In the Nick of Taum

I promised myself I'd get these done by the end of the month. Mere hours away from failure, I managed a slightly high-pressure evening of fine detail work.

Nothing like staring down the barrel of a gun to get you working faster

Here, then, is a pair of Broadside suits.

The first suit is in the standard pose, the one you get by following the instructions.

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!"

Battle Masters - The Epic Game of Fantasy Battles

Now, we're all aware about HeroQuest - the attempt to boardgameify (yes, it's a word) the RPG experience - but was did anyone else know about this MB Games/Games Workshop collaboration to do the same for Warhammer Fantasy Battle?

Whilst browsing through some US comics from the early 1990s (it's important to stay well-read), I came across this three page advert:

Are the orc, the ogre and the knight actually playing the game?
That's a tough demographic to market to.

Kill The Dead: Warriors of Chaos vs Vampire Counts

It's All Skype F(r)ight Night!

Forces

Stay Down

In the Plain Corner! It's me, General Kraken, with a relatively standard selection of my sloggy footmen. 

In the Bold Corner! It's General Kasfunatu.

Kas gave me a random table to roll on to see what I'd be up against, and I scored a fight with his Ghoul-based Vampire Counts. Sighing, I reached for the Hexwraith countermeasures. 

Of which there are none. So an experimental army instead, several small chaffy units of naked marauders that I hoped to use as redirective cannon fodder, a chariot, some buffed up characters and warriors and a unit of Khornate Chosen. Plus loose change - so I've got lots of units, but they're all quite small. I'm not totally sure MSU is a good look for Chaos, but who knows! 

• Luks Mortis, Chaos Lord - Scaled Skin, Soul Feeder, Crown of Command, Tormentor Sword
• Thanator, Exalted Hero - BSB with the ever popular Banner of Discipline
• Karaktar the Assassinator, Chaos Sorcerer - Level 2 lore of Death, barded chaos steed, chaos familiar, opal amulet, charmed shield, gold sigil sword
• 10 Chaos Warriors - Marks of Slaanesh, shields, Lichebone Pennant
• 10 Marauder scum - Naked
• 10 Marauder scum - Also Naked
• 10 More Marauder scum - Birthday Suits
• 1 Chariot
• 10 Chosen of Khorne - Marks of Khorne, shields, Banner of Swiftness
• 1 Warshrine
• Chaos Spawn of Slaanesh

I had delved in to my pile of unplayed 1600 pt lists and ended up with one of the undead lists. I think I fancied the Tzeentch daemon chances (another option) but I could not decide (hence the roll)... I quite liked it as a way of choosing, I may try again on the next battle. (And when proxying it really didn't matter that they looked like).

The undead list spent all their core points on one horde of ghouls, I opted for a corpsecart (mainly to reduce the WoCs casting ability rather than the ASF boost), then a minimum sized units of bloodknights. The blood knights were joined by a vampire, I had a lone vampire on a hellsteed for character/chariot hunting, and a vampire lord with the ghouls.

Death By Proxy

• Lord Varys, Vampire lord lvl3 lore of vampire, enchanted shield, heavy armour, great weapon, red fury, quickblood
• 39 Crypt ghouls with champion
• Prince Fazir, Vampire, lvl2 lore of vampire, nightmare, heavy armour, shield, warrior bane, obsidian amulet
• 4 blood knights with command and flag of the blood keep
• Corpse cart with balefire
• Squire Horax, Vampire lvl1 lore of vampire, hellsteed, shield, great weapon, armour of destiny, beguile

And Tau For Something Completely Different

Did somebody say there was a Crisis?

Another commission from General Kas, this time some 40 000 years into the future. I'd always fancied trying my hand at Tau, because although I don't really like the fluff, I think the miniatures can look pretty cool. They also present a pretty specific set of challenges that I wanted to have a go at.

Helven is a Place on Earth: Warriors of Chaos vs High Elves

It's All Skype Fight Night!

With the temporary addition of General Kasfunatu to the Swedish Woff Contingent, it was time for some LWFB action! 

I'll be writing in normal type, Kasfunatu in Bold. 

Forces

What better time to conclude my Elven Trilogy than with a general who doesn't have any experience of fielding from the 8th Ed list? After learning so much from the first two matches, surely I'd have a hope this time. 

That'd be me then! I don't think I even played High Elves with 7th rules; and their last outing was prior to Woffboot IV. 

I decided on a fairly similar approach to my grand success against the Wood Elves. A decent unit of warriors, a Nurgle sorceror general, disciplinarian BSB and backup Tzeentchian sorceror for shooting. Plus some Nurgle Marauders with great weapons, because if you're going to hit last, you may as well hit hard. For support, a chariot, a warshrine and (making his debut) the Shaggoth. 

Nurgle wizardry ought to scare the elven toughness a bit. And weirdly, Tzeentchian sorcery makes a decent bedfellow to it, specifically to Curse of the Leper. Random strength missiles like lower toughness, and it makes it harder to give your enemy regeneration by mistake. 

Bad For Yer Elf 

Kheyslyme Py, Sorceror Lord - Mark and lore of Nurgle lvl 3, Chaos Familiar, Dispel Scroll, Crown of Command - 330

Wild Billy Tentacles, Sorceror - Mark and Lore of Tzeentch, 3rd Eye of Tzeentch, Charmed Shield, Luckstone - 180

Ordar Urdargh, Exalted Hero - BSB with Banner of Discipline, Shield - 153

15 Chaos Warriors - Full command and shields - 255

15 Chaos Marauders - Full command, light armour, shields, great weapons, mark of Nurgle - 225

Chariot - 110

Warshrine - 130

Shaggoth - additional hand weapon - 220

[Apologies - no army shots right now, we forgot in the thick of things. We played on a timer, the end point being the return of my daughter from a shopping expedition.]

For the elves I wanted to try a phoenix, and so one of those had to be added, you should never leave home without a bolt thrower, and people tell me that Eagles are great redirectors (and despite never quite managing this as successfully as I think I should - I was going to keep trying) - which meant that my rare choices were already full.

I decided that I would take one block of special troops, and then fill my core with archers (some static and some fast cav). The core was made of two small groups of archers, and a small group of reavers to nip behind and annoy. My block was made up of phoenix guard.

Whilst I did worry about not including a lvl 3 or even 4 mage, I wanted to try the new Loremaster and so although I knew I was potentially weaker in the magic phase, the options of all the CRB signatures could prove interesting, Aithlin stepped up to the challenge.

Unlike my usual Ogre/Vamp lists where taking a BSB is costly, it is far easier, and therefore even more worth their points when the hero holding it is that much cheaper - so introducing Bellas the BSB.

With a concern over magic, I opted for a second lvl2 mage; and Cluyn the metal mage joined the fray.

The International Elf Service

Aithlin, Loremaster of Hoeth - Obsidian Amulet - 260

Bellas, Noble - BSB w/banner of discipline - 116

Cluyn, Mage - lvl 2 metal, dispel scroll - 145

10 Archers - Musician - 110

12 Archers - Musician - 130

8 Reavers - Musician, Bows - 162

18 Phoenix Guard - Full command with banner of movement - 315

Frostheart Phoenix - 240

Bolt thrower - 70

Great Eagle - 50