Carnage In The Old World: Orcs & Goblins vs Empire

This one was absolutely crazy...

A 3,439pt clash of Empire vs Orcs & Goblins in the Old World.

Big Beasts: Empire vs Warriors of Chaos

It's an Old World after all!

Where a cannonball catches a Ghorgon right across the bullocks...

Tower Heist: Dwarfs vs Orcs & Goblins

Battle rages over a genuine artefact of the old times ... cardboard scenery from White Dwarf!

Leopold-Print Cloak

Another roll on the Nice List, and it takes us back to the very beginning, my Dogs of War army!

Let's find out what's new, pussycat!

Payment Clause Is Coming To Town

On the twenty-second day of Advent the WoffBoot brought to me ... a fat man with a white beard.

And he's ho-ho-homicidal!

WoffBoot: The Movie!

Having penned over 80 battle reports, we thought we'd have a try at making a video report. But, of course, we couldn't just make any old video...

So here we have a 2500 pt battle between Empire and Orcs & Goblins, as narrated by Brother 'Peachy' Toliver Carnehan and Brother Daniel 'Danny' Dravot, former Gunnery Sergeants in the Queen’s own Royal Loyal Light Infantry.

It was a fun battle - the losses were appalling (and so were the accents!)

Marauder Dawn: Warriors of Chaos vs Empire

Prologue

Salaga contemplated the gold coins in his hand. "The Burgomeister is worried," he concluded. "He's never paid us in advance before."

The paymaster was busying himself among the mercenary regiments, freely distributing stipends and promising more if they fought hard. They'd marched a long way through the Border Princes to take this job, and it seemed their leader had doubts that they'd be marching back.

"He values our talents," Mechika looked up from slowly whetting his ceremonial knife to answer his fellow acolyte. "He pays out of respect for our master."

Salaga scowled, biting back his response. Mechika's words never revealed anything, no more than his face did. In all their travels, that cold snake had never let his mask slip, never questioned the motives of their Hierophant master. But Salaga was not deceived: both apprentices had been sent on this dangerous mission so that one might prove himself, and the other might die.

And Salaga would ensure that he alone triumphed. Once this renegade daemon had been banished back to the void, he would ensure that Mechika would follow close behind.

---

Mechika eyed his fellow acolyte, so hot with temper it might singe his topknot. Salaga had little control over his emotions; it made him powerful. And vulnerable. He would have to look after him in the coming battle, for the deamon Phlothos was not to be underestimated. If even half the stories were to be believed, this unclean one was indestructible, surviving a string of bloody encounters to emerge stronger every time.

Now Phlothos had corrupted a village of farmers and peasants. Even at this distance, Mechika could see the massive horde brandishing their wood axes and scythes, like a pack of beastmen bearing down upon them. These were indeed dark days, and it was the duty of every pupil to cast his own light against it.

"To battle, then." he nodded at Salaga and took his place among the crossbowmen.

"To battle." Salaga strode off to join the other unit of Tileans. At least they had been spared fighting in the front rank. Here, on this hill, they would be afforded some protection.

He would do his duty. And yet Mechika wondered why they had been sent here, to such a remote corner, to confront a daemon who was already leaving their lands.

And then it occurred to him that perhaps their master, wise as ever, had devised a means of ridding himself of two ambitious apprentices at one stroke.

Let All Wrongs be put Right!

It's All-Skype Fight Night!

As the Warhammer World is pitched into the writers' bin at GW, the epic journey of Phlothos is almost at its shattering conclusion! Tonight, having ascended to Daemonhood but lost his entire warband in the process, he's up against the stalwart steel of the Empire. Can he reach his final goal and extract vengeance on the dwarves? Or will these puny mortals thwart his schemes?

I alone, Kraken, shall chronicle Phlothos's deeds...

And I, Stylus, will once again captain the revolving-door of opposing armies - this time it's The Empire! (in the guise of greedy Dogs of War, bless 'em)

We're playing another of our variant magic phase rules, this time using standard 8th Ed magic rules but with End Times spell selection - so everybody knows everything, but has much less power to cast it with.

Wizards' Cup Final: Cup and Sorcery

The Final of the Wizards' Cup has arrived!

In the purple corner is the overwhelming tournament favourite: the Lore of Death, who have sailed through the qualifiers on the back of public acclaim and anti-character spells.

In the grey corner is the plucky underdog, who seem to have staggered into the final though remarkable luck, favourable decisions and the wisdom of an old Okinawan karate teacher.

Wax on...

And so Kraken and I took up arms to determine the Eight College Champion!

Wizards' Cup Semi-Final 2: Merlin's Beard

We now come to the second of the Wizards' Cup semi-finals.

In the qualifying heats, the Shadow Wizard lost his spells and his army, but still managed to impale the Life Wizard against the run of play.

Meanwhile, in a high noon gunfight, the Light Wizard's burning wrath proved more than a match for the searing spells of the Gold Wizard.

Who wins? You decide...

Disclaimer: you don't get to decide.

Wizards' Cup Semi-Final 1: Kicking Oz

The Wizards' Cup enters the final four, and only two lores will face off in the final.

Before we get into the first semi-final, may I draw your attention to the podcasts of The Dwellers Below, an aptly-named group of Aussie tournament players who get together on a monthly basis to yammer about the 'hammer.

They usually last for 2 hours (it could probably be cut to a lean 45 minutes without the jokes, but why would you want that?) and the ones I've listened to I've found to be both informative and an absolute riot.

Anyway, their latest podcast discusses all of the Battle Magic lores in detail, as they debate which ones are the best. So this is clearly a common train of thought in WFB (makes me wish I'd taken notes before commencing battle here - it might have helped).

But enough of this ... on to glory!

Not pictured: glory.

Wizards' Cup Round 2: Whiffendor & Cravenclaw

It's All-Skype Fight Lunchtime!

It's amazing what you can do when you're on deadline.

Thwarted by poor broadband speed in the previous Quarter Finals, Kraken and I decided to try and cram the remaining two battles into a lunchtime. There was no leeway for overrunning this time, not with childcare and conference calls impending.

"Nuthin' is gonna ever keep you down..."

Wizards' Cup Round 1: Snuffitpuff & Shooteryn

It's All-Skype Fight Night!

There were a couple of delays to the kick-off of our Wizard's Cup. The first was some terrible (yet predictable) bank holiday traffic keeping me from my computer; the second was an intermittent broadband signal in Sweden, which can really put paid to a SkypeBoot.

However, in between the dropped calls, redials and saying "Hello?" about a billion times, we managed to play the first two rounds of the Wizard's Cup.

Feel free to add the soundtrack "You're The Best Around"

Mine's A Djinn

Heavens above! For a moment there, I was afraid I wouldn't get all these wizards finished before the fighting started. But this rotund Celestial Wizard puffs in to belatedly join the others, like the chubby kid at the tail-end of cross-country run (ahhh ... school memories).

Shazam!

Tell Me Istari

The Lore of Life is next to be painted, and the model I used completes my trio of miscoloured Lord of the Rings Istari: Saruman the White Grey; Gandalf the Grey White Amber and now, Radagast the Brown Jade.

"So do we all get horses?"
"Yeah, horses... yours is over there. In that hutch."

Whereas the other two miniatures were easy enough to pick up, I had to be patient until I got one at a decent price (about a quarter of GW's original retail). It's out of production now, as it was only an 'extended universe' design by the Perry Brothers, having since been replaced by the 'as seen in the movie' one from The Hobbit.

Light Relief

I should really be painting Jade Wizards or Celestial Wizards right now, but these two have been languishing in my leadpile for many years, and when they heard I was painting spellcasters, they demanded attention.

We can see the light!

They're a couple of Light College Acolytes, cast in metal and going back to 4th Edition Warhammer. They had a peculiar rule where your Light Wizard could have five of these deployed behind him ranks of two and three, to form a triangle with the wizard at the apex.

Amber Wizard, Red Rum

I continue to lay down the lore, and today it's the Amber College of Magic.

There's an interesting decision to be made when picking a Beast Wizard: put him on a horse, and he'll get +1 for casting anything on himself (there are three likely spells), due to the Lore Attribute. However if you want the super-dragon transformation spell, he needs to be on foot.

In the end, I went with a mounted wizard: I expect he'll see most action in cavalry-heavy lists; I found a model I really liked; and I also don't have any model resembling a manticore, hydra, chimera or dragon (*drafts painting list for monsters*).

Giddy up.

Mr. Grey Will See You Now

I already have a few hireling wizards in my Dogs of Empire army (Bright, Amethyst and Light). More than enough to do the job (if by 'do the job' you mean miscast spectacularly or get caught in the open and overrun for a massive loss of points).

And after a bit of recategorization, when I realised my mad scientist conversion was a better fit for an alchemist than an engineer, I could also count a Metal wizard.

So that gives me four of eight colleges. But as you know, I'm not the kind of obsessive-compulsive who would need to collect a representative from every lore of magic, just because I was halfway there.

Yeah, so here's the Lore of Shadow.

Lover of the Russian queen.

Phalanx For The Memories

Eagle-eyes readers of our last battle report may have noticed a discrepancy in my army list: the big block of Spearmen that bravely withstood the Chaos hordes (mostly by getting killed in a slow fashion) was numbered at 40, whereas I only had 30 Spearmen in my collection.

I know they were all proxied in Sweden, but it still matters.

Fear not - your sleepless nights are over. I was, in fact, able to field a unit of 40 Spears, thanks to a timely acquisition and a bit of quick brushwork.

They only had three colours on them at the time of the battle.
(but that's still tournament-legal, right?)

Bridge over Muddy Waters: Warriors of Chaos vs Empire

It's All-Skype Fight Night!

Yes, we're back after the summer break. I, Kraken, will be in the Normal Corner with my erstwhile opponent Stylus the Bold.

Bold as brass, brazen as bronze and good as gold. After 18 months on the sidelines, the Dogs of Empire are back in business!

Forces

Time to experiment with mobility, I decided.

Blowing a huge chunk of points on a pair of disk-riding sorcerors felt hugely liberating. I've been skimping on character points in general, not going for the superhuman ubertooled warhunks that WoCs do so well. Partly because I've been stung endlessly by such temptations before and partly because I've had to save points up to try out the various specials I've got but still have a reasonably sized army.

Having done that, I thought I might as well finish the blowout with a second helping of sorceror - a Nurgle Lord, for the cataclysmic plague spells he'd bring. In an ideal world, Curse of the Leper followed by Rancid Visitations and then some random Tzeentchian zapping would surely bring anything to its knees. And then I could cut the remaining knees up with some good old fashioned melee troopers.

Just to really ram home the magical juice, the Mutalith Vortex Beast to really sit on any squashed toughness troops.

And a chariot. Because chariots. With a couple of decent-sized combat units, I was feeling small but evilly formed.

The Ooze Brothers

Eirik Crapton - 4th Level Sorceror Lord of Nurgle, Crown of Command, Feedback Scroll
Jarek Eblue - 1st Level Sorceror of Tzeentch on Disc, Charmed Shield
Helwood Eblue - 1st Level Sorceror of Tzeentch on Disc, Sword of Striking, Talisman of Protection
Chaos Chariot
20 Marauders of Nurgle, full command, marks, shields and light armour
15 Warriors of Tzeentch, full command, marks, shields, Blasted Standard
Mutalith Vortex Beast

We're so glad to see so many of you lovely people here tonight

My success with Empire hasn't been great, mostly because I have lots of basic infantry and what little cavalry I own, I can't use properly. I decided to emphasise the infantry, rely on combat buffs from the Light Wizard and the Warrior Priest Paymaster and ended up with something not dissimilar to a gunline.


The Long Tall Salient

John Lee Hacker - General of the Empire, Full Plate Armour. Ogre Blade. Enchanted Shield. Luckstone
B.S.B King - Battle Standard Bearer, Shield. Full Plate Armour
Sunnie Holiday - Light Wizard, Lv 2, Dispel Scroll. Scroll of Shielding
Johnny Cashback - Warrior Priest, Shield. Heavy Armour. Obsidian Trinket
Ray 'Gun' Charles - Witch Hunter, Brace of Pistols. Ruby Ring of Ruin. Potion of Speed
40 x Spearmen, Spear, Light Armour. Command Group
       10 x Halberdiers, (detachment)
5 x Knights, Lances, Shields, Full Plate Armour. Barded Warhorse. Musician
16 x Greatswords, Great Weapon, Full Plate Armour. Command Group.  Standard of Discipline.
       8 x Crossbowmen, (detachment)
5 x Pistoliers, Brace of Pistols, Light Armour. Musician
1 x Great Cannon
1 x Great Cannon

I also painted up a new miniature for the occasion: my shady-looking Witch Hunter. As he's only 50pts, and new models invariably underperform, I gave him the Ruby Ring, so he'd have a chance of making an impact.

Other magic items were mainly to boost my feeble characters' survivability, or for some magical defence.

(Keen-eyed readers may spot that my Light Wizard had illegally brought two arcane items. Rest assured, this mistake was efficiently dealt with).

"We'll put the band back together, do a few gigs, we get some bread. Bang! Five thousand bucks."

Even the background is proxied. Strawberry Fields Forever. 

Which Hunter? This One!

According the my Great Big Painting Plan, I have long-since finished my Dogs of War/Empire army and should be moving on to complete the others.

But I'm enjoying the hiatus that has followed the Savage Orc project, and have now dusted off a number of old miniatures that don't belong to any plan. I just happen to feel like painting them.

Also, the special occasion of this evening's SkypeBoot with Kraken was excuse enough to add another model to my mercenary army (I bet he'll disappoint - newly-painted miniatures invariably do).

"Stand and deliver your witches!"