The Undead arise...

Almost the approach of the New Year and theres some exciting releases expected really soon from GW. Never have been an Undead player but some of the leaked pictures and rumours would impress the most reluctant hobbyist. Check out some of the new monster sized models.

Looks like GW are continuing the trend of adding alot of bits to their soon to be released new kits. I especially like the coven of vampires and I'm sure those amongst you with conversion skills will be eyeing them up for your respective armies like I am.

With talk and leaked pictures of the new Black Knights kit I'm wondering if I can pick up a horde of ghouls and skellies so I too can push some new toys in January. Vampire Counts here I come...

Xmas Therapy

Happy Xmas Merry season to all!!

Going to be on holiday for another week or so, sweet. Not much internet access available where I am and plenty to do so will start blogging again when I head back. Boxing day always seems to be the family shopping safari so here's one of the pursuits that's been occupying my time.

Picked up a Series 6 LCD for the folks and got an awesome deal for it. I like it when you get $500 more off the holiday sale price when you strike up a good convo with the sales lady for the package. Enough  retail therapy and I'll get back to some serious blogging about man dollies as soon as I head back to Aucks.

Elves from Avelorn

Top Army  of the week and possibly the year here. A working of a passionate artist and also a good friend and fellow League member 'Gray'. His work can be found Here. Some classic Maiden guard models and the epic new White lion models create some really dynamic flavour.

Elves are awesome and if you really put the effort in and design your army around a theme you too can have a stunning collection like this. Some sample pics:-

Conversions aplenty.

Gray, you have to tell me where you gots those sweet ferns. Very New Zealandesque, Kiwiana bro!

Greenstuffing it... WIP Part2.

Some more work on my group of Maneaters. With some major grenstuff and conversion work to extend his arms and give him a way more dynamic pose with a Thoresque Hammer over the head pose. I think this one's ready for some work on his base and then onto some coats of paint. Now to think of a colour scheme. He's also sporting a great weapon on the back and a keg of powder.

Another one of the Maneaters I'm working on. Thinking that I will have a hat theme on these guys pillaged from conquered nations. This guy is carrying Empire pistols which are actually large enough looking for Ogres.

Happy Merry season all :)

Dissecting an Ogre Part 1 by: Geoff.

An all monster army, that’s awesome, except that Ogre Kingdoms couldn't really win a game in 7^th Edition in my opinion. So it was with great anticipation and some trepidation that I decided to check out the new edition of the Army book and I can happily report that finally Ogres seem to be awesome as they should be in 8th.

This blog will follow the progress of my mission to create, build and paint a decent tournament army from a brand new book list. It will cover everything; from how I decided what to include in the list to checking up on my painting and converting progress each week, then ultimately onto my first few games and what I learnt from the process.

 As a gamer I love mid-range strategies, by which I mean ones that are not based on the extremes. Instead of acting out a very rigid but powerful plan and hoping to dominate an opponent by doing one thing way better than them, I prefer to spread my capabilities then try to react to my opponent and strategic events in a more successfully adaptive way than them: going weak where they are strong and strong where they are weak, the old Sun Tzu paradigm blah blah.

I have been a WFB player for many years and managed a number of GW stores during this time but my main WFB experience lies a lot more in 6^th and 7^th editions than 8^th so far. Even more so than a WFB player I have also been a reasonably successful card game player (semi-pro Magic the Gathering player having been rated 20^th in the world at one point), which allows me to evaluate Warhammer strategy from a somewhat unique perspective which I hope will be helpful to many and at the very least generate a discussion or two.

Overview Of Changes to Ogres:

Why have Ogres got so much better?

Primarily this is because they have so many more good options than before.

• Their combat units remain strong with Tyrants, Bulls, Ironguts, Stonehorns et al. putting out some pretty exemplary fight time skills,
• some pretty sweet back-up: shooting over decent range courtesy of Leadbelchers, the Thundertusk and the Ironblaster.
• Ogre magic is now a bunch more versatile with the ability to dabble in the lore of: fire, Heavens, Beasts or Death.
• Ogres access one of the cheapest and therefore best redirectors in the game in the form of the Sabertusk pack.

All these factors mean Ogres can now play any game: shooting, fighting, manoeuvring or zapping, instead of just making a giant Deathstar and hoping to crush all before it, or at the very least deny victory by not having this destroyed.

Here’s my list

2400pts Ogre List:

                                                                             

Slaughtermaster (Lvl4)                               288
Ironfist

Bruiser BSB                                              138
Iron fist, heavy armour, Dragonhide banner 50
Butcher                                                     103
ironfist, Hellheart                                       50

Firebelly                                                   122
Extra hand weapon, Dispel Scroll              25

10 Ogre Bulls                                           335
extra hand weapons, crusher, standard, lookout gnoblar
8 Ogre Bulls                                            268
extra hand weapons, crusher, standard

3 Leadbelchers                                      129

6 Mournfang Cavalry                             430
Heavy armour, Ironfists, Crusher

1x Sabretusk     21
1x Sabretusk     21

Ironblaster        170
Thundertusk      250

Protect those miniatures

Found a very good bag for carrying around armies that also has excellent foam protection for your mini's. HB products have sponsored and helped us out and I'd like to give him a shout out. They can be found Here .

Reasonably priced and offers a selection of foam to load out your bag. It's capable of fitting 6 layers of foam which I must admit fits in two whole High Elf armies or my Ultra Marines army and all it's vehicles. Lee who supplies them is friendly and great to deal with.

They also sell individual foam trays as well. All their trays are standard sized that fit into your normal GW case, which is really helpful for those of you like me with a huge selection of armies that need storage.

Greenstuffing it... WIP Part1.

After some heavy tournament organising and running over the last few months I get some time to enjoy the bits of the hobby that make wargaming great. Thats putting your own personal touches to models and making them all unique. I picked up a few Ogre bits and pieces from a couple of mates of mine (cheers Ed & Dan) initially for a conversion for a Warshrine (yup I've got a Warriors army). I've decided to try out some more than just casual greenstuffing. Here's one of the Ogres that I have started work on and he's destined to be a Maneater.

This critter is a much more of a challenge and will need heaps of greenstuff. Luckily I picked up a hefty amount of GS cheap from GF9. He's destined to have a great big hammer like weapon on his left arm and hopefully a Ogre sized pistol in his right arm converted from an Militia Blunderbuss. Check out the massive recess ready for some extreme modelling.

So in the midst of the afternoon of model making I couldn't help but put some finishing touches on a High Elf unit filler. I've used the Seaguard Champion with an direct swap with a great weapon from the Commander sprue. The Lizardmen bits are from the spares of the Stegadon box set.

I'll aim for some more progress over the impending Xmas break, enjoy.

Flames Of War Masters Results 2011

Flames of War Masters competition was run by Steve Chambers this year and it featured all the top ranked players from around New Zealand. With help from Battlefront Miniatures we were able to put on a fantastic looking event since we had acquired their design studio battle boards. Always a pleasure dealing with Battlefront Miniatures they are a top bunch of professionals.

With some exceptional array of shiny stuff on offer everyone was bringing their game to nab the swag.

The 2011 champion for the Masters was none other than Dan Maguire and it proves that driving Tin soldiers with a lot of cheer does pay dividends.

The final results are here:-

Congratulations on the Field and the place getters.

Masters 2011 Final Standings

Masters 2011 has concluded and a big thanks to all the competitors over the weekend for their good competitive play and solid gentlemanly conduct. Congratulations to all the podiums finishers and for all the other competitors there's always next year.

Also a big thank you to the team of guys who helped me get this tournament off the ground and you know who you are, big pat on the back. Don't hesitate to give me a yell to help when you guys decide to pick up the mantle and run your own events in the future and I'm sure the community will be behind you.

Over the next few days I'll have up battle reports from some of the guys who competed . I've really enjoyed having a read of the collection and I'm sure you'll be keen to read them as well.

Masters 2011 Warhammer Fantasy

Players	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Battle	Sports	Tie	Total
Antony Kitson	14	9	10	17	18	20	88	30		118
Dan Butler	20	10	6	20	20	9	85	30		115
Joe Dixon	15	11	14	16	10	11	77	30		107
Mal Patel	0	14	14	12	10	20	70	30		100
Pete Dunn	12	20	14	12	10	0	68	30		98
James Page	11	0	10	20	10	12	63	28		91
Henry Poor	17	10	17	8	0	8	60	30		90
Jeremy Brown	5	10	5	11	16	9	56	30	.1	86.1
Basil Moskovis	8	19	12	4	2	11	56	30		86
Ryan Simister	9	1	13	8	4	20	55	30		85
Nick Irvine	0	6	7	9	20	12	54	30		84
Glen Tibbles	3	12	15	0	14	8	52	30		82
Thom Van roekel	20	10	3	3	15	0	51	30	.1	81.1
Tim Lind	6	10	6	8	6	15	51	30		81
Daryl Painter	16	10	8	0	5	5	44	30		74
Phil Commins	4	8	6	12	0	0	30	30		60

Best Sport: Glen Tibbles

Nb: Tie breaker was decided by sports votes.

Masters 2011 Warhammer 40K

Players	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Battle	Sports	Tie	Total
Jack Dunn	20	20	19	17	18	10	104	30		134
Charlie St Clair	1	20	19	20	19	20	99	30		129
David Dawn	19	18	2	17	1	20	77	30	.1	107.1
Haydn Korach	20	12	2	20	3	20	77	30		107
Doug Sainsbury	3	12	19	11	18	11	74	30	.1	104.1
Hagen Kerr	19	11	19	5	20	2	76	28		104
Mark Buttle	20	9	10	10	1	19	69	30		99
Dave Foster	19	8	11	2	20	3	63	30		93
Robert Power	1	19	20	4	5	8	57	30		87
Daniel Hayden	2	20	19	1	2	12	56	30		86
Henare Akari	4	9	2	19	19	1	54	30		84
Dave Wilson	18	3	1	18	3	9	52	30	.1	82.1
Andrew Bartosh	3	0	9	4	19	19	54	28		82
Damien Avery	1	2	3	20	19	2	47	30		77
Matt Robinson	20	1	3	2	1	2	29	30		59
Tristan Sample	0	0	10	2	2	11	25	30		55

Best Sport: Daniel Hayden

Nb: Tie breaker was decided by sports votes.