For the Undead, every battle is a recruitment drive...

 Hat tip to blogger Pel for that blog title. Absolute gem. After watching bloggers McBeth and Scotty play yesterday afternoon, he was not wrong! 

I had a really fun game with my Brotherhood Order of the Green Lady against Scotty's Kingdoms of Men but singularly failed to take any photos. Suffice to say that me having a bunch of heals and playing weirdly conservatively, combined with Scotty's appalling dice lead to a fairly solid, if not comfortable, win for the Knights.

Kings of War

So instead, today, I shall report something I had nothing to do with. Blogger Scotty vs Blogger Tank. Kingdoms of Men vs Dwarves. Tank is a Dwarf player from way back and has been looking forward to getting these lads out for a while. The scenario was Invade, in which VPs would be awarded for the most Unit Strength in the opposite half of the table. 

Tank's Khador Warwagon repurposed as Golloch's Fury

Scotty's centre held by The Captain (note capitalisation) and some robust infantry

The first turn was characterised by some seriously cautious advancing:

Cautious advance by the Dwarves...

...meets cautious advance by the Humans

 Scotty's handgunners chalked up some big hits on the Ironguard and his pikemen took a cannonball from Golloch's Fury - experiences I would suggest neither party enjoyed. There was a lot of maneuvering of cavalry to try and expose flanks, especially by Scotty, and Tank was taking great care not to get hit in flanks as that would very much do for the Dwarves.

On turn two, the Berserking Brock riders came from downtown and smashed into Scotty's heavy infantry:

Badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger, badger...

...MUSHROOM!

Yup. Tank hit the infantry hard, getting real benefit out of his Brew of Sharpness and 26 attacks on his Brock Riders to blow straight through the Swordsmen. They did, however, really fail to followup past the front of the nearby pikemen.

Sneaky horsies!

Meanwhile, Scotty's Sergeants appeared on Tank's flank and Tank held back a lot of his force to stop that flank being turned. You'll note the Dwarven general hanging out there on the bottom left. Yeah. That wasn't a great place to stop. 

Over the next couple of turns the centres connected. Tanks Earth Elementals ground into Scotty's Indomitable Willed Halberdiers for a lot of shoving aided by repeated Bane Chants on both sides.

And PUSH!

The Pikemen rolled up the Brocks without too much difficulty as flank charges in Kings of War are really devastating!

We'll get you you rascally badgers...

Scotty's Pikemen, with their ensnare and indomitable will held up the Earth Elementals, at least for a turn or two, while his Knights lined up the out of frame Golloch's Fury.

Charge!

The knights successfully charged the titanic engine and did a decent amount of damage. It struck back in it's turn and obliterated the knights completely. This was a match where units routing in one go was more prevalent than one would normally expect. Meanwhile on the other flank, Mounted Sergeants charged into the Dwarven Lord and after a couple of rounds, rode him down.

"FOR MINING. OR SCIENCE. THEY'RE ALMOST THE SAME"

The Brocks who had been hiding on that flank rode in to avenge their leader (having already chased down and destroyed the other Sergeant unit) and used some very serious handbags on Scotty's Mounted Sergeants. The Sergeants used their marshmallows in reply and a lot of nothing really happened there.

The last few combats kicked off in the last turn and this is shortly before the game ended. The pikemen you can see had charged into the Earth Elementals and smashed them to gravel in one round before leaving themselves here:

The riflemen held on against the Ironguard (because someone rolled snake-eyes on the Nerve test) but the Pikemen were in for a torrid time from Golloch's Fury at which point the lads called time on the match.

It was a great game to watch and the lads had a good time playing it. I really enjoyed watching it swing from the point where I commented in about turn 3 that Tank could table Scotty in a turn to the end of Turn 5 I think where the game was meaningfully over but was still really close!

Ghosties

I've finished the last ghostie model that I had on hand:

GHOSTHORSE

This Knight of Shrouds will be the Dreadfiend in the Nightstalkers Kings of War army. I really love the finished model but I can't say I enjoyed getting here. I glued the whole thing up when I was assembling and that meant that painting it was a challenge to get to some of the details behind the horsehead and things like that. Still he looks really cool. 

After yesterday's games, I'm keen to get these lads on the park in 2021.

Next Time

We didn't manage our game of Gaslands yesterday, but we'll get that in at some point over the Christmas break I'm sure. I'm getting to work starting on next year's 40K slow grow with the startings of a Spectrus Kill Team and a Phobos Lieutenant to lead them while also ticking away at a few old Malifaux models and a few leftover 40K bits and bobs.

A little painting and progress

 It's been a fairly hectic couple of weeks and I haven't had much of an inclination to paint all that much but with a bit of quiet time in between a weekend of yardwork, I've finished up a couple of models.

The first was  a Nighthaunt Lord Executioner:

The Lord Executioner

 

He'll step in for the Dreamhunter or the Fleshripper Large Infantry heroes in my Nightstalkers army in Kings of War. I do need to find a 20mm washer of some sort to glue under the base as while this is perfectly balanced on the base, the slightest wobble and he's over.

While this was getting done, I base-coated the Knight of Shrouds too. It's not a model I should have assembled before painting. Mistakes were made. But the base coats are down and I'll be working on him while I ponder the next step in Ghostie-army development. I've got some ideas on some Ghostie things to work on over the Christmas break.

The other model I started on was one I fished out of the Drawer of Shame realising that it'll be the second model in my new Oops, All Humans Frostgrave warband:

Pew Pew!

I honestly don't know where this model came from. It's a Reaper model, I think. I suspect I picked it up to be a DnD Ranger of some sort (there's a double-handed sword strapped to the back of the pavise) but I just loved the idea of a model in plate armour with a crossbow. He'll go into the Frostgrave warband as a Marksman.

Pooch has hooked me up with an excellent model who will serve as an apprentice to Saskia Waldlaufer, my very barbarian wizard and painting up this guy has got me enthused about the idea of a really motley collection of mercenaries to be their warband. Reaper is definitely going to be a port of call on this particular quest although there are a few others I like the look of too.

Next Time

More Gaslands! I've got a bit of a plan to try and batrep a Gaslands race. I'm not super confident it's going to work but I'll give it a blat. I'm going to start a bit of a hunt for the rest of the models I'd like to use in this new Frostgrave wizgang. I'm hoping for a real mish-mash of nonsense! I'm also rebuilding a few of my 40K Deathwatch Veterans with the new codex while preparing for some small scale campaign stupidity in 2021! 

Testing....failed.

The first test was definitely a fail within acceptable parameters.

 Final test games for our end of year event were the order of the day and I took just enough photos of my game with Pelarel to manage a fairly coherent battle report of our game of Rearguard! Pel's Crusader company, with motor rifles and 25pdrs attacked my Engineers. 

I deployed Genio on both objectives, mortars central, Semovente 47s on my left flank and L6s on my hard right, with M14s in ambush and minefields in front of my positions.

The British mass on the Italian right

Pel massed his troops on my right and attacked towards the minefields, with a view to dropping his motor rifle platoon in there to lift the mines. Over the course of a couple of turns, the motor rifles tried and failed to lift the mines and the Crusaders dueled with the M14s who arrived from ambush and the Semovente 47s.

Rare as fairies? Nope. SIX TURNS OUT OF SEVEN!!

My L6s finally whipped across the middle, trying to take out the carriers (and boy did that go well, but their craftiness meant they survived incoming fire from Crusaders and Carriers. I was....surprised. 

It was about here that the game turned. The motor rifles were pinned, holed up in a building and were protecting the Crusaders from an aggressive shove by my Genio so I assaulted. Here's the result:

Pel's defensive fire was epic (5 hits out of 6 to push me back) and it killed the flamethrower and two rifle teams. The following turn the platoon, excepting the Brixias, was swept away.

The RAF started this, and the Crusader IIIs finished it

I realised the L6s were probably my best bet remaining, having got 2 Crusader platoons off the park, and having had two solid attempts at removing the Carriers and failed, they went down in a screaming heap leaving the Carriers to give my mortars a shellacking (which they deserved, having counter-batteried Pel's 25pdrs out of the game!!)  before rolling in to end the match.

Last moments

The game ended when I promptly failed the last stand check for the M14s, the last remaining Brixia mortar and the two surviving mortar teams leaving Pel on the Objective. So my Genio fell at the last hurdle on this one, though not for want of trying.

The second test was a fail well and truly outside acceptable parameters. I played a second game against Tank and realised very quickly that there was simply no way I could win. My AT6 Italian armour was simply hopelessly outclassed by his Grants. I realised I'm going to have to overhaul the list and either work in some Semovente 75s or some 25pdrs because AT6 really just wasn't up to it. 

Thoughts?

The list has one fundamental problem. Genio are 15 points for a full platoon. At 60 points, they're just too expensive to have all the support I think I need and the split in a 60/40 really just hasn't worked well. So rethink time. 

So having given up we played Gaslands instead. I took zero pictures of our race because we were having SO MUCH FUN. On the plus side, one car made it to gate three before we were almost all dead. As it was, all the cars bar one - mine who wiped out in the second turn trying to go faster and was hopelessly left behind - could pootle to the end. So next club day we're going to....try and play it properly. *gasp*

Next Time

Painted goodies and some workbench updates for sure. I haven't really been that inclined to do much painting this week just gone but I'm definitely getting close to finishing a bunch of things to I should really just crack on and finish them.  

More painting miscellany

 With some abominable weather around home this weekend, painting was rather the order of the day so that's what I've been up to! Let's go through the workbench in scale order, ascending. 

The Stupid

I added a box of Cerastus Knights to my House Hyboras household to support our 6mm Stupid Apocalypse. I like the idea of having a pair of identical Knight Banners, each containing a Lancer, Acheron and Castigator. 

Acherons on the left, Castigators on the right

 

I suspect we'll get a few games of this in over the Christmas break if we don't get there beforehand. I do need to do some transfers but that's a quiet afternoon in when I can work out some coats of arms for each of the knights. Need to do a bit of thinking on that one.

Grenadiers

 15mm is great fun. It's so easy to paint and finishes up really nicely.

Fog throwers!

 

I'm not really moving forward on the *actual* army - just doing support units at the moment. I suspect I'll wind up doing the Grenadiers in one very long production line including HMGs, 81mm mortars and six Panzerschrecks. Before then, PaK40s and RSOs to do and then a bit of a pondering on how to fit what I've done for this army with the work I did on my old 653 Schwere Panzerjager as the dunkelgelb REALLY doesn't match and I don't think I want to repaint that as well.

DracAm

Making a bit of progress on this now. I've had all these primed for a while and playing the excellent game of DracAm with Pooch and Tank last week have given me some impetus to work on these.

Metal Gamin and Miner with dynamite

The Metal Gamin was one of the few models in the early Malifaux 3e plastics that I didn't hate. It's just cute and will be a low-level summon if I decide to summon anything in a campaign. The Miner is the third of three and got done because I discovered that dynamite is an option in DracAm and I love having dynamite in Wild West games. It never goes well for me which is why I keep doing it. 

Next Time

Club day! Looking forward to a game of something and definitely a batrep to follow whatever that game might be! I'm also working on some 15mm PaK40s and a couple of the characters for my Ghosties that seemed like it might be fun to paint. I've also started ticking through the remaining Malifaux models although I have a bunch of steampunk spiders around that I could repaint for DracAm as well if I can work out what to use them as!

Pooch's October update

Another month gone. And what do I have to show for it?

1. Paint a Kings of War Army- DONE

2. Create a table of terrain to support a game- In progress!

Ok, I am REALLY sucking at making progress with this one.

3. Complete the 6mm Apocalypse Challenge- In progress!

So McZ was feeling jealous about my collection of Warhound Titans, and wanted one of his own. Which obviously meant that we should split a box of two right?

And so, this month's painting is my third Warhound titan, this time with turbolasers!

With some Blood Angels Attack Bikes too!

The whole hunting pack

And I'm back to having no clue what I will do for next month...

4. Run a narrative campaign for the group- DONE

I have been struggling to get to the club this year, and even when I do, struggling to get the other nerds together to do some narrative fun. Given that failure, I decided to run a narrative game of Dracula's America at my place on Halloween!

I had an original scenario written (I'll save it for later), but due to a lack of nerds, I put the finishing touches on another scenario I had been working on.

The Wild West has begun to trouble Dracula, it remains a bleeding sore, a thorn in his side. One which threatens to cause him no end of trouble. With that in mind, he has dispatched some of his scions and the United States Army to bring law to the lawless.

Whisper Creek was one such lawless town. A town that had arisen around the so called Seer had grown into a place of trade, a safe harbour for those who would wish harm against Dracula. And so, the army came, and would take this Seer to meet with Dracula, and she would then meet her fate....

The scenario was that there were soldiers with the Seer in the hotel, and soldiers (and a Vampire!) coming to get them from the train. All the while, a posse of Congregation and Plains Indians were trying to capture the Seer for themselves, and escort her away.

It could only be described as a bloodbath, the army fought hard to hold onto their hostage, only for the Werewolf to tear through them while they were also holding off the Congregation. The army troops coming from the train were delayed enough to be no help to those in the hotel, especially once the Vampire had been gunned down by six shooters. In all, the Seer was freed by the Plains Indians!

The town of Whisper Creek

Such a cool model....

And that's all the photos I took. There was too much going on in the game!

The game played out really well, some minor things that I would change, but it reminded me that I do like Dracula's America, and I would like to play the bigger multi player scenario that I had written.

5. Add a new detachment to one of my 40k armies- DONE

6. Buy a starter box and paint all of it- In progress

Not yet done however, darnit!

7. Paint a Space Marine Heroes Series- DONE

8. Update a 15mm Napoleonic army for Battaile Empire- In progress!

ACTUAL PROGRESS ON THIS!

Some of the other nerds played a game of Battaile Empire recently, and really enjoyed it. It turned out to be the push which I actually needed to make a start on the clump of 15mm Napoleonics I had lying around, and I set myself the goal of finishing a unit of Cavalry each week of October. 

I actually ended up doing more than that, with five regiments of Cavalry complete! 

Hussars!

Three units of Lancers and a Commander

Grenadier a Cheval! 

Next month? I have one more regiment of cavalry, some infantry command stands and then touch ups to go. 

9. Paint a stand alone force- DONE

10. Update and improve a table of terrain- DONE

11. Paint a Flames of War Army- In progress

Two bits of progress on this one. First, I took the army to Flamescon in Auckland. How did it do? Not great. Part of it was me not playing it well, part of it was me rolling bad dice and part of it was my opponents having really good counters to my list. 

Bombing run!

Paras doing what paras do best. Assault!

And Shermans doing what they should be better at. Hiding! 

Remember December is in December, and we have decided to play 60 points of Mid War. Since it's the year of the 82nd, only makes sense that I would play the Mid War variant too! To get them ready, I needed to finish up some more units namely:

Three Zvezda Lees and an Armoured Recon Platoon

There is a Para 37mm platoon to go to, but I need the guns to arrive from Battlefront...

12. Finish what I should have finished last year- DONE

Ok... so seven done, five in progress. On track (ish).....

Pooch

Morty is watching for completed goals next month....