Company of the Damned

The Deployment Zone's - Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos Campaign

2012-01-25T10:54:00.000-08:00

Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos Campaign Outline:

I will be running the Deployment Zone’s – Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos Campaign starting February 22nd and ending on May 9th. There will be no “home” location since this is a multi-site and multi-region campaign event. Details below as well as some questions I’ve answered prior to this post already:

Storyline and Introduction: (summarized and taken from the book Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos)
There was a great gathering of the exalted champions and warlords of the armies of chaos upon the plateau of K’Datha in the ruins of Zanbaijin the Fallen City. Followers of three of the four Gods of Chaos were present and soon joined in battle to fight for supremacy over the ruined city and win the favor of the Gods. The brazen-armored warriors of Hakka the Aesling, champion of the Blood God, fought the horse-mounted reavers and marauders of the Yurtsak under the leadership of Sargath the Vain, paramour of Slaanesh. This battle was joined by the witch-cabal of Urak Soulbane, Arch Sorcerer of Tzeentch. The three armies fought for days as the bodies piled high and the stink of death hung heavy over the ruined city of Zanbaijin.

As the grand melee had reached its zenith, a fourth army crested the edge of the plateau and looked down upon the battle below. A monstrous horde filled with nightmare things, dripping rot and decay, carried an aura of miasma and pestilence about it. Bile Trolls, worm-men and hideous, nameless things dripping rot and slime roared in unison as the leader of this rotting host stepped forth. Like the other chaos warlords, the newest champion to arrive had heard the call to K’Datha and the whispered promises of power as well.

A great storm sent by Father Nurgle himself wreathed the fallen city, plunging the battling armies into darkness and obscuring the sun. With a roar that seemed torn from the very throats of hell, the fourth army descended upon the city to join in battle and win glories for their patron, the Lord of Decay. Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord, his form bloated and distorted with disease and mutation, was at the head of his nightmare host as they smashed into the followers of Khorne and Slaanesh embattled below. The witch-cabal fled the battle sending flashes of arcane flame in their wake as the rotting host descended, their general Urak seeing portents of doom for his army.

At the height of the battle, the clouds were rent asunder and caustic rain fell in sheets that putrefied the flesh of the fallen and created rancid sloughs of liquid that mired the forces of Khorne and Slaanesh as Tamurkhan’s horde slammed into their flank. Tamurkhan’s horde broke the back of the Khornites and dispersed the forces of the Blood God quickly. The horsemen of Slaanesh fought their way through the rotting host till their leader, Sargath the Vain stood before the champion of Nurgle. Sargath looked upon the withered, rotted figure slumped unceremoniously upon the vast, hulking bulk of Bubebolos the Toad Dragon. The rotted figure spewed out his own vile insults as Sargath roared out his challenge. The toad dragon opened its gaping maw and spewed a blast of unspeakable foulness at Sargath. Sargath immediately leapt into the air while his mount was reduced to a screaming pile of ooze, his miraculous jump clearing the vile ooze but the fumes instantly corroded his pristine white armor, and landed upon the back of the massive toad dragon and stood before Tamurkhan seated upon his saddle. The champion of Slaanesh speared Tamurkhan’s heart with his rune blade. Sargath’s roar of triumph was cut short as Tamurkhan began to laugh and his form bulged and finally burst asunder like rotted fruit. A large, grey child-sized maggot with rows of twisted teeth and black multi-faced eyes leapt forth and buried itself into the neck of the champion of Slaanesh. Within seconds the maggot had disappeared and Sargath’s body began to jerk spasmodically as the champion of Nurgle had found a new host. The toad dragon bellowed a roar of triumph as its master climbed upon his back once again and took his seat.

The marauders and horsemen, seeing their general defeated broke and ran and the forces of Tamurkhan swept through the remaining forces of Hakka the Aesling and claimed the city of Zanbijin for Nurgle. By right of conquest, the remaining forces swore fealty to the rotting lord as long as he promised them glory and riches in the name of Chaos.
And so began the tale of the Chosen of Nurgle, Tamurkhan the Maggot Lord, and his quest to sit upon the Throne of Chaos…
Tamurkhan and his lieutenant, Kazyk the Befouled, organized the rotting host and marched northward. As the rotting host crossed the Altayan Hills, the Dolgan warlord Sayl the Faithless, a malformed yet powerful sorcerer-lord, made a play and swore fealty to Tamurkhan and swelled the rotting host by tens of thousands of Dolgan warriors. Instead of plunging west into the lands of Kislev and the rich prizes of the Empire, Tamurkhan took his forces even further North and East towards a place of nightmares in the Chaos Wastes, the Gallows Tree.

The Gallows Tree was a twisted, nightmarish mass of limbs that served as a living gateway to the horrors beyond in the Realm of Chaos. It was said that within the nightmarish space lived an unclean hag-daemon who would bestow blessings and secrets to those that pleased her and death to those who did not. Tamurkhan brought his massive army to the foot of the gallows tree and left his horde encamped at its base as he walked into the bowels of the tree and into the realm beyond. Tamurkhan spent many days within the tree and while he was gone, his army swelled even larger every day.

Tamurkhan finally emerged from the depths of the Gallows Tree several days later and much to the rejoicing of his followers. All could see that the Maggot Lord had been marked by the Chaos Gods. The once white armor of Sargath was now rusted and befouled, swarming with bloated parasites. The new body that Tamurkhan inhabited had been ravaged during his journey but it was clear that the Lords of Chaos had chosen their new champion. In his hand, Tamurkhan bore several scrolls and he gathered around him a score of the most powerful champions and sorcerers in the horde into a war council and shared with them the revelations he received while in the Gallows Tree.

Tamurkhan declared a war upon the lands of Men; he referenced the legendary Throne of Chaos that would yield dominion over the world and untold glories to be heaped at the feet of the Chaos Gods. Tamurkhan shared the visions bestowed upon him, the forges of Zharr, the Mountains of the Mourn, the Blasted Lands and finally the ripe underbelly of the Empire. As he spoke, the gathered warlords grew enticed by his promises of power and as Tamurkhan’s raspy voice filled the chamber, the fate of the horde was sealed. And with a final, guttural roar, Tamurkhan declared war upon the lands of Sigmar and the Empire and the deafening cry of war from the gathered masses caused the very ground to shake as a new storm of chaos had begun…

Campaign Guidelines, Rules and Structure:
The Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos Campaign is a six part point based narrative campaign setting which will be using the rules from the Warhammer Forge book Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos. The entire campaign is set to take place over the course of 12 weeks with each phase of the campaign being two weeks long. The difference between a narrative campaign and your standard campaign is that at the end of every phase, the side that has the greater amount of campaign points will directly impact the next phase. There will also be special scenarios and abilities unlocked as each side wins a phase and finally at the end there will be a drawing for prizes via a raffle for all those who participated.

The Sides:
There are two sides to the Throne of Chaos campaign. One represents Tamurkhan and his horde, and the other represents his opposition he encounters and various armies and enemies that oppose him.

Chaos Horde
The armies played by the Chaos Horde should be drawn from the Chaos Army books (Beastmen, Daemons of Chaos, Warriors of Chaos and the Legion of Azgorh – i.e. Chaos Dwarves) or one of the Forces of Destruction which were outlined in the Warhammer Basic Rule Book. (Orcs and Goblins, Vampire Counts, Skaven, and Dark Elves)

Opposition
The armies played by the Opposition to the Chaos Horde should be drawn from the Empire and the rest of the Forces of Order (Bretonnia, High Elves, Wood Elves, Dwarves, and Lizardmen).

The armies of Ogre Kingdoms, Dogs of War and Tomb Kings will have the option of choosing a side when they join the campaign. Once chosen however, the player must stay with the chosen side through out the campaign.

The Points Cost:
Games should be played to a mutually agreed points cost, with a minimum value of 2,500 points recommended per side for games in phases one through five, with Grand Battles of 3,500 points a side recommended for games played as part of the sixth phase.

Army Restrictions:
Please try to make the armies friendly and fun. However there are no restrictions on what you may bring. Special characters are allowed but with the following caveat: Special characters are worth double their victory points to your opponent and will provide 1 Campaign point to the opposition’s side if slain. It is a time of heroes and the most renowned would show up to fight, however legends do die…

The Phases:
The campaign is separated into six phases; each phase will be narrated and will roughly correspond to the story told in the Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos book. Each phase will last two weeks with each battle earning points for each battle won per side. The side that earns the most points per phase will win that phase and have a direct impact upon the storyline and the final conflict at the end of the campaign. Each phase will have a special scenario outlined which will be worth more campaign points as well as a Storm of Magic scenario too.

The Grand Finale:
Phase six of the Throne of Chaos campaign will represent the cataclysmic final conflict fought in the shadow of the great city of Nuln. The results of the previous phases will determine what bonuses are attributed to either the Chaos Horde or the Opposition.

The Scenarios:
Each phase will be dedicated to a specific section of the Throne of Chaos storyline and there will be special rules per phase for each side as well as special scenarios and rules for choosing the scenario. Each phase will have its own unique scenario which shall be designated as the narrative scenario.

Scenario Options and Scoring:
Every phase there will be a choice between three normal scenarios, one Storm of Magic scenario and one Narrative scenario to play. The three normal scenarios will vary per phase as far as availability. Each scenario provides campaign points to the victor and their side. The campaign point value is determined by the type of scenario and at the end of the phase the side with the most campaign points wins that phase. Some scenarios will be worth more campaign points than others and the value will change from phase to phase.

Reporting Wins and Ending a Phase:
Every phase will last two weeks beginning on a Wednesday and ending on a Tuesday two weeks later. Players will have three options on reporting their side’s campaign points.

1. Private Message on the Ordo Fanaticus Forums to me (Sylvos) or email me at john@thedeploymentzone.com with you Ordo name or real name.
2. Have your game club/store designate one person to report it to me via The Deployment Zone email address (john@thedeploymentzone.com)
3. Inform me in person when I am at your game store/area/club.

The Wrap Up:
At the end of this campaign, Tamurkhan and his horde of chaos will either win and ravage the Empire of Man and a new age of Death and Decay shall reign over the land…or the good guys win and the world stays the same only lots of stuff to bury. Everyone who participates will have their name entered into a raffle and every game that you play also earns you an entry into the raffle. One person will win a Battalion of their choice and two others will win a $50.00 and a $25.00 gift certificate. You must play a game during the campaign to qualify for winning a prize.

Questions and Possible Issues:
1. How many games do I have to play a phase? - You only need to play one game per phase and if you happen to miss out on a phase it’s ok just try to play in the next phase.

2. If I play multiple games in a phase do I get to use all my totals? – No, only one won game will be recorded as far as campaign points in a phase. You could technically play 2 games where you win one and lose one and still would be able to report the game that you won in.

3. What if I don’t have someone from the opposite team to play against? - That happens sometimes, If you and your opponent are on the same side (Chaos or Order) and play each other, then you both earn half the amount of campaign points you would have normally earned. (i.e. if the two of you both report a win with the points then it equals out to the same as one person reporting a win).

4. Aw man, I just signed up for another guys campaign but I want to play in yours too but I don’t have the time, what do you recommend? – Why thank you for such a thoughtful question. No one likes to have to choose between two neat ideas or friends. If you are currently in an existing campaign or one is starting up at the same time as this one, you may still participate in both. All you have to do is report if you won a battle for your side and the same rules apply if you end up playing someone on the same side as you.

5. Yeah but in this other guys campaign our scenarios aren’t the same as the Tamurkhan ones, what do we do about that? – That’s also just fine, non-Tamurkhan scenarios (each phase will have the approved scenarios listed) will be worth 1 CP (Campaign Point) to the victor. The goal is to foster participation and gaming without diminishing from the efforts of other people’s campaigns and enjoyment.

6. Do my armies have to be painted? - No, the entire point of this campaign is to get members of the Ordo Fanaticus ready and prepared for OFCC by having them play games and enjoy themselves. I full expect people to have half-assembled units and proxies in some of their games as they try to figure out what works best for them.

7. Wait, you said this is to get folks ready for OFCC? Does this mean I can use my OFCC list with monsters and stuff? – Yes. Dogs of War are also totally viable to use.

8. How are you going to report the wins? - I will be providing a summary every two weeks on the Ordo Forums, my blog (http://www.companyofthedamned.blogspot.com)and also on the Deployment Zone podcast (http://www.thedeploymentzone.com/).

9. You mentioned prize support, is there an entry fee for this campaign? - Nope, the only cost is your time involved.

10. Where do you sign up for it? - I will have a list on the Ordo Forums of those who have signed up for it and what side they have chosen to be on.

11. Where will we find the special scenarios? – I will be posting the current phase’s scenarios and explanations the day of the new phase on the Ordo Fanaticus forums and my blog (http://www.companyofthedamned.blogspot.com/)

12. Lastly, do I need to have a copy of Tamurkhan to play? – Absolutely not, I will be providing all the information you need to play via blog and forum posts. I still recommend getting the book however, it’s awesome.

I'll be providing updates via this blog, the podcast and the Ordo Fanaticus forums.

How important is the Deployment Phase? – Part 1

2012-01-23T14:39:00.000-08:00

How important is the Deployment Phase? – Part 1
The Deployment phase is one of the most critical phases in most war games. It has the potential to set you up for utter victory or complete failure. The deployment phase requires more strategy than most people give it credit and it can easily determine the winner before any dice are even rolled. The type of war game also has a direct impact of how important the deployment phase is because in some games half the battle is fought in the deployment phase.

During the deployment phase, you and your opponent will attempt to place your units in the most advantageous position to either engage or avoid the other’s best or worst units. In some game systems the deployment zone is a static area from battle to battle while other game systems make use of different types of scenarios that require players to deploy their forces outside the standard 12” line. Through the use of scenarios, game designers have managed to alter not only where the players place their units but also the methods and tactics involved in those decisions. Scenarios accomplish two points, they provide a different area of deployment to players and it employs different winning conditions which directly impact deployment and game play.

Let’s take a look at some of the game systems and how deployment is performed. In some historical games, players will write down where their units will be placed and then reveal their decisions during the deployment phase. If the other general has done a better job of setting up and devised a better deployment strategy, then sometimes the game is decided before any dice are rolled or miniatures even placed. In games such as Blood Bowl where you set up your teams on a fantasy football field, if you properly set up your team you can easily score a touchdown with minimal effort while denying your opponent the chance to stop you. Also, games like Blood Bowl require a redeployment after every half or touchdown which means that there is a lot of strategy involved in deploying one’s team to gain the advantage.

Now when you have war games that provide you with different deployment scenarios, the importance of properly deploying is even more critical. Warhammer 40,000 5th edition currently has 3 basic scenarios and missions in the main rule book. Each of these missions has a different objective in order to secure a victory and also each scenario alters the deployment zone and the method in which troops are deployed. The players have to appropriately deploy their troops, decide who is in reserve, figure out who is scouting or outflanking and then let their opponent do the same before they begin the battle. All of these actions are part of the deployment phase where the stage is set for the upcoming game and a good portion of the game is already decided once the die is rolled to seize the initiative. Warhammer Fantasy has the same type of situation where you have six different scenarios for basic battle missions then a slew of narrative and special battles detailed in its core rulebook. The scenarios alter not only the victory conditions but also the size of the deployment zone and the method of deploying (from alternating units to one player deploys entire army). In Warmachine and Hordes, not only do their scenarios alter deployment and objectives but the very force organization can change the deployment zone for the army. All of these variables make it easy to error in how you deploy your army and complicate the tactics you had planned to employ that game.

Some armies are slightly more forgiving when it comes to making bad decisions in the deployment phase. You generally see this in Warhammer 40k due to the large amount of fliers and fast moving vehicles. You can maneuver and reposition a little bit easier than you can in Warhammer Fantasy but it doesn’t change the fact that your army is still out of position and your opponent has a serious advantage.

In Part 2 of how important is the deployment phase, I will be providing some deployment strategies for the armies I play as well as the methodology involved. You will also see how a poor deployment strategy can severely punish you in game. I will also try to provide deployment examples for all my armies rather than just the Wood Elves and Beastmen. We will be discussing this topic tonight while we record episode 7 of The Deployment Zone. Thanks!

Black Sheep Brawl - Tournament Results!

2012-01-10T22:58:00.000-08:00

This weekend I had the pleasure of competing in the first annual Black Sheep Brawl at Borderlands Games in Salem, OR. Chris Bailey and Paul Wilworth of the Order of the Black Sheep gaming club organized and ran this 2400 point Warhammer Fantasy tournament. The event was filled to capacity with 32 players and had a fairly diverse assembly of armies. The Brawl was a three round tournament that used the standard basic rule book scenarios with a few modifications. My cohosts from The Deployment Zone Podcast and I as well as a large number of the Ordo Fanaticus gaming club were in attendance at the event. We will be putting out a special 6.5 episode which covers the Brawl.

I chose to bring my Wood Elves since there was going to be a painting portion in the overall judging and also because it's my favorite army. As I mentioned earlier, there was a fairly diverse group of armies that showed up to the event and oddly enough there were seven dwarf armies present (ungh). I believe every army was present with the exception of Beastmen and Dark Elves. The tournament was roaring success and the energy and attitude was both very, very good. Everyone at the event had a good time and Chris managed to garner a rather large amount of prize support for the event. There were several prizes and awards given out at the end of the tournament and I personally look forward to the next Brawl.
My list for the Black Sheep Brawl:
Highborn, extra hand weapon, Bow of Loren, Arcane Bodkins, Scout Kindred
10 Waywatchers
14 Glade Guard w/ Standard Bearer and Musician, Banner of Eternal Flame
14 Glade Guard w/ Standard Bearer and Musician
10 Dryads w/ Branch Nymph
6 Wild Riderds w/ full command
6 Treekin
1 Great Eagle
1 Great Eagle
Level 4 Spellweaver, Rageth's Blades, Rhymer's Harp, Lore of Life
Noble, BSB, Asendyl's Bane, Dragon Helm, Light Armor, Hail of Doom Arrow
18 Eternal Guard w/ full command

My first opponent was Tim (TJP on the Ordo forums) and his Warriors of Chaos army.
His army was composed of the following:
Level 4 Sorcerer Lord - Nurgle
Level 2 Sorcerer
20 Marauders, full command
Hellcannon
Warshrine
18 Warriors w/ Mark of Khorne and Extra hand weapons
18 Warriors w/ Mark of Tzeentch and Halberds and a BSB Hero
2 x5 Marauder Horsemen
3 Trolls
5 Warhounds

The first scenario was the Battle of the Pass that had an additional scenario rule that the Donkey Keg Cart worth 500 vps at the end of the game if you have possession of it at the end of the game. The deployment for the Warriors of Chaos was primarily centralized near the center. I think Tim's strategy was to control the center and surround the cart. I deployed heavily to in the center so that I could easily swing to the right and own the flank. Tim got first turn and at first the game was swinging his way until the bottom of round 2 when he lost both units of Marauder Horsemen, his Warhounds, and his Level 4 on the disc. Over the course of 4 more rounds Tim had everything except his Warshrine and his Battle Standard Bearer slain and I scored a victory with 2532 vps to 713. Tim was a great opponent who also pointed out a rule that I had been incorrectly playing which was that flying units may charge over others. That adds a whole new level of annoyance to my strategies!

The second game I played against John and his Warriors of Chaos. He had a substantially different list than Tim and this game was played on the second table. John had the following units in his army:
1 Level 4 Sorcerer Lord on a Disc
1 Level 2 Sorcerer Lord on a Disc
30 Warriors of Chaos with halberds, Blasted Standard and Mark of Tzeentch
30 Chosen of Chaos with halberds, Banner of Rage and Mark of Tzeentch
1 BSB Exalted Hero
2 Warshrines

The second scenario was the first battle mission - Battle Line with all terrain being mysterious. A river bisected the table and successfully split the board. John deployed his Chosen on one side of the table and his 2 sorcerers, warshrines and his Warriors on the other. I set up almost my entire army in the center and left side of my deployment zone. My goal was to avoid his Chosen and pick apart his army and deal with the Chosen last. The double war shrine was pretty tough since he was able to augment his Chosen twice a turn and give them some serious punch. In the first turn I managed to slay his General on the disc then I Dwellers Below'd his unit of Warriors reducing them by 17. The Chaos Sorcerer on a disc and Warshrine paniced and ran through the unit of Chaos Warriors causing them to flee. The next turn my Great Eagles ran off 2 units off the board while the Chosen continued to march toward their targets - my archers. In the end I managed to destroy everything in his army except the Chosen who I fed a unit of Glade Guard and 2 Eagles and my Wild Riders to keep them from running through the army. I ended up scoring a victory with 1600 vps to 713. Thank you for the fun game John!

The third game was played on the second table again and this time instead of Warriors of Chaos I got to fight John's brother Chad and his Chaos Dwarves. This was a seriously fun game and I got to see just how strong the new Chaos Dwarf army was. The scenario was the Blood and Glory mission with the addition of three to four smoke elementals that provided cover modifiers to shooting and when charging or fleeing you rolled an additional dice and discarded the highest if you charged through it. The smoke elementals drifted 1d6 per turn.
Chad decided to bring the following:
Level 3 Sorcerer Prophet on Bale Taurus
2 Level 2 Daemonsmiths
2 Dreadquake Mortars
12 Infernal Guard w/ Fireglaives
30 Internal Guard w/ Great Weapons
Castellan BSB
8 Bull Centaurs

Once again I did not get first turn and got to see first hand how powerful the Dreadquake Mortars are as they shelled and caused my Treekin, Glade Guard and Waywatchers to stay put for the first turn. The Dreadquake Mortar causing all of my affected units to take Dangerous Terrain tests whenever I moved is crippling to the Wood Elf army since mobility and movement is one of their strengths. On my turn I managed to charge his Bull Centaurs in the flank with my Wild Riders and hit his General on the Taurus with my Eternal Guard. My Spellweaver Dwellered half of his Infernal Guard with the BSB in it reducing them by 13 models, and I caused his Bull Centaurs and General to flee combat costing Chad one of his standards. Turn 2 reduced my Treekin down to three models and he managed to reduce one of my Glade Guard units by 4. The bottom of turn 2 resulted in the General being charged, challenged and caught as he fled combat which provided me with a 720 to 0 victory over the Chaos Dwarves.

The tournament results were listed here. I went 3-0 through the entire tournament and ended up winning Best Overall and was crowned Grand Champion of the Black Sheep Brawl 2012!
This was the Trophy I received:

The results:
Winners:
Overall: John Kersey - Lord of Awesome
Brush Master: Moses Jones
Exalted General: Maurice Maynard
Most Excellent Opponent: Ellie

I would like to thank Chris and Paul and all the others for running an excellent tournament and I had an absolute blast. I am also pleased that the Wood Elves made a killer showing and winning the entire tournament was an excellent way to start the new year!

The next day my Alabama Crimson Tide won the National Championship over LSU! ROLL TIDE!!!

Beastmen Minotaur and BSB Banners WIP

2012-01-06T22:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a super quick WIP update for the Beastmen Minotaurs and Gorebull BSB banners I'll be using. I decided to mess around with some freehanding and made 3 banners.

I've also included the step by step painting I did of the Dark Elf Sorceress a.k.a. Wood Elf Spellweaver =) I did the other night as well.

I think I may go with the two that are currently using a black background but we'll see.
Here are the WIP's.
If you folks like a particular banner please leave a comment (that may sway my decision on which two to use in the army).

Next up we have the step by step painting of the Spellweaver, I wanted to get done with her quickly and I also wanted to try out a new painting technique that I'm not completely sold on. Essentially you water down all your paints to almost a wash and then quickly place 10-12 super thin coats and which dry within a few seconds. It's supposed to create an even coating system that reduces brush strokes but I'm not completely sold. Some paints get very, very transparent almost when you water them down too much.

Anyway, enough gabbing:

As you can see she has been primed black and then I used scorched brown on her areas of bare flesh.

The scorched brown watered down becomes a wash way to fast so you must be very, very careful how much you water it down if you are going to use this technique. I do not forsee repeating the use of it in the future but I will attempt to paint a few more models with it just in case I get better with it.

I used Elf flesh next to cover the areas of flesh.
This took almost 20 layers/coats to get to the point where it wasn't a super light brown with splotches of the yellowish pink.

Here I did two things, I painted her eyes with Icy blue, I used Dwarf Bronze on the metal items she was wearing (headband,belt, staff head, bra) then I washed the flesh with Ogryn flesh to get that ruddy suntanned skin I like to use on all my elf models.

Here I forgot to take pictures and so I combined three stages into one.
1. I painted her dress? Goblin Green.
2. I painted her leggings/belt/staff with Snakebite Leather and washed it with Devlin Mud.
3. I painted her hair Golden Yellow, highlighted the hair strands with a very thin layer of Mithril Silver then I washed the hair with Gryphonne Sepia and then drybrushed the Golden Yellow on top of that once it dried. Her hair now shimmers in the light.

I then painted/flocked and magnetized her base.

Speaking of bases and for that matter Movement Trays....

Here are the trays I got from Base X of War that I placed a metal sheet into and then primed black and painted. They are marvelous and I can't decide if I want to use the Skull movement trays for the Beastmen yet or not. We shall see!

Lastly, here is the picture of my next project after my Beastmen are done...
sheesh =( All the trouble we go to in order to play games in our garage!

Thanks!

Post 101 - The Company of the Damned – Year in Review 2011

2012-01-04T09:55:00.000-08:00

The Company of the Damned – Year in Review 2011

Since I apparently forgot to make a big deal about 100 posts… here is 101!

This was a pretty busy year for the blog and the hobby in general. I managed to not only get 69 games of Warhammer Fantasy in but also managed to really get involved in the local gaming community. While I had less posts on the blog in 2011 than I did in 2010, I feel that the content improved by a good deal. The blog’s traffic definitely improved going from a few hundred views a month to well over 10,000 on average in 2011. I owe that to properly networking and maintaining amiable relationships with other bloggers of the same genre. I still haven’t reached my goal of getting 100 followers but maybe as 2012 progresses we’ll see a pick up in traffic and popularity.

The blog originally started out as a little podium where I could post pictures of my army to share with friends that did not live close by and to also provide some battle reports to them as well. As I began to get more and more comfortable with my blog, I began to post tactics and reviews as well as army lists and reflections of the game. In 2012 I plan to increase the amount of posting on this blog as well as battle reports and tactica for the armies I play. I have found that people enjoy reading about how army X performed against army Y and also seeing how units that they do not normally see on the board doing well.

Top Ten Things Accomplished in 2011 for Company of the Damned:

1. The Wood Elves were not only completely redone and new units added but the entire force was assembled, played and painted up to 3500 points.

2. The Beastmen army was finally pegged down and the army list created. I also managed to build the army but have not yet painted it up to 2800 points.

3. Managed to network appropriately and get on the blogroll of some rather high traffic websites and blogs and have increased traffic and exposure.

4. Managed to start a podcast with friends that has done well here and we have expanded our listening area across the nation.

5. Included Twitter as part of the blog which has been very beneficial and has provided no end of entertainment from other gamers on there.

6. Participated in several tournaments (with Wood Elves), placing in the top 3 in most of them – including Ard Boyz.

7. Participated in the OFCC for the first time and had an absolute blast to the extent that next event will be legendary.

8. Collected, assembled and painted a 35 point Retribution of Scyrah army as well as got a few games in for Warmachine.

9. Collected and partially assembled a 50 point Circle Orboros army.

10. Made new friends in the Ordo Fanaticus and other gaming circles and have expanded my gaming “pond” so to say by leaps and bounds.

This past year has been a wonderful experience for both the hobby and my enjoyment of the game. With the addition of The Deployment Zone podcast and the networking with several good folks back east and here in Portland, I feel I have begun to hopefully impact the community in a positive way. As far as new contacts and associations, I have not only made a lot of new friends in the Ordo Fanaticus, but also in the podcasting community. I think 2011 was an exceptional year for the hobby!

Ten Goals for 2012 and The Company of the Damned.

1. Complete and paint the Beastmen army up to 2800 points (before June).

2. Get the blog up to 100 followers.

3. Attempt to crest 20,000 views a month.

4. Network more with the podcasting community and hopefully get bloggers and podcasters more involved with not only the blog but the podcast. I would really like to get the guys from Garagehammer, Ohiohammer, Pointhammered and some of the other bloggers like Rhellion of Rhellion’s Tabletop to open a line of communication with the Portland group about the differences in the metagame in their region and ours. Based on several conversations so far, the difference is substantial!

5. Participate in at least 1 tournament a month.

6. Assemble, Paint and Play the Circle Orboros army (and the Circle models in my Wood Elf army don’t count!)

7. Publish tactica on how to deal with all the Warhammer Fantasy armies and also continue to firmly establish the Wood Elves as a viable army in 8th edition.

8. When 6th edition Warhammer 40k comes out, update my Black Templars and more importantly my Eldar for the new edition. This includes new models and perhaps army themes.

9. More product and book reviews on the blog.

10. In addition to providing more battle reports using Battle Chronicler, obtain a video camera and start providing Youtube videos of games in addition to the blog and podcast battle reports.

Anyway, thank you to everyone who reads the blog regularly and feel free to comment more! Have a good 2012!

Gorebull Battle Standard Bearer WIP

2011-12-29T23:17:00.000-08:00

Here's a WIP of my custom Gorebull BSB for my Beastmen army v.1.

Not really much to say other than he'll get painted and all that jazz soon as I'm able.

Conversion Information:

Ghorgon/Cygor Kit: Skulls, Horns
Minotaur Kit: Minotaur, Banner
Citadel Woods: Tree Trunk
Daemon Prince Plastic Kit: Shoulder Pads, Back Spikes and Leg Guards.

Enjoy!
Also the movement trays you see that the Gorebull is standing on are from Base X of War and they are the Dark Wood Trays that are halfway painted thus far.

Deciding on Beastmen Lists for OFCC 2012.

2011-12-27T12:11:00.000-08:00

List Decisions for the Beastmen Army for OFCC 2012.

Now that I have collected and committed to playing and painting my Beastmen in the next OFCC, I am honing what list I will take and what is going to fit my playstyle the best and be fun to play. I’ve come up with two lists that I think I will nail down to playtest and build/paint. Based on the performance of last week’s game of Beastmen vs. Daemons, I made some necessary adjustments to both augment some strengths and account for some weaknesses.

2800 Beastmen Roster - The Savage Hunt, Warherd of the Drakwald

Rorg Doombringer, Horned King of the Drakwald (1#, 316 pts)
1 Doombull, 316 pts (Beserk Rage; General; Hand Weapon; Shield; Causes Fear; Frenzy; Stomp)
1 Sword of Swift Slaying
1 Armour of Destiny

The Blood Guard of the Doombringer (3#, 207 pts)
3 Minotaurs, 207 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Causes Fear; Extra Attack; Stomp)

Ruld Soulstealer, the Prophet of Ruin (1#, 315 pts) - Lore of Death
1 Great Bray-Shaman, 315 pts (Primal Fury; Level 4 Upgrade; Hand Weapon)
1 The Brass Cleaver
1 Talisman of Preservation
1 Ironcurse Icon

Bane Knights of the Soulstealer (29#, 388 pts)
28 Bestigor Herd, 388 pts (Always Strikes Last; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour)
1 Gouge-Horn (Always Strikes Last; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour)
1 Banner of Eternal Flame

Trogar the Render, Harbinger of the Doombringer (1#, 245 pts)
1 Gorebull (Battle Standard Bearer), 245 pts (Always Strikes Last; Beserk Rage; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Battle Standard Bearer; Causes Fear; Frenzy; Stomp)
1 Armour of Fortune
1 Gnarled Hide

The Fleshtearers (3#, 177 pts)
3 Minotaurs, 177 pts (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Causes Fear; Extra Attack; Stomp)

Kagaroth the Shadowhorn (1#, 105 pts) - Lore of Shadow
1 Bray-Shaman, 105 pts (Primal Fury; Hand Weapon)
1 Ruby Ring of Ruin
1 Shadow-Hide

The Shadowherd of the Doombringer (29#, 257 pts)
28 Gor Herd, 257 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)
1 Foe-Render (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)

Da'Kor, the Bloodbeast of Drakwald (1#, 275 pts)
1 Ghorgon, 275 pts (Beserk Rage; Causes Terror; Frenzy; Immune to Psychology; Large Target; Stubborn; Thunder Stomp)

The Greyhorns, Ravagers of Ruin (20#, 160 pts)
20 Gor Herd, 160 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)

The Spiteful Spears, Thorns of the Drakwald (30#, 195 pts)
29 Ungor Herd, 195 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Spear; Shield)
1 Halfhorn (Hand Weapon; Spear; Shield)

Malagar the Untamed (1#, 80 pts)
1 Tuskgor Chariot, 80 pts (Primal Fury; Chariot; Swiftstride)
1 Gor Driver (Spear)
1 Bestigor Warrior (Always Strikes Last; Great Weapon)
2 Tuskgor

Jorga the Shattered Axe (1#, 80 pts)
1 Tuskgor Chariot, 80 pts (Primal Fury; Chariot; Swiftstride)
1 Gor Driver (Spear)
1 Bestigor Warrior (Always Strikes Last; Great Weapon)
2 Tuskgor

Total Roster Cost: 2800

The first list emphasizes the use of two units of minotaurs each sporting a character. The BSB and the Doombull champion each unit and provide two major threats to deal with as opposed to one unit of minotaurs. The Great Bray Shaman uses Lore of Death and is in the large Bestigor unit which serves as the anvil for the two minotaur unit hammers. The other Bray Shaman uses the signature spell for Lore of Shadow in order to provide a hex for whatever unit the minotaurs charge. This army is a pincer army that relies on the various high movement units (minotaurs and ghorgon, chariots, etc..) maneuvering to kill a unit a turn with combined charges. The Lore of Death is to hex enemy units and kill the characters located within. Each minotaur unit starts out with 22 and 21 attacks which will increase as the units win more fights. This army relies heavily on Bloodgreed and Lore of Death to accomplish it’s goals while the Gors serve as harassing units or anvils for the special units. This army is more versatile than the other list posted and will force your opponent to pick his targets and split his fire.

The downside so this army is that the Minotaurs can easily lose effectiveness once they start taking casualties, especially from ranged fire. The other downside is the lack of Lore of Beasts in the army which means that the Gors won’t be as effective as I would like them to be.

2800 Pts - Beastmen Roster - The Savage Hunt, Warherd of the Drakwald

Rorg Doombringer, Horned King of the Drakwald (1#, 316 pts)
1 Doombull, 316 pts (Beserk Rage; General; Hand Weapon; Shield; Causes Fear; Frenzy; Stomp)
1 Sword of Swift Slaying
1 Armour of Destiny

The Blood Guard of the Doombringer (7#, 443 pts)
7 Minotaurs, 443 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Causes Fear; Extra Attack; Stomp)

Trogar the Render, Harbinger of the Doombringer (1#, 164 pts)
1 Wargor (Battle Standard Bearer), 164 pts (Always Strikes Last; Primal Fury; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Battle Standard Bearer)
1 Armour of Fortune
1 Gnarled Hide

Bane Knights of the Soulstealer (29#, 388 pts)
28 Bestigor Herd, 388 pts (Always Strikes Last; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour)
1 Gouge-Horn (Always Strikes Last; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour)
1 Banner of Eternal Flame

Kagaroth the Shadowhorn (1#, 80 pts) - Lore of Shadow
1 Bray-Shaman, 80 pts (Primal Fury; Hand Weapon)
1 Shadow-Hide

Ruld Soulstealer, the Prophet of Ruin (1#, 325 pts) - Lore of Death
1 Great Bray-Shaman, 325 pts (Primal Fury; Level 4 Upgrade; Hand Weapon)
1 The Brass Cleaver
1 Jagged Dagger
1 Talisman of Preservation
1 Ironcurse Icon

The Shadowherd of the Doombringer (24#, 217 pts)
23 Gor Herd, 217 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)
1 Foe-Render (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)

Da'Kor, the Bloodbeast of Drakwald (1#, 275 pts)
1 Ghorgon, 275 pts (Beserk Rage; Causes Terror; Frenzy; Immune to Psychology; Large Target; Stubborn; Thunder Stomp)

The Greyhorns, Ravagers of Ruin (20#, 160 pts)
20 Gor Herd, 160 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)

The Spiteful Spears, Thorns of the Drakwald (30#, 195 pts)
29 Ungor Herd, 195 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Spear; Shield)
1 Halfhorn (Hand Weapon; Spear; Shield)

Korsk the Feral (1#, 77 pts) - Lore of Beasts
1 Bray-Shaman, 77 pts (Primal Fury; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)

Malagar the Untamed (1#, 80 pts)
1 Tuskgor Chariot, 80 pts (Primal Fury; Chariot; Swiftstride)
1 Gor Driver (Spear)
1 Bestigor Warrior (Always Strikes Last; Great Weapon)
2 Tuskgor

Jorga the Shattered Axe (1#, 80 pts)
1 Tuskgor Chariot, 80 pts (Primal Fury; Chariot; Swiftstride)
1 Gor Driver (Spear)
1 Bestigor Warrior (Always Strikes Last; Great Weapon)
2 Tuskgor

Total Roster Cost: 2800

The second list changes the composition of the army slightly and the method in which it is used. The major change is the shift from a Gorebull BSB to a Wargor BSB. The BSB keeps the same weapons/equipment but the Bestigor unit now has the BSB and a Level 1 Shadow mage while the Gor unit houses the Greater Bray Shaman and the Beast Bray Shaman. The minotaur unit now becomes a unit of 7 plus the doombull for a massive minotaur bus that charges forward and bludgeon’s whatever it hits in tandem with the two chariots and the Bestigors. This army has one additional character in the form of the Beast Bray shaman. This list is also far less subtle in that it is a charge forward and slam into the nearest unit army. The minotaur unit will start off sporting 39 attacks which will increase by 4(front rank only) per round of winning combat (unless some die). The army also gains an additional effective anvil with the Beasts Bray shaman casting Wyssan’s Wildform on the unit of 29 Gors, having a unit of Str 4 and Tough 5 is very difficult to deal with.

The downside to the Wargor BSB list is that the Bestigor unit has two characters in it and the unit of Minotaurs lose 8 attacks right off the bat on the 2nd rank and will continue to lose more attacks the more rounds of combat the army wins.

Of the two lists I have posted, I am unsure which list I will move forward with to playtest. I really like having two units of minotaurs but on the same token I dislike how easily they can be shot up and destroyed. I also really like having my big Gor unit augmented with Wyssan’s Wildform, yet having that will mean that I do not have my two units of minotaurs. I’ll play both lists at least three times to get a good feel for the methodology involved in playing and make my decision.

Wood Elf Army Tactica: Fighting Dwarfs - Part 3

2011-12-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

Warhammer Fantasy Army Analysis: Dwarfs – Part 3

This final installment of the Dwarf Army Analysis will cover the Rare selections and the characters available in the army book and how a Wood elf player handles them. In the previous posts I have covered the Core and Special selections. I will be doing other armies as well such as Skaven and Lizardmen (those two and dwarves being the most difficult to play against).

The Rare selections in the Dwarf army are absolutely frustrating to a Wood Elf player. They are either warmachines or flying machines. In addition to being warmachines, they are also painfully unique (translate unique into broken and annoying).

Flame Cannon

The Flame Cannon is a holy terror to the Wood Elf army. The Flame Cannon shoots a Flame Template that is Str 5, d3 wounds and has a -2 armor save. Right off the bat it wounds most Wood Elf units on a 2 and negates most of their armor saves. It has the ability to kill an entire unit of Treekin which is no easy feat. The flame template gets placed and an artillery die is rolled to determine the distance. This means that you can not have any units closer than roughly 12 inches away if you plan on charging the Flame Cannon. If you are too close then there is a great chance that you are going to have your unit melted by the Flame Cannon.

I recommend slaying this warmachine with magic namely: Amber Spear or Dweller’s Below. You have to be exceptionally careful when you engage Dwarf warmachines because if the Dwarf player has enhanced his warmachines (cannons,grudge throwers/etc..) their attacks are considered magical. This is an exceptionally annoying issue when they take "Rune of Burning" because suddenly the Wood Elves have to deal with magical and flaming attacks which negate the Forest Spirit Ward Save. If you plan on charging the Flame Cannon, you will need to probably use Eagles or Wild Riders since they have a high movement and swift stride rule.

Organ Gun

The Organ Gun is the most frustrating warmachine in the current game. The Organ Gun has a 24” range that is Str 5 and has a -3 armor save. The most annoying thing is that the Organ Gun automatically hits and does not need to roll. Unless you are lucky and the Organ Gun misfires you will be taking an artillery die worth of hits. The issue is that this really prevents you from taking advantage of the Waywatchers and Skirmishers rules and pushes the Wood Elf player’s advance back until they can appropriately deal with the Organ Gun. I have a lot of issues trying to take out Organ guns since I can’t land close and enjoy the minimum range rules like the Cannons and the Grudge Thrower. You really have to move within range and nuke it with spells like Amber Spear or Dweller’s Below. Shooting at a T7 model is difficult to be effective with but it’s a rather less painful method of dealing with the Organ Guns. Sometimes you get lucky and can overrun into an Organ Gun but for the most part they inflict their toll before being killed. Unlike other units and models in this army, there is no really good method to deal with this model since you have to be in its range to land your main offensive spells for Life/Beasts Lore.

Due to the high toughness of warmachines, I rarely recommend shooting them with regular archery fire since you will need a 6 to wound rather than a 3 or a 4 in close combat. You need to fully utilize your warmachine hunters appropriately when fighting Dwarfs. This means your have to keep your Eagles out of the line of fire and hide them in terrain appropriately and know when to charge. You don’t want to land a charge only to have your entire flank disintegrate because you left it unsupported. Sometimes however, there really isn’t another option and firing at the Organ fun works.

Gyrocopter

The Gyrocopter functions as a flying monster for all purposes and functions as such. The Gyrocopter has a Flame template attack at Strength 3 and has a -1 to armor save. The main concern that the Gyrocopter causes is the ability to wipe out an archer unit. I rarely see a Gyrocopter on the field and if I do I will do my best to drop it out of the sky before it can reach near my line. I will generally move my Glade Guard into short range so that I only need 5’s to wound it or have my Wild Riders in range to charge the model from the flank or rear. Otherwise I would try to hit it with Treekin or high toughness models with a decent Strength.

The next section will contain the characters of the Dwarf Army. Most of the heroes and lords in the Dwarf army are included inside a unit and are generally the same as most other characters.

Dwarf Lord/Thane

The Dwarf Lord and Thane generally are placed within a unit such as Hammerers or Ironbreakers. A Dwarf Lord can be mounted upon Shieldbearers (read: mount) that can fight alongside him, but the real issue is when either the Lord or Thane has an Oathstone. The Oathstone is a royal pain for the Wood Elf army. The Oathstone when invoked makes the unit immobile but also it no longer has flanks or rear. The lack of flank or rear means that the dwarfs in the unit can do their full attacks from any side and you don’t have your standard combat resolution that you normally would receive from the flank or rear. Since it is a rarity to see a Dwarf Thane/Lord outside a unit, the chances of Waywatcher slaying them is very remote. The main problem that you will face with a Dwarf Lord is when they join a unit of Hammerers and the unit becomes not only Stubborn but also Immune to Psychology. Then you face a synergistic combo that makes a tough unit even tougher.

Rune Lord/Runesmith
The Runelord/smiths are the holy priests in the Dwarf army. They function much in the same way as the Warrior Priests in Empire in that they grant additional dice. If the Runelord/smith take the Anvil of Doom then they are given an additional dispel die and now have access to casting “runes”. The big attack that the Runelord can unleash is a Wrath and Ruin rune that affects d3 units for 2d6 Strength 4 hits. This generally will kill a unit or severely deplete one of them. Then I don’t normally have an issue dealing with the Runelord/smiths, especially if they are on an Anvil. If a Runelord is on an anvil, then I can generally Killing Blow the Runelord off the Anvil of Doom with the Waywatchers/General.

Daemon/Dragon Slayer

The Daemon/Dragon Slayer is the least dangerous of all the heroes since he has be placed either alone or in a unit of Slayers. You want to avoid him in close combat since he is easily slain due to lack of armor save and is very vulnerable to missile fire.

Dwarf Engineer

So because the Dwarf warmachines were not annoying enough, the Dwarf army has access to Master and normal Engineers. The Engineers provide augments to their warmachines by allowing them to use their Ballistic skill when firing, re-roll artillery dice, and reroll the Misfire result. The Master Engineer can also entrench his warmachines and grant it hard cover. Overall the Engineer pops up often enough to make the already excellent warmachines in the Dwarf army even more remarkable.

The primary method in dealing with characters in the Dwarf army is patience. You have to decide which characters are the most important to slay and impact the army. I generally stick to this type of methodology:

1. Kill the Runesmith off the Anvil of Doom

2. Look to kill the General, his LD of 10 and that will reduce the 10 to a 9 throughout the army.

3. If a Master Engineer is available and away form his unit then you will want to assassinate him as soon as possible and remove his augment ability from the warmachines.

The Dwarf Army is an extremely tough opponent for the Wood Elf army because not only do the Dwarfs have access to numerous flaming attack options, units with good armor saves, and overall impossible to break Leadership; but because the Dwarfs have access to unmatched shooting. The trick to defeating a Dwarf army is to properly prioritize what unit is going to need to die first and out maneuvering the Dwarfs to get the best position and focus firing your targets.
I hope this series of army evaluations have been helpful to a few Wood Elf players who combat Dwarfs. I will be continuing this series with Lizardmen and Skaven in the future.

Thanks!

Wood Elf Army Tactica: Fighting Dwarfs - Part 2

2011-12-12T15:42:00.001-08:00

Warhammer Fantasy Army Analysis: Dwarfs – Part 2
This is the next installment of the Dwarf army analysis where I will be discussing how to handle the Special selections of the Dwarf army. Once again the purposes of these articles are to demonstrate how I handle Dwarf army units using the Wood Elf army.

Dwarf Hammerers

The Dwarf Hammerers unit is a very tough unit to deal with; they function very similar to the Wood Elf unit the Eternal Guard. I generally see this unit in blocks of 20 to 25 (sometimes 30 in bigger games) since they cost as much as an Eternal Guard. They sport a Weapon Skill of 5, Strength and Toughness of 4, a Leadership of 9 and have the Stubborn and Bodyguard special rule. Should they be joined by a Dwarf Lord (model with Royal Blood) then they become Immune to Psychology.

I have seen this unit used primarily as a Dwarf Lord delivery system into close combat. I have found since the unit is Toughness 4 and have armor save of 5+ (provided they use Great Weapons which they almost always do), I can easily outmaneuver this unit and shoot it from the flanks which will hopefully reduce their number since Strength 4 bows will wound on 4’s and reduce their Armor Save to 6+.

Since this unit can take a runic banner, I attempt to avoid getting into close combat with it until I am certain that I can overwhelm it and defeat it in a single charge. The last thing you want to do is get bogged down into combat with a bunch of Weapon Skill 5 Strength 6 dwarf hammerers that are both Stubborn LD10 and Immune to Psychology. Should a Lord be included in the unit then the main advantage that the close combat units of the Wood Elf army have which is Fear/Terror does not matter and the attacker is forced to strike on 4’s rather than 3’s.

This unit is perhaps one of the most difficult units to deal with for the Wood elf army unless you synergize your attack by getting a flank/rear charge off and have Lore of Life Flesh to Stone/Throne of Vines augment. If you are able to augment the unit with the appropriate buffs then the Strength 6 Great Weapons will still need 6’s to wound and if you cast the Damage shield spell it will go off before any attacks are resolved. Also, if you can score a rear charge with Wild Riders, you can not only negate the armor save of 5+ with their spears but it’s a serious hammer in their back. It also does not hurt to attempt Dwellers Below or an Amber Spear against this unit. I do not recommend however attempting to engage this unit with Eternal Guard or Dryads (at least ones that are not augmented by Wyssan’s Wildform or Flesh to Stone) since these two units lack the staying power against the Great Weapons.

As a general rule however, I would reduce this unit with ranged attacks/spells before committing one of my
heavy infantry/monstrous infantry units into charging it from the flank or rear.

Dwarf Miners

The Dwarf Miners unit is an interesting unit because it essentially has the Ambush rule and it’s not a unit I see on the table very often. I find this very odd since the Dwarf Miners serve as a fairly decent Warmachine hunting unit. This unit shares the stat line with Dwarf Warriors and can be handled relatively in the same method. You need to be wary of their Blasting Charges because S6 Flaming attacks can hurt your Treekin or Treeman.

Dwarf Ironbreakers

The Ironbreakers are the heavily armored infantry of the Dwarf army. They sport the same stat line as the Hammerers but they have a 3+ armor save since they use a hand weapon and shield. I have found that Dwarf players will use a large unit of Ironbreakers as the backbone of their army, the anvil that their enemies can be crushed against. This unit can be deceptive to engage, a Wood Elf general may decide that since the Dwarf Ironbreakers only have Strength of 4 and no Great Weapons that perhaps the light infantry would be the best opponents to engage.

I avoid getting into close combat with the Ironbreakers if any at all possible. I have had a lot of success using Waywatchers that ignore armor saves with Killing Blow (or I use my Scout Highborn with the Bow of Loren/Arcane Bodkins combo in the Waywatchers unit) to whittle down the unit then engage it with augmented Treekin (Wyssan’s Wildform or Flesh to Stone) or attempt to blast it apart with Amber Spear or Dwellers Below. If you are able to get a flank charge or rear charge against this unit, then they will generally fold after a round or two. They are not stubborn like the Hammerers and while they have gromril armor you can still generally reduce their save to a 6+.

Dwarf Slayers

The Dwarf Slayers could possibly be the most annoying and horribly frustrating unit in the game to get locked into combat with. The Dwarf Slayers share the same stat line as the Dwarf Warrior except for the Leadership of 10. The stat line is where all semblance of similarity ends. The Dwarf Slayer is one of the most annoying offensive models ever, the Slayer rule means that they will always equal the toughness of the creature they are fighting up to Strength 6. They can switch between Two Hand Weapons or a Great Weapon. Slayers can upgrade to any number of unit champions and the worse part of all, the entire unit is Unbreakable. No matter how many wounds you do to the unit they do not break. The Slayer unit can easily cut through Treekin, Treemen and any other high toughness unit in the game with very little trouble.

The Slayer unit is not a unit that you will want to engage in close combat, the lack of armor means that they are easy prey to ranged combat. Typically I would focus fire on one unit and attempt to Dweller’s Below or Amber Spear the unit. I would not engage the unit in close combat unless I was able to minimize the amount of attacks the Slayers would output by getting a flank or rear charge off on this unit and even then I’d only use Wild Riders or Dryads to kill.

Dwarf Bolt Throwers/Grudge Thrower/Cannon

The Special selection warmachines in the Dwarf army are your standard annoying warmachines that you will encounter in 8th edition. The most annoying aspects of the warmachines are that they can be “inscribed” with runes to give them additional strength, armor piercing and most importantly flaming. Each of these warmachines has the capacity to one shot a Treeman if the rune of flaming is given to the model which can absolutely ruin your day. I always attempt to slay the warmachines using the following units/options.

1. Great Eagles (provided they don’t get shot out of the sky) and Heroes on Great Eagles.

2. Wild Riders/Dryads work wonderfully against warmachines.

3. Amber Spear/Dweller’s Below/Magic Missile spells (including Ruby Ring of Ruin)

4. Treeman – if you are able to break through with a Treeman into your opponent’s backfield, you will be able to wreck havoc on his warmachines.

5. You can attempt to kill the warmachine using ranged attacks but in every instance you’ll be needing a 6 to wound and that’s a difficult option based on other units at/around the warmachines.

The primary issue with Warmachines in the Dwarf army is that they can not be ignored. You can not sit back in your deployment zone and shoot, shoot, shoot because the Cannons, Bolt Throwers and Grudge Throwers are going to template/cannonball/bolt your units to death. The warmachines have to absolutely be dealt with as soon as possible. One way to protect some of your best units is to get into combat with the right unit and be protected in close combat. I tend to shield my Treeman against Cannon Fire with one of my Heroes with the Stone of Crystal Mere on his Eagle. Also, if you can swing your Great Eagles around to where they force your Dwarf opponent to split his fire, you’ve saved yourself some template worry for at least 1-2 turns. I will also tend to keep my archers in woods to prevent cannon balls from hitting them as well as any other obstacle that will serve as a barrier. The bolt thrower is also easy to avoid by going into hard cover and forcing the -2 to hit, especially at long range so that they have a -3.

All in all, that is the breakdown for the Special selections for the Dwarf Army and how I as a Wood Elf player deal with them. Of all the special units – warmachines aside, the most difficult to deal with is a tie between the Slayers and the Hammerers. Stubborn and Unbreakable are extremely annoying when you are attempting to cause panic tests from ranged shooting.

Things to remember with the Special selections of the Dwarf army are that they are weak on the flanks/rear, granted they are still Dwarfs but if you can win combats and cause those break tests when you properly utilize charges. The Wood Elf army has such a high mobility that there should be very little issue maneuvering into position. Don’t forget a flier as well; a rear charge even with a Great Eagle is enough to cause concern to a Dwarf player if his flank is exposed. The Special selections get even more perilous to handle when they are augmented by characters, but I’ll discuss that in the next post about the Dwarf army.

The next installment will concern the Rare selections and the characters in the Dwarf army.

Hope this is helpful to you all, thank you for reading.

I'll be doing an evaluation of the Wood Elf army book based on how I use the units in some of our up and coming episodes of The Deployment Zone podcast.

From the Workbench - Ghorgons and Eagle Riders WIP

2011-12-09T06:54:00.001-08:00

This week's From the Workbench is going to display the two assembled and converted Wood Elf Nobles/Spellweavers on Great Eagles and a comparison of a 3rd party Ghorgon and the new Games Workshop multi-kit.

The first few images are of what will be used as a Wood Elf Noble on a Great Eagle. This has been a fairly effective model on the battlefield and I am very pleased I decided to include it in my lists. I purchased another Eagle from Coolminiornot.com and the Games Workshop Wood Elf Noble with Bow. I cut away/filed off the tree trunk the Wood Elf leans on then pinned him to the saddle of the eagle.

Next up I assembled and painted the Elf Sorceress on a Giant Owl model from Coolminiornot.com. I have been using her as my Spellweaver on an Eagle in my 3k games but I think I may shift to putting my Spellweaver back in the unit of Eternal Guard and use this model as another Noble with an Always Strikes First "staff". I've has a lot more success using Eagles and Heroes rather than the lone Spellweaver on her owl.

Here she is painted with and without the flash and also with her buddy the unpainted Noble on an Eagle.

Lastly we come to my dilemma. I wanted to use a Ghorgon in my list so badly but didn't want to kitbash one. After months of searching online I found a 3rd party sculpt that I liked and that also looked like the image in the Beastman army book. Then on Dec. 3rd, Games Workshop releases the new Ghorgon/Cygor plastic kits and I of course pick up 2 because it's plastic crack and I'm an addict.

Now I've got a problem...which one do I use? Do I use the new GW Ghorgon or do I continue to use my $90 resin Ghorgon? Do I use one of them as unit filler or attempt to figure out how to use 2 in a 2800 point list?

I really, really like the new Games Workshop plastic monster so this sucks! Either way, here are some images of both of them so that folks can see the size and quality comparison.

Lastly, the plastic kit also included a very large menhir stone that I can use in either my Wood Elf army as a nice unit filler or as a Herdstone for my Beastmen army.

Thanks and feel free to leave comments and/or recommendations on which model to use.

Wood Elf Army Tactica: Fighting Dwarfs - Part 1

2011-12-08T10:49:00.001-08:00

WarhammerFantasy Army Analysis: Dwarfs – Part 1

Irecently had posted a battle report of my Wood Elves vs. Dwarves and one of theposter’s here mentioned that he was still very interested in reading an armyanalysis of the Dwarf army from a Wood elf perspective. So in response to his request, I will beproviding a series of Army Analysis and Evaluation posts from the Wood Elf Armyperspective where I analyze the army and the unit and provide examples of how Ihandle them. The purpose of these postswill be to provide insight to the readers on how I play and how I perceivecertain units with the Wood Elf army.

There areonly really three armies in the Warhammer Fantasy game that I have a constantstruggle playing against; Lizardmen, Skaven and Dwarfs. So these three armies will be the first onesI analyze and discuss. This is not tosay that all the other armies are easy to play against, it’s just those threegive me the hardest time and despite my assertions that the Wood Elf army is“fine”, I really never expect success when I encounter those three armies dueto the age of the Wood Elf book and the overall balance and efficiency of theother books.

Sowithout much further ado:

Dwarfs:

The Dwarfarmy is an interesting army when you compare it to the other armies in theWarhammer world. They really have nomagic, superior shooting to everyone in the game and the most importantfeature: they are dwarfs. The Dwarf armyis essentially the perfect mesh between a close combat and a ranged army,something that this Wood Elf player strives to emulate in his army.

1. The Entire Army is Leadership 9 or 10. –The entire Dwarf army being such a higher leadership causes issues for manyWood Elf players who attempt to create panic tests in Dwarf units. The Wood Elf army also have several units(half the army practically) that causes Fear/Terror. Having any army that is LD9 or LD10 is verydifficult since Dwarfs also share another feature that Wood Elf units have…

2. TheEntire Army is Weapon Skill 4 or higher. – Much like the Wood Elf army,there entire army is Weapon Skill 4 or higher which means that when Wood Elvessquare off in close combat they are generally hitting on 4’s rather than 3’s. The Dwarf army being Toughness 4 affects theWood Elves combat effectiveness, especially when the Dwarf army is LD9-10 andhas a very low chance of failing a Fear/Terror check.

3. TheEntire Army is Toughness 4. - Manyarmies have varied levels of Toughness throughout their army. The Dwarf army only has Toughness 4 for allof their units (minus Heroes/Lords and Warmachines), which means that WoodElves are generally having to roll 4’s or 5’s to wound with their standardunits rather than 3’s.

4. SuperiorWarmachines and Shooting. – The Dwarf army possesses the Dwarven Handgunwhich provides them with a +1 to hit and it’s also Str4 and armorpiercing. The Dwarf army also has accessto the Grudge Thrower, Organ Gun, Cannon, Gyrocopter, Flame Cannon, and the BoltThrower. Where the Wood Elf army doesnot suffer penalties for moving and shooting and at short range one of theirunits has Str4 shooting, the Wood Elf army in no way has access to firepower ofthis magnitude since the Wood Elf armydoes not have access to any warmachines.

5. Accessto numerous Flaming and Dispelling options. – The Dwarf army possesses theability to make practically every warmachine in the army possess FlamingAttacks by adding a specific Rune. This singlefeature is very troublesome against Wood Elf armies since two most durable andcombat effective units in the Wood Elf army (Treeman/Treekin) possess theFlammable rule. Coupled with the effectthat both the Lore of Life and Athel Loren both yield a Regeneration spell,Flaming template weapons are brutal to the Wood elf list. The other issue is the access to multipleDispel scrolls in the form of Runes of Spellbreaking and the Spelleaterrunes. The magical standard available tothe army can also automatically dispel all stays in play spells making thingslike Throne of Vines or Transformation of Kadon both difficult to cast anduse.

6. TheDwarf Army is Movement 3. – With the new charge distance being 2d6+movement and the Dwarf army having the Resolute ability, this movement rate isnot a big concern. You no longer canreliably be 7 inches away to always out distance your Dwarf opponent forcharges and points denial.

7. TheDwarf Army has no magic. – The Dwarf Army not having access to magic isabout as troublesome as the Beastmen not having a strong shooting phase. It’s a non-issue. The Dwarf Army may still be very effective inthe Magic phase and don’t forget their Anvils of Doom don’t suck!

8. TheDwarf Army loves Great Weapons. – Other than your warmachines, the entireDwarf Army except for Thunderers and Ironbreakers has access to GreatWeapons. The fact that the Dwarf Army iswearing heavy armor already means that being Toughness 4, Strength 5 or 6 with a5+ armor save isn’t such a bad situation to be in. The army using Great Weapons means that theyare not suffering from their Initiative of 2 and wounding most armies on a 2 or3 and this is especially annoying against the Toughness 3 Wood Elves.

So wehave established that the Dwarf Army is tough, slow, strong , shooty andreliable. The Dwarf Army is veryeffective in both close combat and the shooting phase of the game whilemaintaining a pretty formidable dispelling phase in their magic phase. So, how does a Wood Elf army that is not verystrong, tough or durable like the Dwarf army stand up to their beardednemesis?

Basic Tactica vs. Dwarfs

First andforemost, when dealing with Dwarves you have to capitalize on the key elementsthat Wood Elves have that Dwarfs do not; mobility and speed. Mobility and Speed allow the Wood Elf army tonot only reposition quickly but also set up for flank and rear charges withease. The main advantage of the Wood Elfarmy against Dwarfs is that the Wood Elves should always be able to pick theirbattles and rarely allow themselves to be charged at an inopportune time.

I'llstart the Tactica breakdown with some Core Units:

Dwarf Warriors –

The coreunit of the Dwarf Army: the Warriors. Inormally see Dwarf Warriors fielded in blocks of 20 with Great Weapons. This means that they are sporting an armorsave of 5+, an initiative of 1 with Always Strikes Last and a Strength modifiedto 5. Whenever I am facing a unitwielding Great Weapons I will do my best to engage them not only on the flankor rear but with my heavy infantry units. Treekin and Treemen are my chosen units to deal with Great Weaponwielding Dwarf Warriors, however if I have a flank open I will use Wild Ridersor Dryads. The Dwarf Warrior unit isyour basic rank and file dwarf for all intensive purposes, they are Toughness 4and Weapon Skill 4. There is very littlechance I'll be able to really utilize Fear or Terror since they will be LD 9 or10, so I need to expect that I'm going to be hitting on 4's rather than 3's. Ideally, I will attempt to cast Flesh toStone on the unit I have chosen to engage the Great Weapon wielders in order tomake the "To Wound" roll a 6 again rather than a 4 or 5.

Dwarf Longbeards -

Theupgrade to Dwarf Warriors, the Longbeards, are even more troublesome andannoying than their cousins. TheseDwarfs are now Weapon Skill 5 and Strength 4, couple that with Great Weaponsand you have a Core unit swinging at Strength 6 that will generally hit on3's. As a Wood Elf player, I only haveaccess to a few high Toughness units. Therefore I can not and will not commit one of my overly expensive unitsto combating Longbeards in close combat. This type of unit I will shoot with my Glade Guard and attempt to castDweller's Below or Amber Spear on. Iwill not be able to capitalize on Fear, Terror or Panic since the unit isImmune to Psychology so that puts another check on the "do not charge"list. If the unit is equipped withShields rather than Great Weapons, the unit becomes slightly less dangerous andI feel more comfortable charging it. Asa general rule however, I would reduce this unit with ranged attacks/spellsbefore committing a unit into charging it on the flank or rear.

Dwarf Quarrellers and Thunderers

I amaware that these are two separate units, each armed with differentweapons. I am also aware that theweapons they use have different properties. I normally see both of these units armed with Shields which grants thema 5+ armor save. Both of these unitshave the same stat lines as the Dwarf Warriors, especially the Ballistic Skillof 3. I treat both of these units mainlythe same as far as how I deal with them. I will however split this up after the basic tactica is discussed. I generally see 2 units of either on thefield, and they normally will have warmachine guard duty.

Quarrellers

This unitI will always use my heavy infantry or monsters like Treemen to charge themwith. Their crossbows are only Strength3 and will require 6's to wound the Treemen or Treekin and they will not affectmy armor save. I find it very hard toflank/rear charge these types of units unless my flying units manage to getbehind them. These units do not last longagainst heavy infantry.

Thunderers

This unitis more troublesome than the Quarrellers. While they have the same stat line and armor, they possess Dwarvenhandguns. The Dwarven Handgun isStrength 4, 24" range, Armor Piercing and also grants a +1 to hit due totheir fine "craftmanship". (And people complain that Glade Guard longbows are overpowered...idiots) This unit requires me to use a differenttactics when engaging them, I will generally attempt to shoot this unit todeath rather than get within short range. Due to the numerous annoying units that require my ranged attention in this army, I am normally forced to commitmy unit of choice to close combat with these guys - Dryads. The Thunderers will receive a -1 to hitbecause the Dryads are skirmishers which cancels out the Dwarven Handgun +1 tohit and while they need 4's to wound, there is no armor save to affect so theDryads are rolling their 5+ ward save. Iwill generally send the Dryads in first to eat up the Stand and Shoot reactionand then commit the Wild Riders or Eagles if the Dryads took too manycasualties.

Theprimary idea with the ranged units is that you need to be very aware of whichunit you are charging. The Thunderersserve as the Dwarf heavy armor killers while the Quarrellers serve as cheaperwarmachine guardians.

Dwarf Rangers

The mostannoying units in the entire Dwarf army are the Rangers. While the unit can be upgraded from Warriors,Longbeards or Quarrellers; I normally see them upgraded from Great Weaponwielding Quarrellers. This unit has thecapability to get behind the Wood Elf line and take out key units like aSpellweaver or Hero on an Eagle. I willnormally deploy my army where the Dwarf player will not be able to deploy hisScouts anywhere advantageous (read anywhere closer than 12" from tableedge i.e. 11.5") Should you be ableto counteract the Scout placement and keep them out of your backfield, thenthey are easily killed with ranged attacks. Should you unfortunately have them sneak in behind you then I recommendusing Dryads or Wild Riders to chew them up in your backfield before any substantialdamage can be done.

That willdo it for the Core section of the army book. In up and coming posts I'll be doing the Special and Rare selections anda few characters.

I'll alsobe using this format moving forward for the other armies like Lizardmen andSkaven. Keep in mind these tactics arehow I fight the army and may or may not be the best methods but they are mymethods.

I'll bedoing an evaluation of the Wood Elf army book based on how I use the units insome of our up and coming episodes of The Deployment Zone podcast.

Thanks!

Holiday Havoc - 3k Tournament for Toys for Tots

2011-12-04T09:32:00.001-08:00

This past Saturday I participated in the Holiday Havoc Toys for Tots tournament at Dice Age Games in Vancouver, WA. It was a small tournament only having ten players, I would have liked to have seen more but I think due to scheduling and the holiday season that we could only get what we could. The tournament was based off the holidays and so each scenario was designed with a holiday theme associated with it. The tournament organizer Jim, did an excellent job of setting up the tables and pre-labeling the Mysterious Terrain.

The tournament had the following qualifications/restrictions/features:
1. Closed list - I rarely play against someone and not exchange lists before hand so this was a tad bit weird for me. It didn't matter however since all my opponents and I exchanged lists anyway out of habit.
2. Pre-determined mysterious terrain. Each table had the terrain already established and a key was placed on each table.
3. 3000 points, no Grand Army Rules. (Perhaps my favorite feature of the entire tournament)
4. Everyone needed to bring a Christmas themed model to be their Santa's Helper. I had a Snoopy wearing a Santa hat for mine. He was righteous.
5. Everyone had to pay $20 in the form of a toy for Toys for Tots or you could buy one of the predetermined Toys at the store as well.

The other big thing I wanted to establish was that this was termed a "Friendly tournament" where we are grading Sportsmanship as an important factor. The prize support was entirely based off raffle tickets rather than "so and so won all his games so he gets the prize". It really helped create a more friendly atmosphere for the tournament in general.

Since the tournament was a "Closed List" tournament, I was not able to obtain my opponent's lists. That makes it hard when I'm attempting to recreate the lists in Battle Chronicler so I'll have to do a shoddy summary for all three games. If my opponents send me their lists via the Ordo website then I'll do another report where I show some battle scenes. I realize it would be 1000x easier to do this if I took pictures but my god damn SD card got fried on my phone and SanDisk is slower than hell getting me a replacement. grrr.....

All three scenarios can be seen here since Raindog managed to obtain 3 copies of the scenarios and posted them on the Ordo. They can be found here along with some pictures taken.

Game 1: Wood Elves vs. Lizardmen

This scenario was "Battle for the Pass".
The Special Rules: Each player had a Santa Statue in their deployment zone. You needed to capture your opponents while still maintaining control of yours.

Lizardmen are a tough army against opponents with high strength. They are exceptionally difficult for Wood Elves to defeat when they have big blocks of models and lots of monsters. My opponent Mike and I had a great time, it was a really close game til the last turn where he managed to turn the tide with his general.

This game I set up with all my flying units and fast cavalry on the left flank and the rest of my army near the right center. When it became my turn I shifted all my army to the right side and decided to overpower and dominate his flank. This tactic was working out very well and I was confident of a victory until my opponent got Throne of Vines off and then Flesh to Stone at +4 Toughness two turns in a row on a unit of Saurus Warriors. My plan had been to blow through that unit, reform and hit his Temple Guard in the rear with Treekin/Eagles and hopefully wipe out the left and center flank. Sadly, my Treekin were not able to break the unit until the last turn. My Eternal Guard, Treeman and Dryads were grinding against one of his Ancient Stegadons and his general on a carnosaur. Mike secured victory in the last turn by killing the last Eternal Guard at the top of turn 6 and his General using the Blade of Realities slaying my toughness 10 Treeman by scoring a single wound.

I lost this game because of 3 major factors:
1. I did not want to annihilate my sportsmanship score by shooting his General off his carnosaur turn 1. I should have done this because the Blade of Realities was perhaps the most deciding factor of our game. Oh well =).
2. I wasn't able to prevent Throne of Vines and Flesh to Stone from being cast 2 consecutive times in a row which was absolutely brutal. I can't complain much because this is the same tactic I use on my Treekin to make them Toughness 9. Huge, huge help to my opponent getting those spells off.
3. I should have maneuvered my Wild Riders into a better position because I threw a 296 point unit into a block of Temple Guard unsupported due to overrun.

Overall, it was a few errors in judgement but a great game nonetheless.

Wood Elves lost 16-5 by a 400 point victory margin.

Game 2: Wood Elves vs. Orcs and Goblins

The scenario was "Watchtower".
The Special Rules: The watchtower was Santa's sleigh and if you controlled it you were able to have it attack for you. Those reindeer don't mess around. The sleigh functions as both the Watchtower and an Oathstone.

I have a love/hate relationship with Orcs and Goblins. I either completely annihilate them or I get thrashed. I played against Matt who brought a rather impressively balanced Orcs and Goblins army. He brought 2 Giants and 2 units of Black Orcs in it.

I once again set up on the left side and had the intention of dominating a flank and getting behind my opponent's lines. This game I was playing rather aggressively but I made so many errors in judgement and had some pretty monumentally bad rolls that cost my the utilization of 1/4th my army for most of the game. I started out pretty well on his left side, killing one unit and causing panic for a few others and having them run off the board. I unfortunately didn't read the table rules about the special terrain and ended up losing half my unit of Waywatchers to a Sinister statue, that was a huge issue. That was my first of three big mistakes in the first turn which haunted my the rest of the game. The second came when I flew my Spellweaver over and she attempted to Dwellers Below his unit of Night Goblins. I failed the casting attempt and ended up taking 2 wounds from a Spear Chukka and she died the next round from a Doom Diver. The third and final error was misunderstanding where the Flaming Banner was and charging the unit with his general and 20 black orcs with flaming attacks with my Treekin. Matt was able to get a lot of good charges off and his Night Goblins were dynamite at holding up my Wild Riders for 4 turns.
I also learned a new rule - you get +1 combat ress for holding the higher ground!
My archers also decided to almost all run off the table in the same turn, was rather sad =(.

I was doing very well in the beginning and it was beginning to look like I might break his army along one of the flanks until a few major errors in judgement happened. In the end I lost, he still had his unit of 50 boys, an orc chariot, a unit of Night Goblins and other unit of Black Orcs on the board while I only had my Treeman, 2 eagles, 14 Glade Guard and my Wood elf hero on an eagle on the table. Substantial victory to Matt and I had a great game. Matt displayed a LOT of great sportsmanship and received my favored opponent choice.

I lost this game due to these factors:
1. I am always preaching about "Never single charge a unit, always combo charge, know what you are charging into, etc..". Well... you have to practice what you preach. Charging my Treekin unsupported into that unit of Flaming bannered Black Orcs was very ill advised. It cost my a 390 point unit at the bottom of the second round and I was backpedaling in the center after that the entire game.
2. I did not read the table terrain rules, I really regret doing that since I would have played a bit better on the flank and probably had more success on his flank than I did.
3. I failed 3 crucial LD10 tests in a row. This cost me 2 units of Glade Guard and my Waywatchers/General. I was able to salvage one Glade Guard unit at the end but losing my ability to shoot for 3 turns crippled my army.
4. I was too aggressive on the right flank and center. I should have held off another turn before making my decision to control the center of the board. Had I been able to slink around the back and get the appropriate placement I wanted I would have done a lot better.

Wood Elves lost again 18 to 7.

Game 3: Wood Elves vs. Empire.

The scenario was: "Blood and Glory".
Special Rules: None

I played against my friend Roy's Empire army. Roy had bunkered himself in behind a couple of fences and had spread out his army pretty well. I decided to attack his flank when he began to Mortar the hell out of my army. Three turns of him not rolling anything but "HIT" on the scatter die was a bit frustrating. It was looking like I might lose the game before I even hit his line because he had reduced 4 units, 3 of which contained 6 Fortitude points down below 25%. I was actually fleeing with my General. The game was looking to be in Roy's favor and the Wood Elves were looking to go 0 and 3 for the first time ever in a tournament, (Hell me going 0 and 2 was a first!) until the top of turn 3 when I performed the following actions that turned the tide.
1. I discovered the Wyrding Well and began to replenish my depleted units.
2. My general rallied on a 2.
3. I charged his 50 man block with his general and a banner with my Treeman. He rolled 10, 10, 12 for his two leadership tests and his distance and runs off the table.
4. Treekin/Eagles/Eternal Guard defeat 2 units and cause Roy to fall below his fortitude and I win.

Wood Elves win 19-5.

Roy, Mike and I ended up winning the Raffle at the end of the tournament and I picked up this bad boy:

The tournament was an awesome and fun time, I bend my cap to Jim for running it. I also wanted to thank Dice Age Games for hosting the tournament. They had quite a selection and an excellent gaming space.

It was also a great mental check for me. It was good to see that even with some really big mistakes that I shouldn't have made but I did, my army is still able to hold up pretty well even when things are not going my way. Now I can say "I made this mistake and that mistake" etc... but that should in no way diminish my opponent's win. They did well and I can't complain that I didn't have a good time. I did not play my army the way I normally do and because of it I lost 2 games and almost lost a 3rd.

I'll be hopefully providing Battle Chronicler reports when my opponents send me their lists and I can show you the highlights.

I'll be going over all of these again on our podcast The Deployment Zone and thanks for reading!

Bringing a Knife to a Gun Fight.

2011-11-15T12:02:00.001-08:00

Bringing a Knife to a Gun Fight.

One of the topics of last night’s podcast (Episode 3 of The Deployment Zone podcast) was list building and themes. After we finished recording and I was seeking the slowly diminishing solace of a good night’s sleep, a nagging thought was bouncing around in my head. There was a comment that Bryan made which was “Bringing a knife to a gun fight” which referenced when you bring what are considered sub-optimal units in a list.

That comment managed to bounce around in my head for good thirty or so minutes until I finally fell into what could be considered an exhausted slumber. After waking up this morning, which took longer to get out of bed and to wake up than I care to admit, that same comment resurfaced in my thoughts as my brain began to finally work.

I think the comment itself is brilliant because it really encompasses an idea that I feel should be used more and more often in war gaming. People get so caught up in what is the most competitive and efficient build for whatever army they play. They are more concerned with the easy win with minimal effort rather than exercising tactics and strategy. You don’t need to bring a bazooka when all you need is pellet gun.
I listen to a variety of podcasts through out the week; many of these podcasts concern themselves with covering the American, Australian and European tournament scenes. The reoccurring theme with many of these podcasts is the best build, the most optimal composition, or the best units to take in your list. While it is always fun to perform an analysis and state your opinion on what you think is the best unit or set up for this or that army, too often these opinions become the accepted standard for how that certain army should work. When this happens you then begin to see cookie cutter lists spring up with little or no variation in their composition or play style. I feel that this problem has only been exacerbated by the epidemic of “netlisting” where people go online and post the most recent tournament winning list for everyone to replicate. From an analytical standpoint this is an interesting method of seeing how well an army can perform with the most “efficient” build, but from a personal standpoint I find that this is a serious problem because it defeats the entire purpose of self discovery and inspiration. You no longer have to be an excellent player or even learn to play well, just download the most recent Adepticon, ‘Ard Boyz, Tournament of Skulls or list for your army and terrorize your FLGS. The netlisting issue seems to be more prevalent in Warhammer 40k rather than Warhammer Fantasy but I believe that is because there is a larger Tournament scene for 40k and a larger player base currently. While some may argue that this netlisting method “levels’ the playing field between the really good players and the not so good players, - you’re an idiot if you think so and please die in a fire. If you want to play a game where you don’t have to make your own list or put any thought into composition then go play checkers.

Creating your own army list is one of the most core principles of war gaming. Looking at an army and feeling inspired to collect, assemble, paint and play it for months or even years is what this game is all about. Using the units that you enjoyed assembling and painting should be personally rewarding because there was something about them that made you choose them in the first place. You should be able to write an army list and look at the finished product and feel pride that it is your creation and not something you downloaded off Warseer or Dakkadakka.

Now we get to the very meat of my post, bringing the proverbial “knife” to a gunfight.

First and foremost, I am a competitive player who regularly attends and competes in tournaments. I do very well and take pride in my performance at these events. I would also like to add that I do very well and win at these events using lists that contain what are considered sub-optimal units. Last night was an excellent example when Bryan and I were discussing my Eldar army and he said that he thought I would have a lot of trouble against heavy armor armies like Imperial Guard. He had a hard time believing me that I had no problem against those types of armies with the units I listed that make up my 1500 point list. It is examples like this where the bringing a Knife to a Gun fight analogy works brilliantly. Another example would be my choice to run with the Wood Elves as my primary army in Warhammer Fantasy. The common opinion both here in the US and also in Europe is that the Wood Elf army is the weakest choice to play. People do not regard the army very highly and really tend to underestimate it all the time. It is this misconception that really strengthens my belief that regardless of what the army being played is, the player is the determining factor. I have had people bring their “netlists” to the table in both Warhammer Fantasy and 40k and they were beaten soundly. The reason why they were defeated so easily is because they did not design their list, they did not formulate their own strategy when their list was being created, and they also tend to have their entire army fall apart when you negate how the army was intended to work.

Players that create their own lists and themes using models they like and play those lists a lot tend to become almost tournament level proficient with their army. I think that players do themselves a disservice when they don’t exercise their own creativity and fail to branch out with the army they have chosen. Just because the internet says that this unit isn’t optimal doesn’t mean it’s not worth taking, it only means you need to figure out if that model fits your theme and play style. You don’t really learn anything new about your army if you use someone else’s list.

I think players develop and become better by playing the armies that they design. I also think that a player that plays their own list and becomes proficient at their list will perform better than even the best “tournament” lists out there - even when they bring what are considered “knives” to a gunfight.

Now there is another topic that I could address in this post which is the difference between what people consider “Douchey” and “Friendly” lists but I’ll address that another day.

I will now spend the rest of my freetime today attempting to make a Beastmen list that I like.

Product Review: Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos

2011-11-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

Product Review: Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos

Warhammer Forge, the Warhammer Fantasy division of Forge World, has released their first Warhammer Fantasy supplement called Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos. The book provides lore, campaign outlines, scenarios, army rules and themes that centers around the coming of Tamurkhan, the Maggot Lord and his conquest of the empire of man.

The production quality of the book is absolutely top notch. Every single page is made of high quality parchment paper and the book is bound with a dark red leather cover. The pages are full color and the font they use varies from an “archaic” freehanded script to your standard print. The artwork is both unique and stunning, it provides you with a wonderful visual of what the author was trying to convey in his story. I have purchased my fair share of gaming books in the past and the quality of this supplement really rates at the top.

The story for this supplement was done very well. In this tale, Nurgle has unleashed his chosen champion Tamurkhan upon the world. Historically, the forces of Chaos have always come down through Kislev and smashed against the might of the Empire’s northern battlements. Tamurkhan, the Maggot Lord, decides to come in from the South and blazes his way through the Ogre Kingdoms, the Dark Lands and finally through the Border Princes to Nuln. Each chapter describes how Tamurkhan conquers, slaughters, dominates or enslaves both allies and foes on his way to the heart of the Empire. The story is so well done and it dominates the first 100 or so pages of the book. The author, Alan Bligh, does such a good job describing the blasted trail that Tamurkhan and his hordes of chaos carve through the Warhammer world and the events that transpire during the journey.

Now the next part of the book deals with the actual game world and provides the reader with not only new units to use but also how to run the actual story campaign and the scenarios to go along with it. I was already pleased with the book due to the story and I knew that the new units in the book were going to be well worth the $76.00 price tag, but I had no idea that the book would provide the campaign setting and outline for Tamurkhan’s storming of the Old World. The campaign outline was the proverbial icing on the cake. The campaign outline is designed for armies of both 2500 and 3500 points. This further reinforces my belief that Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition is geared towards higher level point values but I digress! The campaign itself is split up into six different chapters or phases and has it’s own limitations for heroes and magical items. Each “phase” corresponds with one of the six chapters in the story section of the book and each phase they recommend having as many battles as you have players in the campaign before moving on. Each battle you fight will have a random scenario to be chosen which is worth a set number of points. The side (Order vs. Chaos) that has the most points at the end of the phase wins that phase and the side with the most points will receive bonuses in the final scenario. I personally am looking forward to running this campaign with my friends and seeing how it plays out.

The bestiary is the next leg of the book that describes three main sections; Chaos forces, Empire forces and the Legions of Azgorh – the Chaos Dwarves. I will be providing a super brief run down of various units in this book and my thoughts about them. The first thing I wanted to make known is that the units in this book are actually well done. The Chaos units are definitely themed and do not suck! The point values actually reflect the model’s worth very well and I think the game designer did an excellent job on all three sections. In future posts I’ll do a full evaluation of each unit and special character in the book but for this post I’ll just list out the units and the chaos dwarf army.

Bestiary of Chaos:

Bile Trolls of Chaos – rare selection for Warriors of Chaos

Plague Toads of Nurgle – Core choice in Daemons of Chaos, Special Choice in Warriors of Chaos.

Pox Riders of Nurgle – special selection for Daemons of Chaos

Chaos War Mammoth – Rare selection for Warriors of Chaos (so awesome!)

Chaos Siege Giant – Rare selection in both Warriors of Chaos and Legion of Azgorh.

The Empire Bestiary is full of special characters that augment the army or have a pivotal role in the Throne of Chaos campaign.

The Marienberg Class Land Battle Ship – is a Rare selection for the Empire.

Now is the part that everyone has been waiting for! I will not be typing out anything other than what is listed and the type of unit it is. I will do a full run down in later posts about each unit.

Legion of Azgorh: The Chaos Dwarves

Lord choices:

Sorcerer-Prophet –Wizard (lore of Hashut, Fire, Metal or Death)

Hero choices:

Daemonsmith Sorcerer – Wizard (lore of Fire, Metal or Death)

Infernal Castellan – Infantry melee Hero

Hobgoblin Khan – Infantry melee Hero

Bull Centaur Taur’ruk – Monstrous Beast Hero

Core choices:

Chaos Dwarf Infernal Guard – two options for outfitting – ranged or hand to hand.

Hobgoblin Cutthroats – infantry

Special choices:

Chaos Dwarf Infernal Ironsworn – Infantry

Bull Centaur Renders – Monstrous Beasts

K’Daai Fireborn – Monstrous Infantry

Magma Cannon – War machine

Deathshrieker Rocket Launcher – War machine

Iron Daemon War Engine – Unique war machine/chariot/something

Rare choices:

Hobgoblin Wolf Raiders – Cavalry

Dreadquake Mortar – War Machine

K’Daai Destroyer – Monster

Hellcannon – as per Warriors of Chaos army book

Chaos Siege Giant – Monster

The army itself is very formidable and should be fun to play and play against. I was exceptionally pleased with how well they presented the material. The army is more of an elite and specialized army but has a lot of flexibility. I was surprised that there was not a Lord level close combat styled character but that may be because the Sorcerer-Prophet’s are beefy enough to give even your standard combat Lord pause before attacking.

The last section and probably the most surprising was the Storm of Magic chapter. The designers actually included a Bestiary of the monsters located in this book for SoM! You can take the Chaos Siege Giant, Bile Trolls, Carmine Dragon and the Toad Dragon.

Final thoughts and wrap up for Tamurkhan, Throne of Chaos.

I think that Warhammer Forge has managed to single handedly win me over with just one release. I was almost willing to order the 800+ dollar order to get a medium sized army of Chaos Dwarves, good thing fear of my girlfriend and my imminent death swayed me not to. The book itself is phenomenal, the content is amazing and the rules and bestiary are top notch. Two thumbs up in my book. I will now have a hard time NOT buying Warhammer Forge releases!

You can all expect a full run down of each unit in the Legion of Azgorh in the next few weeks.

By Daemons...be driven! Wood elves vs. Daemons of Chaos

2011-11-05T16:12:00.000-07:00

Friday night yielded two rather fun games of Warhammer Fantasy for me. I had the chance to take on a rather unconventional but fun Daemons of Chaos list. We had decided to play at 3000 points with no grand army rules. I've always had a bit of trepidation going up against Daemons since they are incredibly tough and have the uncanny knack of killing everything they go up against. I had originally planned on using my Beastmen since I wanted to get more practice with them but I couldn't create a list at 3k that I was happy with (oh the joys of making "the list") so I chose to use my Wood elves.
So... here are the two lists brought.

Chaos United

General -Daemon Prince - unmarked w/ ASF power and no armor saves power.

20 Bloodlettersw/ full command

Herald ofKhorne on Juggernaut

3 Bloodcrushersw/ Standard bearer/mus

Herald ofTzentch w/ Loremaster? of Beasts power, Level 2

20 Pink Horrorsw/ full command

Herald ofNurgle on Paliquin? Level 1 - annoying Miasma spell and Always strike lastpower - seriously F Nurgle.

20Plaguebearers

Herald ofSlaanesh - Level 1

20 Daemonettesw/ full command

6 Flamers ofTzeentch

5 Nurglings

5 Seekers ofSlaanesh

5 Chaos Furies

Opponent: Derek

3000 Pts - Wood Elves Roster - The GreatHunt, War Host of Athel Loren

Waywatcher Lord Sylvos Greystorm theHuntsman, Ranger General of Athel Loren (1#, 244 pts)

1 ×Wood Elf Highborn, 244 pts (General;Scout Kindred; Hand Weapon; Longbow; Extra Hand Weapon; Light Armour; ExtraAttack)

1 The Bow of Loren

1 Enchanted Shield

1 Arcane Bodkins

The Stalkers of the Silent Path (10#,240 pts)

10 Waywatchers, 240 pts (Hand Weapon;Extra Hand Weapon; Longbow; Extra Attack; Scouts; Skirmishers)

The Farstriders of Lady Dreamsinger(14#, 196 pts)

14 Glade Guard, 196 pts (Musician Mus;Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow)

1 Banner of Eternal Flame

The Twilight Host (14#, 186 pts)

14 Glade Guard, 186 pts (Musician Mus;Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow)

The Handmaidens of Durthu, the VerdantRage (10#, 132 pts)

9 Dryads, 132 pts (Causes Fear;Skirmishers)

1 Branch Nymph

Archdruidess Nysa Greystorm the StormMaiden, Hierophant of Athel Loren (2#, 330 pts)

1 Spellweaver, 330 pts (Level 4 Upgrade;Hand Weapon; Longbow)

1 Great Eagle (Flyer; Stomp)

1 Glamorweave

Lady Nepenthia Dreamsinger, Stormsingerof Athel Loren (1#, 125 pts)

1 Wood Elf Noble (Battle StandardBearer), 125 pts (Hand Weapon; Battle Standard Bearer)

1 Armour of Fortune

The Spears of Loren, Storm Wardens ofCoeth-Mara (19#, 303 pts)

18 Eternal Guard, 303 pts (Musician Mus;Standard Bearer Std)

1 Guardian

1 Razor Standard

The Wolfkin, Feral Knights of Durthu (6#,390 pts)

6 Tree Kin, 390 pts (Causes Fear;Flammable; Scaly Skin)

The Outriders of Twilight, Huntsmen ofKurnous (10#, 296 pts)

9 Wild Riders of Kurnous, 296 pts(Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Spear; Light Armour; Fast Cavalry; MagicResistance (1))

1 Wild Hunter (Spear; Light Armour)

10 Elven Steed

Scryah, the Last Shadow (1#, 50 pts)

1 Great Eagle, 50 pts (Flyer)

Gwynador, the Scion of the Sethayla (1#,50 pts)

1 Great Eagle, 50 pts (Flyer)

Dornatha the Verdant Rage (1#, 285 pts)

1 Treeman, 285 pts (Causes Terror;Flammable; Large Target; Scaly Skin; Stubborn; Thunder Stomp)

Cyre Winterwolf, the Storm Lord of AthelLoren (2#, 171 pts)

1 Wood Elf Noble, 171 pts (Hand Weapon;Longbow; Spear; Light Armour; Shield)

1 Great Eagle (Flyer; Stomp)

1 Dragonhelm

1 Stone of the Crystal Mere

Total Roster Cost: 2998

We played two games - the first one ended in a draw but at around turn 4 I realized I hadn't been keeping track of what happened per turn so I asked if we were going to play another and was told "hell yes". So...we have a battle report for 1 game!

Game type: Battle Mission 1 - Battle Line
Deployment: 12" from long board edge
Mysterious Terrain - 2 Forests

Deployment:

As you can see the Daemons chose to consolidate their strength in the center and placed their fast moving units on the left side. The Wood Elves chose to lean a little more to their left as well but with all the flying units in the army my opponent knew I could pick and choose what flank I wanted per turn. I chose to keep my Waywatchers nearby this game for fear of his Flamers of Tzeench. I however forgot three very important things - skirmishers, 6" move and 18" range shots. Meh...anyway. Daemon's got first turn which was unfortunate...

Turn 1 - Daemons of Chaos

The Daemon's first turn went pretty well. the Flamers reduced the Waywatchers down to 3 models from 10 but they held their ground after a successful leadership test. The Nurglings moved right in front of my line to serve as a speed bump so that Derek could maneuver his units better. The Magic phase went pretty well for the Daemons: Wyssan's Wildform was cast on the Daemonettes, Phantasmagoria went off (I seriously hate that damn spell), Amber Spear and Miasma were dispelled.

Turn 1 - Wood Elves

The Great Hunt decided to do a little switcheroo here. The Treeman and Eternal Guard charged the Nurglings, crushed them in combat and the Eternal Guard overran into the Bloodcrushers. The Glade Guard with the Flaming banner killed a Bloodcrusher. The rest of the army as you can see moved to the far right side of my opponent's flank while my Dryads moved up to prevent a flank charge on my Treekin. Magic phase went well for me, I was able to get Throne of Vines off and hit my Eternal Guard with Regeneration and my Treekin with +4 Toughness making them T9. Regrowth was dispelled on the Waywatchers =(

Turn 2 - Daemons

Here is where I began to sweat bullets a bit. The Daemonettes and Bloodletters charge my Treekin. The Plaguebearers charge my Treeman. The Furies and the Seekers manage to swing up on my flank and rear. The Magic phase fortunately was hugely favorable to me, the Herald of Tzeentch miscast Wyssan's Wildform on the Daemonettes and lost 4 or so Horrors to the explosion and lost the rest of their magic dice. The Flamers of Tzeentch absolutely vaporized the Dryads which was ...lame. The Treekin, Eternal Guard and Treemen won their combats but the Daemon's held with minimal losses. I began to respect the Monsters and Monstrous Infantry of the Wood Elves more and more.

Turn 2 - Wood Elves

This turn went well for the Wood Elves as far as shooting went. I multicharged the hell out of the Plaguebearers with my Eagles and Hero. I rear charged the Bloodcrushers with the Wild Riders. The Spellweaver still had Throne of Vines up cast Regrowth on the Waywatchers restoring 4. Regeneration was dispelled on the Eternal Guard but I still got Toughness off on the Treekin making them T9 once again. The Treekin lost combat by 1 but still held with a 6. The Plaguebearers and their multicombat didn't really do much and the Plaguebearers lost by 2 and were fine. The Bloodcrushers weathered the storm well against the Eternal Guard and won the combat by 1 but both Wild Riders and Eternal Guard held.

Turn 3 - Daemons

The Daemons managed to get a pretty good magic phase going - Miasma was cast and nerfed the hell out of my Treeman. Phantasmagoria was cast again which screwed my Glade Guard but we'll talk about that in a minute. Flickering Fires of Tzeentch was cast inflicting 2 Str 6 shots on my Glade Guard. The Flamers of Tzeench still on their unholy rampage inflicted enough casualties to make my Glade Guard run. I rolled like a 2, 6 and 5 which meant I was running (thx phantasmagoria) and I failed my BSB reroll as well. Lovely. The nerfed Treeman and Eagles still manage to obliterate the Plaguebearers finally. Here is where we screwed up and the Eagles and Treemen should have just reformed after winning but we overran a D6. I think we were tired but that's ok it didn't impact the game much at if at all.

Turn 3 - Wood Elves

The Wood elf eagles flew behind the Treekin combat while the Treeman did his lumbering beast thing. The Spellweaver had Regrowth and Throne of Vines dispelled as well as Flesh to Stone. She did manage to get Regeneration off on the Eternal Guard. The close combats continued to grind out, each side holding or only losing 1 or 2 models after disruption. The Glade Guard that were fleeing ran off the table while the other archers put some hurt on the Flamers of Tzeentch.

Turn 4 - Daemons

Turn 4 went pretty well for the Daemons. Bolt of change and Flamers reduced my recently regrown Waywatchers down to just my General. The Daemonettes were boosted with Wyssan's Wildform and the Treekin were hexed with Curse of Anwhatever. The Treekin ended up dying in close combat finally and the Daemonettes and Bloodletters reformed to face the two Eagles in their rear. The Bloodcrushers died against the Eternal Guard, Wild Riders and Hero...finally..

Turn 4 - Wood Elves

This round went well I think. I charged the Bloodletter block with both Great eagles and the Hero hoping to do enough wounds to slow them down. The Spellweaver got absolutely nothing off this turn since she rolled a 2 and a 1 for power dice. The General joined the Glade Guard and killed the remaining Flamer (yay!) After my charges were resolved I immediately realized my mistake in that I should have charged the Bloodletters with my Eternal Guard or Wildriders and not the Hero but oh well.

Turn 5 - Daemons

I began to get tired cause I dont really remember where he moved his Pink Horrors but I do know that I was pretty effective at dispelling his casting except for Phantasmagoria got off AGAIN. The Eagles and Hero were slaughtered and the Bloodletters slammed into the flank of my Treemen that was engaged with the Daemonettes when the Bloodletters caught a fleeing eagle. The Treeman however still held!

Turn 5 - Wood Elves

The Wild Riders rear charged the Bloodletters block while the Eternal Guard flank charged the Pink Horrors. The unit champion of the Eternal Guard was slaughtered by the herald of Tzeentch. The Bloodletters and Daemon Prince were killed by the Treeman and Wild Riders. The Daemonettes were still holding tough however. The Pink Horrors lost by a lot and lost a rank of models but managed to combat reform. The Spellweaver was able to cast Regeneration on the Eternal Guard but Throne of Vines, Regrowth and Flesh to Stone were dispelled.

Turn 6 - Daemons

Not much happened this turn other than the Daemonettes reducing the Treeman down to 1 wound and the Pink Horrors holding firm against the Eternal Guard. The Treeman whiffed on his attacks against the Herald and once again Phantasmagoria was cast and the Treeman held! Glean magic was cast which stole Regrowth and replenished some of the Horrors lost in the previous round. Grr...

Turn 6 - Wood Elves

This round went well but almost went badly. I managed to get Throne of Vines, Regrowth and Flesh to Stone off on the Eternal Guard. The Wild Riders did a valiant charge to assist the ailing Treeman. I had hoped that the 6 Wild Riders left would be able to turn the tide and kill the Daemonettes. I was wrong. The Daemonettes chewed through the Treeman and the Wild Riders, killing both units. The Eternal Guard managed to wipe out the Pink Horrors and secured the win.

The Wood Elves win against Daemons of Chaos.

I made some tactical errors that game as far as charges and placement of certain units. Over all however I liked that this game was just brutal. I will continue to use the Spellweaver and Hero on Great Eagles. That worked out very well for me and I'm sure that in time they will be shot off their mounts but I'll just have to exercise caution around warmachines.

MVP's for Daemons - Flamers of Tzeentch - killed 3 units that are very essential to the Wood Elf army.
MVP for Wood Elves - Treekin - holding out that long against 2 melee blocks which allowed me to get into position = huge.

I really enjoyed this army. Props to Derek for using a Daemon Prince and all 4 heralds for his theme. I think that having all 4 powers present lead by an unaligned really gave me pause since I wasn't sure how to prioritize targets well. This army was also deceptively brutal. Loremaster Beasts meant that he could at any time turn into a Dragon or augment every character with +3 str/attacks. Frightening synergy with Heralds/Daemons. Great game Derek, thank you!

Hope this wasn't too long of a read, I'll be working on a method to shorten the Battle Reports and make them a little better. I'll also be going over this battle and the draw I had on the new Podcast called
The Deployment Zone . (Also located on iTunes).

Thanks!

Birth of a new Podcast! Enter ... The Deployment Zone!

2011-10-13T12:26:00.000-07:00

Birth of a new Podcast! Enter ... The Deployment Zone!

A few weeks back a friend of mine asked me (John) if I would be interested in doing a podcast about gaming. I looked at him as if he were insane because I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to listen to me for five minutes more a less several hours. Josh convinced me that it would be so we decided to move forward with the idea and ended up purchasing the equipment from the good gentlemen that ran the Waaghcast! We also ended up inviting another friend of ours, Bryan, to join us and so the Deployment Zone podcast was born!

It took us a few weeks but we finally managed to get together and write out an outline and record the test episode which we aptly dubbed…Episode 0. We had a good time recording it and after listening to it, we’ve discovered what we need to do to make it flow better and provide a well rounded podcast to listeners.

The Deployment Zone is available here:

http://thedeploymentzone.com/

I encourage folks to listen to it and leave some comments either here or on the website. If you can get past listening to me rambling on and on, then you may just enjoy it! We’ll be discussing Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40k, Hordes, Warmachine, Malifaux, and other games as well as reporting on the Pacific Northwest’s tournament scene. You’ll also hear about battle reports (and some of them won’t involve rambling!) and army list comparisons. I’ll be linking many of the blog’s battle reports and the podcast together here using Battle Chronicler.

Once we have a few episodes recorded we’ll move on to I-tunes for easier downloading. We'll be recording Episode 1 this up and coming Monday and it's going to be rad...yes...I said RAD.

Thanks for listening!

Now digressing from the post a little bit and going on to what I’ve been doing lately.
I’ve managed to accomplish the following Gaming tasks in the last two weeks and I’ll be providing a battle report this weekend of my game this up and coming Saturday as well as pictures of what I’ve modeled/painted.

1. Battled and defeated The Empire with my Beastmen.
2. Set up a game against High Elves this weekend – Wood elves may make an appearance.
3. Rewrote my Beastman list again to be friendlier at 2500 and 3000 points.
4. Bought and assembled a Chaos Spawn
5. Painted the Mage Hunter Strike Force for Warmachine
6. Read Guardians of the Forest by Graham McNeill.
7. Assembled my new Spellweaver (plastic dark elf spellcaster model to now be convereted).
8. Purchased another box of Ungors and Minotaurs – hehe…
9. Obtained 34 Tanith Imperial Guard models...wtf?

You’ll see updates from those in the next couple posts.

Enjoy!

Guardians of the Forest - Black Library Book Review

2011-10-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Graham McNeill's Guardians of the Forest for the Black Library's Warhammer Fantasy line.

The novel for the most part was excellent. Graham McNeill does an absolute fantastic job of portraying Athel Loren and giving the reader a strong feel for the almost alien quality of the forest. This sentiment that the forest is a mystical and magical place that seems alive is reinforced several times as you read through the book and follow the main human character. McNeill also does an excellent job of portraying the Wood Elf culture and lifestyle. The way he introduces the different kinbands of Asrai into a scene or shows how the dread and fear is instilled into humans and outsiders by their actions is very well depicted over and over again. You get to see how superstition forces the human character to act around the Asrai and how that impacts his actions during the story. You get to experience the forest spirits, you see how terrifying and brutal the Dryads can be and how the elves themselves regard their forest 'allies'. McNeill also included several characters and places that as a player I could recognize from the Wood Elf Warhammer Army Book.

McNeill does a great job depicting characters - human, elf and beastman alike. I did feel that the story was a little bit rushed and some critical battles scenes were hastily written. I would have really like to see more of the Morghur storyline and more about the Beastmen themselves. He had a really excellent storyline, one which I feel is one of the most critical plot lines behind the Wood Elf army and their existence in the Warhammer world.

I really feel that this story could have been spread out into a trilogy and the author could have fleshed out the Beastmen even more rather than just the physical description. The Morghur storyline would have easily been a long series but perhaps McNeill had a deadline or something. Either way however the story was great and McNeill did a wonderful job of fleshing out the Wood elf society.

From the Warhammer Fantasy Battles standpoint, this book is top notch. It provided me with a complete vision and description of the core aspects of the Wood elf army. It also did an excellent job describing Beastmen as well. I would fully recommend this book to any Wood Elf player, the amount of inspiration and theme ideas that are in this novel are outstanding. The novel actually made me want to field Glade Riders, Warhawk Riders and some more Eternal Guard because McNeill made them sound absolutely awesome. That is how you sell models to those who read and play!

Overall, I give this book 4 out of 5 stars. If it had been longer and not felt so rushed it would have received 5 stars. The fact that it is also only available by ebook is another issue but I enjoyed it nonetheless. You can expect to see a few elements of this book being introduced in my Wood Elf army overtime.

Enjoy!

Ogre Kingdoms vs. Wood Elves.

2011-09-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

The other night provided me with a first hand look at the new Ogre Kingdoms army in action. Ever since the new book came out I’d been dying to see how the Ogres perform on the battlefield and so when Nick asked me to bring my “pansy leaf bitches” to the table to give his Ogres their crucible, I readily agreed! When Nick requested that we play at 3000 points, I was jazzed since that meant I’d be taking on a fully kitted out Ogre army.

I’m going to depart from this anecdote briefly to segue into point levels and 8th edition games. Having played a ton of games now in 8th edition, I feel that there is definitely a sweet spot for point levels in this edition. In 7th edition 2250 seemed to be the best mix of points/units but I’ve found that less is not necessarily better in 8th. I tend to prefer playing at 2500 and above for the standard friendly/competitive game. 2500 points is really where you see the balance settle in to the game in 8th edition and you can understand what the developers had in mind. The game play in 8th edition is so streamlined that the larger point level battles really take no longer than some of the smaller point values. When I play a game the difference in time between playing at 2500 points and 3000 is almost negligible.

The newer army books that have come out for 8th edition: Orcs and Goblins, Tomb Kings and now Ogre Kingdoms all seem to function very well and seem very balanced at 2500-3000 points. When you go below that level you can begin to see some glaring issues that make each army not function as intended. I will attempt to take on each of the 8th edition armies at 2500 and at 3000 points in the next few months and provide a battle report with turn by turn accounting.

Getting back on point with the post, I was really excited to play the new Ogres and see how they perform. The army has received several critical upgrades and new units that have really changed how the army works. You still have a bunch of fat guys running around looking for food, but now they have bigger and meaner friends to help. The addition of new monsters and warmachines to the army also has really augmented their effectiveness and provided some much needed versatility. I have to say that I’m fairly impressed that the authors managed to write yet another army book that is decent in every phase of the game.

I’ll provide the list that Nick brought and then make some comments on how the units performed against my Wood Elves. I’ll also give a brief summary of the synergy that we saw during our game(s) and how well the army worked. I don’t remember what magic items each char had with the exception of the magic banners.

The Roaring Maw Clan

General – Level 4 Slaughtermaster - Nick chose to use a Level 4 as his general using the Great Maw as the lore. Granting access to Lore of Beasts, Death and Heavens in addition to the updated and highly effective Lore of the Great Maw is a pretty formidable boost. After our game Nick said he would probably find the points to allow for another caster or two in order to get Wyssan’s Wildform or Miasma into his army. Even without a lot of augments this caster was unbelievably difficult to kill. I believe he had a 4+ ward save and had taken the Gruts Sickle arcane item.

-The Grut’s Sickle item is pretty amazing for what it does. It essentially turns your Wizard into a Level 6 caster due to the +2 to all spell attempts. Now let’s also evaluate one other thing – Lore of the Great Maw. Taking into account the Lore Attribute – Bloodgruel (roll a d6, on a 1 you take a wound, 2-6 you recover a wound and receive +1 to the next casting/dispel attempt) and the boost from the Grut’s Sickle is pretty sick. Having your Slaughtermaster casting spells at +7 when it’s not a Storm of Magic game is kind of …..wtf? Now I do realize that if your caster rolls double 1’s when he uses Grut’s Sickle he’s killed outright but that’s well worth the risk to get an additional +2 to +3 to your casting attempts.

- Lore of the Great Maw went through some substantial changes that I really have to comment on before going further. In my game with Ogres, two spells seriously defined how bad ass Ogres can be using their main Lore: Trollguts and Toothcracker. Providing all units within 12” +1 to Toughness and 4+ Regeneration with 2 spells is ridiculously powerful. It get’s even more ridiculously powerful when that unit is a Horde… Anyway, the Lore of the Great Maw has been altered and rewritten to be incredibly effective AND fitting for the army. Another big change is that all the Ogre spells are no longer “Stays in Play” but rather Augments. The tactic to let the Ogre caster get his buffs off and then dispel them next turn with little effort is now over. You really need to counter these new spells or suffer the consequences.

• Spinemarrow – granting units of Monstrous Infantry Stubborn is brilliant, allowing the spell to affect all units within 12”…genius!

• Bullgorger – +1 Strength is never a bad thing, especially when it can affect all units within 12”.

• Toothcracker – as I mentioned before, brilliant spell.

• Braingobbler – make a unit suffer a panic test? Not a bad hex.

• Trollguts – as mentioned earlier, Regeneration is already awesome but every unit within 12” getting it? What….? Ouch.

• The Maw – haha this is a great spell. I had it cast on me twice during our game and both times it was pretty effective. The fact that the template makes you roll an initiative test to take a Str 3 or Str 7 hit is pretty awesome. Even if you pass…you fail! I can see this spell being devastating against low initiative armies – Lizardmen, Beastmen, Undead, etc..

Bruiser – The Bruiser he brought was his Battle Standard Bearer and I don’t remember if he had anything special on him like a Standard or a Ward Save. Obviously it’s a tough Ogre with plenty of attacks.

Hunter – The Hunter he brought was his Warmachine hunter. I remember him using that Harpoon Spear a few times until I got annoyed enough to shoot him up in about Turn 4. I really like this hero choice and if I were running Ogres I would definitely take this option and put him with a few Sabretusks and give him the +1 movement name. He’s pretty durable and can take out any warmachine or serve as a pretty awesome flank charge unit.

Firebelly – Ha ha, man…what a great choice to add to this army. Pacific Islander theme aside, this was a great choice (despite the fact that he was playing Wood Elves that have flammable units). The lore they added behind his hero selection is pretty awesome and having to deal with a Toughness 5 caster that can get up to 4 flaming attacks and has a Breath weapon? He also had an item called the Hellheart which is a one use item that causes all enemy casters to suffer a Miscast within 5d6” inches.

7 Ironguts – The Ironguts were tough and annoying before this new book came out and they still are now! Nick took 7 Ironguts with the Dragonmaw banner. Aside from the Racial Universal rules there were really no changes to the Ironguts in this book other than I believe point costs. Nick used the Dragonmaw banner which allowed his Ironguts to reroll 1’s during the turn they charge and also provided the standard bearer with a Str3 ice breath weapon that gives the enemy unit Always Strikes Last. No…not annoying at all! This unit is where he placed his General and it served as a pretty effective bunker and flank unit with a few of his other selections.

17 Ogres – Yeah…Nick said he wanted to play with the new Horde rules and the cheaper Ogres. I’ve fought this type of unit before a few times in the old book and wasn’t took terribly worried about it. Using this unit with the BSB and with another selection I’ll mention later does cause me to worry and did! 51 Attacks from hungry fat men should make anyone cringe.

6 Leadbelchers – Of all the units in this new army book that were revised, the Leadbelchers I think got the best treatment. They had their canno…gun rules changed to where they no longer blow each other up. They do not suffer penalties for Moving and Shooting or Multiple Shots and have a BS3. They also fire d6 Str4 Armor Piercing shots now rather than artillery die worth. This unit became my primary focus and probably will continue to since these can effectively remove a unit a turn if you roll well.

4 Mourn fang Cavalry – Wow is all I can say. These are truly some vicious heavy cavalry. A unit of 4 is outputting 28 attacks at Str 4 after inflicting d3 impact hits if the charged. Having seen these models in action, my opinion of them is that they need to be a flank unit or have support from the flank when they charge. I was able to wipe them out with my Treekin and Treeman because I was able to charge them and take them out without their friends. The stats on these guys are nuts however, 3+ armor save and a 6+ parry for 65 points? One Ironfisted Mournfang costs the exact same as a single Treekin model in the Wood Elf book. That’s a pretty damn cost effective model for the damage output it can provide. Excellent new unit and I can foresee people using two of these units in groups of 3 in order to get nasty flank charges in.

Ironblaster – Yet another new addition that doesn’t suck! The fact that it is a chariot with Str 10 grapeshot is … interesting….yes we’ll say interesting. This unit’s ability to move and shoot is pretty damn frustrating; I had to ensure I was far enough each turn to avoid getting Grapeshot by the damn thing. I can foresee this unit being heavily utilized against high armor opponents – Warriors of Chaos come to mind. I was able to kill it with a well rolled volley of arrows but not after it had decimated most of my Dryads.

Stone horn – This is a pretty good monster to use in the Ogre army. I was not overly impressed by this beast in our game however. I was able to butcher it with my Eternal Guard and Eagles with relative ease. I was fortunate in that I was able to charge it before it could charge me, the 3d3 impact hits that it can cause probably would have done more damage than I care to think about. I’m almost tempted to say that I’d put a Hunter on this bad boy and let those two go hunting together. That would be an annoying and hard to kill combo since you’d need to deal with 10 attacks at Str 5/6 and 10 wounds to kill them both.

Thundertusk – Yeah… I hate this model! How do you make the playing field level against Ogres? Put a friggin monster with a 6” Always Strike Last bubble in range! This model should be an automatic choice in any Ogre army. You can move around and fire shots with your misfire free Stone thrower and provide support to any unit that you are close to who is in combat. Nick used his Thundertusk with his Horde’o’Ogres and his Mournfangs…. No…that wasn’t SUPER ANNOYING AT ALL for a high initiative army like Wood Elves…. This model became my priority after slaughtering his annoying Leadbelchers. This single monster can turn the tide for an Ogre army that is facing an army that normally could remove enough models in the Ogre’s unit to take the bite out of whatever charge the Ogres had gotten off.

Example: You charge a unit of 20 Warriors of Chaos (5x4 formation) with 6 Ogres. The Ogres manage to kill 1 on the charge with Impact hits and then the Warriors of Chaos swing at Initiative 5 and hit on 3’s and wound on 4’s. The Ogres lose a model and suddenly lose 3 attacks and their rank bonus. Hopefully the Ogres swing well but probably not and they’ll lose combat based on static res. You now change the situation where the Ogres get all their attacks first, suddenly the Warriors of Chaos don’t have as many attacks or ranks.

The Thundertusk is an amazing addition to the Ogre army and quite frankly it should strike fear into the hearts of any high initiative army out there.

That was Nick’s list he brought at 3000 points. His strategy was to rely on his Thundertusk, Stone horn, Mournfangs and Ogre horde to dominate one side of the board while his Ironguts, Ironblaster and Leadbelchers forced his opponent (me) to direct fire and resources into removing them before they could seriously hurt me. It was a damn good strategy because I had to do exactly that.

I’m going to briefly summarize the two games we played. Two games? Hehe, yes two games.

Game 1 – Blood and Glory.

Wood Elves – First Turn:

Wood Elves focus fire all their shots into the Leadbelchers. Wood Elves kill all 6 Leadbelchers and the Firebelly with an excellent round of shooting! The destruction of the Leadbelchers cause a panic test on the Ogre Horde with the BSB. Two rolls of 10 cause the Ogre Horde to pivot and run through the Ironguts, Mournfang Cavalry and the Stonetusk. Ogre Horde due to footprint runs off table, Ironguts fail Leadership test and also run off table. Wood Elves win. …

We reset.

Game 2 – Battle Line!

After our brief battle, we moved a few pieces of terrain and went at it again. This game was substantially different and really showed the devastating power of the Ogre Kingdoms.

The Wood Elves set up near the center of their deployment zone and I had my fast moving units and fliers set up on the right. I had my Eternal Guard and Treekin side by side with the Treeman slightly behind and to the right of the Treekin and the Dryads off to the left of the Eternal Guard. I had both units of archers up on a hill and far enough apart so that when I moved them forward they would not block each other. The Wild Riders, Waywatchers, and Eagles were all on the right side of the board. Nick set up his army really heavy on his left side keeping his Ogre Horde, Mournfangs and Thundertusk in the center. I think he had planned on moving forward with his big units and wiping me out on my flank with his shooting/artillery. I know he wanted to take advantage of this Always Strikes Last bubble and he was able to capitalize on it for a little bit before I removed said annoyance from play.

The game proceeded with the Wood Elves pulling their normal nonsense of sweeping forward and moving the entire army forward and to the left which flanked his entire army. The Ogres attempted to counter-maneuver by doing a few reforms and realigning their big blocks of troops to accept the frontal charges. The major engagements lasted a few rounds and resulted in many Ogres and Wood elves being placed in the dead piles. The Ogres almost had an unstoppable assault when they failed 2 charges against my Treekin with his Stone horn and Ironguts. That allowed the Treekin to move and charge his Ogre bulls instead because had he gotten that charge off and beaten the unbuffed Treekin, he would have been able to slam into my Glade Guard and Waywatchers which would have been very bad. Nick did manage to wipe out most of my archery in one round by getting what was left of his Leadbelchers and Ironblaster into position and shredding 2 units of Glade Guard. The later turns were primarily me buffing and resurrecting models while he furiously attempted to kill my Toughness 7 spellweaver. Nick was not amused when Dwellers Below began to whittle his army down turn by turn but he did get payback when he dropped 2 Maw spells on me later on.

The final turn resulted in a few charges to wipe out fleeing or almost dead units and the desperate attempts by the Ogres to get one charge off that would have probably resulted in an Ogre victory – and that was his 2 Ironguts who had rallied on double 1’s charging my Treekin who had 1 wound left in the unit.

Three major events provided me victory at the end of the game:

1. My opponent did not dispel the stays in play Throne of Vines which provided me with several serious boosts to my spells. Especially Flesh to Stone and Regrowth! The ability to add +4 toughness to a unit saved my bacon more times than I care to admit in this game. Toughness 7 Eternal Guard and Toughness 9 Treekin are nigh unstoppable! Also, the Hellheart magic item that his Firebelly had was used and my Spellweaver was in range. Fortunately I rolled a 3 and negated his Miscast. Nick was annoyed =) It was also insanely helpful when he cast the Great Maw on my Eternal Guard twice and I suffered little due to my high toughness.

2. I was able to determine charges this game. Nick was smart this game and hid his Leadbelchers behind his Ironguts and kept them out of my kill zone for a few turns. I was however able to use my Treekin and Eternal Guard as a fairly effective wall to allow the rest of my army to maneuver where I could get my charges off.

3. I was able to kill the Thundertusk quickly and break his Horde with the BSB in it by multicharging with my Treeman, Treekin, Eternal Guard and 2 Eagles. My Wild Riders and Dryads proved to be invaluable by flank/front charging his Thundertusk and wiping it out before the block of 18 Ogres could blender my units.

I would have preferred to do a Battle Chronicler battle report for this game because it was really fantastic. In the Podcast for the Deployment Zone: Episode 0, I’ve remarked about this game and how well it went. Next game I play will be this Wednesday and I should be able to provide a BC battle report for that.

This battle went all six rounds and the deciding factor was that my Wild Rider champion killed his Slaughtermaster in a challenge and gave me those extra points which granted me a victory with a different of 115 VPs!

When the game was over, we both had less than a dozen models combined left on the table. I’m finding that more and more 8th edition games that go the full six turns and end up being really enjoyable result in both sides being almost fully decimated.

Reflections about the battle:

Ogre Kingdoms have serious synergy now in their army. The Lore of the Great Maw and the caster options allow for serious magical dominance. The option to take a Level 2 and cast as a Level 5 is also a very attractive option which will allow people options for their Lord/Hero options. The army is now rather flexible and able to reasonably handle just about any army with the same amount of difficulty. I am impressed with the new book and it makes me really, really want to start an Ogre army but that will have to wait till after I collect/paint the Bretonnians.

I hope this is helpful to anyone who is going to play or play against the new Ogre Kingdoms army!

Can you keep a secret? Slaanesh can...

2011-09-15T23:00:00.000-07:00

This will be a brief update/battle report - next few weeks I'll have some fully detailed reports/posts.

I decided to change things up this week and get a game going with my Beastmen as opposed to battling it out with my Wood Elves (plus I haven't finished painting my Eternal Guard yet and I want to field the entire army painted).

vs.

Anyway - I decided to throw Rorg and his bestial herd against the daemonic legions of Slaanesh. I really wish I had brought my camera with me since Neil managed to bring some of his new Chaos/Storm of Magic terrain. He really had a fantastic looking table, I'll have to make sure I bring it next go around.

Neil is collecting/painting a monotheistic daemon army of Slaanesh. Now it's funny - here's some background information about me. I absolutely despise Slaanesh. I think it stems from the fact that I play Eldar in 40k and the fluff has tainted my perception of the Chaos gods. That said, I enjoy playing Neil regardless so I readily agreed to take on his army of pink and purple sluts.

I've gone through several permutations of my Beastmen list and will probably go through a few more as we begin to scale up to 3k. I'm considering using 4 chariots and a Razorgor chariot with a character mounted on it at 3k. Either way - I'll post up my list later in the week. I mainly had my standard BSB w/ Beastbanner and 2+ armor save and my doombull and his ASF sword, a l2 beasts brayshaman, few wargors sprinkled about and your standard assortment of Gors, Minotaurs, Chariots, Bestigors and Ghorgons.

Now when you go single daemon god, you tend to only use the models that they "say" belong to that god. i.e. Khorne = Bloodthrister, Bloodletters, Bloodcrushers, Flesh Hounds,etc... Neil decided to follow suite and use 4 sets of Daemonettes with several Heralds sprinkled about and a pretty bad ass Keeper of Secrets, he also had some Fiends and the Mounted Slaanesh daemons. I've spent a few hours going over what I fought last night and I have to say, it was a pretty solid list. Most of the army having Always Strike First and a ward save makes it pretty hard to take down easily. I think he'll have issues against armies that have decent range and strong magic but the list is solid enough and has enough bodies to handle just about anything.

The battle went all six turns and ended up with his Keeper of Secrets and his 3 remaining Furies killing off my Tuskgor chariot at the bottom of Turn 6. This game also reinforced my belief that Bloodgreed really is stupid broken. My Doombull had 13 attacks and his 4 Minotaurs had 12 each. If I hadn't sacked out against his Keeper at the bottom of the 5th turn I would have tabled him.

5 models throwing out 61 attacks (48 at Str 5 and 13 at Str6) is broken. Period.

Thsi game also reinforced that I should really bring more than one caster if I am not going to be strong in the shooting phase.

Game changing effects during our battle:
1. Wyssan's Wildform making Gors (with Beast banner) S5/T5 is ridiculous.
2. Phantasmagoria totally wrecked my army. I failed several critical leadership tests - F U NEIL!
3. Bloodgreed is the core power behind Beastman's offensive might.
4. Primal Fury is still so incredibly helpful when you have to deal with high WS opponents.

I totally look forward to repeating this game at 3k points. I'll do a Battle Chronicler report next go around and include images.

Thanks!

Karak Norn Book of Grudges entry, Athel Loren must pay!

2011-08-23T23:48:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday I had a game against 3000 points of Dwarves. Hoo boy what a game!

I'll make a quick listing of both lists (from what I can remember and my horrible scribbled notes) then go fully into the battle report!.
3000 Pts - Wood Elves Roster - The Great Hunt, War Host of Athel Loren

Waywatcher Lord Sylvos Greystorm the Huntsman, Ranger General of Athel Loren (1#, 247 pts)
1 ×Wood Elf Highborn, 247 pts (General; Scout Kindred; Hand Weapon; Longbow; Extra Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Shield; Extra Attack)
1 The Bow of Loren
1 Dragonbane Gem
1 Arcane Bodkins
The Stalkers of the Silent Path (10#, 240 pts)
10 Waywatchers, 240 pts (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Longbow; Extra Attack; Scouts; Skirmishers)
The Farstriders of Lady Dreamsinger (20#, 268 pts)
20 Glade Guard, 268 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow)
1 Banner of Eternal Flame
The Twilight Host (14#, 186 pts)
14 Glade Guard, 186 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow)
The Handmaidens of Dornatha, the Verdant Rage (9#, 120 pts)
8 Dryads, 120 pts (Causes Fear; Skirmishers)
1 Branch Nymph
Archdruidess Nysa Greystorm the Storm Maiden, Hierophant of Athel Loren (1#, 325 pts)
1 Spellweaver, 325 pts (Level 4 Upgrade; Hand Weapon; Longbow)
1 The Rhymer's Harp
Lady Nepenthia Dreamsinger, Stormsinger of Athel Loren (1#, 112 pts)
1 Wood Elf Noble (Battle Standard Bearer), 112 pts (Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Battle Standard Bearer)
1 Rageth's Wildfire Blades
1 Dragonhelm
The Spears of Loren, Storm Wardens of Coeth-Mara (18#, 291 pts)
17 Eternal Guard, 291 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std)
1 Guardian
1 Razor Standard
The Wolfkin, Feral Knights of Durthu (6#, 390 pts)
6 Tree Kin, 390 pts (Causes Fear; Flammable; Scaly Skin)
The Outriders of Twilight, Huntsmen of Kurnous (10#, 296 pts)
9 Wild Riders of Kurnous, 296 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Spear; Light Armour; Fast Cavalry; Magic Resistance (1))
1 Wild Hunter (Spear; Light Armour)
10 Elven Steed
Scryah, the Last Shadow (1#, 50 pts)
1 Great Eagle, 50 pts (Flyer)
Gwynador, the Scion of the Sethayla (1#, 50 pts)
1 Great Eagle, 50 pts (Flyer)
Dornatha, the Verdant Rage (1#, 285 pts)
1 Treeman, 285 pts (Causes Terror; Flammable; Large Target; Scaly Skin; Stubborn; Thunder Stomp)
Ce'Nedra the Thorn Maiden (1#, 140 pts)
1 Branchwraith, 140 pts (Level 1 Wizard; Causes Fear)
1 A Cluster of Radiants

The Karak Norn Clan - 3000 points

Dwarf Lord w/ ASF rune, +1 armor save and 4+ ward save on shieldbearers.
Dwarf Runesmith on Anvil of Doom w/ the 2+ ward save vs. missiles
BSB Thane w/ Rune of Valaya
Dwarven Dragonslayer w/ Flaming Rune weapon
20 Warriors w/ shield and full command
20 Rangers w/ greatweapons and full command
20 Longbeards w/ full command, shields, 5+ ward save rune standard
28 Slayers w/ full command
27 Slayers w/ full command
20 Dward Quarellers w/ full command
Organ Gun
Bolt Thrower w/ some rune that made it stronger
Cannon that was flaming
Grudge Thrower with some Accuracy rune

Those were the two 3000 point lists. That was a lot of dwarves to chew through but man.. it was a blast here is the actual report however.

Deployment:
The deployment was using the diagonal Meeting Engagement zones and fortunately for both of us neither army had any models placed in reserves in the beginning of the game.

As you can see the Dwarven Rangers and Wood Elven Waywatchers both had the same idea, deploy from behind and attempt to bushwhack.

Wood Elves Turn 1

The Wood Elves start out by throwing down the gauntlet and charging with the Dryads. Remarkably enough I roll box cars on the charge and make the distance as well as suffer 0 casualties from his stand and shoot from the Quarellers. The Dryads wipe out the Quarellers and reform while the Glade Guard pelt the S2 unit of Slayers inflicting some pretty impressive casualties for being S3 at long range. The Spellweaver casts thorn of vines and gets off the Toughness spell and casts Dwellers on the unit with the BSB and General inflicting some casualties. The Waywatchers and their Lord manage to slaughter the Organ gun and cause my opponent to look at me with a look of thinly veiled contempt hehe.

Dwarves Turn 1

The Slayers in group S1 charge the Eternal Guard while the Bolt Thrower and Cannon inflict 2 casualties on the Treekin. The Grudge Thrower manages to veer off course and misses the Glade Guard unit 1 while the Rangers turn to face the Wild Riders that were previously in their flank. The General and his unit of Longbeards move forward while Slayer unit 2 bumbles forth to slay some archers.

The river btw was rolled as a River of Light - the Slayers suffered 3 S4 hits from the fire spell. The Wild Riders forest the previous turn was an ordinary forest while the forest that the Longbeards entered was a Wildwood.

The Slayers and Eternal Guard combat results in the Slayers losing and hanging out.

Wood Elves Turn 2

The Wild Riders start the turn out by charging the Rangers. The Treeman charges the Unit of Dwarven Warriors and hitting their flank. The Waywatchers inflict a wound on the Bolt Thrower crew while the Treekin move into position and the Glade Guard continue to whittle down the Slayer 2 Unit. The Great Eagles fly into flanking position while the Treeman causes the Warriors to lose combat and fail 2 LD10 tests.

The Treeman runs down the Dwarven Warriors and overruns into the Bolt Thrower.
The Wood Elves recast Throne of Vines, Regrowth and Toughness spell.
The River of Light gives the Slayers Init 10 and WS10.

Dwarves Turn 2

The Dwarves start the turn out by charging the Eternal Guard with the Longbeards, the Slayers 2 charge the unit of 20 Glade Guard suffering many casualties by making contact.
The Runelord casts some fury rune spell that causes one of the Great Eagles to pop in an explosion of fire and feathers and giving 2 wounds to the other one. The Cannon inflicts another casualty on the Treekin while the Grudge Thrower reduces the unit of 14 Glade Guard down to below 25%. The Wild Riders are defeated and run off the board by the Rangers while the Bolt Thrower is chewed up by the Treeman. The Slayers fail to actually inflict any casualties relying on the general and his longbeards to do all the heavy lifting. Meanwhile the other slayers manage to butcher the Glade Guard to a man.

The result was the Eternal Guard lost but where stubborn 9 and held.

Wood Elves Turn 3

The Dryads attempt to come to the aid of their Spellweaver and charge the Longbeards in the rear while the Great Eagle slams into the flank of the Grudge Thrower. The Treekin reform to get into better position and the Waywatchers slaughter the Runelord. The Glade Guard fail to slay the lone Slayer (the Dragonslayer I later found out) and the Treeman reduces the Bolt Thrower to splinters after doing a few wounds last turn. Regrowth/Throne of Vines and Toughness spell all go off. 2 Miscasts avoided due to Throne of Vines - phew!

Slayers took 1 wound from the Lore of Light spell from the river.

Dwarves Turn 3

The Dragonslayer turns around to get into position to charge the Glade Guard next turn while the Rangers march to come to their general's aid. The Grudge Thrower crew battles with the Great Eagle and the Treekin suffer yet another casualty from that damn fire runed cannon. More casulaties are inflicted on both sides.

Slayers took 3 Str4 hits on 2d6 from whatever spell it is in Lore of Light but took 0 wounds. Figures.

Wood Elves Turn 4

Treekin rear charge the Slayers fighting the Eternal Guard and the Treeman charges the Cannon. The Magic phase goes off pretty well with Throne of Vines and Regrowth. The Glade Guard inflict 1 wound on the Dragonslayer. The Slayers are wiped out by the Eternal Guard and the Treekin but the Dryads fall in battle to the Longbeards. The Treeman crushes the Cannon and overruns into the Grudge Thrower helping the eagle pulp it. Longbeards lose combat but manage to stay due to getting snake eyes on their break test. Figures...

Treekin recieved WS10 and I10 from the River. Wildwood has yet to actually do anything to either of us.

Dwarves Turn 4

Dragonslayer charges and slays the remaining Glade Guard. The Rangers make a full advance while the Eternal Guard, BSB and Spellweaver all fall to the Longbeards. The Treekin and General are touching corner to corner so they both hang in there.

Treekin took 2 S4 hits but no wounds from river.

Wood Elves Turn 5

Treekin and unit maximize after last combat with the Treekin making the LD test. Still not sure if we did that legally but oh well. The Great Eagle, Treeman and Waywatchers move forward. Waywatchers land some substantial casualties on the Rangers and the General falls to the Treekin.

The Treekin recieved ASF and +1 attack from river.

Dwarves Turn 5

The Dragonslayer charges into the flank of the Treekin and the Rangers make a full advance. The Longbeards take 3 Str 4 hits from WildWood the Treekin take 3 but 0 wounds. The Dragonslayer gets pulped by the augmented Treekin as do the rest of the Longbeards. Treekin reform to face the incoming Rangers.

Wood Elves Turn 6 - Final Turn!

The Waywatchers move into position to provide LD10 bubble to the Treekinand Treeman. The Treeman moves forward and the Treekin charge the Rangers. The Ranger reduce the remaining Treekin into kindling after taking some pretty substantial damage and run him down. Hrm...not good.

Dwarves Turn 6 - The Final Round!

The Waywatchers flee from the Ranger charge (cowardly I know but whatever) and the Rangers redirect into the flank of the Treeman. The Treeman for some reasons channels the power of whoop ass and does maximum carnage to the Rangers by his Strangleroot stand and shoot, 5 wounds in close combat and 5 wounds Thunderstomping. He wins combat and chases down the Rangers.

Wood Elves win!

Seriously one of the closest games I've played. I find is mind boggling that at 3k points we were both reduced to literally less than 25% of our army. I had 2 rare selections totally a little of 500 points and my General left while he had a unit of rangers in the last turn. That is a ton of carnage. I had a blast. The river really served as a bane and a boon to both of us during the game but at the same time it was actually kind of fun. I will post a follow up to this report tomorrow or the next day where I'll examine the strengths and weaknesses of the Wood Elves vs. Dwarves.

First game of Storm of Magic!

2011-08-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

So there has been a lot of buzz about the new expansion for Warhammer Fantasy, Storm of Magic. I’ve been rather excited about the expansion and finally got my first game of it this Sunday. I had a totally blast playing Storm of Magic. My buddy Josh and I had decided to play 2500 points + 625 magic & monsters and scenario 2 out of the book.

Now before I get into our game, let’s talk about the actual book itself. I don’t know if any of you have had the chance to actually read through this expansion yet but it’s worth the money for the book. The book itself is a full color, 154 pages, has an enclosed cover (opens on the front cover rather than side) and also it has a spinner for the Winds of Magic on the inside front cover. The actual game is changed by the expansion modifying the army composition and the Magic phase of the game. I’ll make a brief list of things that are new and changed in Storm of Magic.

• Army Composition has been altered. You may take up to 25% additional points worth of forces in Artefacts, Monsters or Pacts. E.g. – 2500 army list + 625 monsters/magic = 3125 pts total.
• You have terrain features called Arcane Fulcrums which help your casters shape the flow of the Winds of Magic. They also serve as the main victory conditions and the font from which your wizards can cast their epic spells.
• The Magic phase now has you roll 4d6 for your casting dice and your opponent gets the two highest of the four rolled for dispel dice.
• New spells available – Cantrips, Ascended Lores, Ascended Spells.
• Magical Flux – the wheel in the inside cover of the book determines what Lores of Magic are in ascendancy during your Magic phase.
• Dozens of monsters listed in the book including older expansion creates: Truthsayers, Fen Beasts, etc.. not to mention you also have Forge world monsters included as well – Great Spined Chaos Beast, Exalted Bloodthirster, Plague Toads, etc…
• New Mysterious Terrain to completely disrupt your game!
• Crazy new artifacts
• Sorcerous, Daemonic or Undead pacts – Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts or Daemons available for “killer” deals!

When the expansion was released I purchased the book, the new finecast Cocktrice, a box of magical vortexes, two packs of magic cards (ascended lore ones), 2 sets of arcane fulcrums and 2 old metal Albion Truthsayers. I have not yet found a use for the Cockatrice but I’m sure that will change as I play more games.

Now many people feel the Magic phase is already overpowered in Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition. Hi, it’s not. Here’s the deal and I’ll make this brief cause I’m sick and tired of hearing people bitch about the magic phase in Fantasy.
1. Magic does not scale – anything taken to the extreme is overpowered at lower point levels. If you’re playing at 1500 points and your opponent brings a level 4 caster, pretty sure he’s going to dominate the magic phase. Why? It’s a god damn level 4 and you’re playing 1500 points. If that doesn’t work for you allow me to spell it out in plain words. If you bring a bazooka deer hunting – guess what? It’s going to kill the shit out of that deer. Was that a good choice? No, probably not but you brought it anyway. That goes the same for any phase – if I bring 4 units of 20 Glade Guard and you are playing Warriors of Chaos, pretty sure I’m going to dominate the shooting phase. Same god damn principle – pull your heads out of your ass it’s not 7th edition anymore. There are some seriously bad ass spells in 8th edition but I really feel that if you are playing at around 2400-3000 points, which btw seems to be the accepted level of play for a LOT of people, then the “unit slayer” spells aren’t as scary because you have a ton of more units left to keep going.

2. The Magic phase is random – Just because you brought 2 level 4 Wizards and a level 2 and are absolutely going to dominate the magic phase doesn’t mean you won’t roll snake eyes for your magic dice. It’s the CHAOTIC Winds of Magic. You know from the Realm of ….Chaos.

3. Yes you can throw up to 6 dice at a time per spell. Ok, please do. Please get an Irresistible Force roll and drop a template on your own troops or get sucked into the warp. Every IR option is bad. Some aren’t as bad as others but they still result in something going horribly wrong.

4. If you and your friend are playing at a lower point level and you look across the table and see nothing but level 4’s and level 2’s then perhaps your buddy should examine the definition of a “friendly game.” But that’s a rant for another post.

With the Magic phase in a standard game being random already – you can image how funny it to roll several random options in Storm of Magic. Dependant on what the spinner lands on, that determines what Lores of Magic are in Ascendancy which gives the casters access to cataclysmic spells and bonuses to casting certain spells.
So this Sunday I played against Skaven using the 2nd scenario out of the book. We had 3 arcane fulcrums and I threw together a list for fun. One thing I did not want to do was use the same list I do in my normal games for Storm of Magic. The reason is because my normal Wood Elf list only has 1 caster and even then she really is there just to augment a unit or two.

There is one rule I’m going to stress above all others in Storm of Magic:
The game is insanely random – don’t attempt to take it seriously.

My Wood Elf list was rather tame and used some units/combos that I don’t normally take:
Treeman Ancient
Level 4 Spellweaver w/ Lore of Life and Deepwood Sphere
Level 1 Branchwraith with Cluser of Radiants and 18” magic missile
3x 12 Glade Guard w/ Banner+Mus
10 Wild Riders w/ FC
6 Treekin
4 Treekin
2 Eagles
14 Dryads w/ Champ
Truthsayer*
Young Forest Dragon*
Living Deadwood Staff*

Josh brought:

Grey Seer on Bell
BSB
Warlord on Bonebreaker
Plague Priest Level 2
Warlock Eng w/ Doomrocket and Level 2
40 Stormvermin
40 Clan Rats
30 Clan Rats
40 Plague Monks
5 Rat Ogres w/ Handlers
Doomwheel
Ratling Gun
Warpfire Thrower
Bonebreaker Giant*
Hydra w/ Flaming Breath*

So to briefly summarize the game:

Turn 1 – Nothing spectacular happened for Wood Elves – Magic got shut down completely and did some casualties to his Rat Ogres. Meanwhile he nukes the Truthsayer and does 4 wounds to my Treeman Ancient with the Doomwheel.

Turn 2 – Everything is in the perfect storm. I have Blood Forests surrounding my fulcrums, his units are all in the blood forests. I have Lore of Beasts in Ascendancy and High Magic. I have Dominance cause I occupy two fulcrums. I roll and get 22 casting dice. Josh get’s 12. I’m about to SHRED some faces and..I roll a 4 on the random Magical chart for the encounter and it says “no magic phase”.
NOOO!!!! CREED!!!!!!!!!
Doomwheel get’s popped by the Treeman Ancient while in the forest with Strangleroot attack.

Turn 3 – Things are going well for Skaven, they do some pretty important sniping and manage to charge my spellweaver on the fulcrum. Bonebraker giant squashes Treeman ancient. Plague Monks fall finally to the 2 units of Treekin and the Treekin overrun into the Grey Seer unit. Turn 3 Magic phase comes around for Josh and he rolls a 1 for the Scenario random magic chart. The entire battlefield revolts and reduces the strength of my army down to 1/4th of what it was. This was HUGE for Josh. I was laughing cause it literally was so random and chaotic that you have to laugh.

The rest of the game went pretty well. At the end we had no wizards on any of the fulcrums, we were close however. Very close. We ended up going with Victory Points where Josh came out ahead of me by several hundred.
Things I learned this game:

1. Use the Cantrips to get rid of the big monsters
2. Living Deadwood Staff = synergy with Wood Elves. Def. taking again – that’ll be a podcast topic in the future.
3. Taking a few crazy monsters may work out better than one big one.
4. Watch out for stupid terrain!
5. Don’t blow yourself up on the fulcrum. Just because you can throw six dice doesn’t mean you should.
6. Josh is obviously a savage cheater – It’s impossible for me to lose. UNPOSSIBLE! And you know he’s shady cause he’s playing Skaven! Just Kidding Josh – I had a great game.
7. The Ascendancy Lore spells are amazing. Wood Elves got some good options that I fully intend on using in the future. Seriously good synergy. I’ve also probably converted to the Lore of Life rather than Beasts for my other games. We’ll see!

I can see where people may want to play this expansion competitively but I would recommend against it. It’s meant to have fun and use crazy armies you wouldn’t normally see on the board. i.e. High elves using a Daemonic Pact or Ogre Kingdoms with a bunch of Unicorns.
In short (too late) – this is a fun expansion and I recommend it to anyone looking to Monster Mash or have a game that is steeped in crazy happenstance and random luck. Totally worth the wait.

Warhammer 40k Ard Boyz 2011 - Ulthwe` Eldar List

2011-08-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Ah, tournament day.
The feeling of sleep deprivation cause you had to get that one unit finished last night.
The gritty sensation in your eyes because you just can't wake up.
The constant yawning...
The coldness of the shower because you were so tired when your girlfriend woke you up that you didn't turn on the hot.
The bone-jarring sensation of being hit with ice cold water!
The praying that your dice don't suck.
Finally, the mad scramble to figure out where the hell you left your army last night.

TOURNAMENT DAY!!!

Anyway - I'm super tired and feel like an idiot for staying up til 3 when I had to be at the gamestore at 9 for Ard Boyz. Here's my list for today - if I'm awake I'll try my best to do some battle reports.

Eldrad
Yriel
8 Warlocks (1 enhance, 1 embolden, 2 destructor, 4 normal)
Wave Serpent w/ Star Engines and TL Shuriken Cannons

10 Storm Guardians w/ 2 Flamers
Warlock w/ Enhance and Singing Spear
Wave Serpent w/ Star Engines and TL Shuriken Cannons

10 Storm Guardians w/ 2 Flamers
Warlock w/ Enhance and Singing Spear
Wave Serpent w/ Star Engines and TL Shuriken Cannons

5 Pathfinders

10 Wraithguard
Spiritseer w/ enhance and singing spear

10 Harlequins w/ 2 kiss, 1 fusion blaster
Troupe Master
Death Jester
Shadowseer

3 Warwalker w/ 2 Scatter Lasers

5 Dark Reapers
Exarch w/ EML and Fast Shot

2 D-Cannon support platforms

Army is divided up into 2 major wings, we'll see how it rolls out today.

Rolls out....ha!

Latest projects and games for July

2011-07-31T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well, not many blog posts this month because I've been super busy so I'll summarize what's been going on and attempt to be a better blogger next month!

1. Wood Elf Army is now built to 2500 points for standard Warhammer Fantasy as well as almost ready for 2500/625 games of Storm of Magic!

Still have to paint up 18 Eternal Guard and put them on magnetic bases (the ones from GF9)
Still have to assemble the Elven Sorceress on an Owl from coolminiornot:
Currently working on modifying the Arcane Fulcrums to be more Sylvan in style. i.e. converting the Eternity Stair to a Platform with Trees on it. (I know more trees? wtf)
Ordering 4 Sabretusks and a Great Stag from GW to put into the SoM army.
Still have to paint/assemble/base the Owl,Eternal Guard, Sabretusks, Stag, 2 Albion Truthsayers and the Arcane Fulcrums.

2. Beastman Army is now built to 2500 points for the standard Warhammer Fantasy game. They are not ready for Storm of Magic and probably won't be for a long time.

I still have to paint the entire Beastman army as well as finish up a few conversions.

I still have to create movement trays, basing schemes, and neat little unit fillers to enhance the look of the army.
Also had a KILLER game against Daemons 2 weeks ago against my friend Chris. Only lost by 100 vp's and against Daemons - I'll take it! Wish I had thought to record our game. Next go around I am ensuring that my games get recorded in some fashion!

3. Warmachine army has now been collected, assembled and primed to 35 points!

Still have to paint up the entire army, I've started the Mage Hunter Strike Force already.
Played my first game with them against Menoth and did quite well. Underestimated the close combat capabilities of the enemy warcaster but oh well.
Developed some good tactics I think and learned exactly what not to do in Warmachine and Hordes.

4. Hordes army collected to 35 points

Still have to assemble the 35 points
Still have to play a game with them once assembled.

5. Collected 1000 points of Dark Eldar for 40k. I've been running a 40k workshop at my local gamestore on Monday nights to teach new players and existing players the game and give pointers on how to enhance the hobby aspect of the game. It's going well - expect updates.

6. The 40k Ard Boyz tournament is next weekend and I'll be competing in that. I know I told myself I wasn't going to compete but man...it's Ard Boyz. I feel it's calling.

Possible List

2500 Pts - Eldar Roster

HQ: Warlock Unit (8#, 515 pts)

1 Eldrad Ulthran, 210 pts ((pp.50-51 & 61 Eldar); Independent Character; Psyker; Doom ; Eldritch Storm ; Fortune ; Guide ; Mind War ; Divination; Ghosthelm; Rune Armour; Runes of Warding; Runes of Witnessing; Spirit Stones; Shuriken Pistol; Witchblade; Staff of Ulthamar)

1 Warlock Unit, 305 pts

1 Warlock ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Destructor ; Fleet; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Witchblade)

1 Warlock ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Embolden ; Fleet; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Witchblade)

1 Warlock ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Enhance ; Fleet; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Witchblade)

1 Warlock ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Destructor ; Fleet; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Witchblade)

1 Warlock ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Fleet; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Witchblade)

1 Wave Serpent ((pp.45 & 63 Eldar); Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Tank, Fast); Energy Field; Star Engines; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Shuriken Cannons)

HQ: Yriel, Prince (1#, 155 pts)

1 Yriel, Prince, 155 pts ((pp.52-53 & 61 Eldar); Independent Character; Fleet; Doomed; Master Strategist; Eye of Wraith; Forceshield; The Spear of Twilight; Plasma Grenades)

Troops: Storm Guardians (12#, 250 pts)

10 Storm Guardians, 250 pts ((p.39 & p.64 Eldar); Fleet; Close Combat Weapon; Shuriken Pistol; Flamer x2)

1 Warlock ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Enhance ; Fleet; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Singing Spear)

1 Wave Serpent ((pp.45 & 63 Eldar); Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Tank, Fast); Energy Field; Star Engines; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Shuriken Cannons)

Troops: Storm Guardians (12#, 250 pts)

10 Storm Guardians, 250 pts ((p.39 & p.64 Eldar); Fleet; Close Combat Weapon; Shuriken Pistol; Flamer x2)

1 Warlock ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Enhance ; Fleet; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Singing Spear)

1 Wave Serpent ((pp.45 & 63 Eldar); Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Tank, Fast); Energy Field; Star Engines; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Shuriken Cannons)

Elite: Wraithguard (11#, 399 pts)

10 Wraithguard, 399 pts ((pp.46 & 62 Eldar); Fearless; Wraithsight; Wraithcannon x10)

1 Spiritseer (Warlock) ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Enhance ; Fleet; Spiritseer Upgrade; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Singing Spear)

Heavy Support: Dark Reapers (5#, 217 pts)

4 Dark Reapers, 217 pts ((pp.34 & 66 Eldar); Reaper Launcher)

1 Dark Reaper Exarch ( Fast Shot ; Missile Launcher)

Heavy Support: War Walker Squadron (3#, 180 pts)

1 War Walker Squadron, 180 pts ((pp.44 & 66 Eldar); Scouts)

1 War Walker (Scatter Laser; Scatter Laser)

Troops: Guardians (12#, 264 pts)

10 Guardians, 264 pts ((p.39 & p.64 Eldar); Fleet; Shuriken Catapult x10)

1 Spiritseer (Warlock) ((p.27-28 & p.60 Eldar); Psyker; Enhance ; Fleet; Spiritseer Upgrade; Rune Armour; Shuriken Pistol; Singing Spear)

1 Weapon Platform (Missile Launcher)

1 Wave Serpent ((pp.45 & 63 Eldar); Unit Type: Vehicle (Skimmer, Tank, Fast); Energy Field; Star Engines; TL Shuriken Catapults; TL Shuriken Cannons)

Troops: Pathfinders (Rangers) (5#, 120 pts)

5 Pathfinders (Rangers), 120 pts ((pp.38 & 64 Eldar); Fleet; Infiltrate; Move Through Cover; Stealth; Ignore Difficult Terrain; Pathfinder Stealth; Scouts; Pathfinders; Shuriken Pistol x5; Ranger Long Rifle)

Heavy Support: Wraithlord (1#, 150 pts)

1 Wraithlord, 150 pts ((pp.47 & 66 Eldar); Unit Type: Monstrous Creature; Fearless; Wraithsight; Flamer x2; Bright Lance; Scatter Laser)

Composition Report:

HQ: 2 (1 - 2)

Elite: 1 (0 - 3)

Troops: 4 (2 - 6)

Fast: 0 (0 - 3)

Heavy: 3 (0 - 3)

Total Roster Cost: 2500

If I do not bring Eldrad and bring a regular Farseer then that also opens up some options - or I could bring the dual seer council again and attempt to overrun and conquer.

We'll see how things work out this week =).

Retribution of Scyrah army built!

2011-07-04T23:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend I decided to buckle down and build my 35 point Retribution of Scyrah army in order to get my summer projects started. Now I really like GW models because they are easy to assemble and generally plastic. Plastic is easy - you just need glue. Privateer Press makes amazing looking models. Privateer Press also makes metal models that come in a million pieces that really require pinning. I suck at pinning. You can pretty much see where this line of thought is going. Anyway - several hours of slowly drilling and praying that the 1/32 drill bit in my hands didn't snap off and puncture my thumb resulted in the following:

When I first picked up the Retribution of Scyrah book, the first warcaster that I really liked was Garryth. Since Garryth seems to emphasis fast and hard hitting skirmish style combat, naturally I took a liking to him. The army itself is generally themed in the way I like to play. One big heavy hitter, 1 fast hitter and a lot of "assassin" type models.
Here is the chosen list for my Warmachine army.

35 Pts - Retribution of Scyrah Army - The Blade of Retribution

Garryth, Blade of Retribution
1 Phoenix
1 Griffon
1 Mage Hunter Strike Force (1 leader and 9 grunts)
1 Strike Force Commander
1 Stormfall Archers (1 leader and 4 grunts)
2 Ghost Sniper
2 Mage Hunter Assassin
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

We'll see how this list plays out. I may do very well with it or suck spectacularly. Knowing how I play, I'll probably do ok with it at first then after playing with the same list over and over get it down to a science (or continue to suck either/or).

The next big project I was forced ..er I mean decided to embark on was the cleaning up and organizing of my hobby room by my girlfriend. She had grown weary of me setting up shop on the kitchen table and pretty much made the comment that "it would be a shame to accidentally mistake all these little army men for old cat toys that need to be thrown away". Taking my cue - I retreated upstairs and embarked on Operation Hallowed Sanctum.
Before:

and 2 hours and 3 garbage bags and 1 filled recycle bin later:

I now have a feasible workspace and my girlfriend lost aggro!

I just finished priming my army today so I'll be posting WIP pics soon.

Project no.2

While rummaging through my myriad boxes and bags, I managed to locate my magnetic 20mm bases. So I will be priming the rest of the Eternal Guard and then cutting them off their current bases and glueing them to the new magnetic ones as well as making a new movement tray. Yay!

Project no.3

I managed to also locate the missing Beastmen models I had been searching for three to four weeks ago and now I have the entire army ready to rock at 2500 points. I just need to make some new movement trays and glue strip magnets under the models I found. Yay for organization!

Oh yes, one last thing.

Norman says SUP!

Enter Warmachine and Hordes

2011-06-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

Now that OFCC has come and gone, my gaming group has decided to pursue 3 initiatives for gaming.
1. Paint/build/play our Warhammer Fantasy armies at 2500.
2. Play and build up our Warhammer Fantasy armies for Storm of Magic.
3. Build a 35 point Warmachine or Hordes army by the end of October.

I have decided that I will build two armies for Warmachine/Hordes. I will build/paint/play a 35 point Retribution of Scyrah and a Circle of Orboros army.

You can expect to see several updates in the next few months showing Warmachine/Hordes/Warhammer and also I'm running a Warhammer 40k workshop starting on July 11th as well.

Current Project List for this Summer.
1. Paint/Assemble my Wood Elves to 2500 points.
2. Paint/Assemble my Beastmen to 2500 points.
3. Paint/Assemble 35 points of Retribution of Scryah by October
4. Paint/Assemble 35 points of Circle of Orboros by October.
5. Conduct a 40k workshop at my FLGS to get new players into the game and provide existing players some help.

It'll be fun!

OFCC 2011 Tournament Report

2011-06-27T21:46:00.000-07:00

! This year's OFCC (Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge) has come and gone. I have to say, it was an utter and complete blast! This was my first time attending the event and not knowing what to really expect you can probably guess I was filled with a bit of trepidation. Were people going to consider my playstyle douchey? Were my dice going to completely fail me? (They did twice) And most importantly - was I going to have fun?
Fortunately my playstyle wasn't douchey and most importantly - I had a complete blast.

I will post some battle chronicler images next post when I have time this weekend but for now I'll do a brief synopsis of my 5 games this weekend. I like how I bring a camera with me and take pictures pre-game and then completely forget about my camera the entire game until it's over. Next year I'm going to just video tape the entire game and edit out 5 min synopsis of each fight.

Anyway here we go:
First off here is my army pre-game in presentation mode (next year I'm bringing a display board)

I really appreciated the remarks people made on my army. It was very flattering to receive all the compliments and remarks of "that's awesome" or "oh man I want to play Wood Elves now!". Thank you Ordo!

Game 1 Battle Line: Carl's "Stupid and Frenzied Orcs & Goblins" vs. The Great Hunt
The first scenario was your classic Battle Line mission where you deploy within 12" of the table edge. All the scenarios in this year's OFCC used that type of mission which I was not really a fan of but the games were still fun regardless.

Carl's list:
1 Savage Orc Warboss - Boar, Armor of Silvered Steel, Dawnstone, Two hand weapons
1 Savage Orc Big Boss - BSB, Boar, Dragonhelm, Fencer's Blades
1 Savage Orc Shaman - Level 2, Boar, Lucky Shrunken Head
18 Savage Orcs, Full Command, Extra hand weapon
18 Savage Orcs, Full Command, Extra hand weapon
18 Savage Orcs, Full Command, Extra hand weapon
12 Savage Orc Boar Boys - Big Uns, Extra hand weapon, full Command, Spears, Shields
6 Trolls
6 Trolls
1 Pump Wagon

I liked this list because it was similar to the Orcs & Goblins list I had made up. Carl had first turn and moved his units into position while I did the same on mine. I managed to kill 5 Boar Boys and had positioned myself too close hoping to score a panic test from shooting. Sadly, John forgot that Frenzied means Immune to Psychology *sigh*. He ended up rolling my Dryads, Glade Guard and Waywatchers in 2 turns due to my horrid 1st turn positioning. We also laughed at how badly I was rolling. Consistently rolling over 6 1's when I roll more than 10 dice was just horrid. That however didn't make up for the just over all bad decisions I made. At the end of the game on turn 6 I had a Level 0 Spellweaver left vs. his 1 unit of Savage Orcs (under 7 models), his BSB left, and 2 units of Trolls (one with his General in it). A solid defeat for the Wood Elves.
Mistakes made that game?
1. Forgetting about Frenzy and Immune to Psychology
2. Moving and positioning myself way too close - my opponent Carl did a wonderful job of seeing this and taking advantage of it.
3. Attacking characters instead of the unit to get combat resolution.
4. Not pursuing units that lost in combat which ended up rallying and biting me in the ass later.
5. F that textured game board - I'd roll horrible on it and awesome off it. You would think I would remember that every turn ....but no. =D

end result: Orcs and Goblins - victory!
I'm really pleased Carl was a nice guy which made the game actually fun regardless of the circumstances. Solid playing Carl, good win!
Game 1 Pictures!

Game 2 King of the Hill: Shane's Orcs and Goblins vs. The Great Hunt.

This was my second game of the day and my second game against O&G. This scenario had a Scree Slope in the center of the board and the victory conditions were - the game ended on a variable roll after Turn 5 and the army with the most units in the center got 500 victory points at the end. I decided to pull my head out of my ass this game and not make mistakes. Shane had a really fun O&G list. There were definitely some "oh hell" factors to it and I had to seriously move my units around to capitalize on my army's strengths.

Shane's List:

Black Orc Warboss, Sword of Strife, Talisman of Preservation
Orc Great Shaman, Dispel Scroll, Potion of Speed, Level 4
Black Orc Big Boss - BSB, Armor of Destiny

Orc Boyz x25, shields, full command
Orc Big Uns x24, full command, extra hand weapons
Goblin Wolf Riders x5, Spear, Shield, Musician
Goblin Wolf Riders x5, Spear, Shield, Musician
Black Orcs x22, Standard Bearer, Musician, Shield, Banner of Eternal Flame (dammit!!!)
Orc Boar Chariot
Orc Boar Chariot
Orc Boar Boyz x5, Full Command, Shield, Spear, banner of swiftness
Mangler Squig
Mangler Squig

This game was looking to be pretty damn rough. I deployed almost everything on my right side and decided to flank his army. He counter-deployed by placing his Wolf Riders, Boar Boyz, Chariot and 2 Mangler Squigs across from my army and put his big units near the center to get close to the hill. I got lucky in my turn and killed both his squigs while he moved everything forward and got his Black Orcs to the edge of the hill. The next few turns were spent coming up on his flank and shooting/killing a unit a turn until he had his Black Orcs left and I had 6 units in the center. The game ended at the bottom of Turn 6 with most of his army removed and most of my units being full strength and in control of the hill. I got really lucky this game because he suffered animosity at critical times and I was able to kill key units right off the bat. Shane was also a great opponent cause we are both Wood Elf army owners and he could appreciate how the army should have worked. Thank you for the awesome game Shane!

End Result: Wood Elves - Victory!

Game 2 Pictures!

Game 3 Battle Line: Deke's Warriors of Chaos vs. The Great Hunt.

This mission was your standard Battle Mission game. This was seriously the best game of the day. My opponent Deke was utterly amazing. We were laughing the entire game and he made for an extremely memorable experience at OFCC. I'm totally rematching against him next year. Deke had a really fun Warriors of Chaos army. His mission - to have a friggin blast. Alcohol also helped! He and I both had had a drink or two before our game which made it even better!!!

Deke's Army!

Sorcerer of Tzeentch - Disc of Tzeentch, Golden Eye of Tzeentch, Book of Secrets, Level 2
Sorcerer, Lore of Death, Level 2 Upgrade
Exalted Hero, BSB, Luckstone, Chaos Steed

Chaos Marauders x50, Full Command, Mark of Tzeentch, Light armor, Shield
Chaos Hounds x5
Chaos Hounds x5
Chaos Warriors x12, Mark of Nurgle, Full Command, Halberds
Chaos Knights x5, full command, Mark of Nurgle, Banner of Rage
Chaos Trolls x3
Chaos Chariot
Chaos Giant, Mark of Slaanesh (yikes)

This game was a crazy experience. Beginning of the game my general and waywatchers are fleeing due to a panic test and Deke comes barreling across the board towards me. I kill a unit of chaos hounds and inflict a wound on his Sorceress on disc as well as kill a troll. Next turn he charges into my Wild Riders with his Marauders and slams his trolls into my Glade Guard. I'm thinking "oh hell I'm about to get rolled". Glade Guard beat the trolls in combat and chase them down and the Wild Riders flee but he runs into my Treekin on his pursuit roll. Next turn I charge his Marauder block with my Dryads and a Great Eagle and manage to just rampage through his WS1 (thank you twin fails on fear test!) Marauders. The unit breaks and I pursue and then the rest of the game was spend killing the other units while we laughed the entire time. The most epic part of the entire game was my Spellweaver turning into a Great Fire Dragon and fighting his lone Chaos Knight Champion of Nurgle in single combat. That made for an EPIC ending to an awesome game!

Thank you so much for the truly fantastic game Deke!

Pics of Deke's awesomely painted army:

Game 4 Five Coins - Dave's Ogre Kingdoms vs. The Great Hunt.

This game had us set up 5 treasure coins that you had to collect by charging them and they were 100 vps each. You could obviously lose a coin if you broke from combat or failed a panic test (but not from fleeing a charge). This Ogre Kingdoms army was pretty standard - it was fast, mean and was filled with army fat men that wanted Wood Elf Kabobs! David was an excellent opponent who made the entire game very enjoyable and I have to say this is the biggest come from behind victory I think I've ever managed to score.

Dave's Ogre Kingdoms:
Tyrant, Trickster's Helm, Mawseeker, Potion of Speed, Sword of Striking
Bruiser - BSB, Golden Sigil Sword, Great Skull
Butcher - Halfling Cookbook, Sword of Swift Slaying

5 Ogre Bulls, full command, Look out Gnoblar, Iron Fists
10 Gnoblar Trappers
Scraplauncha
4 Leadbelchers
Slave Giant
7 Iron Guts - full command, Look out Gnoblar

The first turn he comes barreling across the table and I'm like "oh hell there goes 1 round of shooting" and his Scraplauncher kills one of my eagles. This causes a panic test in one of my units of Glade Guard and they go booking for the edge. My turn ends up with me causing his Lead Belchers to flee after losing 50% of their number. I also do 4 Wounds to his Slave Giant. His turn he charges my Dryads with his BSB unit (kills them) and beats my treekin and causes them to flee after a round of combat. He rolls a 3 to pursue and my Treekin rally next turn. His Slave giants takes 1 more wound before smashing all my Glade Guard to death. My waywatchers eat Scraplauncher debris and lose half their number while Wild Riders sit there going "hey bro sup?". So at this point I have my big unit of Treekin fleeing (before I made their rally check), my Wild Riders at 75%, my Spellweaver, 2 waywatchers and my general and 1 eagle. He hasn't lost a unit yet. I charge my Wild Riders into his big block of Iron Guts and then my Spellweaver by herself into his flank. I cast Transformation of Kadon and turn into a Great Fire Dragon and score 2 S10 hits on his unit from the miscast! My general kills his Slave Giant with shooting. The eagle rallies along with the Treekin and my Spellweaver scores 12 hits with her breathweapon dealing 10 wounds. She then proceeds to visit 8 more wounds on the unit of Ironguts and my Wild Riders chase them down and remove them from play. His turn he misfires with his Scraplauncher and his Lead Belchers lose to my Wild Riders. At this point we call the game and shake hands. It was one hell of a comeback - up til that turn I was pretty sure I was about to get rolled badly. Fantastic game!

Victor: Wood Elves!
Pictures of the Battle!:

Game 5 Battle Line - Josh's Clan Iraf vs. The Great Hunt

This was my best and hardest game of the entire tournament. I played my buddy Josh and his accursed Skaven. This game originally started out pretty bad. Dice were saying "hey bro we are tired so ..have some 1's". Josh in the spirit of true sportsmanship relaxed his oncoming assault and let me get my bearings back. The first turn resulted in my losing an Eagle, half my Dryads, and a unit of Glade Guard fleeing. I then return the favor with 2 power dice and just pretty much sucking on my turn. Next turn he scores the DOOMROCKET and I lose 2 Wild Riders and 3 Waywatchers. His Warplighting cannon scores nothing - thank god. I manage to Amber Spear the hell out of his Doomwheel and inflict some strong casualties on his clanrats. I foolishly allowed my Dryads to get charged and wiped out via spells by his plague priest. I have new respect for Skaven after this game. The rest of the game was just hilarious as we mashed our units in the center and just killed off 95% of our armies. Josh got all sneaky and challenged my Spellweaver turned Great Fire Dragon to a challenge with his 2+ ward save vs. fire =) - Skaven players are SNEAKY.
At the end of six turns I had 14 Glade Guard, and 2 Wild Riders. Josh had his general and a Warp Lightning Cannon. We ended on a Draw and a perfect end to an awesome tournament.

I gave Josh my best general pin as he did me. Thanks for the absolutely awesome game Josh!
Josh's army was showcased in my previous post but his list is here (and pictures of our set up)

Clan Iraf
Warlord - Bonebreaker, Sword of Anti-heroes, Charmed Shield, Dragonbane Gem (sneaky git), Ironcurse Icon.
Warlord - Bonebreaker, Biting Blade, Warpstone Armor, Dawnstone
Chieftain - BSB
Plague Priest - Level 2, Dispel Scroll
Warlock Engineer - Level 2, Doomrocket, Warp-energy Condenser
Clanrats x34, full command, shields
Poisoned Mortar Weapon Team
Clanrats x34, full command, shields
Warpfire Thrower
Clanrats x34, full command, shields
Ratling Gatling Gun
Rat Ogres x6, 4 Packmasters
Warp lighting cannon
Doomwheel.

For the life of me I can not stack pictures this post. Oh well.

Anyway - in closing I had an absolute wonderful time and our team did very, very well.

We came in 2nd overall for Best Generals and Best Painted. I am looking very forward to next year's event and hope that there is an even bigger turn out than this year. I fully plan on making next year a full out Nerd Safari!

You can find more information about Ordo Fanaticus here.

I'll be posting some more pictures of everyone's armies in the next few posts - I just have to wait for Josh to copy over his pictures for me.

OFCC Army Showcase - Iraf's Skaven

2011-06-18T10:29:00.000-07:00

In the next few weeks before and after OFCC, I will be showcasing my teammates and my opponents' armies in order to show off their hard work. The first of this series will be my game 5 opponent and buddy Iraf. He has chosen to bring a "soft" Skaven list for this year's OFCC. (Soft list = no plague furnace, no grey seer, no screaming bell, no double doomwheel)

I really like Iraf's list. While it may not look hard, he will be playing it extremely well and so I'll have to ensure the sneaky bastard doesn't catch me with my pants down in game 5. He's running a double warlord on a bonebreaker list with no Jezzails or Abominations. Now don't underestimate this list, it'll be very brutal based on how he plays. I'll be posting the army lists for everyone after OFCC so that everyone can see my team's choices as well as my opponents.

Anyway - here is the part that everyone actually cares about. The pictures! Enjoy!

Next up will be Larry's Nurgle themed Warriors of Chaos.

Wood Elves ready for OFCC!

2011-06-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

Every year the gaming club here in Portland, OR known as the Ordo (Ordo Fanaticus) holds the OFCC. The OFCC which stands for the Ordo Fanaticus Club Challenge, it's a team based two day tournament for Warhammer Fantasy. Unlike most tournaments, this club challenge is designed to be an event where the casual gamer and hobbyist can bring their army and enjoy two days of entertaining gaming without the worry of serious tournament players and their over the top lists. The main goal of OFCC is to have each player have a fun and enjoyable game and build a memorable experience at the same time. Now this is not to say there will not be competition and serious playing. Most of the players that participate are pretty tough opponents so you can expect some really good and close games the entire weekend.

My gaming group has been scrambling the last few months to get their armies assembled, painted and based for the upcoming tournament on June 24th-25th. This will be my first appearance at an OFCC event so I'm rather looking forward to the experience. After much debate our team captain decided on a name that would best describe our group, we are - "Team Tourettes - Epic Fail". By some unfortunate twist of fate (and the inability for the tournament runner Raindog to properly read a damn email properly) my game handle "Sylvos" also has the nickname "Epic fail" instead of our team added to it in every entry. The fact that I'm bringing Wood Elves just adds more irony to that situation.

One prevailing theme for OFCC is that the lists are to be balanced and fun. While you can bring a devastatingly powerful list (within the list building guidelines of course), it's not really recommended. It's supposed to be a fun event and not 'Ard Boyz. After all this is a private and invite only event, why would you be a douche? You do want to be invited back no? =D Especially when there is prize support for just about everyone who attends and plays.

I've decided to bring my standard 2000 point list which has been referenced numerous times in various posts but you can view it here.

As soon as my buddies finish their armies I'll be posting their lists and doing an army showcase. We have a lot of great players and I would really like to show off all the hard work they've put into their armies.

And now for the part that everyone really cares about - the pictures!

Warhammer Ard Boyz 2011 Semi-Finals, May 21st 2011

2011-05-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

Today I had the opportunity to play in the Semi-finals for the Warhammer Ard Boyz tournament with my Wood Elves. Now I know all over the net people have ranked Wood Elves at the bottom of the barrel in terms of power but honestly it really boils down to the player. The Semi-finals took place at Borderlands in Salem, OR and we had a pretty decent turn out. There were thirteen contestants from the various gaming stores that could make it from all over Oregon, Southern Washington and Northern California. There were three rather interesting scenarios that I think were a bit tamer than the first rounds missions. I'm not going to go into too much detail about the missions since all three were available on Games Workshop's website.

My original tweet was incorrect about what armies had shown up, apparently some folks who were just there to play brought their fantasy armies not realizing it was Ard Boyz. Nonetheless we had some pretty beastly lists brought to the table.

Armies Present:
3 Dwarf armies (2 Thorek lists, 1 pure gunline)
2 Skaven
3 Lizardmen
1 Empire
1 Dark Elves
1 Tomb Kings
1 Orcs and Goblins
1 Wood Elf (hi!)

What surprised me the most was that there were no Daemons, Warriors of Chaos or Teclis High Elf lists. Nor were there any Vampire Counts. From what I understand from talking with the other contestants, the Daemon and Warriors of Chaos armies were crushed by Skaven and Dwarf gun line armies in the first round. I was rather surprised since the power levels of Chaos are ridiculous. Anyway...

I normally would post a full battle report but instead I'm going to lay out the list I played and a brief summary of the battle. I'll also throw some pictures (ones that were not blurry - sigh) of the armies present, many in their unpainted splendor.

The list I brought to Ard Boyz is The Great Hunt, War Host of Athel Loren . I personally did not like this list since it caused me to put a lot of eggs in one basket and made me spend a lot of points in augmenting a single unit of Eternal Guard (my least favorite unit in the entire book).

Game 1 - The Changer of Ways: The Great Hunt vs. Dwarven Gunline

My first game was extremely difficult for me. While my opponent Phil was a super nice guy, the list he brought made me almost concede the game after the third turn. I'm all about playing hard armies and testing myself but being absolutely helpless the entire first half of the game was enough to make me say fuck it and leave. I'll go into more detail after I post his list.

Dwarven Gunline List:

Master Engineer, Rune of Stone, Handgun, Shield
Master Engineer, Rune of Stone, Handgun, Shield
Master Engineer, Rune of Stone, Handgun, Shield

Rune Smith, Shield, x3 Rune of Spell Breaking

Thunderers x10, Mus. Std Bearer
Thunderers x10, Mus. Std Bearer
Thunderers x10, Mus. Std Bearer
Quarrellers x10, Mus, Std Bearer
Quarrellers x10, Mus, Std Bearer
Quarrellers x10, Mus, Std Bearer

Cannon
Cannon
Cannon
Cannon
Cannon
Cannon, Rune of Burning

Bolt Thrower, Rune of Penetration, Rune of Burning
Bolt Thrower, Master Rune of Immolation
Bolt Thrower

Grudge Thrower, x2 Rune of Penetration, Rune of Accuracy
Grudge Thrower, Rune of Penetration, Rune of Accuracy, Rune of Burning
Grudge Thrower, Rune of Penetrating, Rune of Accuracy
Grudge Thrower, Rune of Burning, Rune of Accuracy

Organ Gun
Organ Gun
Organ Gun
Organ Gun

I did not enjoy this game at all, I finally hit his line on turn four with 10 models left in the army after being shot and templated over and over and over again. Granted I killed a third of his army in 1 turn but I literally could do nothing as I failed 3 charges in the 3rd turn which would have guaranteed victory and I was not aware that Organ Guns do not need to roll to hit - which is bullshit. GW needs to FAQ/Errata that immediately. That and he only had 1 Misfire the entire game. Anyway - to sum up the game. I managed to kill enough things in the last three turns to score a Minor Loss against the Dwarves. I think the turning point is when I asked my opponent to let me step outside after turn 3 to have a smoke and relax a moment. He joined me and we were able to just hang out and talk for the five minutes which really changed the entire complexion of our game. It became more friendly and we had fun towards the end.

Game Two - The Crazed Fanatic: The Great Hunt vs. Armies of the Witch King (Dark Elves)

After my brutal defeat at the hands of the Dwarves I took on a Dark Elf player named Mike. He had a really beefy list that when I looked at it I thought to myself - there is no way I can survive these massive blocks without support. My dice apparently were seeking my forgiveness for their abyssmal showing in game 1 and came back full force.

The Dark Elf Army:
Malekith the Witch King
Noble BSB w/ Banner of Hag Graef
Hag Queen w/ Cauldron of Blood
Repeater Crossbowmen x14
Repeater Crossbowmen x14
Corsairs x40 w/ full command
War Hydra w/ Beastmaster's Scourge
Executioners x40, full command, Lichebone Pennant
Witch Elves x40, full command, Banner of Murder
Assassin w/ Touch of Death

My opponent set up first however I rolled a 6 and stole the first turn from him. The fanatic was charged by the Dryads and obtained (only to be lost the next turn). I immediately shifted my entire army to the right while moving forward with the Treekin. My opponent suffered casualties to his Corsairs and Repeater Crossbowmen and attempted to wipe out my units with his Dark Magic.

I managed to pass almost every single characteristic test every turn with like 1-2 casualties. I could tell my opponent was getting frustrated. The second turn rolled in and that resulted in his Hydra getting crushed by my Treekin and Dryads while his Corsairs again suffered massive casualties. It boiled down to his entire unit of Corsairs were wiped out by my Eternal Guard. His Witch Elves never made contact with anyone and died to a man (woman) including the hidden assassin. One of his Crossbow units were slain by eagles. His Cauldron got crunched by Treekin while all his executioners were killed by the Eternal Guard except Malekith and his BSB.

Game 2 resulted in a Major Victory but I did not get the 5 extra points for the fanatic since I did not hold on to him until the end of the game - that cost me second place overall. Oh well.

Game 3 - We uz something in Orc - The Great Hunt vs. Ard Boyz of Gorbad!

This was my definite favorite game of the evening. I played against Dennis and his absolutely awesome Orcs and Goblins army. My dice were again very, very hot but this game was so much fun. We both agreed to let the river bisecting the map be mysterious (big mistake since it became a Boiling Flood) and essentially just smashed into each other right off the bat.

Here is the Ard Boyz of Gorbad!

Gorbad Ironclaw on Gnarla
Savage Orc Great Shaman w/ Lucky Shrunken Head and Obsidian Lodestone
Night Goblin Warboss w/ Relic Sword, Enchanted Shield and Ironcurse Icon
Black Orc Big Boss w/ Potion of Strength
Goblin Big Boss on Wolf Chariot w/ Terrifying Mask of Eee!
Savage Orcs x34 w/ full command and additional hand weapons
Night Goblin x69 w/ full command
Goblin Mob x37 w/ full command and 2 Nasty Skulkers
Wolf Riders x5 w/ Mus.
Savage Boar Boyz x12, Big Uns, Lichebone Pennant, Full Command
Trolls x10
Orc Boar Chariot
Goblin Wolf Chariot
Goblin Spear Chukka
Goblin Spear Chukka
Giant w/ Warpaint.

I had such a great time against this army. Orcs are generally the bane of my existence so doing well against them is amazing in any regard. The Highlight of this game was my Highborn challenging his Savage Orcs and Gorbad accepting. Gorbad died which really turned the tide for me but it was such an epic fight. I was really rolling well and my opponent was surprised that I moved my entire line sans archers up to charge range in the first turn. I was fully ready to get into combat - that's right I had crazy eyes. To make a long story short, my opponent conceded at the bottom of turn 4 because he had been reduced to 2 units really. I scored max points for the Massacre victory and also reaching all the criteria for the mission.

In the end I placed 5th - which is not bad considering I got beaten in the first round. I was really challenged this event and two of the guys above me declined to go to Sacramento for the Finals so it fell to me. Sacramento HO!

In closing = I don't care who you talk to. Wood Elves definitely don't suck!

Thanks!

The Wild Hunt, War Herd of the Drakwald vs. The Champions of Ulthuan

2011-05-20T00:04:00.000-07:00

This Wednesday I took on my friend Tom's High Elven army. I really wish I had taken better pictures, especially since Tom did a really excellent job painting the entire army. Next week he's taking on Ogres so I'll be sure to take snapshots of his army to provide an Army Showcase.

This was one of Tom's first real games of 8th edition and in preparation for the team tournament we are engaging in in June, he wanted to take on my Beastmen to test out his list. Tom has a really nicely painted army and a really cool themed list. Nothing in his list is overly powerful, it's a nice mix of fun units and a balanced army.
We played Mission 5 - Meeting Engagement and I managed to roll a 6 after we had deployed and stole the first turn.

We only played 3 full turns due to time constraints but I have a feeling that once Tom get's his mojo down that High elf army is going to be a royal pain in his opponents ass. I will be brief in my reports since it is late and I want to ensure I get the full amount of detail in each turn.
Tom's List:
Level 4 Wizard with High Magic Lore - General
Noble BSB w/ 2+ Armor save and Sword of Battle
20 Phoenix Guards
20 Lothran Sea Guard
20 Lothran Sea Guard
1 Great Eagle
6 Silver Helms
5 Reavers
1 Bolt Thrower
10 Swordmasters

My List (I dropped the Terror Mask and put the Stone of Spite on my Doombull)

Deployment:

As you can see I set up a strong front while Tom decided wisely to set his units further back in order to get 1 to 2 rounds of shooting before close combat was joined.

Turn 1 Beastmen

As you can see the Beastmen first turn was rather uneventful. I moved forward, attempted to use my Stone of Spite to blow up his Wizard but that was dispelled. I tried to Amber Spear his Archer, that was also dispelled. Finally I tried to Wildform my minotaurs and that also failed. Fun!

Turn 1 High Elves

Turn 1 for High Elves didn't go as well as Tom has hoped. He managed to charge my Gor Horde which resulted in the death of his Silver Helms. He also tried to shoot up my Ghorgon and Minotaurs and managed to do a wound to one of my Minotaurs. I was able to dispel his attempts at casting - which I might add I'm rather pleased with.

Turn 2 Beastmen

Turn 2 started out badly for the High Elves. I charged my Gors into his Seaguard losing 3 due to his Stand and Shoot. The result of this combat was his Seaguard fleeing and my Gor horde repositioning itself to receive a charge from his Phoenix guard. The Ghorgon charges the Bolt Thrower and kills the warmachine. The Minotaurs charge the Swordmasters, killing 1 to impact hits. The Swordmasters kill THREE minotaurs to which my reaction is ...fuuuuuuu.. My bray shaman attempts to cast wild form on the minotaurs and gets irresistible force and a miscast. Result = he loses a level and ends his magic phase. Minotaurs kill the swordmasters and overrun past the Seaguard and Wizard. The 2nd Chariot failed it
s charge and was left out of position for Turn 2 for High Elves.

Turn 2 High Elves

Turn 2 for the High Elves started out pretty well. Tom charged my chariot with his Great Eagle and Reavers. The Phoenix Guard charge my Gors and the tarpitting begins. The Wizard gets a miscast casting Flames of the Phoenix and loses 9 models in his unit and does a wound to my chariot. The Bestigors take 8 wounds and flee towards the table edge. The chariot dies in combat with the Seaguard while the other chariot stands firm against the eagle and reavers. Oh and the other Seaguard unit rallied.

Turn 3 Beastmen

The Minotars and Ghorgon seek to turn around to kill more stuff - yay for losing a turn of killing with them. The Bestigors dispel the flames of the Phoenix and fail their rally check and continue to flee. The Gors hold firm and shell out more casualties against the Phoenix guard while the reavers and eagle finally slay the chariot and get into charge range of the Gors.

Turn 3 High Elves

This was the final turn for our game. Tom charges with 3 units into my Gor herd. Now here is where I messed up - Tom was going to cast Flames of the Phoenix into the Gor herd unit but I said that it was a direct damage spell and couldn't be cast. I was incorrect, it totally could have been cast into that unit. That was a major mess up on my part and that probably would have given him a win for that final round of fighting - sorry Tom! Anyway - the final round of combat ensued and the reavers died and the Gors won the combat by 4 due to the sheer amount of casualties I inflicted on his units. Totem of rust is STILL one of the best items ever. Now keep in mind I managed to dispel all Tom's attempts to cast Vaul's Unmaking which would have had a SERIOUS effect on our game.

In the end I pulled out a win by a few hundred Victory Points - It was a great game. I hope this game also provided Tom with some good ideas for synergy in future games. My army was designed to smash your face and was pretty brutal, against other armies I think Tom's High Elves will do very well since they will be able to counteract a lot of the special stuff that those armies do.

Final thoughts:
1. Bloodgreed = wasn't a big deal this game. Had we had a 4th turn it would have since the Ghorgon and Minotaurs would have been in charge range.
2. Primal Fury = this won the game for me. Hatred with a Gor Horde is ridiculous.
3. Totem of Rust = yet another perfect synergy for my Gor unit.
4. Bestigors = for the 4th straight game they have done nothing but die. Awesome use of 250+ points.

Thanks for the game Tom!

Ghorgon WIP

2011-05-08T01:34:00.000-07:00

In order to properly fill out my Beastman army I decided that I wanted a Ghorgon in the list. I have had rousing success with the rare selection therefore I decided I needed a model that really fit the description in the book. After attempting several kit bashes that frankly did not meet my personal standards, I decided to look online and found a perfect model to represent a Ghorgon. The Miss Painting Group from Hong Kong had this model for sale and I nabbed it.

So without further ado here is another bombardment of pictures showing off the new model. I included a few minotaurs so you can get an idea of the model's scale. I really love this model. The sculptor was brilliant in that I received the item with the following features:
1. No Flash - I had to trim absolutely nothing
2. Very few pieces to fit together - Seriously I had a jaw, two horns and 4 arms to glue on. That was IT.
3. Perfectly fitted pieces - never have I had a resin model fit together so perfectly and this even out does the Ultraforge models I have. That is impressive.

And picture bombardment - enjoy. I'll have this bad boy painted up soon as I finish my Minotaurs.

Wood Elf Showcase - Great Eagles - Completed.

2011-05-02T23:27:00.000-07:00

Finally completed my Coolminiornot limited edition Great Eagles this weekend and thought I'd bombard the internet with various poorly taken pictures showing off my latest work. I really, really enjoyed these models. They were totally worth the cost, the time painting and all the bellyaching over what paint scheme to use.
Enough talking, you guys want to see pictures not walls of text.

I took photos with and without flash hoping to get the right amount of light and detail without washing the pictures and colors out. I haven't set up my photo lab yet so kitchen table will have to do.
Enjoy:

Thanks! Wood elves = done (except Eternal Guard for Ard Boyz but really? Who is going to care)

Beastman Special Abilities: Primal Fury and Bloodgreed.

2011-04-28T16:54:00.000-07:00

Beastman Special Abilities – Bloodgreed and Primal Fury.

The purpose of this post is to evaluate the special abilities of the Beastman army. There are three primary abilities that the Beastman army can take advantage of: Ambush, Bloodgreed and Primal Fury. Of the three abilities, we will be covering Bloodgreed and Primal Fury.

Various armies have certain defining characteristics that make them unique. Wood elves have the ability to move and shoot without penalty and have forest strider, just to name a few. Vampire Counts are unbreakable and cause fear, not to mention they can also resurrect dead allies. Lizardmen have scaly skin and cold blooded. High elves always strike first and have high magic. Every army has some advantage to give them a unique feel and purpose.

Beastman Special Ability: Primal Fury

The Primal Fury ability is perhaps one of the most underestimated abilities in the entire army. The ability itself provides the unit the Hatred special rule whenever they unit passes a leadership test also known as a Primal Fury roll. Now unlike normal Hatred, the Beastman units that are able to benefit from this special ability are allowed to roll for Primal Fury every round. In addition to the standard Hatred rule, if a unit rolls double 1’s for it’s Primal Fury roll they also benefit from Frenzy. In essence what has now happened is that Beastmen’s combat effectiveness has now matched that of the High Elves with their Always Strikes First special rule. Every unit engaged in close combat that can use Primal Fury now has the chance to reroll all their misses. This ability makes the core choices for the Beastmen army even more effective. Gors, Ungors and Tuskgor Chariots (not to mention also Bestigors but they are Specials) now have the chance to counteract the lack of armor and strength they have with an increased number of hits in close combat.

This ability is generally overlooked when a new player encounters the army. It isn’t until they see the Hatred in action every round (if lucky) that they realize how effective the Beastmen can be in close combat. Having Core units suddenly rerolling all their misses and making your opponent suffer more wounds is a huge game changer. Also this ability is not dependant upon a character in the unit, the basic core units come with the ability standard.

Synergy: The Primal Fury rule has several options within the army book to be even more potent than the first casual glance would notice. Here are a few of the many examples:

1. Character with Brass Cleaver – now the character has +1 attack per model in base to base contact. Couple this will the ability to reroll misses and you have a lot of hits and more than likely a lot of wounds to deal with from a character model.

2. Character with Steel Claws – again like the Brass Cleaver you know have 1d3+1 additional attacks to get Primal Fury rerolls with.

3. Lore of Beasts: Savage Beasts of Horros – Granting a character in a unit +3 Str and +3 attacks, coupled with any of the items listed above can and will grant a character up to 10+ attacks in a round with high strength. This can lead to the “blender” effect where Primal Fury makes an already potent character even more deadly.

4. Gors using two-hand weapons instead of shields – Gors using 2 hand weapons granting them an additional attack only continues the trend of making your opponent roll more dice for saves. Combine this with the Lore of Beasts spell “Wyssan’s Wildform” and a Totem of Rust and put your Gors in a wide formation (or Horde formation) and you could be swinging with Strength 4 attacks and -3 to armor saves and be Toughness 5 to boot. That is not a combination that any heavily armored unit would want to deal with.

5. Ungors with spears and shields – Granting your Ungors an additional rank with spears (or another if in horde formation) allows even the “no-horn” Beastmen to really capitalize on the Primal Fury ability and I can guarantee your opponent won’t underestimate them again. Especially if you use any of the combinations mentioned in example no.4.

Beastman Special Ability: Bloodgreed

The Bloodgreed special ability is perhaps one of the most devastating abilities in the game. Not because it reduces armor, or changes a model’s toughness or even kills a model outright. The Bloodgreed ability turns whatever models that affect it into absolute killing machines. I dare say that this ability should be a character only ability after seeing how insane it ramps up during normal games.

The Bloodgreed special ability grants the model the Frenzy special rule upon winning a round of combat. If the models continue to win combat and do not lose a round they will gain an additional attack for every round they win. The ability to earn additional attacks each round that are cumulative until you lose a fight is for lack of a better term insane. This ability being only available on certain character choices, a special selection (Minotaurs) and a Rare selection (Ghorgon) is probably a good thing.

This ability is generally underestimated until it is seen in action and then both sides of the table see exactly how this power changes the face of the battlefield.

Example: 4 Minotaurs armed with Light Armor and an Additional Hand Weapon will turn out 4 attacks each normally or 16 attacks total. Let us say that these four minotaurs charge a unit of 20 skeletons and win combat. The Minotaurs next round will each gain Frenzy as a result of Bloodgreed and now will have 5 attacks each or 20 total. Now let’s say this combat ends after 3 more turns (due to the Vampire building the unit up each turn with Invocation). Each Minotaur provided they have had no casualties will now be swinging with 8 attacks each for a total of 32 attacks. 32 attacks at Strength 5 and Weapon Skill 4 will literally kill almost anything it touches. This is not a rare occurrence either, in my game last night against Orcs and Goblins my Minotaurs were swinging with 8 attacks each at the end of the game.

This ability is also not dependant upon having a character in the unit, 2 of the selections in the Beastman army get it as part of their point cost. I believe however that Games Workshop intentionally put some drawbacks or limitations on the use of Bloodgreed by simply altering the load out on Minotaurs. Minotaurs and Ghorgons may not take Heavy armor (well the characters can). They are very expensive models, the Minotaurs are only Toughness 4 with light armor and the Ghorgon is Toughness 6 with no armor. So while the units can and do turn into incredible killing machines, they are not invulnerable. Also, due to their point cost and selection type, you are rather limited on how many you can take in a normal game. That said, let us examine some synergy you can utilize Bloodgreed with in the Beastman army.

Synergy: The Bloodgreed ability can be capitalized on easily by creating a proper environment for the models affected.

1. Bloodkine with Frenzy sword – By using the unit champion and giving him the 10-15 point magic weapon that gives the him (and by extension his unit) Frenzy to begin the game with will allow you to automatically increase the number of attacks before even getting into combat. This way as soon as you win your first round you begin to gain the additional attacks right off the bat.

2. Gorebull with Minotaur unit – The Gorebull automatically starts out with Frenzy just like the example above. The difference is that you can begin to kit out the Gorebull or make him the Battle Standard Bearer as well. There are also several methods you can kit out the character which I’ll list in the next example.

3. Doombull with Minotaur unit – The Doombull is your ultimate wrecking ball on the field. You surround him with his 5-7 Minotaurs and point him in the direction of a unit that needs to die. There are also several options on how to kit out a Doombull/Gorebull to maximize your Bloodgreed and Killing Spree. Here are a few ideas.

A. Doombull with Axe of Swift Slaying and Uncanny Senses – This option is self explanatory. You give the Doombull or Gorebull +1 to Initiative making him 5/4 and equip him with the Always Strikes First weapon. This is an alpha strike style kit in which you are sure to maximize the carnage of your character and then allow the blender that are your supporting Minotaurs to bat clean up. This build ensures that you begin to build up attacks quickly for the unit.

B. Doombull/Gorebull with Brass Cleaver or Steel Claw – once again you are increasing the amount of attacks your character unleashes which will further increase your chances of winning combat and gaining more attacks with the Minotaurs.

C. Doombull/Gorebull w/ Axes of Khorgor – this option allows you to ensure you have a high hit percentage since the Axes of Khorgor allow you to reroll misses. Not the most point economical method since the Uncanny Senses/Axe of Swift Slaying will generally grant you rerolls to hit anyway. The bonus you get is the +1 attack.

D. Gorebull BSB w/ Beast Banner or Banner of Rust – one banner makes your Minotaurs Strength 6 while the other increases their mortality since they would have absolutely no save but at the same time makes any unit they fight suffer a -4 to their armor saves. Either banner augments and increases the effectiveness of Bloodgreed.

4. Lore of Beasts spells that benefit the Minotaur units – Wyssan’s Wildform and Savage Beasts of Horros. Augmenting the unit making them Str 6 and Toughness 5 increases their durability and survival. Granting the Doombull/Gorebull +3 Strength and +3 attacks sends the power level of that unit into ridiculous levels.

5. Placing the Bloodgreed Character (Doombull/Gorebull) with 20mm/40mm footprint models. You can always spread Frenzy around the army – try placing the Gorebull with a unit of Ungors or Razorgors. Granting them Frenzy never hurt anyone and gives some punch to the unit. The downside is units that have a Doombull/Gorebull in them and are affected by Bloodgreed can not benefit from Primal Fury as well.

6. Orchestrate proper Flank/Rear Charges with your Minotaurs/Ghorgons. Ghorgons and Minotaurs shine when they are presented a flank to slam into. The Ghorgon who starts out with 6 attacks (7 with Frenzy) can easily ramp up to 11-12 attacks after a few quick rounds of eating some basic core troops. Minotaurs relish in slaying from the flank, it provides them the full deadliness of their unit without having to worry about a large amount of attacks swinging back at them.

I feel that Minotaurs and Ghorgons should get Frenzy and leave the Bloodgreed to the Doombull/Gorebull models. That ability is way too good to be a standard ability for a 55 point model. However I’m not going to complain since I’m going to use the hell out of it until a new army book is released for Beastmen.

In closing – I hope this information has been helpful. If anything it will provide those who do not play Beastmen with a little bit of information on what to expect so that you don’t get caught with your pants down. Nothing sucks worse than having a unit of 5 minotaurs and a doombull smash into your unit with each of them sporting 11 attacks. You have been warned!

April 17th Ard Boyz Fantasy Tournament at Ancient Wonders

2011-04-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

This Sunday I took part in the 2011 1st Round Ard Boyz Fantasy Tournament at Ancient Wonders. We had a pretty good turn out and had a lot of really strong armies playing.
We had:
2 Empire
2 Warriors of Chaos
2 Skaven
2 Vampire Counts
1 High Elves
1 Lizardmen
1 Wood Elves (me!)

The tournament went very smoothly, we had a lot of strong players who seriously brought their A game. The 3 Scenarios were interesting. The first scenario just annoyed the every living hell out of me. The third scenario was just plain insane. I did not have high expectations of doing well in this tournament just due to the fact that some armies function a lot better at higher point levels - Vampire Counts and Skaven are prime examples. Even at 3000 points I still only had 113 models - a majority of them with T3 and S3. I hate to admit it but I did end up caving to the pull of the Wood Elf Deathstar. I fielded my 30 man unit of Eternal Guard w/ the Rhymer's harp, Spirit Sword, Razor Standard and Wraithstone. I fully came to terms with the fact that I had indeed brought the douche.

I'm going to only show a few rounds of each game in order to prevent this post from being too insanely long.
Preliminary Scenario 1 - EYZ DON'T SEE SO GOOD!
This scenario pissed me off so much - I hate having my functionality restricted especially when I roll a 2 for visibility 2 turns out of 4. I played Carl and his Empire this game, it was the Mission Engagement Deployment with 3 Battle Modifiers.

Empire Army List: VON RUGER'S 'ARD BOYZ EMPIRE!
Arch Lector w/ Sword of Sigismund, Van Horst Spec/ Charmed Shield
BSB - Armor of Meteoric Iron, Sword of Striking, Seed of Rebirth
Level 2 Wizard - Seal of Destruction, Iron Curse Icon
Master Engineer
Warrior Priest - Warhorse, Great Weapon, Shield
11 Knights of the White Wolf w/ mus/sb
11 Knights of the Blazing Sun w/ mus/sb
33 Halberdiers w/ full command
Detachment of 15 Halberds
Detachment of 12 handgunners
25 Swordsmen w/ full command
2 units of 5 Pistoleers
3 Mortars
1 Hellblaster volley gun
2 , yes 2 Steam Tanks

My list is in my previous post.

Empire took the first turn and started to lay into the Wood Elves. Mortars flying, Steam tanks shooting, and general mayhem ensued.

Here are some pictures of our Deployment:

Alas you see the true devious mastermind behind the army, you think she's playing a DS but she's actually running extremely powerful algorithms to calculate the proper tactical decisions. Unfair imho.
Anyway - the game was a friggin blast. I had my Eternal Guard block charged by the Steam Tank and because I had Irresistible Force cast Savage Beast of Horos my characters were at +3 str and +3 attacks.
I suffered 15 impact hits from the Steam Tank, ward saving a ton of them and then just had the Highborn swing and literally one round the Steam Tank. I did 13 wounds to it as a result of 7 attacks at S7 and the Spirit Sword getting 6 additional wounds.

The game was pretty long but I will attempt to summarize it briefly:
Turn 1
Empire unloads mortars into archers, steam tank shoots at the 2 Glade Guard units. Waywatchers eat some hits from templates.
Wood Elves roll a 2 for visibility - sigh... and just spend the turn moving and buffing up.
Turn 2 - Steam tank charges Eternal guard and gets popped. More casualties to the archers as the Arch Lector charges the Glade Guard taking a few wounds but not dying. Treekin and Eternal Guard charge the KotWW and get stuck in combat for 3 turns - sigh...
Turn 3 - Empire brings on reinforcements and manuevers appropriately to bunker down.
Eternal Guard and Treekin and Eagles kill off the Knights, the Warrior Priest, hellblaster volley gun, and charge the Swordsmen with the Dryads.
Turn 4 - Empire charges Dryads with KotBS and backs up BSB and his unit to prevent being flank charged.
Wood Elves roll another god damn 2 for visibility which prevents the incoming death from Wood elven fury to the Halberdiers.

Time was called soon after.
Result: Wood Elves - Minor Victory. - I'll take it!

I absolutely had a blast playing against Carl and look forward to getting a few Sunday games in with him in both fantasy and 40k.

Preliminary Scenario 2 - DA BLOOD SOAKED CHOPPA!

This mission required you to give a single core unit a choppa that granted the unit +1 str and +1 attack. Deployment was Pitched Battle. This game also had 3 battle modifiers as well.

Nick's High Elven Army - 3000 POINT SAMURAI HIGH ELVES!

Teclis
BSB w/ Banner of Sorcery
20 Lothern Sea Guard w/ full command
20 Lothern Sea Guard w/ full command
20 Spearmen w/ full command
15 Archers w/ Hawkeye and Banner of Eternal Flame
10 Dragon Princes w/ full command and razor standard
20 White Lions of Chrace w/ full command
Korhil
Lion Chariot of Chrace
20 Swordmasters of Hoeth w/ full command and wailing banner
14 Archers w/ full command

This was a pretty solid list, there was a LOT of magic and dice generation in this army. Good tactic really.

Pictures of our deployment.

To summarize the game:
Turn 1 - High elves kill all but 2 Waywatchers and General with Flames of the Phoenix. John is quietly angered since that is his favorite unit.
Wood elves retaliate by shooting up 2 units and reducing them to half strength while advancing across the board.
Turn 2 - Teclis continues to attack the Waywatchers and fails to cast a spell ending his magic phase.
Turns 3-4 Wood Elves charge his line and the Eternal Guard and Treekin chew through several units. The White Lions and Swordsmen are shot to pieces by Glade Guard with Stand and Shoot reactions. Waywatcher general reduces Dragon Princes down from 10 to 5 with his arcane bodkins. Teclis is slain at the bottom of Turn 3.
Turn 5 - Dragon Princes, Korhil and the Lion Chariot finally are slain.

Result - Wood Elves- Massacre victory.
After the game I talked with Nick about using his units differently and deploying better. Giving his archers unrestricted line of sight was key. Also using his 4 main melee units as a single offensive wing and multicharging would yield a LOT better results. His next game against Skaven went spectacularly well.

Preliminary Scenario 3 - THE END TIMES!
The third and final scenario was pretty damn hard. I had a massive error in timekeeping this game which cost me a huge massacre victory. This mission required you to have a single piece of terrain serve as the chaos portal. You must have a character in base contact with the portal in order to win otherwise when the game ends on it's random game length - it's a draw. Not to mention there are also 6 different chaotic events that can happen during the round at the top of every game turn. Frenzy, D6 wounds that aren't saveable per unit, movement halved, auto-channeling for power/dispel dice, -1 to shoot or the gift of chaos boost to your general.
I played against Josh's Empire Gunline army which was comprised of the following:
Hanz Franz Shooter of the Goose (having to recall the army from memory since for some reason I can't find his list)
General w/ Stubborn crown and another item.
BSB
Level 4 Wizard
Level 2 Wizard
Arch Lector on Altar
50 swordsmen w/ full command and +1 LD banner
detatchment 20 halberdiers
detachment 20 handgunners
20 handgunners
detachment 10 handgunners
2 x 5 Empire Knights w/ full command
1 unit of pistoleers
1 hellblaster
2 great cannons
18 flaggellants
1 Steam Tank

Deployment was Meeting Engagement and unfortunately Josh ended up having half his army in reserves which left many of his units fair game for slaughter in the first turn.

Deployment:

Brief summary:
Turn 1 - Waywatchers kill his Level 4 Wizard, Glade Guard units kill his units of handgunners causing panic tests and making them flee. Level 2 Wizard also flees. Pistoleers shoot up the Wild Riders because Sylvos forgot about them, Arch Lector gets killed while attempting to charge glade guard, several knights get eaten due to a stand and shoot reaction with the other Glade Guard. Dryads hold against the Steam tank charging and inflict a wound. Flagellents charge Waywatcher and General and get slaughtered before they can swing back.
Turn 2 - Great Eagles charge Hellblaster and slay it. Treekin barrel forward along with Eternal Guard. Glade Guard flee from 2 charges. Eternal Guard gets charged by 30 Swordsmen and their detachment of halberdiers and slaughter the Empire scum. Halberdiers flee from the fight.
Turn 3 - Steam tank barrels forward and kills the newly rallied Dryads. Glade Guard manage to kill the last of the Empire Knights. Treekin charge a cannon after the cannon popped a great Eagle. Eternal Guard charge the General's unit of Swordsmen and their detachment and deal an insane amount of wounds but the Empire holds.
Turn 4 - This is where I made a critical error, still thinking it was turn 3 I did not move my General onto the damn terrain. Meanwhile the rest of my army is tied up all over the board chasing Empire around. I fail to slay his general or the rest of the unit by the end of the 4th turn and I roll a 5 which ends the game. Even though I had a full on Massacre victory... I got a draw.

Game 3 Result: Tie.

I managed to place 3rd over all and I would have placed higher if I hadn't severely screwed up in the last mission. I had a great time against Josh, Nick and Carl and it looks like I'm going to the next round in Salem.
It's like 10:30 and I'm beat so I'm going to wrap up this terrible Tournament report and post some images of some of the other battles I snapped pictures of while playing my own. I will be playing orcs again in 2 weeks and hopefully some Skaven as well. Full battle reports w/ battle maps will be inc.

Tournament Pics:

Skaven vs. Vampire Counts

Back table: Lizardmen vs. Vampire Counts
Near table: Empire vs. Skaven

Warriors of Chaos vs. Warriors of Chaos

Warriors of Chaos vs. Vampire Counts

High Elves vs. Skaven

Empire vs. Vampire Counts

Skaven vs. Lizardmen

Next tournament I'll actually get better pictures as well.
You can also look forward to me doing an Army Showcase once a week for one of my gaming groups armies. I'll start out with using Neil's Orks.

Ard Boyz list for tournament this Weekend

2011-04-12T22:30:00.000-07:00

Being a big fan of competitive gameplay and a challenging game, I've signed up for the 'Ard Boyz tournament this weekend. I'll be providing battle reports and pictures - you can expect a lot of unpainted armies since most of the people I play with usually play at around 2000 points.

Anyway, this is the list I'm taking. I've decided to attempt the super annoying L10 Stubborn Lore of Beasts Spirit Sword 5+ ward Save Eternal Guard Bunker of Doom. In reality all I did was add 1 unit and 2 characters to my 2000 point list and enlarged my core units. Goal is to utilize the Spirit Sword and Wraithstone against my enemies other deathstar units while the rest of my army functions pretty much the same.

3000 Pts - Wood Elves Roster

Highborn (1#, 239 pts)

1 Wood Elf Highborn, 239 pts (General; Scout Kindred; Hand Weapon; Longbow; Extra Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Extra Attack)

1 The Bow of Loren

1 Arcane Bodkins

Spellweaver (1#, 290 pts)

1 Spellweaver, 290 pts (Hand Weapon; Longbow)

1 The Rhymer's Harp

Highborn (1#, 208 pts)

1 Wood Elf Highborn, 208 pts (Hand Weapon; Longbow; Light Armour)

1 The Spirit Sword

1 Enchanted Shield

Noble (1#, 142 pts)

1 Wood Elf Noble (Battle Standard Bearer), 142 pts (Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Battle Standard Bearer)

1 Wraithstone

Dryads (14#, 180 pts)

13 Dryads, 180 pts (Causes Fear; Skirmishers)

1 Branch Nymph

Eternal Guard (27#, 399 pts)

26 Eternal Guard, 399 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std)

1 Guardian

1 Razor Standard

Glade Guard (20#, 258 pts)

20 Glade Guard, 258 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow)

Glade Guard (20#, 258 pts)

20 Glade Guard, 258 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow)

Waywatchers (10#, 240 pts)

10 Waywatchers, 240 pts (Lethal Shot; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Longbow; Extra Attack; Scouts; Skirmishers)

Squad (1#, 50 pts)

1 Great Eagle, 50 pts (Flyer; Stomp)

Squad (1#, 50 pts)

1 Great Eagle, 50 pts (Flyer; Stomp)

Wild Riders (10#, 296 pts)

9 Wild Riders of Kurnous, 296 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Spear; Light Armour; Fast Cavalry; Magic Resistance (1))

1 Wild Hunter (Spear; Light Armour)

10 Elven Steed

Tree Kin (6#, 390 pts)

6 Tree Kin, 390 pts (Causes Fear; Flammable; Scaly Skin; Stomp)

Composition Report:

Points of Lords: 737 (0 - 750)

Points of Heroes: 142 (0 - 750)

Points of Core: 1095 (750 - Unlimited)

Points of Special: 686 (0 - 1500)

Points of Rare: 340 (0 - 750)

Total Roster Cost: 3000

The Highborn with the Spirit Sword, the BSB and the Spellweaver join the 27 Eternal Guard into a unit of 30. They will be flanked by Wild Riders and Treekin while the Dryads will serve as a protective escort for my Waywatchers. The Glade Guard units will focus fire on my primary targets while the Great Eagles hunt warmachines. In other words - this list works the exact same as my 2k one only I added a big ass block of cheese to the situation.

We'll see how it does. I feel pretty damn cheesy using Eternal Guard and even more cheesy using 3 chars in 1 unit but whatever it's Ard Boyz. If Orion would only allow you to bring Waywatchers =(.

Someday - there will be a Wood Elf army book released that will fix the Forest Spirit Ward Save and allow Spellsingers to take Lore of Beasts and Life. There will be cheaper units and more cost effective cavalry and my friends that day there shall be rainbows and unicorns for all!

April 6th - Game 4 of The Great Hunt vs. The Green Tide

2011-04-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday Neil and I decided to continue the ongoing series of Orcs vs. Wood Elves we've been playing since 8th edition came out. The last game Neil absolutely annihilated me in turn 1. The old Orc Waaaagh and the Waaaagh spell were just well the win. This was the 4th game in our series and Neil had been up 2-1. We were both playing the lists we plan on bringing to OFCC this year and this was one of Neil's first games with the new Orc army book. Needless to say it was a pretty good game. I'll narrate as we go.

Oh and so that Neil has a sense of satisfaction from the previous game here is the 1st and only turn from last game.

Anyway, that said let's go on to this last game.

Armies:
The Great Hunt, War Host of Athel Loren - 2000 point Wood Elf army
vs.
The Green Tide - 2000 point Orcs and Goblins army.

The Army Lists:
The Great Hunt, War Host of Athel Loren

The Green Tide
(I do not have the names of Neil's units so we'll just use proxies - the army theme is based off a pirate orc army that represent the seven deadly sins)

The Boss - Level 4 Orc Shaman on Wyvern
The Little Boss - Level 2 Goblin Shaman
4 x 20 Orc Arrer Boyz units.
1 6 man Troll unit
1 3 man Troll unit
2 Spear Chukkas
1 Arachnarok
4 Black Orcs, one in each Arrer Boyz unit.

Mission Type:
Pitched Battle

Deployment:
As you can see we both deployed very well. This game I set up my army to function as 2 wings. The melee wing and the ranged wing. I finished and scored first turn.

Turn 1 Wood Elves
I chose to slink forward and let him come to me instead of moving full tilt forward and open myself to charges like I have in the last 2 games. The magic phase wasn't that impressive, I managed to get Wild Form off on the Wild Riders. Shooting was pretty good - managed to do 1 wound to the Orc Shaman and 2 Wounds to his Wyvern. The Glade Guard managed to reduce AB3 unit down to half strength as well.

Orcs Turn 1
The Orcs had a bit of trouble. Animosity really ran rampant through Neil's army. He had 3 units just do nothing - meanwhile his Orc Shaman hit me with Foot of Gork on my Waywatchers causing 3 casualties and he caused one of my Great Eagles to explode with his Spear Chukka.

Wood Elves Turn 2
Turn 2 was a pretty good turn for the Wood Elves. I was able to move my units into a strong flank and focus fire on his Arachnarok. Caused more wounds to his AB3 unit and inflicted 2 woulds on his Arachnarok.

Turn 2 Orcs
This turn Neil still had animosity issues but did start the game in earnest. He charged my Waywatchers with his Troll unit 2 and his General on the wyvern to which the Waywatchers fled 12" causing 2 failed charges. Oh that was after a stand and shoot against his Trolls where they made all 5 saves ...stupid regen. Wild Riders and Dryads were engaged in combat while the Arachnarok took 3 more wounds from Stand and Shoot but managed to slam into the Glade Guard nonetheless.

Turn 3 Wood Elves
Wood Elves had a pretty good turn. The Arachnarok had chewed through the Glade Guard and ended up out of position. The Wild Riders slew the Orcs they were engaged in and charged the General on his Wyvern. The Treekin charged the other orcs while the Dryads remained locked in combat with the other Trolls. Waywatchers rallied and the Spellweaver turned into a Great Fire Dragon. This turn was pretty rough for the Orcs. General was slain by Wild Riders, Treekin blew through their orcs and the Trolls were held by the Dryads. The Glade Guard and Spell Weaver inflicted 2 more wounds on the Arachnarok and turn 3 for the Wood Elves ended. Oh yeah, Miscast with the Spellweaver reducing her to level 2 and making her forget Transformation of Kadon.

Turn 4 Orcs
The death of the general causes the T2 unit of Trolls to flee. The Treekin killing the other orcs makes the other unit of Trolls flee - even after they had decimated the Dryads. The Wyvern died to the Wild Riders while the Spear Chukka's moved out of charge range for the Treekin. Neil dispelled the Transformation of Kadon. Bye dragon =(

Turn 5 Wood Elves
The Glade Guard advance along with the Waywatchers and shoot up the remaining Orc units while the Treekin readjust. I move the lone Wild Rider away from the Spear Chukkas so that Neil won't get 290 points for popping the remaining model.

Turn 5 Orcs

The Goblin shaman rallies while the other two Trolls flee off the board. The Spear Chukka's pop the remaining Eagle and the Orcs shoot up the Glade Guard unit.

Turn 6 Wood Elves
My final turn - I move the Glade Guard and Waywatchers up and pretty much just advance right into the Chukka's. Waywatchers pop the Shaman and kill him while the AB3 unit is shot up some more by the Glade Guard.

Orcs turn 6
Here Neil had a good chance to tie up the game. If he had been able to catch and destroy the Glade Guard with the Spellweaver in it, charge and kill the Waywatchers and if I had not rolled a 6 on my Ward Save for the last Wild Rider then it would have been a tie game. He tried - almost was successful.

Winner: Wood Elves

I had a great time, Neil and I have a pretty good friendly rivalry going and after he tweeks his list to minimize animosity that army may flatten everything it runs into.

Three things I did this game which I did not do in my last 3.
1. Set up for combo charges - didn't get any but that's ok I had the foundation laid.
2. Focus Fire on primary units.
3. Picked my fights and didn't spread out like a moron.

Thanks for reading the battle report. I'll try to get these out more often and with better accuracy.

New Eagles assembled and WIP Doombull and Minotaurs.

2011-04-03T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hey folks,

Brief update here for the blog. Went to the game store this morning and assembled my 2 new Great Eagles from www.coolminiornot.com and was pleased with how easily the process went.

The Eagles took a little bit of trimming and shaving to fit together and unfortunately John decided to green stuff before properly fitting them together so he had some gap work to do.
They really are awesome models and I'm pleased with the results.
Here are some images.

I figured I should also show some of the WIP on my Beastmen army I've been playing/painting. I will admit I have been slacking in the painting department for a while. My new job keeps me busy. I also experimented with freehanding an image on a banner. I'm not really pleased with how it turned out but oh well.

Doombull and his Minotaur guard.

I also thought I'd show you how big the eagles are compared to the Doombull.

Lastly here is a close up of the banner, what do you folks think? Pop it off and paint a minotaur glyph or keep it and drybrush red over it to fade it a little?
Feel free to give your critique, if it looks lame then it looks lame.

There we go - I still have a lot more to do on the minotaurs. I am pleased with their flesh tones - I painted Tallarn Flesh on top of Beastial brown and then washed with Ogryn flesh three times.

Thanks for reading!

What happens when you abandon intelligent tactics.

2011-03-31T23:54:00.000-07:00

Jeremy asked to play my Wood Elves this week to test out his Warriors of Chaos army for the up and coming OFCC tournament this summer. I agreed and decided to bring my Great Hunt despite the nagging thoughts that I probably should have postponed for another week.

Jeremy's army is pretty solid. He has 2 blocks of Chaos Warriors, 2 blocks of Marauders, 2 units of Chaos Knights, a BSB and a level 4 Sorcerer of Tzeentch. Now immediately you think - what is my target priority?

The mission was Battle Mission no. 3 - Battle for the Pass. I had decided to set up a themed board with a chapel destroyed by war surrounded by forests. Foolish idea.

Rule no.1 - Setting up a themed board and then rolling a mission will only come back to bite you in the ass.

Here is a picture of our deployment. As you can see I must have been smoking some good crack to set up this badly. Looking at these images I really don't understand what was going through my head. A Wood Elf army should never attempt to split up and allow themselves to be isolated. As you can also see Jeremy set up very well. His units prevented a flank charge and he put a unit of Knights out to the side to tempt me to concentrate on that as opposed to the main section of his army.

Rule no.2 - Deploying badly only helps your opponent, especially when they are Warriors of Chaos cause we all know they don't need any help.

Terrible deployment - still saddened by this.

Now when you are playing Wood Elves you have to obey three simple maxims in order to be successful.
A. Never diminish your archery capabilities by poor deployment or obstacles blocking line of sight.
B. Never put yourself in a situation where you can get charged unless you plan on it.
C. Never attempt to solo charge any unit - Wood elves need to focus fire a single unit one at a time.

What did John do this game?
I will show you the image of the top of the second turn and you can see exactly what he did badly.

As you can see my Glade Guard were split up, my Waywatchers were in the center of the battlefield in range to be charged by 3 units. My Great Eagles were in pretty good position but my Dryads were poorly placed. The Treekin which should have been supporting the Wild Riders - no check that my Wild Riders that should have been supporting my Treekin and Dryads charged his Knights and ended up not wiping them out. Just all in all terrible, terrible playing.

The magic defense was also ridiculous. I should have allowed that stupid anti-leadership spell Pandemonium to go off every turn and just dispelled it on my magic phase instead of wasting dice on it during his. This poor dispelling allowed him to summon his Exalted heroes which made a huge difference. Just generally poor decisions made all around.

Check that - poor decisions made by me. Jeremy made all the right ones.

To summarize:
1. Treekin died because they sacked out in close combat with the Chaos Knights and got run down.
2. Wild Riders died because they failed to kill the other Chaos Knights and resulted in getting combo charged by 2 units.
3. Waywatchers died because they were charged by Marauders.
4. Dryads died because they got overrun into by the Wild Rider battle.

I just threw in the towel after that - my dice decided to go on strike because they got sick of trying to mitigate poor playing.

Winner: Jeremy's Warriors of Chaos.

Things to do next time.

1. Proper deployment - In the three games I've deployed poorly in 8th edition, I've been massacred. You would think I would keep this in mind when playing.

Note to self: Don't deploy like a tard. - check.

2. Roleplaying rule no.1 - Never split up the party. This works in wargaming. Never split up your units. No good can come of this. You can't depend on rolling hot to always work for you. I don't know why I've been attempting to solo charge units lately. Foolish.

3. Proper target priority - Splitting fire between 3 units is just dumb. Focus Fire.

4. Pay the hell attention. Allowing poor dice rolls and a few bad decisions to distract you and make you forget the entire point of the game - to have fun, is silly. Yes, sometimes you roll poorly. It's a dice game, you'll be ok. You made some mistakes? Learn from them, don't belabor them over and over.

Until next time.

New Eagles ordered for the Great Hunt

2011-03-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Games Workshop's models. I think they do a really good job, especially on their newer releases. However I saw this model at http://www.coolminiornot.com/shop/ and had to buy it to replace my existing Great Eagles in my Wood Elf army. I really, really like the look of this eagle model and I wish I had seen it before obtaining the alternate models I already have for my Great Eagles.
This is a limited edition run so I ordered 2.

I'll be assembling and painting these two (minus rider of course) very soon and you'll definitely see some blog updates of their progress. Next update I'll post my WIP Doombull and Minotaurs in my Beastman army.

If you want to see more images of this model go to this link here.
There is another model I will be getting very soon as well to use for my Spellweaver in 3000 point games which is located here.

Interesting method to test out a list's effectiveness...

2011-03-05T23:09:00.000-08:00

Today I had the pleasure of seeing my army in action against...my own army. A friend of mine, Reuben, was interested in getting an 8th edition game but his army wasn't ready for playing. Reuben, a staunch veteran of wargaming in general, had only played a single 500 point battle of 8th edition and before that had not touched Warhammer Fantasy for many years. So I decided to let him play my newly assembled and battle tested Beastman army against my own crafty Wood Elves. While it was a learning game, it was an absolute total blast because it really didn't feel like one after turn 2. The Beastmen who normally fold to a strong ranged army did an extremely impressive job of beating the ever living hell out of my Wood Elves.

Since it was Reuben's second game of 8th we decided to play a standard line em up and knock em down match. His army (my army hehe) had strong emphasis on close combat (I should know it was my list keke) and my Wood Elves had a very strong hit and move methodology to them. The two armies could not have been more mismatched.

I won't go into play by play for this battle since I didn't bring a camera but I will say that Reuben is an exceptional player. It's pretty hard to play well in a new game system with an army that you are unfamiliar with. It's even more difficult to play with an army that your opponent assembled and crafted the list. In the first few turns it looked like a total route of the Beastmen but Reuben hung in there and managed to reduce my 2000 point army down to 490 points. That was just mind boggling, Six turns and for a while I was afraid that I was going to get my ass kicked with my own army - and honestly I almost did!

Needless to say, after playing against my own Beastmen with my Wood Elves and seeing how my list stood up against my primary army was very gratifying. The Doombull General managed to wipe out 2 units all by himself including the Wood elf General.

Reuben is now charged with completing his Warriors of Chaos army and throwing down again against me for a killer rematch. The gauntlet hath been thrown!

Also on a side note: I'm super pleased with how well the Beastman army list did. I will continue to use that composition against my friends. This was a rather effective way of testing out a list without having to play it!

The Army Lists:
2000 Pts - The Great Hunt, War Host of Athel Loren

Waywatcher Lord Sylvos Greystorm the Huntsman, Ranger General of Athel Loren (1#, 239 pts)
1 Wood Elf Highborn, 239 pts (General; Scout Kindred; Hand Weapon; Longbow; Extra Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Extra Attack)
1 The Bow of Loren
1 Arcane Bodkins

The Stalkers of the Silent Path (10#, 240 pts)
10 Waywatchers, 240 pts (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Longbow; Extra Attack; Scouts; Skirmishers)

Archdruidess Nysa Greystorm the Storm Maiden, Heirophant of Athel Loren (1#, 230 pts)
1 Spellweaver, 230 pts (Hand Weapon; Longbow)
1 Talisman of Protection

The Farstriders of Lady Dreamsinger (14#, 186 pts)
14 Glade Guard, 186 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow)

The Twilight Host (14#, 186 pts)
14 Glade Guard, 186 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Longbow)

The Handmaidens of Durthu, the Verdant Rage (10#, 132 pts)
9 Dryads, 132 pts (Causes Fear; Skirmishers)
1 Branch Nymph

Scryah, the Last Shadow (1#, 50 pts)
1 Great Eagle, 50 pts (Flyer)

Gwynador, the Scion of the Sethayla (1#, 50 pts)
1 Great Eagle, 50 pts (Flyer)

The Wolfkin, Feral Knights of Durthu (6#, 390 pts)
6 Tree Kin, 390 pts (Causes Fear; Flammable; Scaly Skin)

The Outriders of Twilight, Huntsmen of Kurnous (10#, 296 pts)
9 Wild Riders of Kurnous, 296 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Spear; Light Armour; Fast Cavalry; Magic Resistance (1))
1 Wild Hunter (Spear; Light Armour)
10 Elven Steed

VS.

2000 Pts - The Wild Hunt, Warherd of the Drakenwald Forest

Rorg Doombringer, Lord of the Wild Hunt (1#, 311 pts)
1 Doombull, 311 pts (General; Hand Weapon; Shield; Causes Fear; Frenzy; Stomp)
1 Sword of Swift Slaying
1 Armour of Fortune
1 Uncanny Senses

The Blood Guard of the Doombringer (5#, 325 pts)
5 Minotaurs, 325 pts (Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Light Armour; Extra Attack; Stomp)

Ruld the Prophet of Ruin (1#, 181 pts)
1 Wargor (Battle Standard Bearer), 181 pts (Primal Fury; Hand Weapon; Heavy Armour; Shield; Battle Standard Bearer)
1 Gnarled Hide
1 Totem of Rust

The Blasphemous Host, Doomseekers of the Rust Lord (41#, 353 pts)
40 Gor Herd, 353 pts (Ambush; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)
1 Foe-Render (Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)

Shal-guroth, the Blightgiver. Bane of Athel Loren (1#, 137 pts)
1 Bray-Shaman, 137 pts (Primal Fury; Level 2 Upgrade; Hand Weapon; Extra Hand Weapon; Extra Attack)
1 Terrifying Mask of Eee!

The Bane Knights of the Blightgiver (19#, 258 pts)
18 Bestigor Herd, 258 pts (Always Strikes Last; Primal Fury; Musician Mus; Standard Bearer Std; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour)
1 Gouge-Horn (Always Strikes Last; Hand Weapon; Great Weapon; Heavy Armour)

Malacar the Elf-bane (1#, 80 pts)
1 Tuskgor Chariot, 80 pts (Primal Fury; Chariot; Swiftstride)
1 Gor Driver (Spear)
1 Bestigor Warrior (Always Strikes Last; Great Weapon)
2 Tuskgor

Jorga the Shattered Axe (1#, 80 pts)
1 Tuskgor Chariot, 80 pts (Primal Fury; Chariot; Swiftstride)
1 Gor Driver (Spear)
1 Bestigor Warrior (Always Strikes Last; Great Weapon)
2 Tuskgor

Agtha-shalesh, the Terror of Drakenwald (1#, 275 pts)
1 Ghorgon, 275 pts (Causes Terror; Frenzy; Immune to Psychology; Large Target; Stubborn; Thunder Stomp)

There will definitely be more battle reports with images and battle maps to come in the future. I fully intend on using Battle Chronicler for the next few games to showcase the mobility and effectiveness of both of these lists. Thanks for reading!

Wood Elf Tactica - Great Eagles

2011-03-03T21:11:00.000-08:00

Ah the Great Eagle. Very few models in the wood elf army could be considered "cheap" and yet be totally worth their points ten times over in a game.

The Great Eagle is an extremely viable Rare selection for the Wood Elf army in 8th edition. You can easily take 2 in most games and still have points left over for alternate rare selections. The Great Eagle being only 50 points provides the Wood Elf army with several options:
1. War Machine Hunters - they are 3 wound fliers that can generally take out most annoying warmachines that plague Wood Elf lines.
2. March Blockers - their ability to soar over your opponent's line and force leadership tests to march actually pays off and allows you to better position the rest of your army.
3. Mage Hunters - most lone Wizards should fear the Great Eagle
4. Rear/Flank Chargers - the Great Eagle is just strong enough to provide you with an excellent boost to your combat res. by giving you a +2 rear charge bonus or a +1 flank charge.

Anatomy of the Great Eagle -
1. Weapon Skill 5 - Against most armies these guys hit on a 3.
2. Strength and Tough 4: -1 to armor saves and T4 is nothing to sneeze at.
3. 3 Wounds - not bad for a 50 point model.
4. 2 Attacks + Stomp - again this is not a bad combat boost to a multi-charge - If you are lucky you can deal 3 wounds +2 combat res for a rear charge.
5. Leadership 8 - grats on having a Monstrous Beast with higher leadership than 80% of the armies in the game.

How I use the Great Eagles in my lists:

I field 2 Great Eagles in my 2000 point list. I use them to both hunt Warmachines and also to provide some protection/augment my Wild Riders. It is not uncommon to see my Great Eagles rear charge a unit that my Wild Riders just engaged. The 20" flight they have also allows me to redirect the entire flow of the battlefield by placing 2 units on my opponents flank and now creating a nagging worry that they have to think about during the game. I rarely solo charge a unit unless it's a cannon or a spellcaster with my Great Eagles. Their use is primarily to provide me with mobility and options during a game. Great Eagles also provide excellent bodyguard capabilities for a Waywatcher unit or a unit of Glade Guard Scouts.

I fully encourage Wood Elf players to take Great Eagles in 8th edition. Where most armies in 8th edition have adopted the "bigger is better" approach to fielding units, MSU is still an option for Wood Elves but it's an option that you have to use with near surgical precision. Don't make the mistake I did with my Great Eagles in my first few games and use them as a hammer to try to break up enemies blocks. That was foolish, they are not flying Doombulls. I recommend using one or two in your games and try using them as combat support units rather than flying warmachines (that is unless your opponent has warmachines then by all means charge the hell out of those and rid your opponent of that annoying option).

Hope this helps, now go roll some dice!