SoBH Battle#2

Battlefield: Tundra
Time of Day: Day
Weather: Snow
Scenario: On Difficult Ground
Defender: Valgen Maest's Warband (Dwarves)

Forces:
Valgen Maest's Warband

• Valgen Maest : DWARF COMMANDER (1XP) 95 Pts
  Quality 2+, Combat 4, Short Move, Leader, Fearless:   
• Ovthur Whurdar: Crossbowman 24 Pts
• Bolbir Dwifik: Thief (1XP) 30pts
• Falster Vonlyr: Elite Warrior (1XP) 46pts
• Harthic Urduum: Warrior (1XP) 34 Pts
• Glanthur Harfik - Cavalry (1XP) 52 Pts

The Blightvale Autho-RAT-y

• Skeener - Leader (1XP) 60 Pts
• Rusineth - Swarm Master (1XP) 46 Pts
• Masssch - Warrior (1XP) 27 Pts
• Griszarr - Warrior 27 Pts
• Durlik - Thrower  27 Pts
• Ikineth - Standard Bearer (1XP) 27 Pts
• Rat Swarm (x1) 22 Pts

 
Setup:

As usual the first few turns were movement. The Dwarves were finding it hard going in the snow, as they needed 2 actions to move their short movement range. By comparison the rats "sped" up to the table.

The main band of rats grouped at a natural fork in the terrain, with the beastmaster and swarm moving forward hoping to draw the dwarves round. Glanthur Harfik on his mighty bear flanked round behind some trees looking to cut them off.

The mounted dwarf moved round to his blocking position, with the main rats messing up their rolls. But the weakest dwarf warrior on the force fringe the beastmaster decided to try and use his swarm to even up the odds and attacked.

But the attack was to no avail. The attacking ratman was knocked to the ground, and before he could get up his pets were dispatched before he experienced a similar fate.

The Dwarves took advantage of another set of poor dice rolls and the mounted Dwarve tried to get a rear position on the enemy, with the Thief making a risky path through the ruins.

But the bear had left himself an isolated target, as the rats had been looking for. They rushed over and surrounded him in attack, but his teeth and axe kept them at bay.

But Glanthur only managed one action next turn. Faced with the options of retreating with numerous free strikes or attack there was only one option - attack. Unfortunately the numbers proved too great a second time and was knocked the ground, leaving the rats to swarm over and finish him.

The rats had a scalp, and with the Dwarves wading round the corner as a group they decided to leave the battle field. There would be good eating tonight!

Battle Result:
Valgen Maest: 3 Victory Points,
Blightvale Autho-RAT-y: 2 Victory Points

Monster Magnet...Basing

After last nights round of my "Songs of ..." campaign and being inspired by Frugal Dave's post this week, I finally dug out the magnetic tape to base my skaven. I've had this sitting around for a few years now, waiting to be used.

 I'll probably continue to use the tape for my 20mm square bases, as it is the cheapest method - despite having to measure and cut the tape and try and flatten out the curl of the storage method, but for the round bases I have I think I'll follow Dave's lead and purchase some die-cut ones from Hasslefree miniatures.

Obligatory gravity defying shot

What really remains to be seen is how these "new" bases are stored in the hobby shed. I've some steel paper and box files ready to go, but steel paper is hardly cheap, and when combined with the price of even a cheap multipack box file the expense starts to mount. Perhaps it would be better value getting some metal drawers. I'll have to investigate.

What does everyone else do?

The White Dwarf

Not in honour of White Dwarf itself but more of MacSver's victorious Dwarven force in our new "Songs Of Blades and Heroes" Campaign. This month I've picked out the front cover of WD #90 celebrating 10 years of the magazine (June 1987). "The White Dwarf" (funnily enough)  was done by John Sibbick. I can only really describe it as classic.

RTB09 Terminators

Finished a week after my self imposed target date of the end of August, but finished all the same. These are the last of my RTB09 boxset Terminators (with A Cyclone Terminator from the same era). Painted in the same quick paint style as my other Termies, pretty happy with the way they fit in with my small Ultramarine force. Talking of self imposed target dates, the end of the year (which is looming over the horizon) is it.

SoBH Battle#1

Battlefield: Hill Land
Time of Day: Night
Weather: Calm
Scenario: On Difficult Ground
Defender: Valgen Maest's Warband (Dwarves)
Setup:

Skaven in centre, Dwarves split into 2 groups:
Mounted and Thief on left of picture, all else on right.

End turn 2

The first few turns were just movement, although the dwarves were miss-firing so making little (if any ground) . The ratmen showed their battle rustiness by not taking advantage of their gregarious group moves properly.
 

The swarm surged forward looking to tie up some opponent forces before the main group came in, and the bear mounted dwarf came in on interception course.

A dwarf crossbowman moved into the valley end to meet the swarm, but poor activation rolls denied him support. The swarm moved up to say hello, as the bear mount fell back.

The swarm master caught up to support his pets, but their combined attack was stalemated by the dwarf, as some support finally arrived.

The crossbowman scattered one of the swarm bases as more dwarves finally started to arrive in the table centre. A group of ratmen started come into the scene as well, but poor rolling from the now distant leader and standard bearer halted any attacks hoping to press home the swarms numerical advantages.

It's all action in the valley. Another Swarm base is dispatched, but the remaining swarm combine with thier master for him to take down the battling crossbow wielding dwarf.

 With the encouragement of his leader, an Elite Dwarf charges forward and knocks down the rat scout at the edge of the advancing group, whilst the leader himself come in to help finish off the writhing swarm. Unfortunately he is mesmarised by the mass of bodies and is knocked down in his own attack. The swarm turn and help the beastmaster floor the other dwarf warrior, but the desperate rolls to bring up the rat leader still cause problems and end the turn.

 The Elite Dwarf warrior takes advantage of the scout still lying at his feet and sets and example - gruesomely him. The resulting morale tests have the beast master and swarm fleeing over the rocks. Fortunately for them they don't come across any of the hazards that can lie in these areas. Of the group with the ill fated scout, one fled a short distance, where as the other completely routed. Meanwhile the dwarf cavalry decided to come into challenge the lone rat thrower, who was so intimidated by the roaring bear that he completely failed his rolls and ended up frozen to the spot.

The mounted dwarf closed into the thrower, first knocking him back and then resisting his poisoned attack before finishing him off in the final turn. On the other side of the hillock the Elite dwarf, obviously caught up in a blood-lust from the rat scout gave chase to press home an advantage to the now fleeing ratmen. Unfortunately he found himself too isolated and was swamped and taken down as a final act as the rats left the battlefield.

SoBH Campaign finally starts

After a Warmachine induced delay of about 12 months MacSver and I managed to get together and begin our Songs Of Baldes and Heroes Campaign. We've not played a SoBH Campaign before, so were not only looking forward to the battle, but also seeing how the post battle rules played out.

I'll just go over the initial warband compositions here, and do the battle report in another post. I've also created a campaign page (linked at the top of the blog) to follow the entire campaign trial.

MacSver:

Valgen Maest's Warband

Race: Dwarf
Territory: Bolkrak Holdfast - Hill Land River, Tundra, Open Plain Mountains.
Traits: Nocturnal.
Maximum Warband size: 16

LEADER / PERSONALITY:

• Valgen Maest- Magic user (dagger)
  Points: 41, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Short Move, Magic User.

WARRIORS:

• Bolbir Dwifik - Thief(dagger)
  Points: 30, Quality 3+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Short Move, Stealth
• Falster Vonlyr - Elite Warrior (Heavy weapon & Shield)
  Points: 46, Quality 3+, Combat 4, Special Rules: Short Move, Steadfast, Fearless
• Azkral Bkrak - Elite Warrior (Heavy weapon & Shield)
  Points: 46, Quality 3+, Combat 4, Special Rules: Short Move, Steadfast, Fearless
• Ovthur Whurdar - Crossbowman (Chainmail, crossbow)
  Points: 24, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Short Move, Medium Shooter
• Gimthic Ohig - Crossbowman (Chainmail, crossbow)
  Points: 24, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Short Move, Medium Shooter
• Harthic Urduum - Warrior (Hand weapon & shield)
  Points: 34, Quality 3+, Combat 4, Special Rules: Short Move
• Glanthur Harfik - Cavalry (riding a bear)
  Points: 52, Quality 3+, Combat 4, Special Rules: Mounted.

Arabianknight:

The Blightvale Autho-RAT-y

Race: Ratman

Territory: The Blasted Wastes - Tundra, Scrub Land, Open Plain.

Traits: Nocturnal.

Maximum Warband size: 16

LEADER / PERSONALITY:

• Skeener - Leader
  Points: 60, Quality 3+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Leader
• Rusineth - Swarm Master
  Points: 46, Quality 3+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Beastmaster

WARRIORS:

• Masssch - Warrior
  Points: 27, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Gregarious
• Griszarr - Warrior
  Points: 27, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Gregarious
• Khaksisk - Scout
  Points: 24, Quality 4+, Combat 2, Special Rules: Gregarious, Stealth
• Durlik - Thrower
  Points: 27, Quality 4+, Combat 2, Special Rules: Gregarious, Poison, Shooter: Short
• Ikineth - Standard Bearer
  Points: 23, Quality 4+, Combat 3, Special Rules: Standard Bearer
• Rat Swarm (x3)
  Points: 22 each, Quality 3+, Combat 1, Special Rules: Swarm, Free Disengage

Turf War - Chain Reaction style

Managed to get along to Livingston Battleground on Saturday morning, so ArabianSquire and I had a quick game of Chain Reaction. We used our now standard gang setup from our Domination games (Leader, Heavy, Juve and 2 Gangers to use Necromunda speak) and just had a straight turf war. Arabian Squire was using those long coated (and newly dipped) Necromunda Delaques and I'd picked out some suitable 40k Catachan Jungle Fighters.

Arabian Squire activated first, and took advantage of his Heavy's range to establish a line of fire that kept my entire gang in the starting corner of the table if they didn't want to break cover! He then started to move the rest of his gang in table to populate the buildings.

It was quite obvious that my gang were just waiting to be slaughtered if they kept hidden, so a dash across the enemy firing line had to be made. I made sure that they ran in a line with the poor just closest to the bullet source and my heavy next. The hope was that if the Juve went down (shielding the rest of the gang) I may get a reaction shot off with my heavy. As it was my plan half worked - the juve was cut down, but the completely heavy failed his reaction and ducked back to his starting position, with he rest of the gang, out-gunned, ducked back as well, but forward to the nearest cover, so a least into the rest of the table.

The 'squire Heavy still had a field of fire across the table through the middle, so my marines had to skirt round the edge of the board to stay out of sight and range.

The Delaques had in the meantime occupied a couple of the buildings in the centre, waiting for my forces.

My Leader managed to get round and into the building out of sight to get to the window and take a shot at the Delaque ganger, killing him. The resultant reaction test had the Delaque Leader duck back away from the fire through the door into the street, right into view of my Heavy  who had managed to get an arc of fire, who passed his reaction and gunned down the Leader, much to the wee lads dismay.

The other marines took up covering positions in the captured building. But from cover Arabian Squire took out a door covering marine.

This caused some in effectual reaction fire from the other occupants, giving away their position to the Delaque heavy, and the resultant cross fire hail of bullets had them ducking back from the windows to safety.

Arabian Squire then decided to flush out my heavy with a flanking move, but at the crucial time his activation dice let him down with a 6, and was sneaked up on himself.

Poor firing let him duck back out of cover, but with the marine leader closing in from the other side he was caught and taken out.

This let the marine heavy free to assault the last Delaque holdout. As they were still distracted from a fire fight across to the other side of the street, they didn't see the danger coming round the ruined wall.

One Delaque went down, but the Juve (who was in hero mode from rolling snake eyes in a previous encounter) reacted well and gunned down the sneaky Marine. This however gave an opening for a mrine to rush across the street and snipe the Juve from a window. After a brief exchange the final Delaque went down.

A fun game that took just about 90 minutes to play. The range to the Heavy (SAW) machine gun was a pain here, especially with the fine positioning of the Delaque Heavy by the wee lad really limiting my movement options. The game had a good back and forth feel to it with both side taking casualties, but in the end a couple of bad activation rolls in a row (2 sixes - ouch!) undid Arabian Squire's good work and let me in.

Ambushed!

I had been meaning to show off my latest completed Terminator squad before the end of the month, but a sudden ambush occurred by way of me buying (and playing) the WWII game "Battlefield Academy" for the PC.

Now, as ever, I'm not going to tread old water and give a full game review. There is an excellent one at strategycore.co.uk. But like my Bloodbowl for the DS post, I can give a quick, gamers perspective of it.

First of all I'll just say that I really like the game - it (like the Bloodbowl game) is pretty much tabletop on the PC. The action is turn based, with forces at unit (or vehicle) level. Each unit has a certain amount of action points and firing actions to spend each turn. One aspect I especially like, much like one of my favourite game systems - Chain Reaction, is that the non active forces get reaction shots at the enemy. This can result in automatic exchanges of fire and units retreating, or being suppressed as they come into view or are ambushed by hidden enemy. Suppressing units is another major part of the game. Peppering a Nazi Panther tank with fire may not penetrate, but enough of it saps the moral of the crew and their fire will be suppressed, or they may even retreat all together. This is the same for all units, be they gun positions, tanks or infantry. The control system is all right or left mouse click, and very easy to pick up.

They sound is fine and not over stated, the graphics simple but characterful in isometric (which can be rotated and zoomed near/far for a better view. And I daren't mention the excellent background music that'll be in your head long after you've finished playing (Great Escape style).

There are plenty of scenario led campaigns to play - Desert, Western Europe in different stages of the war, with a couple of extra expansions to buy, or download fans made ones. Multiplayer is on a Play-by-Email type of system, so you can play with anyone whenever you have the time for a turn and not have to sit for ages in the small hours of the morning for a game!

Quite frankly I just recommend this. Available for download from the makers - Slitherine