Thats so Skaven. Warhammer Fantasy

Played a game of Warhammer on Friday against Jiri (finally found out the correct spelling of this name). We had loads of input from the various veterans in store. I won the game but the victory was a little hollow as you get swayed by the voices and then you question was it really your victory?

Any way Juri and I enjoyed ourselves so much we agreed to meet up again Sunday for a rematch. Jiri asked for a 900 point game so I asked to play 1000 points so I could play test my 1000 point force.

1000 points it is!

SET UP

I am forced to deploy first and after the experience of his gutter runners on Friday set my forces in the corner leaving no room for his gutter runners to sneak in behind me. I also wanted to protect my 2nd wizard (Rags) from the 20 skirmishers Jiri fielded!

Jiri set his forces up in the opposite corner. (I'm hoping the smoking boots are a sign of things to come!).

(Porn shot)

I assign Markus to fire magic, Rags to Lore of metal and Custoras gets the fireball spell in his ring of volans.

INITIAL TURNS

Move forward with caution due to the profileration of gutter runners and send the out riders off to gun down one of the units while the 2 wizards target the other 2 units.

And then I roll a double six off 3 die for my FIRST spell!! Two knights disappear and Makus takes a wound, everything else proves ineffective. Well that went well!

Jiri's turn. He inches the Skaven forward and then opens up with all his magic and shooty units. I think hes a bit cautious as my units absolutely wrecked his rats when they got to grips with them on Friday.

And then....

.... his artillery open up and blow up with a large template.

Thankfully for Jiri he realises that his unit cannot move and then shoot, so with a sigh of relief he replaces the figures.

My outriders are coming off second best against the gutter runners and I think setting the outriders against them is going to prove to be a big mistake but I am commited now!

I decide its time to take the initiative. I move forward more aggressively and open up a shooting channel for Rags. I open up with fireballs, flaming cages and final transmutation to reduce the clan rats numbers and hopefully stop every unit within 12" of moving. This is mainly to Hamstring Jiri in case I fail my charges.

No surprise both charges fail, but I'm confident he will not charge my Demigryphs after Fridays experience. I figure he will try to panic my units with his warp artillery. Lets hope the imperial armour is up to scratch!

Jiri finally gets to open up with his warp artillery and ....................

.................. promptly misfires and blows up!!!!

Jiri somehow tries to move the unit closer to my knights to inflict maximum casualties on my unit but the Imperial armour saves the day again.

END GAME

I decide to charge both units in as it is time to finish this once and for all. Its turn six and Jiri is ahead on points!!

I charge with the Gryphs first and Jiri decides to flee, which makes sense as the Warp cannon is in the way and the rats will be able to bolt and survive the game, so I crash into the cannon and plan to wreck bloody havoc.

Then I charge with the Knights and for some reason Jiri decides to flee with this unit as well. It contains his Engineer leader, is 4" away from my knights (maximum), has no units to get in the way (now the cannon has blown up) and I am rolling 3 DICE!

I am very confused and figure this is some kind on trap! That is until I see Jiri's face when he realises what hes done and I run down his unit!!

The good news for me is this all happens in the movement phase so I still get to open up with my magic!!

I hex the fleeing rats with the flaming cage as I hope they will fail to rally and go bolting straight through the spell and take additional hits. To add insult to injury I also hit them with "Final Transmutation" hoping they fail their stupidity test next turn. I manage to roll a six for his character in the unit and it is turned to gold as well (I have to pay the troops somehow). Just to add to the Magic overload I also augment the gryphs as I want to brush the cannon aside and over run into the fleeing unit as I need to wrap this all up this turn!

The cannon does not stand a chance and the over run sends me straight through the remaining clan rats.

With only 7 gutter runners remaining on the field Jiri conceedes and we shake hands over what was a very tight game until the last turn.

LESSONS LEARNT

1) DO NOT FLEE FROM CAVALRY! Especially when they are so close. I figure it is even worth standing your ground with hand gunners as at least they might pick some off first!

2) Sending skirmishers up against skirmishers is pointless. All I have to do is look back to my battles against Lano's Lizards and Anthonys Wood elves to see how it should be done! flank big units, pop off vulnerable solos or artillery and force big units to circle on the spot to stop the flank attacks (been there). Jiri's gutter runners proved mostly ineffective against my armour and I should have concentrated on weakening the ranks of units I was going to charge or popping off Jiris two artillery units.

3) You do not need to see your target to cast Hexs and augments. This is a revelation to me and will change the way I use wizards in the future!

4) When all else fails....................................

Warmachine, probably the most complicated game in the world!

So played my first game of Warmachine yesterday, and blimey what a game!

First Alister handed me a load of minis including a general (called a caster), a couple of Robots (called Jacks), a goblin in a bowler hat (called a solo) and some Halberdiers (called Steelheads)

Al also fielded a caster, some jacks and a unit of "Skorne"; imagine post apocaliptic vampire samurai.

First thing first, with the exception of my "Caster" Ashlynn I absolutely love the miniatures and their METAL!!

Then I got handed the miniatures cards and it all gets very complicated very quickly. Stats, spells, feats, special weapons, abilities and god knows what else! I decide to just focus on the main stats and try to stick to a basic game plan of holding the centre of the table while sending a flanking force round the left of the table.

I figure the robots are the most stompy (?) so stick them in the middle. I use the halberdiers as a flanking force as they have the largest movement stat. The caster goes in the middle to support both elements of my attack. We play 3 turns and if your caster dies, game over.

Its all a bit of a blur but seems to be going ok as I mob one of his jacks and wreck it. One of his "Renegade" jacks is also close to being eliminated which should leave his caster open to attack in the third turn. And then it all goes very wrong very quickly.

One of his Jacks opens fire with its one shot weapon and knocks Ashlynn flat on her arse and then a jack with a cannon and an anchor opens fire and finishes her off.

Really enjoyed the game and like the fact you get a decent game with 10 miniatures a side. I REALLY like the fact you can not pre-measure anything as it adds a real sense of jeopardy to the game. Al and I shake hands and agree to meet up for round 2 in 2 weeks time.

Lessons learnt
1) 3 turns is not enough time to mess about with flanking attacks and I need to get stuck in. My largest unit (the halberdiers) spent the entire game trudging up the left without making a single contribution to the game.

2) When I got home the first thing I did (after putting the kettle on) was google "Warmachine Magnus....." and the first thing to pop was "........... assination tactics". Turns out you take two Renegades (which Al did), one knocks the caster on its arse, the other one finishes them off. Job done.

Won't be falling for that one again!

3) As the most powerful figure on the battle field I really should work out what spells, focus etc does.

Looking forward to round 2....

What a guy with no kids buys a guy with 2 kids.

So finally got my Birthday present from my Brother.

He is still a batchelor so figured it would be a good idea to buy a guy with two kids under 5 (thats me) this....

Yes it's a two foot long Uruk Hai sword, and yes it is really sharp!

All whinging aside I do love it, but your going to need a step ladder to see it.

3rd Edition Blood bowl. Hmmmmmmmmmmm

Popped into Minature Empire to pick up some Reaper miniatures I ordered and got talked into playing a game of 3rd edition.

First impressions are so so. It is a lot more punishing if you make mistakes and once you get your head round the rules I can imagine it is a lot faster flowing as there is a lot less reference to tables but .................. I'm still not sold. The players are so basic in the beginning and its much harder to clear the field (which I really like!) and most of the blocks result in pushing your opponent about. Time will tell.........

Only played one half before my parking ticket expired so will not do a narative but the photos did look brill.

Looking to google for inspiration

We now start up on the half way line. Lanos new lizard mat looks awesome

Sumo vs Skink it must be Blood bowl

Kermit plays Blood Bowl. What would Ms Piggy say?

The dug out staff

My score, re roll and turn markers

Kung fu Vs Baby shark?

Just porn really as Lano and I wanted to compare big guys. We are going to have a nightmare come the game as they are only supposed to take up one square each!

Wow thats a really long Cow!

As some of the fellas down the MEGC know I do struggle with the size of animals so this did make me look twice!!

Tale of 4 gamers. Lucias Von Dogstein

As well as playing an unplanned game of Blood Bowl, I started on my Empire out riders for the next 250 points of the tale of 4 gamers

Lucias Von Dogstein

Known simply as “Dog” among his pistolier charges he is a 35 year veteran of numerous campaigns and the outrider mentor of Custoras and his father before him.

Despite his prominent role in the battle of Big Little Horn (where he lost an eye) his young charge Custoras was hailed as the victor by the ruling aristocracy as they would not allow a low born outrider to be seen to succeed where numerous nobles had failed before him and grasped onto the idea of the young Pistolier Custoras rallying the troops as he was at least the bastard son of a noble.

With the death of so many noble sons while in his charge at the battle of Big Little Horn, Lucias soon fell out of favour as a mentor and his income dwindled as a consequence.

Custoras and his father always understood Lucias’ worth (especially in his current financial straits) and Custoras’ first act as new commander was to commission Lucias with a charter to “form a body of “Salty Dogs” for the role of harrying, scouting and various covert endeavours for the 1^st company Lustrian expeditionary forces".

 

Having been jaded from his recent experiences Lucias is much more worldly wise and is more than willing to set aside martial values and do what needs to be done to ensure the success of this expedition and therefore his fortune and has truly nailed his colours to Custoras’ mast.

So here he is Lucias Von Dogstein. I have decided to paint him and his outriders in more muted colours then the Knights etc  to show their covert nature and making them less visable during their flanking attacks etc.

I went with Black horses and dark natural colours, which is in keeping with the scouting nature of their role rather then have them standing out like a pimple on a pigs arse. They have even covered their armour with soot from the camp cooking pots to help them move about unseen. These fellas are in it for the money not the glory.

My hope is I can leave them in the shadows of a wood, building etc and have them jump out on the opposing player (especially in the low lights of the Mini Empire) as a nice surprise.

I was struggling with the look of this miniature until I spotted this head with an eye patch in the left overs from my Empire general and then it all clicked into place.

As Custoras' enforcer I wanted him to have a intimidating look so gave him a glaring look to the eyes. The wound to the back of the head is due to me taking a lump out of the head taking it off the spur so just painted it as a wound.

conversations in a Toy shop

Worked the shop today as its Saturday. I also sell retro toys through the shop and word is getting about among local collectors (1960's Rock and Roll guiter playing monkey anyone?).

 (What about some russian dolls of USSR politicians?)

Any way fella walks in and starts eyeing up my blood bowl box "how much for the bloodbowl mate?"

I tell him the back story and he realises his chances of buying it are slim to none.

"Do you play?" I ask and one thing leads to another and we are setting the teams up for a game!

Fellas name is Alister and turns out hes a top bloke.

Its Al's first ever game so we play without the refs, fouling or multiple blocks.

KICK OFF

Al kicks off as "the gentle men of the realm" and I recieve the ball deep in my own half.

I decide to play the old zig zag manoeuver and draw him off to the left before switching back to the right.

But first I need to injure some 'oomans  to get the numbers advantage.

Unfortunately it seems Al has the luck of the die (or I'm being hustled) and my plan falls to pieces deep in my own half so I punt the ball to give me a chance to regroup and pick off his most fragile players (el Smashico all over again).

Chin Lee collects the ball before my blitzers can stop him and punts the ball back up the field. Al does not make the roll and the ball scatters towards my players and the foot race in on which Al wins!

One - nil to Al. Time to put a bit of pressure on in the second half.

I recieve the kick again and no messing about I drive through the middle with my catchers flying down both wings with support.

Al gets drawn off to both flanks leaving the middle a little thin and I smash through targeting his more fragile linemen thrower and catcher. If I do get the quick score I want them sitting in the injury box for the rest of the game.

Shifty Nick exploits the gaps in the line and successfully dodges both blocks and runs in the touch down. Also Al's injury box is filling up nicely.

one all and still 6 turns to play. Can I pull this one off?

The next 6 turns are a bit of a maelstorm with a massive brawl in the middle while the ball is punted backwards and forwards over the top. Imagine wimbledon but with more blood and the strawberries will not cost you a second mortage.

But the photos look good!!!

The game end one all and it looks like the world has another convert to Bloodbowl.

Then Al asks "Have you ever played Warmachine?"

"No whats that?"

Steam powered robots....... go on

magic guns..................... I'm listening

and then he shows me a picture of a goblin in a bowler hat holding a telescope................ SOLD !!!!

So we are meeting at the shop this Thursday night for a play date................ Warmachine here we come!!!