The Dwarves Last Huzzah

...for a while.

Some pictures from when MacSver and I had a one off "Song of..." battle this week. This was to be the last outing for his Dwarves for a while, as his next campaign warband is to be themed on the Fantasy Trilogy "The First Law" by Joe Abercrombie.

There have obviously been changes in the Drawf camp since the end of the last Campaign, and a new Mage Leader was leading his brethren into the battle. On the other side was a motley crew of mostly humans, made up from various rpg characters for the games I've played over the years. 

The scenario was to be an all out battle mixed with a magic treasure hunt in a woodland outpost. There were chests in the house, watchtower and end woods. If any magic item was found it could be used for the remainder of the battle.

The forces head towards the outpost, with The Dwarven leader searching the house and the RPG crew trying the watchtower (both to no avail). Note how the  RPGers are already strung out, this was to cause a lot of their problems as the more powerful dwarves made contact.

Kislev combats Slartibartfast to stop the drawf from firing his crossbow. Thief Grendal tries to support but there isn't room. The ruined pillars in the center of the tables caused all sorts of complications for both sides restricting movement, contact and line of sight.

Kronenburg the Mage had wandered too far forward and Scottie McIrnbru engaged. So was set the setting of the main tussle, with a general set-to occurring round the Scottish Dwarf.

Despite the RPGers piling in, Scottie managed to hold firm with some impressive rolls (as long as you were MacSver!). The demise of Slartibartfast on the other side of the pillars did not disguise that the battle was likely to hinge with the other group.

The dwarf eventually chose to dispatch the mage, and with a gruesome kill started that the dread SoBH moral check cascade. Some of the warband broke to run. One of these was the Jester, who was gruesomely killed in a free hack. In the ensuing moral check, Wilbur the Leader failed all 3 dice and left the scene, causing another check. This left the humans scattered, out of touch and leaderless against a smaller but more powerful Dwarven force.

The RPGer tried to rally. Heinrich (with the shield) was surrounded and in trouble. His comrades came round Scottie to help, but when he attacked he was still outnumbered and the resulting clash left him dead on the ground. The battle was called for a Dwarven Victory.

September Painting WIP

About 3 quarters through the month so time to see where the painting Oath progress bar is.

Well the base colours are done and the standard Sepia wash is done. a bit behind schedule to be honest. I've had to make the decision to leave the 2 onlookers in the background alone to try and get the pledged front rank finished for the end of the month (next Monday!). Still can finish this week mind you, so not panicking yet...

I Can See You

The old body milometer has clicked forward another notch. Responding to a request for this yearly event this time round my lovely wife has bought me a new lamp for the painting table.

Like so many of us, painting these damned small figures seems to require more light and more magnification of the last couple of years, and my old standard desk lamp (with daylight bulb) and helping hands magnifying glass wasn't really cutting it any more.

The kit in question is a 22W Fluorescent Daylight Lamp from Maplin (although in this case bought through Amazon). The Lamp has a table clamp base so takes up no desk space, which is a  bonus. Not very portable, but I've just recently reclaimed my painting table for dedicated use so not a problem. The energy saving daylight bulb is not only bright and blue tinted (as it should be) but gives off no heat, so should help prevent a early drying paint that the old traditional filament bulb caused. The only down point may be that the lamp head is quite plastic-y and the lens cover\lid very cheap feeling, but it's a pretty minor niggle compared to everything else.

A happy (older) painter.

Scooby Doo Mystery Machine Hunt

Last year I received the Hasslefree Zombie Hunting Scooby Gang for my birthday. I've been wanting a van for them since then, but there is little of the appropriate scale. Armorcast do the business with their Hippy Van, but the postage from the US and the prospect trying to paint the exterior left me cold.

So looking again I found that Hot Wheels had released a new Mystery Machine. It was 1:64, but I hoped that given a base it would size up OK. As you can see from the picture - wrong, far too small (which. to be honest, I half expected!)

I also discovered that MacDonalds had done a winter Scobby Doo Happy meal toy range. The Mystery Machine had been converted to a half track with front sleds, but I maybe looked the correct size, so I bought one from Ebay.

Size wise not to bad. The van seems a bit stubby, but depending on the era of cartoon I think that's the style of the van. Add some front wheels on the front instead of sleds and I think I may have the Post-apocalypse upgrade to the traditional van. Just need to figure out where to get the wheels now...

Chain Reaction Scavenger Hunt

Arabiansquire and myself headed up to our local club this weekend looking for a game of 40k and Warmachine respectively. Attendance numbers were low on this morning, so with neither of us picking up our first choice I broke out the copy of Two Hour Wargames "Chain Reaction".

I've started packing these rules "just in case" as they are flexible, small (only running to a few pages), fun, fast (which is also crucial as they are a reserve game quite often, so a later start time) and I can play them solo in case I'm on my own.

We pulled out figures for 2 basic 5 man squads. One Star Sergeant (Rep 5), 3 Grunts and one heavy weapon (all Rep 4). Also in the mix was a rules run battle droid armed with a Hammer and a Rocket Launcher. Hits were allocated a random position (right and left arm, right and left leg, head and body) with two hits needed to disable the segment. Only 2 hits on the body would disable the robot.

The table was set up as above. The scenario was that the robot had to be destroyed and a vital chip be scavenged and removed from the battle area for the win.

First turn, and after both squads moved the robot moved towards the Space Marines, discovering some of them. After reactions it fired a rocket at a rear Marine taking him Out-Of-Fight (effectively dead for this game).

The Marines scattered to try and gain an advantage, but that Rocket Launcher was caught in the open and destroyed.

The Sergeant climbed to a rooftop and caused some damage though, causing the robot to back off into the street.

Meanwhile my troopers had managed to move up the street into position. A hail of fire added damage to the robot, and between the two forces it was reduced to a pile of scrap.

The Troopers took out another Marine, just leaving the separated Marine and his Sergeant. A Trooper took advantage of the cover and rushed out to retrieve the vital piece of tech.

But he was caught cold as the Marine Sergeant popped round the corner and took him down.

With the 2 marines covering the robot, something had to be done. So the Trooper and his Sergeant rushed round a corner and managed to take out the covering marine.

All alone, and being flanked on 3 sides it was desperate times for the Marine Sergeant. he sprinted from cover, picked up the microchip from the dead troopers hand and tried to make cover to escape. But a lone trooper, who had failed to fire on the initial run, recovered to shoot the Space Marine before he could make it,  leaving the troopers to take the spoils.

SoBH Campaign Preparations

The month of December has been set to start the next Song Of Blades and Heroes Campaign. This give MacSver and I time organise and paint at least the starting warband line-up.

MacSver is continuing with his Dwarven theme, but he's promising a change from the type of warband from the previous 3 campaigns, which has followed a warrior biased non magic ideal.

Some of the hopeful new recruits

I'm taking the opportunity to again delve into the unpainted pile (with a few purchases) to do something completely different. The theme of the next warband will be the "Forest Protectors". The bulk of the force will be Wood Elves, led by a certain Human Ranger. There will of course be a diverse list of extras available. So far I'm thinking Treemen, dryads and I'm not even ruling out an appropriate gnome.

The key at this point though is to draw up an approximate starting line-up (and reserves). One of the temptations is to get some powerful-ish warriors while you have the points, but with maximum warband size being related to the initial size this could prove hazardous in a long campaign. At the same time I still have to try and deal with those tough Dwarves. They'll be slow at the start of the campaign (I'll be doing my usual prayers to the weather dice God), but are so hard in battle that I have to be wary about getting wiped off the table! MacSver suffered a poor start at the start of our second campaign ( Beastmen vs Dwarves) and never fully recovered his numbers or battle mojo that campaign and we have both been mindful of this ever since, sometimes sacrificing a battle to retain troop levels for future meetings.

But who to paint up ......?

September's Painting Oath

After the glory of actually managing to complete a minor painting project during August for the Facebook Painting Oath group, it is time to pledge for the next month.

September's Oath from me: 3 Warmachine Cygnar Stormcallers. The more eagle eyed will notice a couple of lurkers in the background. Warcaster Nemo I started last year and a Cygnar Grenadier warjack which is primed and drybrushed. Neither these two will qualify for the Oath (primed paint only for a starting piccie), but will be on the table lurking in the background come the final shots .