Mordheim. Game eleven. Lock Stock and one smoking barrel

Red crashed through the ransacked rooms of the tower with reckless abandon. He desperately tried to cover every angle with his drawn pistols, as he barrelled through the rooms towards the Wyrd stone hoard. Each ragged breath a struggle in self control. How were the cultist still alive? How could they still be advancing? Our barrarge of fire should have dropped an army, let alone 13, red robed, cultist!

Breath! Red rebuked himself..... BREATH! But he could feel the panic rising. 'The sun will rise soon' he reassured himself 'you just have to hold the tower until the dawn!' 

He could feel his pounding heart slowly coming under control. 'We just have to defend the Wyrd stone find until Sol casts his gaze upon the earth. Thats just moments away'. 

"Stand fast you dog" he rebuked himself again "STAND FAST!"

"THESE COLOURS DON'T RUN!"

On the parapit above he could hear the muffled warcrys of Archie, Spook and Jeffery as they drew their weapons to make a last effort to hold the walkway! One desperate last stand to buy more time!

Suddenly a loud thud could be heard as something jumped down from the walkway onto  the tower, its weight causing the tower to shake and the ceiling plaster to crack. The sound of its landing resounding through the tower. 

Then the screams began! High pitched and terrified and protracted! The screams of men being ripped apart!

Red desperately wiped the sweat streaming down his face from his stinging eyes and glanced at the exit of the tower, then down to the wealth of Wyrdstone at this feet, indecision fixing him to the spot. Once again the tide of panic rose within him, threatening to wash away all pride and resolution within him. The screams above terminated abruptly!

Red wrenched his eyes away from the pools of blood quickly forming around the cracks of the ceiling plaster above, back towards the door and then down at the riches at his feet. "The sun is coming he desperately repeated to himself......... The sun is coming!"

Once again his eyes shot towards the safety of the exit of the tower....... "The sun approaches" he whispered like a terrified child ....... 'But so is DEATH!' a small terriffied voice within him whispered back!

Gripping Beast SAGA. The old one two!

Got to be honest I feel a bit bad writing this one up. Al's waited two weeks for a game and it took longer to set up the figures and chew the cud then it took to play the game.

Walloped Al in two turns. Poor sod did not even win initiative!

turn one full of cunning plans

I set up in a 'flying brick' formation with most of my forces close enough to be activated by my Warlord if needed, to get round 'intimidation'.

I move forward with my full force and place my archers on the hill. I have given up using them as missile troops and figure I will just throw them into combat with lots of battle board abilities as a nice surprise for someone.

Al moves forward aggressively and it looks like he plans to crash into my flank with a heavy force of Warriors.

He then makes the mistake of using his Warlord to move his slingers with 'come with me'. He places his Warlord down first and I suddenly realise how horribly exposed his leader is and he does not have any die on the 'intimidation' ability!

He moves a unit of 12 warriors up as body guards but its too late and I have seen an opportunity to finish this. With a good roll of the die his arse is mine!

Look at that Anglo Dane all out on his own!

I roll the die, do the maths and have to smile! I have a pang of guilt so raise my eyes to Al and say "I think I have this one in the bag already. Do you want to see something cool?"

Unaware of the danger he is in due to the large number of Warriors around him and my Berserkers being miles away Al simply smiles back and says "do your worst!"

And with those words his fate is sealed (depending on the die!).

I activate the Hirdguard using 'follow me' and they are within charge range of the warriors. I activate again and Al trys to play my fatigue to reduce my movement but I'm still in.

I boost the Hirdguard attacks to see off the Anglo Dane warriors for no losses (I guess Odin was smiling down at this one!).

Then.........

"where you going lads?"

....... activate again to surround the Dane Warlord. I go all in with 'valhalla' and I watch Al's face drop as the pile of attack die grows and grows!

Al tries to stem the flurry of attacks by sacrificing attack die for extra defence die but an above average roll of the die sees Als Warlord stomped into the ground while his ENTIRE warband stare on, helpless to intervene.

Turn two full of dead warlords!

Al stares down in disbelief. He has only lost 5 figures. Unfortunatley one of those is his Warlord!

I shuffle my feet and try to avoid eye contact as I say "well it's only early, we could get another game in!"

Al declines so we put the kettle on and I talk Al through what just happened.

Sorry mate!

Rogue trader. John ConnORK. The saviour of Ork kind.

This whole post is inspired by this post. It literally had my brain working over time!

Ever since buying the original Rouge Trader rule book last year I have been thinking through some of my favourate sci-fi films (E.T., The day of the Triffids, Jurrasic park, Village of the damned, Aliens, The thing from another world, THEM and of course Terminator) and thinking how they can be given a 40K twist. 

Then Sho3box (who is in my blog list, please check him out his stuff is brilliant) posted this and it resonated with me. 

Recently I was sorting through some Ork bits and pulled this fella out.

John Connork

This Ork was actually a freebie from ebay. I had bought a load of stuff from a fella from ebay (this was last year before my miniature embargo) and he was kind enough to send me the few bits I had not bid on as well in order to clear the lot. What a lovely gesture.

I originally pulled him out to as something to slap some paint on to get my eye in when the 'Brain Boyz' blog post flashed to the fore of my mind and SUDDENLY.......

He is John ConnORK, sprog of the deranged Ork maiden Sarah ConnORK. Raised to believe he would lead the remnants of the Ork race to freedom after "the rise of the Brain Boyz" in the future orkpocolypse. He was trained from birth in both the ways of the Mek boyz and Tankbusters to lead this revolution.

This all come crashing down when his mother was commited to a mental aslyum (and thats saying something for an ork!!!) for trying to destroy the shanty town of 'Runtville', home of the "renowned" (i.e. bonkers), Runt herder 'Cyber grind cistern' and the surrounding fungus caves.

Since that time he has been plying his trade among the roving bands of the "Rad lands" of Newvada earning a few teef where he can.

As always Orks come in hordes and the fella below was also pulled out of the lead pile. Once again another freebie from the same ebay fella. Originally this fella was just a torso but a couple of arms out of the bits box and we are golden!

As soon as I started slapping paint on this fella, the paint just started to flow. LOVED painting this fella. It had bags of personality. I have no idea who the sculpter was or from what era but my word what a cracking job!

The fella below was the only actual Ork I payed for! It's a tank buster I had my eye on for my 'Vulture warriors from dimension X'.

Again another cracking sculpt and a pleasure to paint!

3 more down, 371 to go!

Mordheim. Week ten. He who sups with the Devil should use a really long spoon

Eric placed the parchment on the tavern table and looked up at his warband. "so what do we think?" he asked, "do we trust him?"

The message on the parchment was just like the Devil that had sent it; Blunt and Authoritive.

"He kept his word at the Library" voiced Red "and some extra muscle on our side could be useful since losing Grim!" The others nodded agreement.

"Ok so it's agreed, we join forces with the Witchhunter to force the crossing of middle bridge" Eric said straightening up. The others agreed and began to collect up their weapons.

Just then the tavern door opened and the wizard Rags walked in "So what have I missed folks" he asked. Eric and Red looked at each other. BOLLORKS they had forgotten about the wizard!

With only four in attendance at the "Shed of Lead" this Saturday we decided to have a little fun. Neil was still smarting from being ganged up on by the undead and proposed a two on two battle. 

Sounds like fun. 

The battle of 'middle bridge' it is.

Time to play 40K?

I really think I am a harbringer of DOOM!!!!!!

About 8 months ago I finish up my 1500 points for Warhammer fantasy battle and what happens...... The Warhammer world suddenly plunges into the whole 'End times' thing and half the armies of the world disappear!

This week I finally finished up my first core force of Space Marines (two squads and a Commander) and all the talk last Thursday at the Creative Biscuit was the rumours of 40K going the same way!

Anyway until the 40K end times come, here is my starter Space Marines army.

At least I can use them for Rougue Trader.

Warmachine. Red or Dead

So it's the third Thursday of the month and that now only means one thing..... racing out the door as quickly as possible to get to the creative biscuit for a 7pm start. I got my poor son ready for bed so quick I think his head was still spinning as I left the house!

Tim (our excellent host) hands me one of his excellent lattes and we strike up a quick conversation and soon 25 points of Warmachine is being set up on one of the tables.

It will be a Highborn covenant insurrection against the forces of Khador.

"whats big and stompy and red all over?"

Mordheim Map. Week 10. The turf war begins

With Maccas' aggressive expansion into Eds' territory of the clock tower and my failed land grab of Dennys quayside area the turf war for Mordheim was fully ignited!

With one of the prime victory conditions being control of 40% of the East of the river this can only get bloody!

The city map as it currently stands. Expect more colour changes then an election night campaign map!

Mordheim, Game 9. Black Market Clash

A quick smash and grab they had said!

The vampires would be too busy digging up fresh corpses after their mauling by the Witch hunter to notice they had said!

And even if they did notice, they would be too weak after their last battle to pose any threat they had said!

Well BOLLORKS to them and their opinions! as they were not the ones standing here preparing to hold back an entire undead horde with only Grim to help!

So this photo was inspired by........

this cover. Which in turn was inspired by .......

Saga. The battle of Stamford bridge. Rewriting history

This Thursday saw a return to SAGA and the eternal adversaries of Anglo Danes and Vikings. This one was going to be a nail biter!

We go for the battle of the bridges. Basically get as much over the water as possible while stopping your opponent. This is the first SAGA scenario I have played and it proved to be a belter!

Mordheim Game 8. The (amphi)theatre of dreams! Or is that nightmares?

This Saturday saw me finally get to grips with Lano the smiling assassin. Unfortunately it was against his full strength warband!

I think my warband are practising the off side trap!

The only good news was this meant there was more 28mm porn to stare at!

Its DIRTY!

It could have been worse. Denny and Macca the masters of the undead were busy conniving on the other table before Neil turned up with his witchfinders!

Shinobi Joe, Mordheim Champion proxy. Warhammer Fantasy Ninja 074139/17

Eric started awake to see two baleful eyes staring down at him. 

The eyes seemed to belong to the night itself as the rest of the figure blended seamlessly with the surrounding darkness. A black gloved hand encasing a steel like grip, clamped down on his mouth, stiffling any cry for help.

Looking shifty

"You are not Crashhart!" the night demon stated. "Where is Crashhart?" A razor sharp sword blade appeared like magic from the shadows, its glint confirming its reality. "I have been sent to kill Crashhart, I have travelled half the world to find him! The Princessess honour will be restored, tell me his location and I will make your death painless!".

Eric rolled his eyes. Really! Another one!

All he had done since taking on the persona of Crashhart was fight duels with cuckolded husbands, dodge unpaid whores and kill off loan shark heavies.

Now he was about to have his throat slit by an assassin with strangly shaped eyes and an accent he had never heard before. Was there not a single person on earth Crashhart had not offended or tried to mate with?

Gripping Beast Saga. Welcome back Al. Now eat my Axe!

The battle of the choppers is on!

Al and I finally managed to get in his second game of the year and to be honest, as much as I love Mordheim I was looking forward to a change.

A 6 point ding dong it is. 

I go with two lots of Hird guard in a unit of eight, a unit of Berserkers (a must!), two units of eight warriors and a unit of levy.

I am still not sold on Levy and would prefer another unit of warriors but they are painted so they make the field.

The Forsaken. Mordheim Reikland Mercenary Warband (MK3) and 28mm Dread pirate Roberts proxy

With the gorgeous sunshine this weekend I managed to finish painting up Dread Lord Crashhart to add to the motley crew of whats left of the Forsaken, and take some decent pictures.