SoBH Campaign 3 - Battle 2

Battlefield: Ruined Hamlet ("Whithershack")

Weather: Heatwave
Scenario: Hidden Treasure
Defender: Dwarves

Forces:
New additions marked in purple italics

• Valgen Maest: DWARF COMMANDER 95 Pts, XP: 1
• Falster Vonlyr: ELITE WARRIOR 46 Pts, XP: 1
• Halgar Snowbeard: WARRIOR 34 Pts, XP: 1
• Rod Grimiron: YOUNG WARRIOR 24 Pts, XP: 1
• Notar Battlenugget: YOUNG WARRIOR 24 Pts, XP: 1
• Squint Ironsights: CROSSBOWMAN 24 Pts, XP: 1
• Cerri Crakshot: CROSSBOWMAN 24 Pts, XP: 1
• Slii Shadesmith: THIEF 24 Pts, XP: 0, Quality 4+ Combat 3
  Short Move, Stealth

• Ardaric Blackmaul: BARBARIAN COMMANDER 66 Pts, XP: 1
• Ooko: ELEMENTALIST 34 Pts (+ 50 Pts Summoning pool), XP: 1
  Item: Healing Potion
• Erwig Bonetooth: ARCHER 50 Pts, XP: 1
• Totila Roastlaw: ARCHER 50 Pts, XP: 1
• Rodulf Wolfhowl: WARRIOR 36 Pts, XP: 1
• Remos Arcfur: WARRIOR 36 Pts, XP: 0, Quality 3+ Combat 3

Setup: 6 ruined buildings with impassable terrain in the centre. All the building doors face towards the centre of the village to encourage battle. Dwarves to the west, barbarians to the east. As per scenario rules, when a non artificial model enters an un-searched building a 2D6 are rolled. On a 12 the treasure is found. If no treasure is found in the buildings, the final building had the treasure. The treasure must be carried off the starting edge (movement at -1 range if carried by one figure)

Both warbands started towards the village. The Barbarians started with Ooko summoning a Fire Elemental and pushing it and their archers to the centre of the village, with the rest following up behind. New Recruit Remos was first into a building, but no treasure was found.

At the other end of the village the Dwarves found that their slower movement had left them without a simultaneous foothold in the village. Young Dwarf Rod Grimiron managed to search the windmill, but with no result. The majority of his comrades assembled en-masse behind the old inn.

To strengthen the options for a disposable frontline, Ooko brought in a second fire elemental. The archers were continuing forward to a central position, but Erwig's fitness wasn't up the the sweltering conditions and suffered some fatigue.

Looking to make a break into the square before the ranged Barbarians took position. Notar Battlenuggets's inexperience, however, took him too close to the fire elemental, who spewed forth a fireball that fried the young beardling. RamosArcfur took advantage to search round his second building of the day, but with the same empty handed result.

Valgen ordered his crossbowmen forward to provide cover for his warriors into the village. Unfortunately a failed activation not only cut short his tactical manoeuvre, but also fatigued Squint Ironsights.

With the 2 nearest dwarven entrances into the village covered by arrow and fire, Rodulf Wolfhowl had a look round the most northerly cottage, with no joy. Ramos also moved up to the Inn, preparing to search.

On his second attempt Squint pushes out to take position. Unfortunately for him he's caught the rest of his comrades on-the-hop and they don't manage to follow up to support.

The Fire elemental moves in to stifle his ranged threat, but does not manage to attack. Meanwhile Ramos searches the Inn to find it empty. The means that the treasure is in the most easterly cottage (nearest the Barbarian starting edge)

Rodulf doubles back to check the last cottage and does indeed find the treasure as predicted.

Only now do the dwarves surge forward. Squint, still faced with the fire elemental  decides he'd best get his attack in first, but the combined heat of the weather and foe seem to weaken the fatigues dwarf and he is defeated.

Erwig takes a shot at the approaching dwarves but misses. Rod rushes into deal with his assailant but in his eagerness is slain.

Looking to least take some retribution for their downed crossbowman Valgen and Snowbeard move in on the Fire Elemental, but only manage to knock him back with their attack.

Meanwhile the Barbarians have started to head away, with the treasure being carried off board by Rodulf.

Seeing the prise slip away, Snowbeard then Valgen both have a final attack in rage, but both end up knocked down before the Elemental fades back to it summoner.

Battle Result: Recovered treasure means a win for the Ardaric's Barbarians.

Urban Jungle War

With Urban War announcing that they are starting to put together a Jungle War supplement I thought I'd dig out all those bits of plastic aquarium plants that I have in boxes to see what I could cobble together. Turns out I already had some based (who'd have thought) and got to putting it all on the table to check the coverage. I couldn't resist amusing myself by way of seeing what the troops would look like in the foliage:

VASA perimeter towers keep watch.

A Viridian patrol cautiously makes its way
through the undergrowth.

The outcome is that I need to produce a few larger bases (all these are small bases clumped together), so have ordered up a few cheap plants to give a variation in height and colour.

A Giving The Lad a Quick SKELP

The end of the week had the family up in the North East of Scotland (the picturesque seaside town of Stonehaven to be precise) for a few days. On the Saturday we decided to head down the road to Forfar and take in Angus Wargaming's SKELP show as part of the day. Road delays and scheduling meant that the wee lad and I didn't get through the doors until after 2pm, so the show was starting it's quiet, wind-down period. However it did mean that we got a good unrestricted wander. After the other large shows we'd been too this year (Carronade and Claymore) it was nice to go to a smaller, one hall show. The atmosphere felt more familiar. Possibly with fewer table numbers, the time of day and it being towards the end of the show season alot of folk from different clubs (and traders) seemed to know each other and be chatting when not busy. I also lead to some fun comments during the painting competition prizes.

An added bonus was that the Edinburgh League of Gamers (or at least one representative) had made the journey up the road with his Space Crusade participation game that we'd missed at Claymore. The game ( as ever for an ELG PP game) looked great, played simply and was great fun (it received the best PP game award I seem to remember).

The Space Marines make try to make progress, with
Chaos Marines having other ideas.

The final battle, androids and a Dreadnought stand
in the way of the Marines and their goal.

The tables on demo tables were all looking great. I only managed a few pictures I'm afraid. I had a interesting chat with members of "The Iron Brigade" about their Viking Raid table. They had been playing the raid earlier in the day using the SAGA ruleset, but had set it up afterwards as a visual piece. Great (SKELP prize winning) table with not only the main battle going on but loads of interesting side stories.

The other table I spend a good while looking round was the RAF Leuchars Normandy campaign table. I'd had a good chat at Carronade with these guys. They were touring the shows following the campaign trail of the US Airborne on (and following) D-Day.

More pictures of the other tables are available on via the Pendraken Forum (not my photo's I must say).

The Traders seemed to all be happy enough, but after unexpectedly buying some armour last week I wasn't there to buy much. Still picked up a handful of civilian looking Heroclix for modern gaming and managed to put myself in a fuzz as ever looking at the Crooked Dice and getting trapped between the old want/can't do yet gamer spin (after 2 visits and promises of returning later I had to remove myself from the hall with promises that I'd buy when I was nearer ready to look at the game).

A grand way to spend a couple of hours anyway, and I'll be giving it good thought about going next year.

Army Painter Guide

Just a quick follow on from my last post.

There is a more comprehensive and colourful free download from Army Painter on the colour prime, basecoat and wash. Naturally they focus on there own brand, but it's pretty universal and makes a few nice extra suggestions on quick army building that I'll be trying.




Article download here: http://admin.thearmypainter.com/files/downloads/pdf/army_paiting_guide.pdf 

(and yes they have misspelt painting!)