Board Gaming, Games of Thrones 2nd Ed.

Found myself drawn in to some spectacular cinematography and some insanely complex plots and story lines with the Game of Thrones set of episodes last year on the tube. The second season from HBO of George Martins epic novels coming out on April 1st are not to be missed and I'll be tuning in my radar for it's release. Not that it's obvious but I'm fast becoming an avid fan of the whole Westeros world and Fantasy Flight have released the second edition of the Board Game.

We've been playing it on and off for the last couple of months at my local board gaming group and if you're into some good times with your mates I highly recommend picking up a copy. The game encourages table top diplomacy, army management and a very good intrigue at the kings court to tie in very closely to the Books and Tv series. It makes for a fun game and even though most games will take about 3 hrs to play it's well worth the investment.

Really high quality components and visually stunning.

Wood Elves WIP Part 3

Got the Wood Elves out again and starting to narrow out what I want in the Army. After getting the opportunity to face three different types of Wood Elf forces in the past couple of weeks, it has given me a very good idea what I want in my own army. I know that I need some fast cavalry at the very least. They'll serve as good redirecters and war machine hunters.

Probably some of the most cool looking fast cavalry sculpts in the game and I'll have to give these guys a lot more finishing work to do them the justice they deserve.

My converted Centaurs who will be representing the Wild riders in the army. Still needing some more green stuff but coming together well. I thought the Elf heads would be a little small against the big frame of the model but that was easily fixed with bulking the hair out with greenstuff.

Got distracted but will finish the Batreps for Fluffycon soon.

Warriors of Chaos Part 5 Batreps.

Second tournament in as many weekends means a very happy chap indeed!!

Game 1 Vs Glen 'Beastman' Tibbles.

Glen had leant his entire repertoire of armies he owned to competitors of this event and he came shot guns loaded to our game. I've never really been too wary of a Beastmen army and have been told that you need to stop 'Wildform' and you're a go. I'm sure that not viewing them as a threat was going to be hampering for my game. Glen's been playing them for a while and I've had a couple of games against his army with H Elves and it's never ended pretty for the Beast's army as shooting tends to reduce the entire army to shreds. Well the army I was using today had no real shooting except for the Hell Cannon and 5 axes so it was going to be interesting and a bit hairy. He's a great guy any way so I was looking forward to a chat and some hammer time.

Beastmen army had two large unit of Gors, Gore Bull BsB led by a Lvl2 Sharman. the Army didn't look too threatening except for the unit of 4 Minotaurs. Razorgor & a Chariot and some ambushing chaff seemed fairly containable so I was expecting a full force battle it out in the middle for our contest. Little did I know that with Primal fury a Beastman army is just epic. The Gor blocks stomped apart my infantry and with re-rolls to hit they had no problems wiping out Blocks of Forsaken, Khorne Marauders and Tzeentian warriors and stood firm in the centre. I Manoeuvred the Knights around the flank and the Hell Cannon rampaged from the first turn to gain me some valuable points from the other flank. I think the Gorebull had 8 attacks by the time I high tailed and camped away from his charge at the end of the game.

Lesson learnt that Primal Fury is something to watch out for and swings combats significantly. Beastmen with their WS4 and T4 may look a easy target but they definitely punch above their weight for sure.
10 - 10 Draw

Game 2 Vs Andy (Mr UK) Potter, Woodies.

Andy had come fresh from the UK Masters but also with a freshly borrowed Wood Elf army. For my second game some drastic concrete pill would probably be needed to pull off a alright game against someone as experienced as this man. He was fielding a very solid list which included a Treeman, Treekin, accompanying 2 units of Dryads with a symphony of Glade guard shooting. The great thing about my opponents army was that it also had a double unit of wildriders in 5 formation being used as a duo purpose redirecters and solid combat cav.

The deciding factor of the game I think giving me a good solid advantage was getting the first turn. this gave me ample opportunity to deal some damage and whittle down a flank and move my blocks of infantry up to put pressure on the centre and right flanks. With the Marauder Cavalry matching his wild riders I got what I wanted which was to let my army decide when combat was to start and left Andy with nothing to redirect the combats. The Chaos knights ran through Treekin and cleaned up the right flank and it was up to the Forsaken to absorb all the glade guard fire and they were reduced to two remaining at the end of the battle.

Andy showed how good an opponent he was and with his Treeman commanding the centre he collected some solid points from the Marauders & unit of Chaos warriors who were no match for the gnarled Oak going wild. I learnt a lot more about wood elves this game and the the importance of Dryads in a forest which benefit from stubborn and in a close game would be a game decider. So Andy had his Treeman left and I had a fair chunk of my army still around.
17-3 Win

Game 3 James "The Battle for the Favour of the Gods!!!!",Warriors.

James is from the same club as me and we both play High Elves usually so great bloke. We both were coming into this tournament discussing how it would be to be driving Warriors about and not having a clue what the army was designed for so here's the battle to decide the fates at the end of day one and it was gonna be a stunner of a game, let the battle commence!

James had Zuggernaut mounted Bsb in a unit of Chaos Knights and LvL2 Tzeentch Mage luckily for me not rolling gateway for this game. Large ~40 man block of Slaneesh marauders, Large unit of Slaneesh Warriors supported by a warshrine, Chariot, a unit of 4 Dragon Ogres and three units of Marauders Cav. So a very similar force to my army but with less chaff and from where I was sitting better one for one combat troops when it came to face off. With deployment with us both matching unit to unit the Hill that counted as the watch Tower for the mission would be a hard ask to hold and it would be the last man standing to see who won.

So with my tournament game plan of not firing the Hell Cannon this would be a game that I would definitely have to take a chance and lob some rocks.  Evening and perhaps tipping the odds to my favour if the rock would hit the intended target, as his marauders were far too many in numbers for a straight out combat. First turn of lobbing the big rock see's the Hell Cannon misfire and I rolled a 3 and flicked through the pages to see what devastation this would unleash... To all those Hell cannon enthusiasts, you'd know that this makes every mage on the table suffer a miscast, such unplanned dastardliness this cannon is.

So with the Infantry face off on either side of the hill stuttering and both of us trying to magic away numbers before engaging the battle would be decided by the flanks and the Fast Cav duel on the fringes. On one flank my BsB and Chaos Knights charged into James's BsB and Chaos Knights and on the other flank my Ogres needed to hold his Dragon Ogres for at least a couple of turns which was highly unlikely as Chaos Ogres are just really bad. Even with my Hell Cannon whittling down the opposition it was gonna be a real close finish and we both knew it and it was head down and see what the dice gods had to say...

The Battle of chaos Knights is rather epic as you can imagine Daemon possessed Elite hulking warriors bashing the day lights out of each other but so heavily armoured that it's just a cacophony of tank against tank hammering blows. The combat was like that and it went for at least 6 fighting turns neither of us getting an advantage until finally I managed to dispatch his BSB in the challenge and raised the sword for a warriors blessing. Mean while the Ogres were wiped out to a man but not before reducing the Dragon Ogres to a single lone figure which would defo earn them the MVP award as they were shite and they actually held James flank advance to have one of the most decisive roles maybe in the battle.

With the Chaos Knights winning and sweeping back around the flank James army tried the last ditch charge but I had superior numbers at this stage and the the control of the hill. This was the most epic game ever for a long time and we both were captivated by how cool it was. High Elf vs High Elf is so vanilla, but Warriors vs Warriors deserves an epic beer yeaaahh! In no way did the score reflect how close the game was, top game of the day and top opponent.
20-0 Win

End of day 1 and possibly in the lead of the pack. No submarining this tournament it looks to be a matchup against the Brets on day 2.

Post FluffyCon, Warriors of Chaos Part 4

Tournament in the weekend that has just concluded which I have been painting and converting my Warriors of Chaos to get ready for. It was a truely well relaxed tournament and the people who attended were a good bunch of fellas. Armies were restrained and the goal was to take options that weren't ever really seen in your armies list and with only 100pts to upgrade marks, Bsb , lvl's, magic and items it was going to be a huge challenge.

Army List

Led by LVL 1 Sorcerer with Charmed shield, Chaos Steed, Spell familiar
Exhalted  BSB on Barded steed, Enchanted Shield, hand weapon.

16 Forshaken
15 warriors of Tzeentch Halberds, Shields, Banner, Champion.
30 Marauders of Khorne Flails, Full Command

5 Marauder Horse   Shields, Axes
5 Marauder Horse   Lt Armour, Flails
5 Warhounds
5 Warhounds

6 Chaos Knights Full Command
4 Chaos Ogres
Hell Cannon   (worth 250pts instead of its normal 205pts in this competition.

2000 pts

                                         Picture: Oh that's a new kind of Candy?!

Overall the list was designed to have lots of combat troops and lots of diverters so it could pick it's combats. The fragile combat units were the Forsaken, Ogres and the Marauders in the second round of combat and if you picked those up that was half the army gone and a good solid 1000pts. The teeth in the list were the Knights and Hell Cannon and if you took them out early the army would fold pretty easily on itself. With a LVL 1 Chaos sorcerer leading the party who always had to challenge it was going to be a hard time trying to not get him killed so overall out of a 1-5 with 5 being the fluffiest I thought my list was definitely a 2.5-3 on the scale of  soft armies and things.

To give you an idea of what the environment was like here are some of the armies and what I considered their hardest units. Bretonnian list with Trebutchet With 3 blocks of knights, Exhalted on Jugger with 40 marauders of Slaanesh, and warshrine, Treeman with 6 treekin and accompany symphony of Glade guard, Double saurus block with machine gun skinks and salamander and Razordon, Minotaurs led by kitted out Gorebull and two large units of Gors and the last army I faced big Black Ork block, Big uns block, Large Gobo's block with nets, with a doom diver support and fast hitting chariot and pump wagon.

Batreps to come.

OTT 2012 Part 3

Game 4 Vs Andy Wood Elves

This was the fourth game of the day and with the air-con on notgoingCon we were treated to a hella oven experience. Great thing that my opponent was patient and a good fella or other wise we would have folded to the heat. First time game ever against Andy this one and also found out that he's the cousin of the infamous Philthy of Auckland fame so he'd fo sho have some pretty slick tactics. So sure enough his list focused on a Life Archie, lots of msu with a Treeman and 4 Treekin with no deep striking tricks. The game was fantastic and Andy knew how to use his disrupting and great shooting troops alongside some very powerful magic offense as I was made to fend for my armys life. With my minimal magic defense He was bound to get throne of vines off coupled with dwellers to kill me Archie so sure enough 2nd turn My Archie takes da Test... he stands strong and rolls the 2 for strength test straight up pheewww. I played a soft flank then after initially going for the pincher double flank push with the Archmage and swordmasters retreating back into cover one flank and at extreme range of dwellers. The prince in the Dragon Princes unit and the whitelions pushed on up the left flank avoiding the warhawks and scouts zipping around trying to tie them up. A good charge with the Whitelions (MVP) scored me the Treekin with Elf hero and a pit on the Treeman gave me some solid points. My lord and Dragon Princes fought the deciding battle and I learnt Branch Wraith with netlings at i8 is obscene. Luck he managed to finally clip her two wounds to save face last turn. Challenging and thought provoking excellent game and thanks to my opponent for teaching me how to in future play Wood Elves.
15-5 Win.

2nd day and only 2 games today and a chance to check out the Tron on a Sunday arvo.

Game 5 vs Casey Ogres.

Ogres are a bad matchup for Elves in 8th edition with their new book. With too many high strength attacks and a stomp, combat is less than ideal for my infantry. Looking at Casey's list he had Slaughtermaster, Bruiser BSB leading two solid blocks of ogres, a big unit of mournfangs, Maneaters, Ironblaster and two units of Lead Belchers. With the the scenario being meeting engagement it meant that there was going to be a mad dash for me to get into combat and avoid getting shot too heavy by his Lead Belchers almost certain I'd get the first turn I risked it and deployed all my units right up at the starting line with Archers supporting in the rear flanks. Starting whistle blew and everything moved up 10" except shooting. I miasma'd one unit of Leady's and the other fled due to some really pointy stick shooting (reroll on an 8). Casey didn't think I was silly enough to charge so just buff'd his unit with regen and stubborn (oh to have a scroll again). This meant that Swordmasters was in the flank of his Slaughtermasters unit of Iron guts and the Dragon Princes was into the flank of his Bulls with Firebelly attached. Combat was brutal but everything held as the spells Casey chose reduced the casaulties and stopped him running 1st round and he knew Elves just don't grind well. 3rd turn could have been all over for the Ogres but for my Whitelions failing a 3 to charge his Maneaters in the flank, which in turn really put the game on a knife edge as the units I had in combat were getting reduced quite drastically and the unit of Dragon Prices were bashed and knocked out leaving the lord needing to make his break test. Dice swing my way and Caseys' bad dice saw that a Elven Prince is choppy. To the point the Prince solo charged into a block of four mournfangs and rang them down like a pack of scoundrels, MVP I say. My opponent had some major bad dice and proved how resilient Ogres are as he was in a precarious position Turn 2 but fought on till Turn 6 and could have turned this result if not for a few bad pieces of luck. Great game and my warhammer relearn and tuition is making me really want to get more games in future.
20-0 Win

Game 6 Vs NiKola 'Gateway FTW'. He'd be a pox if he wasn't such a nice guy :)

Nikola is a great guy but suffers from I need gateway ftw syndrome and who could blame him it's so good. He's also running the 40K competition for me at Equinox next month so I can't be too critical. So having his mates come up to me saying nah "he's got nothing, just stop gateway." and having no scroll meant I was going oh dear how good is this gateway?! I bet I get smashed and this flower covered trellis (gateway) is gonna fall on my troops like da apocalypse...

The Warriors had two horde formation of Tzeentch Marauders suitably armed with great weapons, Big unit of Knights, a smaller unit of knights, 2 units of Marauder horse, Hell Cannon, 2 Lord mages and BSB. A rather in your face list that looked like a pretty good match up for my combat units so here's for getting the first turn. Nope he got first turn and advanced 2 and unleashed the magic which didn't actually do too much 1st turn. To make up for it the Hell Cannon drops a bomb onto the Spearmen killing 20 oophhss, I thought everyone used them for combat, guess not. Meat shields go splat so it's not too bad with Whitelions looking at a charge into his big block of knights and positioning both my chariot and Dragon Princes with Lord to take the right flank.

This is where not having magic defense could be a telling factor I feel as 6 dice against 11 is not gonna save too much bacon cue da violins. Gateway goes off and the shout of 'Take it OFF' erupts as my Swormasters disappear from gateway. If only it was a Swedish BBQ next to a pool. The next spell is treason of Tzeentch which is perfect against Str6 Whitelions esp if your opponent doesn't have any DD left cos they just chop each other to scraps. So Army almost half gone and time to actually get a single point from this game and how to. Lucky it's the sixth Game of the tournament and the juices are flowing to prevent getting 20-nil'd.

My mind says that this still could be a go and if the Dragon Princes do their job it might even be a slight win. Cue feeding two Eagles (gift Turkeys) to prevent total annihilation of Elven army. Everything was going perfect as this stopped his units from cleaning up the centre and gave me the opportunity to pick up all the spare points I could with a fortuitous charge from archers into his horde of marauders in the flank cleaning them up and the BSB finally chopping his Solo Lord charge. Unfotunately the Arch mage didn't fair so well against a single dice fireball to the face causing 2 wounds and not making a single ward.

Final Turn Lord zigs and zags and gets into position to take a reaver bow to his 2nd lord in the forest. but gets shown up by 12 archers who pop him from the forest first. The BSB stands against the second Marauder block and needs all three wounds to get a decent modifier to his bound to be high modifier of three ranks and banner plus attacks to his break test. Sure enough he only does 1 wound and what could have been a draw or slight win to me disappears on rerolls of a 7.

This was the perfect game for the 6th game of the tournament and it made me play warhammer. Big ups to my opponent for such a competitve game and the comedy in all the key moments. Makes the tournament so much more memorable for the awesome dramatic things during this important battle.
8-12 Loss.

Really enjoyed the tournament and for all you guys and gal's wanting to fit one in you totally should!

Results for the Weekend.

1.  John W Brets.
2.  Nikola Warriors
3.  Me   High Elves.

Many thanks for a top weekend to all my 6 opponents. All the guys behind the scenes need to get heaps of congrats on such a smooth show as it's not an easy job. Good on ya fells's, I'm defo back next year!

FluffyCon 2012 Rise of the Warrior Part 3

So the culmination of all the modelling and painting is for this weekends tournament. Painting frantically for a tournament really does get the job done and it even got a display board made (they are so in at the moment). With FluffyCon the ultra soft tournament for New Zrealand it was a surprise that I was told High Elve are too over powered and I should pick either Beastmen or Warrirors. Oh well I guess I'll pick the most soft choice of the three (laced that with sarcasm) then Warriors of Chaos arriissseee!!! In all it's combat glory here's my army to go forth and slaughter 'Krell's Despoilers'.

..and yes those purple things are Ogres. I even made three Chaos Dwarfs with top hats outta spare Dwarf miners. Ah, really getting back into the hobby and tournaments yo!

OTT 2012 Part2 (Army list & Batreps)

With a 5am Journey to the Tron the Road Trip began. Car load of decent fella's all from the Auckland City Guard club we were ready to bomb da Tron 4 WFB and a solitary 40K amongst us. Bit of a Macca's binge stop managed to wake us for the fray.

My Army, gathered from the remnants of my Elven collection was going to have to do. My other Two armies were either inaccessible or locked in the Clubs cupboards as I'd cunningly left the keys with another one of the members to open up that weekend. So the list is rather strange and not really what I would bank on in future but should be hella fun to play.

Archmage LvL 4 Tali Preserve, Iron Curse Icon

Prince Barded Steed, Gt Weap, Dragon Arm, Vambraces def, Reaver Bow.

BSB Noble Armour Calador, GT Weap, Dawn Stone.

6 Dragon Princes Banner of Ellyrion
17 White Lions    Amulet of Light, Flaming banner
16 Swordmasters Banner of Sorcery
27 Spearmen
18 Archers
12 Archers
Tiranoc chariot
2 Eagles

No Scroll, T3 Elite infantry that was going to die to a stiff breeze so should be a good test of ones generalship and of course the favour of the dice gods.

Game 1 Vs Carl Lizards

Facing a Carnosaur Lord, big unit of Coldones, Double block of saurus, 2 Mages, Steg and sundry. I was pretty happy as the army was not too magic heavy and I might be able to survive some magic and get my close combat in before my army disappeared to his Slamanders and machine gun skinks.

Carl's 1st turn and he pushed up the middle with his Coldones with Lord in tow hopping that the Alter of Khaine within 6" would deter me from charging in to engage. From the middle of the board he pretty much had charges to any number of my units. The magic that I thought wasn't strong in his army proceeded to chain lightning and run rampant all the way through the whole of my army. This in turn killed all my battle plans as it took care of the two Eagles in one swoop in his 1st turn. Oh to have a scroll.

It was all or nothing so the BSB's unit of Whitelions and the Swordmasters decided it was gonna be a competition of who could chop lizard's or die and both charged into Carnostar unit. Whitelions with frenzy are just insane and  even a Carnosaur doesn't have much to save it from a great ax. Mind Razor on the spearmen managed to secure a good win after chasing down two units of Saurus. The game could have swung either way but Carl had the worst dice luck imaginable and as karma dictates I was set for some shockers later I was sure.
17-3 Win.

Game 2 VS TO Lizardmen

Ryan and I have had a great rivalry ever since I started playing Hammer seriously. We're both very wary and respectful of each other's game and what we have to bring to the table top (I just pretend I do :p nah he's actually a good player). Ryan took Old blood heavy Saurus deathStar with a ethereal Slaan and beast magic. It meant my minimal magic defence army would have to try and wipe out his chaff and avoid the 'savage beast' spell which would give his characters a million attacks. So battle plan was to avoid Main unit and kill everythingelse. The tension was palpable as we both made sure we didn't make any mistakes. I folded and made the mistake after wiping out all his chaff and mispositioned my diverting eagle one inch out of position. this meant he got the overrun into my Swordmasters and got their points on turn 6 to pull the game back. Must remember to get more tourney games in as I'm jut rusty at hammer. Good thoroughly absorbing tactical game and as always a fine chap and opponent.
11-9 Win

Game 3 Vs John Bretonnians

Long buses of rubbery lance doom was what I was thinking going into the game and that would be my down fall. John is a great guy new to my club and even though Brets pack a punch I thought I had them under control as there was a Alter of Khaine right where I wanted battle to commence. I went for a decisive turn one combat so moved swordmasters and Whitelions towards the Alter and offered John both charges at about a 7 to roll from his main bus with Lord in one and Bsb in the other. Thinking perhaps frenzied swordmasters with 21 attacks and Bsb's 3 str6 would put him off choosing combat. No such hesitation from John and my abilities to roll ones in combats was hampering and the stack of ones was going to prove my undoing. Combat elves lose and get run down. My attempt at pulling the game back was hampered by Dragon princes unable to catch fleeing Bret Lord in large Bus of points. Lesson learned Brets are good.
17-3 Loss

So far not playing competitive tournaments regularly have been really telling. Having a great time though and I recommend anyone out there to get in a tournament as it's great fun.

OTT (Over the Top) 2012 Part1

Tournament this weekend and it's OTT. My first Over the Top and very similar hard cap restrictions at the event that were used from last year. I'm excited as to get in a early tournament for the year and so excited I've taken a completely new HE list. It'll not feature any of the double White Lion bunkers and Phoenix Guard tarpits but for this Tournament I'm fielding a big block of Swordmasters. That should in itself be a challenge to drive.

So I decided I should make my very first display board. So in a rush to take a photo the board hasn't even had a chance to dry yet so is missing all the drybrushing. I'm beginning to understand why people knock them up.

Lord and Archmage need major work so with 2 days to go lets see if I can finish giving it lick of paint in time. I'll also post the Army list and some batreps closer to the tourney. Can't give too many secrets away just yet... :)

Warriors from the Chaos Wastes Part 2

Hell Cannon taking shape.

Needs fine detail and washes but I'm quite happy with how he turned out.

Warriors from the Chaos wastes.

Have always had a warriors army and haven't had an opportunity to sport them. FluffyCon the WFB tournament at Battlecry was the perfect chance for me to get some inspiration to paint my army up. Having been told that my High Elves would be very unsuitable to take to the one Soft tournament of the tournament calendar, the choice given to me by the TO was either Warriors or Beastmen. I think I picked the better option but it meant some serious painting inside of three weeks and some serious conversion and building work to make a Warshrine and a Hell cannon to support the troops.

Making the two models really got me inspired back into the hobby as it brought me back to what I like about the context of the hobby and that is, It's what you want it to be. Making your own conversions and adding your own touches to your army just gives it that special something that will keep you wargaming for aeons yet.

The Warshrine will eventually be marked with Tzeentch but I currently don't have any icons appropriate for this but will be looking at a forge world order at a later date. It's a Disc pulled by captured slaves converted to the cause. I particularly like the addition of the Dragon's head trophy which I found in my useful bits box. The whole army has a snow based theme and this will be added a little later on. All the rest of the trophies on the warshrine was just from the accumulation over the years and so very happy they were useful for something.

The Hell Cannon is just from the left over kit from making my Daemon Prince. The classic irony is that the actual cannon is made from a old work pen that I've green stuffed with lots of skulls on. The cannon spewing hell spawned icor (From my work pen) at my opponents is gonna give me belly aching ironic laughter for years to come. The legs are from some tyranid bits I had lying around. This model has immense amounts of green stuff and it was really a great learning experience for me since I'd never really used the stuff before other than for only minor gap filling and such. Once painted up it should be a cool centre piece for the horde.

Two more weeks to the tournament and I'll have more pics and batreps to come.

What to do when you have too many Archmages??

...You convert them of course!!!

Bit of a hiatus after the holiday season. With Long weekends (3days) over the last few weeks its been enjoy the sun, beverages and good company. Been drawn back to the hobby though with the imminent start of the tournament year. I'm picking up two tourneys this year in the month of Feb and the first of them is OTT (Over the Top) in Hamilton next weekend. I'm dusting off the High Elves for this and taking a rather weird list that concentrates on more attack than defense, lets see how they turn out.

So as with every tournament I like to at least make a new Model or Unit for the army. Looking through the bits box I discovered that I had about a half dozen Arch mages of IoB fame. So what do you do with these fine sculpts and they are just that. Here is my attempt at making a Archmage to led the Elven Host to glory battling it out in the Tron. (Hamilton).

The one on the left is an Arch Mage with the book of Hoerth which I'll use probably without the book of Hoerth at the tournament. He's just got a simple conversion with repositioned staff, Book from the HE mage kit and a head from the DP kit. The one on the right has more work done and has a PG breast plate, DP head, WL Left arm plus a great ax. Anyone out there with the great sword from the Dragon kit and I'll be happy to trade but other wise he's looking pretty complete.

I'll post Army list along with some Batreps after the tourney this weekend.