of us had paid any attention to the objectives K would still have lost by a good 190 or so VP even if he'd held both objectives for as long as he possibly could have. In the aftermath, I rolled Insurmountable Losses for both the Tears of Isha and the Heart of Isha regiments (which is appropriate, given one suffered 100% losses and the other a mere 85% losses) and Terrible Losses for the Eyes of Isha. This means that both regiments of Maiden Guard lose all their XP and Veteran Abilities, and the Sisters of Avelorn keep their XP but lose their existing Veteran Ability. Ah well! That Ld 9 was nice while it lasted.

Tomorrow, I might even do some painting. Who knows what'll happen, eh?

Back To The Printing Mines

The last few days have been very full of people-related activity, and not so much on the hobby front. I did finally pick up some new black spray undercoat, so I might actually try that out at some point, but other than that I've sort of avoided the painting table for a while. Which is annoying. I have stuff to paint!

On the other hand, I have done a little bit more 3D printing. I sent an Iron Sultanate warband to a friend in Sheffield, and a bunch of monopose 1980s style Skaven and shields for the same all the way round the world to another friend in Aotearoa (New Zealand, for those of you who aren't aware that it has another, older, name). And for myself, I printed some more Maiden Guard and a couple of options for a Level 2 Wizard to bump my Maiden Guard force up to 1,000 points for the next stage of the Escalation League.

There's two missing Maiden Guard, because of a misprint. I'll make more tomorrow I think. The mage at the right rear is a female version of the mage from Heroquest, while the mage at right front is just a generic elf. I cut down her ears, which were ridiculously huge, and gave her a bow and arrow because I decided she'd have the Shadow Stalker Honour, letting her pal around with the Sisters of Avelorn and add a bit of firepower if her spells weren't up to much in the shooting phase - after all, Wizard she may be, but that's still BS4 she's got!

 
So other than that I have The Itch to do some painting, but I probably won't have any time to actually do any until Wednesday, because tomorrow I have a game of Mordheim with B and a 750pt Escalation League game with K, both at the LUNAR club (which now has a funky logo, courtesy of my partner P):

Tomorrow I get to hand out membership cards and induct people into the cul- errr club. Should be a nice time, and I'm looking forwards to the games!

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.

A Standard Fit For A Queen

No post yesterday, but I did do a little bit of hobbying - I constructed the standard for my Maiden Guard Battle Standard Bearer! Initially I was planning on getting P to sculpt me a standard top in Blender that I could 3D print and put on top of the 1mm thick bit of wire that I was going to use for the standard pole, but then I thought I'd probably have something suitable in the ol' bits box(es). After a good ten or fifteen minutes' of rummaging, I actually found a bunch of High Elf plastic sprues with banner parts on! After chucking those together with some judicious cutting, drilling, and gluing, I ended up with...

The crossbar and flag is from the High Elf Spearmen set (I think); the speartip is from the High Elf Noble and Battle Standard Bearer kit's lance, the heart with fancy rays coming off it is from the Silver Helms kit 

You can see the pieces a little (emphasis on little, this is a terrible photo) more clearly here

Today I spent some time bringing her up to the same standard as the rest of the Maiden Guard on the painting table, and blocked out the base colours for the design of the flag, as well:

The standard is going to be an interesting bit of freehand

The actual design is taken straight from the section on Avelorn in the old Games Workshop publication Heraldry of the High Elves, as seen here:

Obviously in my version the image of Isha will have brown skin and sleek black hair, which may prove a minor issue in contrasting colours, but in for a penny in for a pound and all that

 In addition, I did some more work on the Maiden Guard in general, blocking out their skin and highlight all the leather, as well as undercoating all the red areas on them too.

After I finish these, the next 250 points for this army will be made up of... 10 more Maiden Guard!

So, quite a productive couple of days, really. And, on top of all that work, I spent some time after work tonight creating the Mordheim Gazetteer, which I will use to chronicle the Llangefni United Nerds And Roleplayers Club's Mordheim campaign. It's starting in earnest next week, and it'd be fun to get some more eyes on it other than just the club. Check it out!

The Horn of Isha Blows

Ever since they were released, I have wanted an army of High Elves based around the Maiden Guard of the Everqueen of Ulthuan. When they came out, back in the late 1990s, I thought they were incredibly cool - the idea that there were 100 Elf women who fought with spears and bows as the bodyguard of the Everqueen, and the look of the miniatures - it was all just an awesome package for small me. But, of course, I couldn't afford them and anyway I was collecting Undead and various Imperial Guard and Space Marines at the time. I did end up, somehow, with a metal Maiden Guard champion, but I have no idea how or when. Fast forwards to a little while ago, and the various wargamers in and around Llangefni were talking about an Old World Escalation League - starting with 500 points and building up from there over the course of a year. I initially was thinking about making an army based around a force of High Elf 'marines', as it were - Lothern Sea Guard, Shadow Warriors, Eagle Claw Bolt Throwers - the sort of troops that the High Elves would have on board their fleets, who can go ashore and make raids or travel uprivers and strike from there.

 Then I remembered the other High Elf unit that uses spears and bows. And I remembered that I had a working 3D printer.

So I started looking around for models that could work as Maiden Guard...

 ...and I found some:

These are made from scans of the original metals...

...and these are made as a multipart kit inspired by the originals

 So now, at long last, I'll have my Maiden Guard army. The first 500 points is small - as is to be expected from the High Elves - with just two units of "Lothern Sea Guard" and one of Sisters of Avelorn, led by a Noble. Should be able to get them ready for the start of the Escalation League in January I think. 

 

The Dark Powers Call Once Again

I have a small selection of stuff inside the house that's in the painting queue, and having finished the Firestarters and the grots the other day I had to have a think about what I felt like picking up today. In the end I decided to get moving on the Chaos Undivided cultists for my Iron Warriors force. Made up of the quite recent GW Chaos Cultist models (which are, I think, inspired by the late 1990s metal cultists sculpted by Paul Muller which were only for sale for a very short period of time), this group of 20 has a leader, a flamer, and a heavy stubber. It basically has two units within itself - a group of 10 with close quarters weapons, and a group of 10 with longer ranged weapons - enabling it to either sit on an objective or move up and get slaughtered by the opponent so that the actual Iron Warriors can do something more useful.

They may look like not much has been done, but there's four colours on those models at the moment!

Colour wise, tonight I just added the brown for their leather - belts, straps, and boots - and tomorrow if I have time (P and I are going to the cinema) I'll do some work on their various cloth wraps and pick out any other metalwork that's been missed previously. I'm not completely sold on the red and black colours, as it seems a bit Khornate rather than Undivided. I might swap the red for another colour - grey perhaps, or maybe yellow. I should quite quickly be at the point where I can slap a wash over them and move towards completion, but I'm torn between an overall Agrax wash or a mix of Agrax on the fabrics and Nuln Oil on the metalwork. 

Oh, and I also popped a Nuln Oil wash on the Ork Lobba that I have kicking around which can stand in for a Kannon in a pinch, theoretically giving me four Kannons (or two Kannons and two Lobbas, if I use the Kannon without a gunshield as a Lobba...) for the Ork Waagh. Again, that should be dry enough tomorrow for me to finish off with a Leadbelcher drybrush and some black, white, and red detailing. 

I was meant to have a game of Necromunda tonight at the inaugural meeting of the LUNAR* Club, but alas, I didn't feel well enough to go, so a quiet night in was had instead. I still have the Old World game at the weekend and next week I'll definitely be off to LUNAR on Tuesday, if I can find someone to have a game with.

* Llangefni United Nerds And Roleplayers **

** I'm the only one who calls it that... so far.