Re-starting the Warmachine

Deneghra advances with her two heavy 'jacks

Managed to get some time this Saturday to get along to our local club. For a bit of a change (slightly motivated by the chance of a game this week with MacSver) we dug out some Cryx mini's. I had planned to play as before, using the Cryx and Cygnar starter Battle groups , as these reduce the options enough for us to play. Arabainsquire had other ideas and wanted a Cryx vs Cryx battle (no doubt inspired by a couple of games he's seen recently at the club).

Arabiansquire's heavy metal come forward to
meet the challenge.

So I managed to cobble together a couple of 15pt lists that I hoped would work closely enough. The problem was that the new forces and unfamiliarity led to some tactical mistakes (either forces too far forward or too cautious to get into the action), so despite it being fun it didn't quite work out.

The Cankerworm gets reeled in and finished off.

I'll probably go back to the original Cryx/Cygnar combo next time until we can become more familiar with the game again. My bargaining position would probably improve of course if I actually painted my Cygnar!

By The Pricking of My Thumbs...

The first members of my new beastmen (with a touch of chaos) based warband, in preparation for my next Songs Of Blades and Heroes campaign.

From left to right, an old pre-slotta mini that I recognise from an old catalogue somewhere, but I'm damned if I can find it again. Any help would be appreciated. Next up is an old Heroquest Chaos Warrior, a D&D Young Minotaur re-paint, a Marauder Beastman and a Games Workshop Beastman (Gor?). The blank sheilds are still crying out for an emblem of some sort, but the consistency of my freehand (or lack of!) means that I would be using a decal of some sort.

Still to finalise stats for my force, as SoBH doesn't have beastmen, and I've the remnants of my initial pool to finish off - which are a pretty varied bunch.

The Horrors Of Chaos

Not that I want to give too much away, but my preparation of the second Songs Of Blades campaign has seen me delving into the darker tomes of fantasy literature for inspiration, so I thought as a change I'd display some non White Dwarf artwork.

The lovely little forest scene is from the old Warhammer reference tome "Realm Of Chaos - The Lost And The Damned" (published in 1990) and shows some followers and creatures of  Tzeentch cavorting through the thickets. Unfortunately I can't see who created this piece so, as usual, if anyone can provide some insight in this missing fact I'd be most appreciative.

As ever Copyright obviously stays with the original owner (be it Games Workshop or the artist) and I hope that any interested parties will take these posts in the admiring showcase spirit that is intended.

Songs Of Blades and Heroes - First Campaign Thoughts

Campaign Thoughts:

This campaign has been a while in coming - there was a years delay between agreeing to play and actually rolling he first dice. The intention was always to get a flavour of how the warband developed during a run of games and to see how the variable battle conditions effected play. I never expected the weather rules to have such an impact on the game. But the snow, heat waves and thunder storm all had vital roles in the games we played, impacting on the movement and activations of the both forces. Similarly the terrain board terrain played it's part - more so than we've seen in general one off games. I will definitely be using these generators for one off games in the future, as they add a bit more thought to how you play your force and dice. The scenarios also helped even the playing field as well. There was no way my Ratmen could ever face up to the Dwarves in a straight to-the-death battle. But victory conditions being applied they had a chance to at least snipe round the edges and pick up enough victory points to sneak a win. I would recommend their use to those players who fancy fielding the "weaker" races to make the battles more competitive.

I don't think either players managed to fully change their dicing tactics. By the end of battle #5 it was noticable that with the leader bonus there were mostly 3 activation dice being rolled for most figures (with 2+ being the target). I think this is where the Thunderstorm caught us out in the final battle (although MacSver needed to roll at least 2 to get his dwarves to move).

The warband development was interesting. I had thought after the first two battles that the rats were onto a hammering every time, especially as the cash reserves of dwarves vastly out weighed those of the rats. I thought that Vargen's force was going to become huge. But with a couple of wins battled back it became apparent that the cash being generated was in many cases hardly covering the costs of the loses. We both ended up with more powerful warbands (point wise) but not as much as I'd invisaged. Only one warband (Blightvale Autho-RAT-y) made it over the 400pt mark, and that was put to rest that very battle with a tactical mistake by myself and a mass moral failure from a Leader kill. With a much longer campaign (planning has started already) we will see how they develop. Riches won; experience points spent; casualties replaced: will be interesting to see how they balance out.

Overall the main thing was that we both had a lot of fun. Even the final battle, in which only one, hopeful, aggressive action was taken was entertaining. It was nice to be able to field a thought out themed force. I know that MacSver, who has invested in quite a few extra dwarves now, is looking to continue his dwarves into the next campaign. My rats have also been fun, if not difficult at times. But then I managed a couple of wins with them (no mean feat), so they can hold their snouts high.

A different force for the next campaign, though. I've a lot more unpainted figures I want to press into action in another theme...

SoBH Battle #6 - Final Battle

Battlefield: Swamp
Weather: Thunderstorm
Scenario: On Difficult Ground
Defender:Dwarves

Forces:
(New additions/changes to the warbands are in italics. Full stats shown for new recruits)

Valgen Maest's Warband (366 Pts)

• Valgen Maest : DWARF COMMANDER (1XP) 95 Pts
• Ovthur Whurdar: Crossbowman (1XP) 32 Pts
• Falster Vonlyr: Elite Warrior (1XP) 52pts
• Gnok Radamal: Elite Warrior 46 Pts
• Harthic Urduum: Warrior (1XP) 40 Pts
• Tyban Duerstenr : Crossbowman 24 Pts
• Horget Goodseeker : Crossbowman 24 Pts
• Venfi Fiendbreaker : Skirmisher 18 Pts
• Bolbir Dwifik: Thief 36 Pts

The Blightvale Autho-RAT-y (344 Pts)

• Skeener - Leader (1XP) 75 Pts
• Rusineth - Swarm Master (1XP) 46 Pts
  [Heavy Armour]
• Masssch - Warrior (1XP) 46 Pts
• Kritsk - Warrior  27 Pts  
• Skritskik - Warrior 27pts
• Grisak - Champion Warrior 35 Pts
• Durlik - Thrower  (1XP)27 Pts
• Ikineth - Standard Bearer (1XP) 27 Pts
• Rat Swarm (x1) 22 Pts

 Setup:

The Setup was as above. All the table was considered swamp (and therefore broken/rough terrain) except for the road. Other terrain features (pond/bog, woodland) were considered appropriate for the "On Broken Ground" special rules (risk of death upon entering). The battle was played to a time limit unless one force was completely defeated.

When the weather was rolled it became apparent that this battle was going to be a long slog. The swamp was already reducing movement length by one category, which meant that the Dwarves were needing 2 actions to just move at all. The Thunderstorm rules also meant that if a "1" was rolled the model became stuck for that turn and couldn't move, even if it had rolled enough other actions to do so.

With the rats needing at least a kill to try and win (and draw the campaign) they manouvered themselves into a disorderly column and made as best haste as possible down the road. The dwarves, having started in the far corner from the road were making heavy work of making any progress.

After quite a few rounds the main rat force had moved up table, whilst the dwarves tried to move in table. Both sides were avoiding the potential perils of crossing terrain pieces. The group of warriors had moved round to square off with the approaching dwarves, whilst the beastmaster (and his lagging swarm) manouvered into a flanking position.

The main rat group held back from the ranged dwarves that had moved up to protect the advancing warriors. They knew that with the swampy condition a long range charge was out of the question. The dwarves also took a risk (a false risk as it turned out) and moved into the forest areas to get out of the bottleneck and give good flanking protection to the advance crossbows. The Rat Leader positioned himself round the corner from the ranged foe, but close enough to give his warriors as much a boost as he could with his leader skill. Time was running out and any successful attack was likely to be the winning one.

But at the last gasp the rats threw a succession of triple ones on the dice (much to MacSver's amusement) and the attack faltered. The swarm-master was too far away to make an attack, so retreated to not get caught by a crossbow bolt. The lead crossbow dwarf took the last action with an extremely long range shot which missed.

And so the battle ended. The rats were cagey, and the dwarves couldn't make headway in the mud. That would be the match summary.

Battle Outcome: Draw.

SoBH Battle #5

Battlefield: Open Ground
Weather: Heat Wave
Scenario: Take The Land
Defender: Ratmen

Forces:
(New additions/changes to the warbands are in italics. Full stats shown for new recruits)

Valgen Maest's Warband (366 Pts)

• Valgen Maest : DWARF COMMANDER (1XP) 95 Pts
• Ovthur Whurdar: Crossbowman (1XP) 32 Pts
• Falster Vonlyr: Elite Warrior (1XP) 52pts
• Gnok Radamal: Elite Warrior 46 Pts
• Harthic Urduum: Warrior (1XP) 40 Pts
• Tyban Duerstenr : Crossbowman 24 Pts
• Delgar Faderg: Magic-User; (1XP) 41 Pts
• Bolbir Dwifik: Thief 36 Pts

The Blightvale Autho-RAT-y (407 Pts)

• Skeener - Leader (1XP) 75 Pts
• Hasnaar - Shaman (1XP) 46pts
  [Equip: Magic scroll]
• Rusineth - Swarm Master (1XP) 46 Pts
• Masssch - Warrior (1XP) 46 Pts
• Griszarr - Warrior (1XP) 46 Pts
• Kritsk - Warrior  27 Pts  
• Skritskik - Warrior 27pts
• Durlik - Thrower  (1XP)27 Pts
• Ikineth - Standard Bearer (1XP) 27 Pts
• Rat Swarm (x2) 22 Pts

 Setup:

The pillars represented objectives to be captured and held.

The ratmen decided to use their superior movement and rushed forward for the opening turns to take the nearest objectives and rack up some  early victory points.

The advance group of rats had managed to reach the area around furthest away objective at the same time as the dwarves. But at the crucial turn, the commander (ie me!) took the decision to fall back and not be surrounded by the tough dwarves. In hindsight, pushing on to the objective could well have won the game, that'll teach me not to pay attention to the scenario enough!

An experienced crossbowman took out one of the new rat recruits on the group fringe before a warrior rushed in and attacked at the same edge.

Another knockdown was won, whilst the crossbowman fell back as the rat reinforcements arrived by way of a rat swarm and their master.

Things looks dark for the dwarves. The rats swarms round the lone dwarf warrior, whilst the crossbowman was frozen by magic.

But a series of rolls that would have seen MacSver run out  of Las Vegas(and me with out a shirt on my back) had the warrior fighting off rat attack after rat attack. The crossbowman did fall, but the crucial action was at the other side of the melee.

With the rats tied up by the warrior a lone crossbowman skirted round and shot down the rat leader with a single bolt, killing him outright!

With all the action happening such a small area there was mass panic in the rat ranks, as they fled, or at least tried to several of them couldn't flee far enough away from their foes and were destroyed. WIth the rat force wiped out the dwarves controlled the battlefield and the win.

Vasa Vasa Everywhere

...oh my, what a load to paint!

How often does this happen? You get into a new game, carefully buying a starter set to see how it goes, then before you know if you're having a peek at Ebay to see the state of the second hand market and bidding on more troops.

Well you can chalk up another notch on the "excited bargain" bid-ometer. A Bargain too good [for me] to pass up came up, and although with a bit of self-control I picked up a good sized force. Too big to completely field  in Urban War I'm sure (still only played the demo game a couple of weeks ago) and I don't know if it's big enough for Metropolis (which doesn't bother my Skirmish force head anyway)

So what did I get?

10 Suppressors (2 Baton, 8 Gauss Rifle), 3 Snipers, 4 Grenade Launcher Suppressors, 6 Archangels, 1 Archangel Sergeant, 2 Black Legion, Kali, Neura, Konrad and a Pacifier. And I suppose you can add in the included Mercs USCR force (as they were included). Not bad for under £44 all told - so quite chuffed.

"All" I need to do is figure out an easy colour scheme to get through them!

Who are these guys?

I've just taken delivery of an Ebay bargain Urban War Vasa force (coming in a post soon). These 5 armoured marines types were included in the auction (the picture is actually lifted from the auction description) but I can't find a match for them on any Urban War/Metropolis/Void site. I'm not wrangling about what I've won - more than happy - but I like to know what my minis are.

Can anyone Help ID these?