Clash of swords and sorcery ..

On tuesday me and Mike squared off again in a battle of supremacy for the "olde worlde" as they call it in Warhammer Fantasy. That night we managed to get two games in, i decided to dust off my Dark Elves and Mike again used his High Elves.

My Dark Elves consisted of:

Master w/ halberd, blood armor and seal of ghrond
Sorceror w/ lvl 2, darkstar cloak and dispel scroll
Sorceress w/ tome of furion and dispel scroll

Crossbowmen x10 w/ shields
Crossbowmen x10 w/ shields
Corsairs x 15 w/ full command and warbanner (master goes here)
Corsairs x15 w/ full command (sorceror goes here)
Dark Riders x 5 w/ musician and crossbows
Harpies x6
Harpies x6

Shades x9
Cold One Chariot x2
Executioners x12 w/ musician and champ

Repeater Bolt Thrower x2

The Plan:
My plan going into the game was using the pair of magic users to case "Power of Darkness" i saved myself 20 pts by taking the magic item Tome of Furion. Especially now that Dark Elves Magicians can use ANY amount of power dice they desire i would not have a problem casting any spells...

Other than that I plenty of harassment units in the form of dark riders, harpies and shades. Also did i mention how awesome the special rule Eternal Hatred is? I get it for free on all of my units AND against High Elves it's every turn not just the initial round of combat... YES PLEASE!

The Game:

Things were going quite well even if Mike had four bolt throwers all my harassment units did their job. Minimizing the effect of the High Elf bolt throwers as well as shaving off a few soldiers from the bigger blocks of units. My Sorcerer and his escort of corsairs failed to do any damage (magic or otherwise) and were promptly run down by Mike's spearmen. Also my executioners were whittled down by archer and bolt thrower missile fire, so by the time they charged they were of negligible effect.

If i had to name MVPs i would have to say that my chariots and master (with attached corsairs) were quite good. Mike's high elves had a really hard time trying to wound my chariot, toughness 5 backed up with a 3+ save were made it nigh impossible to knock them out. The Master and his retinue made short work out of a sword master thanks to hatred, late game they even managed to bag a unit of archers.

Post Game Thoughts:

I'm not a big fan of Dark Riders, yes i know they are quite good in game but the models have never convinced me and I do not have enough points in order to take a second unit (i like to take things in pairs). I may drop them and pick up a unit of either spearmen or the brand new corsairs. Both would be quite good in the army nothing like good old blocks to make the army look cohesive. I may actually upgrade the sorceress to be level 2. The extra die can make the difference softening up or weakening enemy units...

As for as my orcs go again they were defeated by Mike (it ain't easy being green) on the upside I found out that I would enjoy playing with a giant. I'm glad all this play testing is going on while I start to slowly clip the army from the sprues. I have a solid core of troops along with some heavy and fast hitters. Slowly but surely the army list is looking more and more solid as I keep things that I am comfortable and familiar with using. Till then...


clash of swords and sorcery

So last night I managed to get two games with the orcs (using proxies of course...) both games were against Mike's newly acquired High Elves i have only faced High Elves on a mighty two occasions... yes in the last two editions just two times..

My list: 2k pts
Black Orc Warboss w/ iron gnashes, amulet of protectyness, collar of zorga and heavy armor

Black Orc Big Boss w/ battle standard, akrit axe, nibbla's ring and heavy armor

Orc Shaman w/ lvl 2, dispel scroll and power stone
Orc Shaman w/ lvl 2, dispel scroll and power stone

Orc Boys x25 w/ shields and full command
Orc Boys x25 w/ shields and full command
Orc Boys x25 w/ shields and full command
Orc Boys x25 w/ shields and full command

Wolf Riders x5 w/ musician and bows
Wolf Riders x5 w/ musician and bows

Night Goblin Archers x21 w/ musician and fanatic
Night Goblin Archers x22 w/ musician and fanatic

Goblin Rock Lobber x2
Black Orcs x10 w/ musician and shields

Mike took something like...
Prince on Star Dragon w/ star lance and a 2+ re-roll armor save
Sorcerer w/ lvl 2 dispel scroll x2

Archers x10
Archers x10
Spear men x20

White Lions x20 w/ magical standard

Lion Chariot

Repeater Bolt Thrower x 3

Highlights:
-Gorks Warpath went off quite a few times it was so effective i guess Gork decided to stomp on some of my own units and panic them off the board. I have to admit it did do a lot of damage to hojs army taking out bolt throwers and eventually taking out his star dragon in the late game.

-Rock Lobber Crew in general but in particular when the rest of the crew (2 goblins left) took a charge from the High Elf Prince taking no damage scaring off the Prince and running him down.
-
Low Lights:
-Fanatics... they just kept ravaging my own units granted they did do some damage to the more expensive enemy units it's never a good thing when they go back towards the base camp...

-Dragon for generally harassing my units constantly washing them in his fiery breath!

-In hindsight I should of not made my night goblins archers instead i should of kept their shields for when they dropped their fanatic payload and go march into combat to hold something up...

In the second game i basically dropped or moved around a lot of the magic items on heros. I dropped the black orcs and fanatics in favor of a single troll and some squig hoppers. The second game was a much closer Mike switched out his star dragon for a second sorcerer, a fourth bolt thrower a battle standard bearer w/ d6 combat resolution banner and an extra unit of spear men.

This battle was a real meat grinder his white lions held out against more than double their number in orcs. Till eventually they broke, but they held on and caused many casualties in two of my units rendering them combat ineffective later in the game.

My magic phase didn't dominate in this game also despite Mike bolstering his magical prowess it didn't effect the game in a major way. So our magicians effectively nulled each other quite nicely.

I'm still sorely disappointed with my black orc characters sure they can hold morale but for having a reputation as the 'toughest around' i thought they would kill a few more guys! I still like their ability to quell animosity so they will stay in my roster for better or worse...

After the game I thought that i should drop the regular night goblin units from my list. Since I wasn't using them to house fanatics I figure I will use them for conversions. The Rock Lobbers as always are great the mental image of a huge boulder ruining a regiment's day is just too good to pass up!

I've been washing and clipping orc sprues for a couple of hours.. hopefully I can produce some pics to look at. till then stay classy!

The Original Grass Roots Movement... Orcs!

Sorry for the long delay i know that i promised updates bi-weekly or at least pictures but like any good politician worth their weight in salt i couldn't complete them. Not to say that i've been away from the hobby though i must admit between a social life (drinking, gambling, and women),Warhammer Online, Fall Out 3 and Left 4 Dead that i almost fell off the hobby completely...

I guess part of the reason why i haven't been doing much on the hobby front is because my general lack of interest in warhammer 40k. The new 5th edition rule set didn't really sit all that well in the group. Also add in the fact that the group mainly is into skirmish games because we find them more challenging and rewarding. It almost completely stopped me from building my infamous "Old School" ork army (made up of all old miniatures dating from Rogue Trader and 2nd edition).

During this time i dusted off my dark elves as their rules came out, i found them to be quite fun to play! Fantasy has always been fun for me definitely more so than 40k just required more thought and planning than 40k. But even after these fun games i rarely took out the elves for more action...

When all seemed lost and my armies looking to be mothballed i decided to clean out my locker at work (full of white dwarf magazines... well among other things...). When one of my coworkers decided to browse through the magazines, well wouldn't you know it their youthful enthusiasm reminded me why i loved playing the games so much. As if on cue my good friend Hoj bought an Ogre Kingdoms army on the cheap and practically gave me an Orc and Goblin army! If that isn't great news in itself my coworker accompanied me to a local games workshop and decided on Warriors of Chaos army... because in his words "they look like they can beat the shit out of those puny goblins".

We decided to start a small escalation campaign using the mighty empires rule set and tiles in order to all get motivated to built, paint and play a string of games. Since we have 'floating' armies in the books we can hopefully convince the other players to use these armies obviously adding to the armies as time goes on. As there are a few things i want to add to my dark elves for flavor i wouldn't mind of course.

When i started counting the tally of what my friend gave me in a big box of Orcs and Goblins the running tally so far is:

Lords/Heros:
Leader box (mounted/foot)
Night Goblin Big Boss blister (2 total)
Night Goblin Big Boss on Monster Squig

Core:
Box of Orcs x2 (38 total)
OOP Metal Orcs x20 (painted..shame they have to be stripped)
Box of Night Goblins x2 (40 total)
Night Goblin Archers x40
Night Goblin Fanatics x6 (the new plastic ones, i'm prefer the metal ones though)
Box of Goblin Wolf Riders (10 total)
Orcs x20-30 (from the 6th ed box set some armed with double choppas some arrer boys)
Blister of Snotlings (makes ?)

Special:
Orc Boar Chariot


I have a few odds and ends that could result into a few more boys to even out the units. As well as a few fanatics for a nasty surprise or two heh.. but other than that i have a very viable core (as well as A LOT to keep me busy during the winter season)of core troops. I'm sure with some clever converting that i can make a bolt thrower or two.

For the first 500pts of this campaign i think ill start off light and put together some goblins as a scouting force for the "main" orc army. I have always wanted to try my hand at some more goblins (i love my grots in 40k!). Though i doubt i will strike any fear into my opponents hearts i'm sure there will be plenty of laughs and hey who knows throw enough goblins at a problem and who can tell where it will go from there!

Till then friends keep your drinks chilled, though in this weather that shouldn't be too hard!

Making Cheap Regiment Bases for Warhammer Fantasy Battles

I have a game of fantasy coming up tomorrow when the thought occurred to me... I didn't have ANY regiment bases for my Dark Elves. So i used up all my funds from the hobby cache this month on some nifty Infinity models. The solution became clear i could just make my own! First the supplies!



I used a piece of a cardboard box, old sprues i had laying around (don't kid yourself you know you have tons of these!), a pen, a box cutter and of course some super glue.



I put 5 appropriate sized bases down on the cardboard and drew a line, I usually use squads of 10 so i only went two bases in length. Of course if you need to have more plesae feel free to add more bases for a more accurate read for your purposes.



Amazingly the sprue that i picked out at random was a perfect fit! I cut off all the excess bits from the sprue and put it against the outline. I then clipped the two pegs in the back depending on how much room i thought i might need.



Next i glued the sprue onto the card board and used my trusty box cutter to simply cut out the "outline" of the sprue. In just a few minutes i managed to crank out 4 of these! It should be noted that some sprues will not be an exact fit, in that case just cut them down or extend them appropriately. If you are planning to use this long term use some tape around the edges so that the cardboard does not frill up. You can prime these and add some flock for an added effect.

That my friends is how i made cheap and easy regiment bases, think of the $10 or so dollars you saved that you can now indulge in a miniature buying binge! That's all for now i just want to let people know that i am hoping to have an update weekly from here on out, at worst once every week and a half from here on out. I have all the pictures for a good number of updates and i hope to have this blog fully operational in a few. Watch out for updates as well as style changes in the future, till then keep those dice rolling and those glasses full.

Alkemy Review

Well having just recovered from Gen Con Indianna I have returned with a slew of new games (seems to be the trend every year) as well as a renewal in games that I already play! Moving on though on the last day of the convention me and my two friends stumbled on a game called Alkemy by Kraken Editions a French company with some lovely miniatures.

The Story:

Though i was not a fan of the Khaliman Republic (think Middle Eastern influenced cat people..) once i saw some "frog people" in the game I was almost immediately sold. The frog people actually belonged to a faction called "Aurlock Nation" which draws heavily from Native American imagery. Each newborn of the Aurlock Nation is placed underneath a totem which from that point on they will slowly grow up and take the path of their totem, their physical features will change to accommodate their new totem and their fighting style as well.

As luck would have it the Aurlock Nation sits on some of the most prime land that the other two factions (there are four factions out now, more on that later) would love to annex their lands. One of them is "Kingdom of Avalon" which are one of the two human factions presented (the other being the Jade Triad) in Alkemy. The Kingdom of Avalon are humans who worship this demonic entity which manifests itself as a tree which covers all their land. They blindly worship this demonic tree because if they don't they will be punished or killed. The tree's corrupting influence has some of the men slowly turning into trees themselves which they see as "gifts".

The Jade Triad has a Chinese/Asian theme to them they seem to control most of the Jin Posts, which are areas that are rich in minerals (which alchemists use for their potions..) so are one of the most wealthy factions. Last but not least is the Khaliman Republic as mentioned earlier they have a nod towards Middle Eastern influences, in Alkemy they are the emissaries of peace and reasoning between all the warring factions. The Khaliman's believe that everything is an art form waiting to be mastered from art, dance and even ways of war they seek out perfection in all their endeavors.

The Miniatures:

When I first demoed Alkemy the miniatures at a glance I had assumed were metal, but once I picked up the miniatures to examine the detail I was convinced they were resin. I was wrong on both counts obviously the miniatures are exquisitely done in plastic albeit a different kind I was told by on the Alkemy staff.

Barely any noticeable mold lines or deformities came in my Aurlock Nation purchases, which included Wave 1 starter box, Wave 2 troop box, Wave 3 alchemist and a con only limited edition miniature. Between washing and prepping the miniatures it took only about 5-10 minutes while watching tv.

Putting the minatures together was equally as fast, all the miniatures have pegs and slots which you slide the pieces into for a perfect fit every time. My only piece of advice is "dry fit" the miniatures before you apply any glue, once you apply the glue make sure to put them together fast as the connecting pieces are made quite exact so there isn't much time before it sets. I made this mistake and will have to put a small band of green stuff on a miniature or two. In retrospect it would have been easier to dry fit them into place and put a small amount of glue to seal the bond.

The Rules:

Inside the starter box you get rules, cards for your units, cardboard markers, a roll of measuring tape and 6 dice (two of each color: white, yellow and red). The rules span a few pages long the whole book runs about 36 pages long from cover to cover, the rules themselves running about half of the book. The rules are relatively easy to grasp especially if you have played any type of skirmish game.

Each miniature has Action Points which they can do a variety of tasks (fight, run, walk, shoot, gather elements for alchemical potions, etc). The game runs on opposed rolls adding or subtracting the appropriate stats. Every unit/character in the army comes with their own card telling you their stats, special abilities and a bit of the story on each card.

What made Alkemy unique from the games that I have been currently playing are a few things: First when you shoot with a ranged weapon you must first guess the range between your model and the one that is being fired upon. If you guessed right you get an additional dice to hit the miniature (you keep the two highest of the three). If you didn't get the right amount there is no penalty, you just don't get the extra dice for 'aiming'.

The second unique thing is when you go into a round of combat you bring out 5 combat cards, you and your opponent get to choose one (if the opponent has any AP left...). Then you both reveal the cards are Brutal Attack, Quick Attack, Normal Attack, Parry and Inactive. The cards have a "rock, scissors, paper" feel to them where certain cards counter or are more effective towards another card. The "inactive" card is the only one that does not spend AP, this is important because to defend yourself in combat (if you actually want to attack back that is..) you must have AP. This leads to some interesting strategies, do you want to go for a full out attack? or do you want to severely wound your opponent and wait for the counter attack?

Every stat card has a lifeline usually marked in white, yellow and red triangles. As your characters take damage they become less effective. Alkemy uses three different sets of die on the white dice you suffer no penalty. It is a regular d6 with the icons of a sword,axe and mace. Yellow dice there is no longer a 6 on the dice and the mace icon disappears. Well you can guess on the red there is no 5 on the dice and you are struggling just to get the axe icons.

Damage is done by who wins the opposed roll and you check the icons on the dice to see how much damage you actually inflicted. Obviously on white dice you are aiming to get 6's (mace icons) which deal the most damage to an opponent.

Overall:

I am quite impressed by this up and coming game company the rules are very easy to grasp and allow for a variety of strategies. The miniatures are wonderfully sculpted and detail as I said above I almost didn't believe the staff member when he said they were plastic. Though no immediate differences stand out between the factions ( I have yet to get my first real game in...) i'm sure i'll log in the progress of the Aurlock Nation and I eagerly await the day that my Frog Totem Warriors gain their own faction!

If you want to read more about Alkemy visit the link below:

Alkemy by Kraken Editions

A Dark Elf Army Revisited!

So with the advent of the new Warhammer Fantasy: Dark Elves book coming out i wanted to do a small article on how a new book affects an army. I primarily play in the 1500pt level battles, there are several reasons why i do this: no lords, faster games and it's all i have painted.

Here is the old list using the last rulebook (with the White Dwarf revision of course).

Old List:

HEROS:

Noble (70) Halberd (4) Sea Dragon Cloak (6) Shield (2) Blood Armor (20) Seal of Ghrond (25)
- 127pts

Sorcerer (90) Lvl 2 (40) Darkstar Cloak (20) Dispel Scroll (25)
-175

CORE:

Warriors x10 (70) Crossbows (40) Shields (10)
-120pts

Warriors x10 (70) Crossbows (40) Shields (10)
-120pts

Corsairs x15 (150) Full Command (25)
-175pts

Corsairs x10 (100) Champion (10)
-110pts

SPECIAL:

Executioners x12 (132) Champ (12) Musician (6)
-150pts

Shades x9 (126)
-126pts

Cold One Chariot (95) Spears (2)
Cold One Chariot (95) Spears (2)
-194pts

RARE:

Repeater Bolt Thrower (100)
Repeater Bolt Thrower (100)
-200pts


Total: 1497pts

This little lethal list has won me MANY games I'm proud to say between the shooting and an aggressive counter charge (or maybe just charging?). Though I don't play as much fantasy anymore with the new book coming out I should make an attempt to bring out my army some more.

Moving on my first example will be a straight conversion of the list using the new rules:

LORDS:

Master (80) Halberd (4) Sea Dragon Cloak (4) Shield (2) Blood Armor (15) Seal of Ghrond (30)
-135pts

Sorcerer (100) Lvl 2 (35) Darkstar Cloak (25) Dispel Scroll (25)
-185

CORE:

Dark Elf Repeater Crossbowmen x10 (100) Shields (10)
-110pts

Dark Elf Repeater Crossbowmen x10 (100) Shields (10)
-110pts

Black Ark Corsairs x15 (150) Full Command (25)
-175pts

Black Ark Corsairs x10 (100) Reaver (10)
-110pts

SPECIAL:

Har Ganeth Executioners x12 (144) Draich Master (12) Musician (6)
-162pts

Shades x9 (144)
-144pts

Cold One Chariot (100)
-100pts

Cold One Chariot (100)
-100pts

RARE:

Repeater Bolt Thrower (100)
Repeater Bolt Thrower (100)
-200pts

Total: 1531pts

Well the first two glaring things about the list is that i am 31pts over the limit and the second is that the second chariot is no longer legal (i have too many special choices). Though some units and equipment went down in cost many others went up a point or two. This is quite acceptable seeing as the units that went up in cost also went up in stats. For example the executioners went up a point of strength and the shades a point in ballistic skill.

My corsairs stayed the same points value and even gained two VERY good rules in the process. The first is "Slavers" which gives me the choice of having my opponent re-roll his highest die when running away! The second ETERNAL HATRED! which is actually an ARMY WIDE special rule, needless to say every dark elf unit has hatred in the first round of combat! Making deadly units even more deadly and regular units quite capable on the charge.

Looking through the book here is the revised list that i am thinking about fielding:

HEROS:

Master (80) Halberd (4)Sea Dragon Cloak (4) Blood Armor (15) Seal of Ghrond (30)
-133pts

Sorcerer (100) Lvl 2 (35) Darkstar Cloak (25) Dispel Scroll (25)
-185

CORE:


Dark Elf Repeater Crossbowmen x10 (100) Shields (10)
-110pts

Dark Elf Repeater Crossbowmen x10 (100) Shields (10)
-110pts

Black Ark Corsairs x15 (150) Full Command (25)
-175pts

Black Ark Corsairs x10 (100) Reaver (10) Musician (5)
-115pts

Harpies x6 (66)
-66pts

SPECIAL:

Har Ganeth Executioners x12 (144) Draich Master (12) Musician (6)
-162pts

Shades x9 (144)
-144pts

Cold One Chariot (100)
-100pts

RARE:

Repeater Bolt Thrower (100)
Repeater Bolt Thrower (100)
-200pts

Total: 1500pts

Now that looks more like it, though i lost one of my cold one chariots i feel that i should still be able to do fine as they have gained a leadership, weapon skill and armor save upgrade! With the extra points from the dropped chariot i was able to to buy a small group of harpies, i have always wanted to give them a try but never had a chance (they were special) now that they have been moved to core I'll gladly send them out to harass war machines and wizards. I also gave the corsairs without full command a musician never know when that will come in handy!

At a glance it seems that the GW team has put a nice army book out for the Dark Elves and i am quite happy to see my second army updated (i received codex orks for 40k earlier this year!). Between army wide hatred and having my crossbows have armor piercing all for free makes me quite giddy to see my raiders in action again!

Hopefully this article has been informative or at the very least entertaining to all the Dark Elf players out there may your Black Arks be full of slaves and your rivals be quelled! Thanks for reading!

Harad Warriors

So out of pure curiosity i decided to pick up some Lord of the Rings miniatures to go along with a painting blog on warseer. Here is the first month worth of stuff that i have painted.


Six warriors with spears


Six warriors with bows


A serpent guard model i am using as a Chieftan


A warband pic of everything i have done in the whole month.

I'm quite happy on how they turned out, using some of the new GW washes that are out. I'm quite amazed on how just a quick wash makes minis quite game ready, it took more time to prime the minis than to paint them it seemed.